Quaint People in the Georgia Mountains

Alright, so here is another story written by Lawrence Stanley. For those interested, Jessie Keener is my great-great grandfather. Anyone who has seen me trying to back up a trailer might think I learned to drive from him...

Stanley, L.L. 1971. A Rough Road in a Good Land. Chapter XXVI pp. 130-134.


Chapter XXVI

Quaint People in the Georgia Mountains

Many of the people who were neighbors and friends of the writer’s family in the Georgia Mountains were not just ordinary run of the mill individuals. They could and did discuss politics, farming, wars, religion and manners of living with the best educated people of their day.

They welcomed to their simple homes, people who could tell them about the big world outside the mountains. They often said and did things that were entertaining and amusing, to strangers who visited with them.

Their interpretation of the meaning of good morals were sometimes different from the urban people who saw and knew them. There was the case of the man who told a visitor that it was wrong to cuss or swear. Then he proceeded to embellish his language with such bad words that listeners often wondered if the man who told a visitor that it was wrong to cuss or swear knew the meaning of swearing or in the language of the mountains, “cussing a blue streak.”

One of the most fascinating and most entertaining mountain men known to the writer was a man named Jessie Keener or as his neighbors and best friends called him, Uncle Jess. He had a habit of using cuss words in everyday conversation and he would have been insulted had one of his friends asked him why he swore so much. This man wore a flowing beard that made him look like a picture of Santa Claus. His voice had a high pitch which could be heard a long distance.

He had a son he called Johnny. His daughter was named Lovie. He called his wife Reely, what her real name was no one knows today. Even the neighbors called her Reely Keener. Uncle Jess was the best cooper in the county with white oak staves he split out of the fine white oak trees growing on his mountain side farm, he could make a barrel that would hold syrup. Almost every farmer in that valley grew a patch of cane. In the fall, he cut and hauled his cane to a grinding mill and spent a day or two boiling down the cane juice into syrup, which was put into the wooden kegs made by Uncle Jess.

White oak staves had to be air dried for about one year, before they could be turned into kegs that would hold syrup. Uncle Jess usually cut the blocks from a large white oak tree, split out the staves and stacked them up in the woods to dry through the winter and the next summer.

Uncle Jess had split up a large oak tree into staves and stacked them up on a steep mountain side. One day in the fall when the staves were very dry some one set the woods on fire. The blaze in the dry leaves fanned by a stiff breeze headed up the mountain side.

The old man seeing the smoke and remembering his stacks of staves, grabbed his hoe which was the major fire fighting tool, he yelled to his wife and daughter to run after the neighbors to come and help and he started up the mountain side as fast as he could run toward his stave timber.

A few minutes later, when he came in sight of the stacks of staves he was just in time to see that the flames had run faster. His bone dry staves were a mass of flames. In despair, he turned away, back down the mountain side to meet his wife, daughter and the neighbors with fire fighting tools in their hands.

When the old man was near enough, he turned toward his wife, and said in a high shrill voice, “The Reely, huh, the God, huh, every bit of that dam stave timber has burnt up and gone to hell, huh.” His neighbors laughed for years afterward as they remembered the old man’s style of cussing.

One day Uncle Jess was out with Johnny who was a big strapping young man. They were building a fence near the house when by accident Johnny struck his father with a tool they were using. The old man thought the blow was on purpose and jumped on Johnny’s back. In the wrestling match that followed, Johnny rapidly forced the old man down on the ground and caused him to yell for help to his wife and daughter.

The two women came running from the house and up to the struggling men on the ground. The shrewd old man looked from under Johnny’s strong arm where he was pinned down and shouted, “Hold Johnny, Lovie, Reely can hold me, Huh.”

Upon another occasion, one of Uncle Jess’s neighbors decided to go up past Uncle Jess’s place on through Stanley Gap and to Cherrylog, a railroad station in Gilmer County. He started with his mules and wagon early that morning and in a few minutes arrived in front of the Keener place to find the road blocked.

