Fannin History

This post will ramble a bit.

Fannin History. I’m reading a massive tome called Facets of Fannin. It’s a history of Fannin County. Much of the book consists of family genealogies and histories written by family members of the many old time families in Fannin County.

Reading these family histories provides a glimpse into how tough and rugged the early settlers of this area were. It also serves as a reminder that North Georgia is part of Appalachia: the land of isolated hillbillies and rural electrification via the Tennessee Valley Authority. Lake Blue Ridge was formed by a TVA dam.

The Green Family entry relates how Mark Green bought land in the Snake Nation area of Fannin County and installed a water mill on Charlie Creek to run a saw mill. In 1930 he put a generator in the mill house and ran electrical wires to his buildings. “He had electric lights in his house, barn, smoke-house, and spring-house fourteen years before power came to Snake Nation Community in December 1949.” It boggles my mind that parts of Fannin County did not get electricity until four years after the United States dropped the atomic bomb.

Ida Grace Chastain tells in the Harkins Family chronicle how in 1936 she would walk across the mountain to the post office once a week to pick up the mail. The round trip took an entire day. I guess I better stop bitching about how our mailbox is four-tenths of a mile away.

The Harper family entry includes a letter that William Harper wrote in 1880 to his son and daughter in Kentucky about the death of their mother, Narcissa Ann Russell Harper, during a typhoid epidemic. Narcissa had 15 children. The letter reads in part:

Dear Son & Daughter an famly

I seat myself today anser your kind letter which wee reseived the 14 day of July. Your letter was dated the 27 of June. Hit found us in bad helth. Wee had to prop Mother up in bed to read hit. She is ded. …She had tyfared feaver. … Wee bered Mother the next day after she dide. The doctors said hit wood be best to do hit.

William Harper moved his family from Buncombe County, North Carolina, to the Hot House Creek settlement in Fannin County in 1848. It took six weeks in an oxen wagon to make the trip. Asheville is located in Buncombe County. According to Google Maps, the distance from Ashville to Blue Ridge is 134 miles, and the trip would take about two and a half hours today.

The account of the Alferd Daves family tell how Alferd G. Daves fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and “served faithfully under the command of General John Hood until the cause was lost.” He was wounded in the leg at the Battle of Kennesaw near Marietta, Georgia. It was said he was given a large drink of whisky and the bullet was cut out of his leg with a razor, which caused him to limp the rest of his life.”

Along the same lines is the following story from the history of the Cobb and Burnette families. James Wesley Cobb served in the Confederate Army and was shot in the jaw by a sniper’s bullet at the Battle of Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga, Tennessee. “He had a large chew of tobacco in his mouth, and his life was saved when it stopped the bullet.” He died in McCaysville, Fannin County, in 1922.

The Callihan Brothers tell of their ancestor Bryson Callihan who died in 1867. “A mule kicked him in the head and killed him.” The Greenway Family history tells how William Francis Marion Greenway was shot down out of a peach tree in 1877 reportedly due to “unsettled feelings” after the Civil War.

The Burger Family memoirs include a story about how Lydia Ann Burger Pack’s death in 1926 left Grandpa Pack a “total loss.” Lydia’s brother, Uncle Whit, was deeply affected by his sister’s death and “unintentionally over-imbibed to lessen the loss. Grandpa Pack, upset already, was doubly distressed at Uncle Whit’s over-indulgence, and, for spite, refused to send Grandma’s body to the funeral home from embalming.” Apparently Grandpa was an obstinate man because the family had to talk the undertaker into doing a house call so that Grandma could be embalmed.

We read about Benjamin Dugger, who died in 1891, in the Dugger Family history. “Ben joined the Baptist Church in Polk County and was baptized by Preacher Chadwinck in Tater Creek. He was later voted out of the church for deer hunting on Sunday and was never reinstated.”

There is no real rhyme or reason to these selections. I just found them interesting.

Local sights. I was in town yesterday. Driving past the feed store I saw a large turkey standing out in front of the store watching the traffic pass. A little later I was coming out of the library and watched a young man on horseback ride through town on East Main Street. It was just another day in a small country town.

Stop signs. If you ever come up this way you need to be aware that country folk tend to treat stop signs as slow down and then go signs. You’ll see cars and trucks come to a complete stop at stop signs in town, but when you come to a stop sign on a country road forget about it. It makes sense to me. There are a lot of four-way stop signs at rural intersections. Coming to a full stop when you are the only car in sight seems pointless. My concern is that I’ll get in the habit and get a ticket the next time I’m in Florida.