Dispersion from 'Cathey Settlement'
THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of Union
County, Georgia
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Dispersion from
'Cathey Settlement'
From past columns, we have seen
that the
first Cathey (of Scots-Irish descent) to be registered in Union County,
Georgia
in 1840 was the family of William Cathey (1782-about 1860) and his
wife,
Elizabeth Bryson Cathey (1787-about 1872). They lived in the vicinity
of Young
Harris, a portion of Union
County
incorporated into
Towns when that county was lined out and organized in 1856. This family
was the
first Cathey family to disperse from North Carolina to our section of North Georgia.
This William Cathey was the son
of Andrew
D. Cathey who died in North
Carolina
in 1808. Andrew was a common name, passed down through many generations
in the
Cathey family. Up in North
Carolina,
about ten miles west of Salisbury,
fourteen families made up what was known in the late 1700's as the
"Cathey
Settlement." There the patriarch of the Cathey settlement, James,
operated
a mill and had a land grant of 3,752 acres. It is hard for us to
imagine the
oversight of such a broad span of land. An interesting story comes out
of this
settlement of how the westward pull hit the Cathey Settlement. Not only
had one
of them named William migrated to North Georgia,
but one named Andrew "went west" in his young manhood.
One of the Cathey men,
descendant of James
Cathey, not to be confused with a son of William and Elizabeth Cathey
by the
very same name, decided to go west. Andrew Dever Cathey, this one born
in 1804
in Buncombe County,
NC, died in California
(date unknown to this writer).
When the California Gold Rush occurred in 1849, this Andrew Cathey, his
son Daniel
and son-in-law, Benjamin Wills left Fort Smith Arkansas,
where
the family had moved earlier from North Carolina, and made an
exploratory trip. They went by
river boat from Ft. Smith,
Arkansas to New Orleans.
They got ship's passage to Panama, and boarded
another ship there to go to San
Francisco. Once on the west coast, they took a
stage
to Indian Gulch in Mariposa
County, California.
Andrew mined for gold
for two years in California.
He must have been rather successful, for he returned to Ft. Smith, Arkansas
in 1851 to load up his family on a wagon train bound for California
overland.
It took about two years for the
wagon train
of twenty families to make the long trek from Arkansas to California. A diary of the journey
tells of
the route they took, the hardships they faced, and the challenges to
find food
and especially water through much desert terrain. They took along a
large
number of cattle, which they kept intact by riding herd on them with
horses.
The cows provided milk for families in the wagon train. They also sold
milk to
others they met along the way and thus earned some "traveling" money.
The entourage arrived at their destination on October 27, 1852.
They named the place they
settled in Mariposa County,
California
"Cathey's Valley" after the leader of the wagon train that had
brought them safely from Fort
Smith, Arkansas,
their hero, Andrew D.
Cathey.
In that California valley, Andrew purchased
a ranch
for $1,500 from a Mr. Evans. Andrew and his wife, Mary, helped to
establish a
church, a school and a cemetery on land they donated for those
purposes. Their
sons, too, purchased land and settled their families in that vicinity.
In
Cathey's Valley, even in this era, a celebration is held at Christmas
time in
the restored little one-room schoolhouse. At other times during the
year, the
pioneer settlers of Cathey's Valley are honored for their hard work,
civic
responsibility, and entrepreneurship.
A large stone monument in the
little town
records the history of the Andrew D. Cathey family and their settlement
there
in 1852. Some of the trees and vineyards set out by Andrew Cathey long
ago are
still intact. The little schoolhouse has been restored by the Cathey's
Valley
Historical Society.
Whether this Andrew Dever Cathey
who went
to California
is a brother to the William Cathey who settled near Blairsville prior
to 1840
is unknown by this writer. However, since William and Elizabeth named
one of
their sons William Dever Cathy (1809-1882), we can believe the
westward-moving
Andrew Dever Cathey was indeed related to William Cathey of Union County.
The California Catheys have a
monument to
the family's civic contributions in a valley named for them in Mariposa County. On Island Colonsay, Scotland,
the
Standing Stone marks the place where the clan leader of MacFie
(anglicized to
Cathey) was killed in a battle in 1623. There certainly are not
monuments on
historical spots in every place the Cathey Clan members dispersed. But
the more
accounts we hear about them, the more we can see that they were solid,
hard-working citizens wherever they settled.
c2009 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published February 5, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville,
GA.
Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Ethelene Dyer
Jones is a retired educator, freelance wirter,
poet, and historian. She may be reached
at email [email protected]; phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708
Cedarwood
Road, Milledgeville, GA 31061-2411
Updated May 11,
2009
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