Roads in those days were very narrow. There were no highway right of way lines, such as we have today. Farmers along the roads fenced both sides of the road at times, leaving a narrow lane barely wide enough for two wagons to pass each other.

Uncle Jess had built a barn with a wide hallway so that he could drive his wagon into the barn in bad weather. This barn was so close to the road that when he built a fence on the other road bank, it took a lot of maneuvering to get a wagon out of this hallway and into the road.

He was not the best driver in the country and had a quick temper which he lost completely, especially, when his team acted up as they had been doing on this particular morning. The old man was in the midst of a struggle to turn his wagon and team around in this narrow space, when his neighbor drove up. Of course, he could not pass the wagon, which was across the road way with the team up in the hallway of the barn.

While the neighbor sat in his wagon and watched the old man drive across the road, up into the barn and backed out again. This driving and backing up that never quite cleared the road and continued for several minutes.

Finally, the old man in despair over his inability as a driver and very angry at his team and himself for having blocked so effectively the public road, climbed down from his seat on the wagon box, tied his driving reins to a fence post on the road side, approached his neighbor saying as he shook his long beard, “There won’t be any going to town today, huh.” The neighbor much amused said, “Why Uncle Jess?” The old man spat on the ground and shouted, “By gent, because we can’t get our dam wagon turned, huh.”

Another interesting man the writer knew years ago was a man named Joseph Nathan Honeycutt or Hunnicut. He was born in Yancy County, N.C. His family had lived on Beans Creek at one time.

He moved to Fannin County, Georgia where he lived for a number of years. He moved back to Mitchel County, N.C. and the writer was told in 1968 that the old man died and was buried at Buladean on Big Rock Creek.

When he preached at the Big Creek Baptist Church, the writer remembers his shrill voice which could be heard at a long distance. He also remembers the shaggy beard. It might be well to say that before the days of microphones, that mountain preachers shouted at the top of their voices when they stood before a congregation.

This old man was much troubled by what he called the waywardness of a son who was a grown man, and who was called Little Joe, his wife may have been named Marie, but he called her “Mariar.”

Once he told some friends about Little Joe’s courting experiences and the story ran as follows, “We watched Little Joe leave home one morning and I told Mariar, that this would be the last time Little Joe would go through that gate single and sure enough when he came back he brought Rosetta.”

The best story came from the old man when a neighbor asked him about Little Joe. The old man’s response was, “Little Joe is just goin’ to the dogs, upon the Pigpen Branch making liquor on a five gallon still.” The neighbor expressed some surprise to hear such news and the old man added, “The old revenue (meaning prohibition officers) ain’t no account, they let everybody make liquor that want to, and everybody wants to.”

In the nineteen twenties there still lived in the Georgia Mountains several members of a pioneer family by the name of Wilson one of the amusing stories told around North Georgia area is about a member of this family.

It seems that this old man went to Atlanta to see this city before the old trolly cars were converted to buses. The trolly car tracks were in the pavement of the street. The motive power was furnished by an overhead wire.

One day the old man who had made the visit to Atlanta appeared in a country store in Gilmer County and when he had found a seat in the circle around a big old heating stove which stood in the middle of the room, one of the neighbors said, “Ed tell us about the trip you made to Atlanta last week.”

Ed took out his knife and a plug of tobacco, cut himself a chew and rolled it around in his mouth for a minute or two, he leaned forward and said earnestly, “I’ll tell you this, I was not as big a fool as they thought I was down there in that big city. You see, the first thing I did was to get on one of them cars with no hosses a pulling it, I axed the man how much it was, and I paid him. I sorter wondered how I would know where I was going and how I would know where to get off.”

“Well, we went flying down the road and directly that fellow up in the front seat said, ‘Broad.’ Old man and old woman Broad got up and got off.”

“In a few minutes, the man up in front said, ‘Mitchell.’ Old man Mitchell and some of the children got up and got off. You know they must have had some slaves once, for some colored Mitchells got up and got off.”

