Talmer Alphus Barfoot and family

L to R: front row: Dessie Arbell, Joseph Clark(?), Earnesteen , Huitt, Uncle Talmer (seated), Harriet (Aunt Hattie) (seated), Etheleen; Back row: Edna, Millard(?) Paul, Julia Eunice and Lillian Gladys

Talmer is the oldest son of Isaac Joel Barfoot.

My Great Grandfather Nichols and Great Great Grandmother Nichols

L to R- Gregory G. Nichols, son Emory Rudolph and Gregory's mother Hannah Jane Glasscock Nichols, wife of William Carroll Nichols

The Last Gathering of Isaac Joel Barfoot's Children

 

L to R: Aunt Ethel Gamble, Aunt Ellie Grimes, Aunt Clyde Gamble, Tom,  Aunt Izzy Baker

 

A most hilarious day on Barfoot Mountain ca. 1955

 

 

Isaac Joel Barfoot Family

Isaac Joel Barfoot Family ca. 1898

 

L to R Front Row

Alma Isaac, Frances Matilda Fannin Barfoot, Thomas Grover, Mary Ethlebert

L to R Back Row

Clyde Elizabeth, Ella Magnolia, Talmer Alphus, Frances Isabell

Visiting Abraham

Paying Homage to an Ancestor

Recently I had the opportunity to take my first research trip to the South Carolina Archives (found something!!) and the best part was taking the many highways and back roads down from Greenville, South Carolina to the Dean's Swamp Baptist Church Cemetery in Orangeburg County to find the resting place of my 4th great grandfather. We drove on almost straight roads through mile after mile of pine forests with an occasional peach or pecan orchard in between.

I began to get excited as I saw names that were familiar to me from my research, Corbett Street and New Holland Road then a right turn on Dean Swamp Baptist Church Road.

Suddenly the pines gave way to large hardwoods with spanish moss hanging down from them- Dean Swamp- then the old Baptist Church and it's fenced cemetery.

After going through the gate, we started our search. Finally toward the back of the cemetery we found the Fannins.

 

We then started looking for Abraham's name. The tombstones were so old you had to run your fingers in the grooves to try to feel the names, but no Abraham.

Then there it was, a large new looking headstone with his name on it.

Abraham Fanning came to that part of South Carolina around 1790 and was probably one of the founders of the Dean Swamp Baptist Church.  I descend from his son, John Fanning  whose mother was Narcissa McColphen, Abraham's first wife. It was John Moses Corbett Fannin, son of John and Annie Corbett Fanning who made the long journey down from New Holland, SC to join relatives in the Ramer area of South Montgomery County, AL.


It pleases me to know that Abraham Fanning still has descenants who care enough to put a new headstone at his gravesite. As long as we remember him, a part of him lives on.


Pioneer S.C.
Abraham Fanning
c 1750-1810
Son of
James and Elizabeth Fanning
Wives
Narcissa McColphen
and
Betty Burton


Recommended Reading: The Fannin "g" Family and Their Kin.

Decoration Day

Decoration Day

All of my life I have participated, in one way or another, in the Decoration Day at Fairview West Baptist Church on the 2nd Sunday of May. As a child, I was always there. As an adult, if I was living too far away, I thought of my loved ones and hoped that someone in our family had remembered them in some way. Usually a day or two before the second Sunday, Daddy would go to the Cemetery and remove anything that was growing on our graves (grass, weeds, etc.) and re-mound dirt up the length of each grave, for that was the custom at that time. We didn't have many, only Grandma and Grandpa Barfoot, Aunt Alma and Mama's Grandmother. Mama stayed home cooking pies, cakes and anything else that would allow her to show off her skills as a cook.


 

On Sunday morning, Daddy would hitch Dan and Maude to the wagon and we would all pile in, along with the boxes of food, a jug of sweet tea and fresh cut flowers, in fruit jars filled with water so we could decorate our graves. There was singing, preaching and then dinner on the grounds. Dinner was served on a long table under the trees at the back of the old white church. Brother Harvey Edwards was usually there and was always asked to bless the food. Well, Brother Harvey didn't leave anyone or anything out of his blessing, so we were starving by the time he finished (He was the preacher who married Mama and Daddy). Daddy considered himself an apple pie connoisseur and made sure that he had tasted every apple pie on the table. Then it was back in the church for singing which Daddy loved and me too, as I grew older.
 

A part of the fun of Decoration Day was seeing lots of relatives. Travel was more difficult then and this was the only time we saw some of them. Every year, Mama especially looked forward to seeing her Aunt Gene West (Nettie Eugenia Mason), her mother's only living whole sister. I remember Aunt Gene as a lovely, elegant lady with silver hair pulled back in a bun.

Decoration Day as we know it, is a tradition of the Appalachian South. In the North, people decorate their graves on Memorial Day. Here, each cemetery has it's own day. Three of our graves only had rocks as headstones, awaiting the time when there was enough money to buy real headstones with names. I knew who was buried at each rock for those relatives were important to me. Now, there are many more. My dad bought a plot in the same row with his parents, sister and Uncle Jack (Jackson Fannin).

Then, when my mom died, I became their keeper and replaced the fresh peony and magnolia blossoms with living flowers. The graves are no longer mounded with dirt but are flat and covered with grass. After my dad died, I planted zoysia grass which now covers a large area.



I still go every year just before Decoration Day and pretty up their graves. What I'm really doing is remembering them and telling myself that they still know that I care.

Finding Jeremiah

With a name like “Jones”, how difficult could it possibly be to find Jeremiah Jones, who lived from ca. 1770 until around 1850-when he was no longer to be found on the Federal Census records?  Well, I can tell you, it has not been an easy task! 

