THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Communication
now is so much more advanced from the days of
dated letters from 1861 and 1871.
Here is the background of this
story. David Davis of Vale,
David Davis of Vale,
Now to get on to the connections, and
to some of the news in the preserved letters from the nineteenth
century.
In the 1850 census of
(718) Davis, Meredith age 43, born in
North Carolina; (no wife listed;
evidently she had died prior to the 1850 census); Children: Anderson, 18; Logan, 16; John,
14; Caroline, 12; Mary, 10; Sarah, 8 (all
six of these were
born in North Carolina prior to the move to Union County); James, 6;
and
Thomas, 4, both born in Georgia. A Mary
Davis, age 60, born in
(714) Davis, Jehial (census-taker’s
spelling; it probably should have been Johile—and I have found it in
another
genealogy listing as John Hoyle, shortened to Johile, born November 1,
1852 in
McDowell County, NC, died September 10, 1926).
“Jehial” was listed as age 48 by the census-taker, born in
(806)
Davis, Salathial, 52, born in North Carolina; his wife,
Elizabeth, 45,
also born in North Carolina; and children still at home, Reuben, 18,
and
Martha, 7, both born in North Carolina.
And a sister to Meredith, Mary, Johile
and Salathial Davis was Sarah Davis Souther, who, with her family was
listed in
the 1850
(681) Souther, Joseph, age 48, born in
In other genealogical records we
find that
a daughter of Joseph and
And now to the letters David Davis
found from members of these
One from Marida Davis in Union County,
Georgia to her sister Jane England in McDowell County, NC dated
November 10,
1871: After the general opening of being
in “common good health” and the usual wishes about the recipient’s
health,
Marida writes this interesting news: “I
have not much general news to write, only there is a great prospect of
a rail
road a-coming to Blairsville and I think that the road will come. The name of the road is
Unfortunately, the railroad Merida
Davis wrote so enthusiastically about did not ever come to Blairsville,
but
instead was routed to Blue Ridge, Culberson, NC and Murphy, NC.,
probably due
to lack of funds to build it over more mountainous terrain to
Blairsville. The railroad reached
A letter in which Mary Davis signs her
name as Mary (not Merida) Davis to her brother David Davis and family
back in
North Carolina was dated October 18, 1861 (?, year date a bit obscured). It reflects hard times coming on because of
the Civil War. Health was “common”
except for “the Rumatis” that plagued the writer. She
wrote, “Johiel left this country and
moved down in (illegible) County about 100 miles. I
ain’t seen him since he left here.” In
both these letters is a message of
homesickness to see others of the family and to hear from them. Family ties were not severed by distance.
c2010 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published August 19, 2010 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 [email protected];
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]
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