“In a few more minutes, that man said ‘Wilson.’ I knowed that was me, and I got up and got off. I was standing in the middle of the road watching that thing I had been riding in go on down the road, when I happened to look down at my feet and there was a pocket book lying there. I reached down and picked it up and looked inside and there was forty dollars in it.”

“Now there I was, I had a good ride and had forty dollars to boot. About that time a fine looking woman came running up to me and said, ‘Mister, is this Wilson?’ I said yes, mam it is and I took off my hat. She smiled and said, ‘Can you tell me where forty is?’ I said, ‘Yes mam, I got it right here in my pocket’, and I pulled out the pocket book and gave it to her. You see I wasn’t half as big a fool as they thought I was.”

Joe Dollars

Five Joe dollars to the first person that realizes I've posted again...

The Law Ground Fight on Big Rock Creek

Here's another story from the pages of my family history (technically, its from the pages of a book a relative of mine wrote). Just so everyone knows how I'm related to these people...William Stanley is my g-g-g-grandfather; Swinfield is my g-g-grandfather; and believe it or not, Brownlow is my g-g-uncle as well as my g-g-grandfather.

Stanley, L. L. 1971. A Rough Road in a Good Land. Chapter VI pp. 40-44.

Chapter VI

The Law Ground Fight on Big Rock Creek

About sixty years ago, the writer at his old home in Gilmer County, Georgia, watched an old man ride past this home a number of times. He rode a big grey horse, and had a grey beard. Some times he stopped to talk to the boy’s father, and he nearly always stopped at the boy’s grandfather’s home further down the valley. His name was Swinfield Stanley, and grandfather was his nephew.

In those days when it rained and fields could not be worked because they were too wet, mountain people went visiting to the home of their kinfolks if they did not live too far away.

Upon many rainy days the boy walked with his father about one mile to grandfather’s house where they sat before a fire in the fire place and he listened to stories told by grandfather, grandmother, uncles, and his own father, about the Stanley family migration from North Carolina to Georgia.

Many of these stories involved old William Stanley who moved from North Carolina in 1842, with his children and grandchildren. Some of the stories were about Swinfield or Swinn, as he was called, and his fourteen children, and their families who had moved in the eighteen nineties from the same section of North Carolina.

Old Swinfield, had lived in Georgia with his father, and brothers at the time of the Civil War. At the end of the war, he went back to North Carolina and did not return for nearly fifty years.

It seemed to the small boy who listened that the only reason for William Stanley’s move in 1842 was a desire to find cheap and better land and like Daniel Boone, a search for a little more elbow room in this new section of Georgia, from which the Indians had been moved a few years before. It also seemed to the boy that when they discussed Old Swinfield’s move back to Georgia after nearly fifty years absence, that they did not give a good reason for this latest migration.

The boy, as he listened to the stories, had the impression that the Stanley name was held in ill repute in North Carolina, especially by law abiding citizens. This reputation was brought about by the actions of some members of this old man’s family that finally resulted in the old man’s determination to remove his whole family back to the area he had lived in at the time of the Civil War.

This boyhood impression remained with the writer until he was grown up and had begun to do some research on family history.

He well remembers the day about twenty-five years ago, when he went into the record room to see the clerk in this North Carolina County. His purpose was to request permission to see the records that might be helpful in tracing this family from England to Virginia, and from Virginia to North Carolina and Georgia.

A fine looking white haired man named McKinney was the record clerk. The writer upon being introduced to this man made the mistake of saying, “You, sir, appear to be old enough to remember this family name and to recall the trouble this family caused in your county before they moved to Georgia in the eighteen nineties. I feel that perhaps I need to apologize for asking about a family whose record in this county was not the best.”

The courteous old gentleman took the writer by the hand, shook it hard, and said, “Young fellow, if I were you, I would not apologize for this family name again. Sure, I was here when they had their troubles, and I knew most of the members of this family. You need to remember that this rough country helped to make them what they were.”