 Some Jones researchers have worked at it for 30 years or more, trying to fit together the jigsaw puzzle of his life.  Was he the Jeremiah Jones, whose wife nursed Davey Crockett back to health at Bear Meat Cabin?  Was he the Jones, who, along with his wife, Eliza Brown and his in-laws, helped to settle Jones Valley?  Or was he the Jeremiah, with a wife and three daughters, on the Mississippi Territorial Census, before Alabama became a state?  Did he serve on a jury in Morgan County, AL, in early 1820?  Did he move from Bledsoe to Hamilton County, TN and live there the rest of his life?  Was he one of the Jeremiah’s who died in the 1840’s in Wilcox County, AL; or Mississippi; or Hardin County, TN?  And there were even more!   Why would I even want to know and identify Jeremiah Jones and his wife, anyway?  Well, Jeremiah Jones and his wife are my great, great, great, grandparents; I carry their DNA on in my cells.  My children, who descend from them on their father’s line also, have a double dose of their DNA in their genetic makeup! (and no, I didn’t marry my first cousin!)

When we examine the actual information that we have about our Jeremiah, we don’t have much.  He was listed on both the 1830 and 1840 Blount County, AL Federal Census, (but not in the 1850 Census), with a female who was probably his wife.  However, in the 1850 Census, his son, James Jones, had a female, Mary Jones, age 84, born in Maryland, living in his household.  Fortunately, around 1861, some of Jeremiah’s heirs filed a lawsuit in the Blount County, AL court, asking for their share of his 80 acres of land.  (Interstate 65 goes through the 80 acres, north of the highway 91 exit.  No record of his deed to that land has been found.)  This is where we got lucky, because all of his children, both living and dead, were named.  Other clues to our Jeremiah’s location were in the Morgan County Courthouse.  Several of his children had married in the county, including his son, our William Jones and wife, Cynthia Hill.  It is possible that the Jeremiah Jones who served on a Morgan County jury in early 1820 and the Jeremiah who recorded a stock mark at the Courthouse in 1824 is ours.  Starting in 1850, all of his living children told the Census taker that they were born in Tennessee, and on the 1880 Census, they said that their father was born in Virginia. This Jeremiah Jones puzzle became very difficult because researchers combined bits and pieces from several Jeremiahs and threw them into the mix.

About a month and a half ago, Angela Jones Harlan, a descendent of Jeremiah, sent me a copy of a bounty land warrant, No. 52446, issued to Mary Jones, widow of Jeremiah Jones for his service in the War of 1812.  I immediately went to the National Archives website and placed an order for a copy of her application.  I received it in the mail last Friday 25 November, 2011.  Her application was dated 21 Aug., 1851. This was recorded by Justice of the Peace, J. H. Craft, and in Mary’s own words:

Marey Jones aged 86years aresadent of Walker County in the State of Alabama who being duly swone according to law declars that she is the widow of  Jeramiah Jones deseasd who was a privet in the compeney commanded by Captan Prestan in the war with Grate Britan …that her said husben was a volunteer from Ray County in the State of Tenasee and served for the term of three monthes in said war and was honerable discharged in Washington, Ray County in the State of Tenasee…   She further ses that she was maried to the said Jeramiah Jones in Knox County in the State of Tenasee about the year 1786 by one Parson Reno and that hur name before marege was Marey Swisher that hur said husban dide in Blount County in the State of Alabama on the 22^nd day of Aprile 1847 and that she is still a widow…

Family research is like a jigsaw puzzle that you try to put together without having a picture of the finished puzzle to guide you. It is hard work, but so exciting when it all fits together. Now a new puzzle begins… where is Mary Swisher’s family? Who are they? Can we find Jeremiah’s family in Virginia? Where do we look?

Rebecca Hurley Mason

My great great grandmother, Rebecca Hurley Mason 

Rebecca, daughter of James Hurley and Mary (Polly) Mabry Hurley, was the widow of James Rutherford Mason and the mother of John David Mason. Mary Mabry Hurley was the daughter of Patrick Mabry and Margaret Baker. Margaret's father was Beal Baker, a Revolutionary War soldier. Her mother was Sarah Brown.

Rebecca was born in 7 April, 1837 Hall County Georgia and died 16 July, 1916, after falling from her round top trunk as she was trying to pull down the shades in her bedroom. 

Thomas Grover Barfoot and Talmer Alphus Barfoot

My dad, Thomas Grover Barfoot and his brother, Talmer Alphus Barfoot ca. 1923.

Barefoot or Barfoot?

Before the 20th century, the consistent spelling of names was not extremely important. I have seen court documents where a person's surname was spelled three different ways in the same document by the court clerk. While doing research in England, I found both spellings used. Early Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina records almost always use the spelling "Barefoot". Miles could not write his name so it's not likely that he would have known how to spell it. I have his mark which was his legal signature on his US land application in what is now Geneva County. His signature was an "M".

Robert Francis Missildine

Robert Francis Missildine

Son of Robert Missildine and Frances Mary Griffiths

James Benjamin and Rebecca Jane Missildine Fannin

James Benjamin Fannin and wife, Rebecca Jane Missildine

James Benjamin, son of John Moses Corbett Fannin and Ellen  Rushton

Rebecca Jane, daughter of Robert Frances Missildine and Matilda Knighten

Mary E. Cooper Mason Nichols

Mary E. Cooper Mason Nichols

Daughter of James M. Cooper and Caroline Thomason

My great grandmother, the widow of John David Mason and also the third wife of Gregory Nichols

Gregory G. Nichols and Virginia Jones

Gregory G. Nichols and second wife, Virginia Jones, daughter of William Jones and Cynthia Hill

My great grandparents

John Alphus Barfoot and Emma Ellen Redmon

John Alphus Barfoot and wife, Emma Ellen Redmon, daughter of Martha Matilda Missildine Redmon