The Brown House
I can't even tell you how amazed I am with Sarah Jane Overstreet, one of the volunteers at the Henry County Genealogical Society, housed in the Brown House. Before we even arrived in Henry County, she had taken the little information I had given her about our Reuben Deering and pulled page after page of interesting information. (Not only that, she baked a pound cake that we enjoyed for snack!)
We weren't even sure Reuben owned land (in fact, we thought perhaps all of our Deerings up until the current family farm had leased their land). Sure enough, she found land lottery records and deeds and probate records and so much more about our Reuben.
Not only did he own land, but he too deeded some of it for the building of a church, the New Bethel Baptist Church. I have yet to figure out which church this became... if it's still around... if there's a cemetery nearby, etc. He could even be buried there. He deeded the land in 1835. I found a record that indicated the church was constituted in 1828. So... now just have to figure out where Lot #93 would have been in the 12th District back in 1828. I'll get on that.
There was a story in the family that there had been a falling out... that our Charles Alexander Deering had received $1 in inheritance and moved away to Texas. Well, turns out all the children received $1.78 each. So... guess he wasn't treated unfairly after all. We don't know for sure why the inheritance was so little... there are a lot of details to transcribe in the probate records... but I'm guessing the bottom line is the bottom line. Perhaps once the debts were paid, that's what was left to be divided between the children.
In all these records, I now have the signature of Reuben Deering by his own hand (not his mark, so he was able to read and write), as well as that of Charles Alexander Deering (same applies).
While we were largely focused on the Deerings, we did have a little insight into the Dickeys and Crows as well. And, I realized that our Russells on my dad's side (for whom he's named but didn't know it... his name is 3 surnames in our family - Russell, Terry and Mason) had also spent time in Henry County. I found record of William Russell's marriage to Elizabeth Faulkner, as well as a land sale... and also figured out he was JP, which means he was witness to many, many deeds and other transactions... which makes an index quite useless in finding records that are actually about his own business.
*Breathe*
Needless to say, there was a lot. We will definitely need to make another trip back here, and also to Wilkes County, and back to South Carolina.
We crammed about as much as we could into the 5 hours that The Brown House was open. As we were leaving, Sarah Jane said, "You know your family would have been in this house many times. The court was located upstairs at the time they lived here." Love it.
Sometime yesterday, we realized that we were going to be traveling straight through Atlanta during rush hour on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Smart, I know. So, we got on the road as soon as possible, and trusted the GPS to work us around the worst of the traffic. We detoured through some interesting parts of town. Probably saw a lot of things we never would have otherwise.
As we got out of the worst of the traffic, we were approaching Resaca, home of the Gideons. I asked mom if she wanted to go check on the family cemetery and see how it was holding up. A Scout troop had done some work to clear overgrowth, right some of the headstones, and repair the wall around it. So we decided to make a quick detour to check it out. A couple of puppies greeted us... apparently they've been hanging out there in their free time. Hoodlums. Unfortunately, the metal fence in the brick wall had rusted to the point that you couldn't open it up. Undeterred, I decided that climbing over the wall was the best solution. Mother declined. But she made a valiant trek through the brambles nonetheless... and got burrs in her britches for her trouble.
Moving on from Resaca, we made quick work of the remaining miles to our sleeping spot in Kimball, TN. What a beautiful area Chattanooga is!
We weren't even sure Reuben owned land (in fact, we thought perhaps all of our Deerings up until the current family farm had leased their land). Sure enough, she found land lottery records and deeds and probate records and so much more about our Reuben.
Not only did he own land, but he too deeded some of it for the building of a church, the New Bethel Baptist Church. I have yet to figure out which church this became... if it's still around... if there's a cemetery nearby, etc. He could even be buried there. He deeded the land in 1835. I found a record that indicated the church was constituted in 1828. So... now just have to figure out where Lot #93 would have been in the 12th District back in 1828. I'll get on that.
There was a story in the family that there had been a falling out... that our Charles Alexander Deering had received $1 in inheritance and moved away to Texas. Well, turns out all the children received $1.78 each. So... guess he wasn't treated unfairly after all. We don't know for sure why the inheritance was so little... there are a lot of details to transcribe in the probate records... but I'm guessing the bottom line is the bottom line. Perhaps once the debts were paid, that's what was left to be divided between the children.
In all these records, I now have the signature of Reuben Deering by his own hand (not his mark, so he was able to read and write), as well as that of Charles Alexander Deering (same applies).
While we were largely focused on the Deerings, we did have a little insight into the Dickeys and Crows as well. And, I realized that our Russells on my dad's side (for whom he's named but didn't know it... his name is 3 surnames in our family - Russell, Terry and Mason) had also spent time in Henry County. I found record of William Russell's marriage to Elizabeth Faulkner, as well as a land sale... and also figured out he was JP, which means he was witness to many, many deeds and other transactions... which makes an index quite useless in finding records that are actually about his own business.
*Breathe*
Needless to say, there was a lot. We will definitely need to make another trip back here, and also to Wilkes County, and back to South Carolina.
We crammed about as much as we could into the 5 hours that The Brown House was open. As we were leaving, Sarah Jane said, "You know your family would have been in this house many times. The court was located upstairs at the time they lived here." Love it.
Sometime yesterday, we realized that we were going to be traveling straight through Atlanta during rush hour on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Smart, I know. So, we got on the road as soon as possible, and trusted the GPS to work us around the worst of the traffic. We detoured through some interesting parts of town. Probably saw a lot of things we never would have otherwise.
As we got out of the worst of the traffic, we were approaching Resaca, home of the Gideons. I asked mom if she wanted to go check on the family cemetery and see how it was holding up. A Scout troop had done some work to clear overgrowth, right some of the headstones, and repair the wall around it. So we decided to make a quick detour to check it out. A couple of puppies greeted us... apparently they've been hanging out there in their free time. Hoodlums. Unfortunately, the metal fence in the brick wall had rusted to the point that you couldn't open it up. Undeterred, I decided that climbing over the wall was the best solution. Mother declined. But she made a valiant trek through the brambles nonetheless... and got burrs in her britches for her trouble.
Moving on from Resaca, we made quick work of the remaining miles to our sleeping spot in Kimball, TN. What a beautiful area Chattanooga is!
Comments
Post a Comment