“Remember one more thing, they had convictions about what they believed in, or in the struggle to keep alive, in their day. They had the courage to do whatever they thought they had to do to live up to their convictions, which is one of the qualities that more men need in the kind of world you and I live in.”

That was the last time the writer felt apologetic, for the people who lived in that county years before, who happened to have the Stanley name. The record clerk helped to find the records and seemed delighted that someone had reminded him of a family who had been pioneers in that county before Mitchell County existed.

The real reason for the migration of Swinfield Stanley, and of his big family was a fight that occurred at the law ground, or election ground on Big Rock Creek at the junction with Beans Creek that involved two of the old man’s sons, Brownlow and Elisha, and a Garland family and their friends on the other side.

The writers great, great grandfather married a Garland in this Rock Creek Valley. He moved his family to Georgia in 1842. At least four other members of this Stanley family married Garlands so these two families were kinfolks. This did not prevent the fight that caused Swinfield’s family to move away from this county.

This unfortunate battle between the Stanley’s and Garlands was caused by political differences dating back to the time of the Civil War, when both families were forced to take sides either Union or Confederate.

There lived on Big Rock Creek until recent years a man who told the writer that he was present at the law ground that day when the battle began. He said the two Stanley boys had been drinking, which was not an uncommon occurrence in the Southern mountains in their day.

One of the Stanley’s made the mistake of going around in the crowd singing a mountain song, entitled “Cumberland Gap”. Alan Lomax in his book “Folk Songs of America” quotes the words of this song, however, at the time of the Civil War verses were added to this old song. These words had reference to the struggle for this strategic gap in the Cumberland Mountains by Union and Confederate Armies. One of the verses of this song contained the lines:

“Talk about your butter, talk about your fat, Fleas in the rebel camp as big as any cat.”

Brownlow Stanley who had been named for the famous Union newspaper editor of East Tennessee, Parson Brownlow, who during the Civil War went to prison for his remarks about the South, began to sing the song. His brother, Elisha, joined him. The Garlands resenting the rebel camp line, as a reflection on their political affiliations, began a fist fight with the two men.

The eye witness mentioned above, told the writer, that the women folks had taken their knitting and gone to the election ground with the men. There was a saw mill at this creek junction. Several lumber stacks near the saw mill furnished seats for the women, who were sitting on the lumber stacks with their knitting in their laps, when the fight began.

They fled up and down the road toward their respective homes, scattering half knitted socks and knitting needles along the way.

The fight which began with fists, ended with round rocks from the creek bed and long bladed jack knives being used by both sides.

At one time, there were fifteen men on the Garland side, against the two Stanleys. A witness told the writer that every time a thrown rock hit one of the Stanleys, it bounced off like a rubber ball thrown against a wall. He said that every time one of the Stanleys threw a rock and hit a man he went down and stayed down.

Brownlow and one of the Garlands held on to each other and cut each other with knives. Brownlow was cut to pieces, and Mr. Garland was on the ground so badly cut up that the Stanleys thought him dead. His friends that were left on their feet are said to have run away leaving the two Stanleys on the field of battle.

Mr. Garland lived until a few years ago. Brownlow Stanley lived until he was about ninety years old. The writer saw this man many times during his boyhood days.

The resulting law suits was one of the major reasons why old Swinfield sold the tract of land he owned on Bad Creek and moved to Georgia.

One of the persons who was a witness to this fight, was a very short man named George Jones. While the fight was going on this man who had married Swinfield Stanley’s daughter Jane, was able because of his short statue to hide in a crevice in one of the lumber stacks. Through a hole between two boards he was a witness to the whole battle.

When his father-in-law decided to leave North Carolina, this man elected to take his family and go with him. There were four children born to George and Jane Jones in North Carolina. About the time he made this move to Georgia his wife died.

