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
Ivy Log and
some of its early residents
On Saturday,
June 9, I attended the fourth annual meeting of the Byron Herbert Reece
Society in Young Harris. As attendees were visiting in the lobby of the
Goolsby Center
after registration and prior to beginning of the meeting in the Wilson
Lecture Hall, a fine citizen of Union County
commented on this weekly column and assured me he was a regular reader.
I thanked him and told him I was glad to hear I do have readers. He
gave me a little reprimand that I have dwelt so long on my home
district of Choestoe without branching out to other sections of Union County.
"Why not write about Ivy Log?" he asked.
And to that dear gentleman, I appreciate his question, and will try in
future to hop about the county to find worthy historical subjects for
this column.
Look at a map
of Union County and
you will find the militia district of Ivy Log bordering North
Carolina on the north, with Gum Log
District on the east, Dooly district on the west, and Lower Young Cane
on the south. I turned to my excellent ready resource, The Heritage of Union County, 1832-1994 (p.
28) to find if and when Ivy Log had post offices. These federal
stations tell us much about some of the activity and people in a
district from its early days.
Rock Hill post
office in the Ivy Log Militia District received its grant for operation
with the appointment of Joseph Patterson as first postmaster on May 21, 1838.
The first
census of Union County in
1834 listed Joseph Patterson as having eight males and four females in
his household. Other Patterson families, which seem to have been living
adjacent to each other in 1834, were Amos Patterson (five males, two
females), John Patterson (four males, three females), and George
Patterson (four males, three females). According to the Patterson
family articles in the county history book, John Patterson, his wife
Margaret Black Patterson, and some of heir children migrated to what
became Union County in
1829. Although not specifically indicated, Joseph may have been one of
their sons, or maybe even a brother to John. The twins, Joseph Elijah
and William Elisha Patterson, sons of
William Harden Patterson and Rebecca Chastain Patterson, were born in
1871 and were too young for one to be the Joseph Patterson who founded Rock
Hill post office at Ivy Log.
Rock Hill post
office operated under that name and with Joseph Patterson as postmaster
until October
4, 1842 when Richard W. Roberts got the
contract as postmaster. He changed the name to Ivy Log and the post
office went by that name until it was discontinued September 15, 1910. As Rock
Hill and Ivy Log, the community
gathering place, probably in a store run by its postmasters, had an
operational life of 70 years, quite a long tenure for mail depositories
of that era. For two years, the post office charter was not renewed, as
seen in the following listing of postmasters.
William R.
Utter succeeded Richard W. Roberts on May 4, 1847. He
remained until the post office was discontinued at the end of his term June 27, 1866. His
was the longest tenure of any of the officers.
There must have
been an appeal to reestablish the office, for on June 9, 1868,
William A. Cobb became postmaster. William Alfred Cobb married
Charlotte Henson on May 22, 1861.
This couple had nine children: Reuben Francis; John Franklin.; Rebecca
Leona; Joseph Jasper; Louise Jane; James Wesley; Rufus Alexander;
Elbert Lorenzo; and Harrison Taylor.
Both William A.
Cobb and his wife, Charlotte Henson Cobb, were children of
Revolutionary War patriots. His father was John Paul Cobb who fought
with the famed "Swamp Fox," Francis Marion, at the Battle of King's
Mountain, York County, NC. Charlotte's
father was Daniel Henson who served in the Revolution and fought the
Tories.
Before moving
to Georgia
about 1848, William Alfred Cobb was sheriff of Haywood
County, N.C. He
was also a Methodist minister. Charlotte Henson Cobb died May 23, 1861 in Union County and
was buried in the New
Hope Cemetery, Ivy
Log. William Alfred married his second wife, Lavinia
Roberts, on February
2, 1862. His second wife probably
assisted Rev. Cobb with duties at the post office. When he gave up
duties as Ivy Log's postmaster, he and Lavinia
moved to Beaver Dam, Cherokee
County, N.C.,
where he died August
5, 1886. He was interred at the Unaka Cemetery
there.
William A. Cobb
was succeeded at the Ivy Log post office by Pleasant Short, appointed
postmaster April
21, 1873. The remaining postmasters and
their dates of appointment were William W. Chapman, June 7, 1883;
Jasper L. Owenby, March 29, 1887;
Frank E. Conley, August
9, 1887; Ulysses Sidney Cobb, May 18, 1897; and
Elizabeth C. Cobb, March 15, 1899. Ms.
Cobb kept the office open until Ivy Log was permanently closed on September 15, 1910.
Space in this
article precludes tracing family connections of these last six
postmasters at Ivy Log. However, Ulysses Cobb was a grandson of William
Alfred Cobb, son of Harrison Taylor Cobb. The last postmaster at Ivy
Log, Elizabeth C. Cobb, was Harrison Taylor Cobb's wife, Elizabeth
Caroline Neece Cobb (09-27-1845 - 10- 07-1933).
She and Harrison Taylor Cobb (06-14-1846 - 05- 31-1920)
were buried at the New
Hope Methodist Cemetery in
the Ivy Log Militia District. An interesting aside is that the oldest
marked grave at the New
Hope Cemetery is
that of Lydia Keys Cobb (1773-1848). She was the second wife of
Revolutionary War soldier John Paul Cobb and the mother of William
Alfred Cobb (1809- 1886). W. A. Cobb was fourth postmaster at Ivy Log.
c2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 14, 2007 in The Union
Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights
reserved.
[Ethelene
Dyer Jones is a retired educator, freelance writer, poet, and historian.
She may be reached at e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708
Cedarwood Road,
Milledgeville,
GA
31061-2411.]