East Armuchee Baptist Church [video]

This video on the history of East Armuchee Baptist Church is a great one to share as we draw close to the one-year anniversary of the Jordan’s Journey blog. Several elements in this film connect with things I’ve written about on the blog, such as Delila Brown Ward (here, here, and here), some watermelon memories, and the two posts on music at East Armuchee Baptist Church.

Much more history about East Armuchee Baptist Church isn’t reflected in this video, though. It’s difficult to cram over 125 years of history into just a few minutes. There’s so much more to explore–so many interesting facts and family connections. I’ll continue to collect this history and work on new creations for the future, perhaps in a formal written article or maybe an expanded version of this film. Please let me know if you have anything to share, from your personal recollections to old photographs or anything else.

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The Mythology of Genealogy (or, The Stories We Tell)

Grave of Alfred C. Ward, my 4th great-grandfather. Unpublished photo from “Jordan’s Journey” by Jordan M. Scoggins.

Recently I wrote a series of posts on Delila Brown Ward (see here, here, and here). Today is a sort of follow-up to those posts, focusing on Delila’s husband, Alfred C. Ward.

Alfred (or Alford) C. Ward, my 4th great-grandfather, was a son of Absalom Ward and Nancy Ann Coleman and the grandson of Nathaniel Ward and Susannah Trail. Nathaniel had been a veteran of the Revolutionary War. The Absalom Ward family lived in Union County, South Carolina. Absalom and Nancy were members of the Gilead Baptist Church in Jonesville (Marby 293; Hair 64).

It was in Union County where Alfred would have met and married Delila Brown. Alfred and Delila are first counted together on a census in 1850, still in Union, already with their first two children (Ancestry.com 1850). Sometime during the following decade, they migrated to the Armuchee Valley area of northwest Georgia, where they were counted in East Armuchee on the 1860 census (Ancestry.com 1860). Alfred is the only one of his family who left Union County (Walker 406).

More details of this story are told in the Jordan’s Journey book and are not repeated here–as the focus of this article is not to duplicate the book but to expand upon what is already there.

As with many other men in Armuchee Valley (and throughout the South in general), Alfred soon picked up the call to arms and joined the Confederate army. He enlisted as a 1st Lieutenant in the 39th Regiment, Georgia Infantry in LaFayette on 4 Mar 1862.

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Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 3]

Nancy Brown tombstone, Old Bethlehem Cemetery, Chattooga County, Georgia
Tombstone of Nancy Brown in Old Bethlehem Cemetery, Chattooga County, Georgia.

Delila Brown Ward has been the focus of two recent posts here at Jordan’s Journey. This will be the third and final piece on Delila.

I’ll end this series by talking about Delila’s beginnings. She was born to William Brown and Nancy Pruitt in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. According to the 1850 census, William Brown hailed from Maryland. They are counted in Union County, South Carolina in 1820, 1830, 1840, and 1850. According to an article by Evelyn Morgan Shahan (writing as Mrs. Maxwell Shahan), the Browns relocated to northwest Georgia in about 1853. This is probably the same time Delila (already married and with a family of her own) also moved to the Armuchee Valley area. In Georgia, William Brown ran a dry goods store (where it was located, I do not know–this is a detail I would love to discover). As the owner of numerous slaves, he no doubt ran a farm as well (Walker 406; Ancesetry.com 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850).

William did not live in Georgia for very long. He died on 2 Jul 1858 in Chattooga County. His wife Nancy survived a number of years longer and lived with her daughter Delila in East Armuchee (Ancestry.com 1860, 1870).

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Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 2]

Portrait of Delila Brown Ward (1825-1903). Collection of Evelyn Morgan Shahan, courtesy Judy Blackstock.

Last week I talked about Villanow and Subligna as the scene of my family tale going back many generations. Delila Brown Ward is one example among many of those deeply rooted connections. Let’s look a little closer at Delila to show how even a single ancestor can take you down many interesting paths.

Delila Brown married Alfred C. Ward (son of Absalom Ward of Union County, South Carolina). Delila and Alfred’s son Andrew Clement Ward is my 3rd great-grandfather. Andrew married Martha Ann Keown, my 3rd great-grandmother, connecting me to the well-known Keown family of Armuchee Valley (and beyond).

It’s important to look beyond your direct line ancestors too, though. Exploring the many branches and stems can lead to new and interesting connections. In the case of Delila, two of her other children married into the Puryear family. Some of Delila’s grandchildren married into the Shahan, Morgan, and Hunt families.

But that’s still not the end! Delila leads the way to yet more discoveries. An examination of her siblings shows connections to the Ramsey and Rea families (as an aside, one of the Brown/Rea descendants was one of my good friends in high school and I didn’t even know we were blood cousins until very recently). If you keep following the branches there are more and more connections (to the Keown family and Pope family and more).

I won’t bore you here with details about the links to these and other important Armuchee Valley families, but you can see my tree at Ancestry.com for a deeper dive. As always, leave a comment here to get in touch, and we can discuss any connections in more depth.

That web I spoke of last week is so expansive. It connects us all–literally–in a sprawling family tree. But beyond that, we are one in spirit as well, each of us a unique expression of individuality and hope that transcends the generations. Delila is but one symbol of the interconnectedness between us all.

Many thanks to Judy Blackstock for the above portrait of Delila. Judy’s generosity with her mother’s (Evelyn Morgan Shahan) archive has been key in my quest to document the Armuchee Valleys.

Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 1]

East Armuchee Baptist Church cemetery. from “Jordan’s Journey” by Jordan M. Scoggins.

When I was growing up I always thought of the two sides of my family, mom’s side and dad’s side, as being completely segregated. Mom’s family was from Villanow, and Dad’s family was from Subligna. It seemed like two different places, and people from one place didn’t really know people from the other even though they were only 10 miles apart. It wasn’t until I started studying my genealogy that I realized the cross-pollination between these two rural areas–each located at opposite ends of East Armuchee Road–was much more extensive than I thought. I don’t mean today or even the years I was growing up, but going back generations before my parents or even grandparents were born.

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