George Jones married a second wife. There were two or three children born to this family. These children attended school with the writer, when this family lived at the old Martha Rackley farm on the edge of the mountain wilderness in North Georgia. The writer saw this little man many times when he was a boy.

The wagon train that brought this large family from Mitchell County, North Carolina followed the old wagon road across Yancey, Buncombe, Haywood, Jackson, Macon, and Cherokee Counties by Burnsville, Asheville, Waynesville, Sylva and Murphy, North Carolina to make this great journey across Western North Carolina. They stopped by the roadside near a spring or stream when night over took them, built a campfire, cooked a meal, ate by the light of the fire, and slept on the hard ground beside the wagon when the weather was good. They brought food along in their wagons, occasionally they purchased food supplies from the small towns they passed through. Old Swinfield, was so far as is known, the only person in this caravan, who had been over this road, and his journey was made about fifty years before, changes must have been made in this country from 1865 to about 1898, the approximate date when he moved back to Georgia.

During the writers boyhood days, his father bought a farm from a man named Luther Weeks. Mr. Weeks’ old house was included in this purchase. This house stood in an old apple orchard and was leased to an uncle who had married one of the daughters of George and Jane Jones. She was one of the children on the wagon train that made the journey described above in this narrative.

The writer played with the children in this home. He was invited to spend the night with them, this he did. The uncle was away from home and the mother started to tell stories about this journey one night as we sat around the fire place. She was a young girl when the long journey began. She had most vivid memories of the journey through Nantahala Gorge. It took three days to bring the wagons through this gorge. They had to cross the river which was in flood, five times. It took two teams to drag the wagon through the ford. The men cut green trees by the road side and lashed the logs to the up stream side of the covered wagon box. The women and children were put in the wagons. The men waded on the upstream side, and held on to the logs to keep the swift current from overturning the wagon box.

She told about the children crying, the mothers kept telling them not to be afraid that the men would not let the wagon turn over and drown them. She was one of the children who cried.

There was also a story about how hungry the children were! They were forced to walk because the hills and mountains they crossed were so steep that it took all the strength the teams had to pull the heavy laden wagons to the top. She said that at times the road was one mud hole after another when it rained. When it was dry the wagon wheels kicked up the dust and the weary children walking behind the wagons were covered with dust.

No one today can experience the lonely tree shaded dirt roads, mud to the wagon axle when it rained. When dry they were filled with a cloud of choking dust. Steep mountains where they used two teams of oxen or mules to draw the wagon to the top. Before they started down the cutting of a tree top which was tied to the wagon behind to act as a brake on the steep slopes. The mother who told the writer these stories was named Matilda Jones Aaron. She was married to the brother of the writers mother, and was typical of these pioneer people who where forced by circumstances beyond their control to move for long distances across eastern America, less than one hundred years ago. The writers great, great grandfather with all of his children and grandchildren had moved in 1842 over the same road or trail. They covered the same distance from Mitchell County of today to Fannin County, Georgia. When the writer was a boy, only one person who made this first journey was left alive to tell about it. She was born in 1839 and was too young to remember much about the journey she made.

Politics and Economics

Sometimes life surprises you. I just finished watching a PBS program and there were actually a couple of segments that presented the conservative side of economics. I couldn’t believe it. As I write this, it’s less than an hour before their coverage of the Republican National Convention begins, and PBS has people speaking well of conservative ideology!

As I watched the program several thoughts were stimulated in my thought process. I believe I’ll stick to the topic of economics for now, though other thoughts also surfaced. Particularly, I want to discuss liberal vs. conservative views of taxation.

Liberals and conservatives both want equality. The difference is what they think should be equal. Liberals want people’s incomes to be equal (more or less). If you make too much money then you should give some to people who earn less. They achieve this through the Income Redistribution Service or IRS (I may have gotten the words in the acronym wrong). Basically, they want to tax the rich and give to the poor. They paint themselves as a modern day Robin Hood.

The attitude of the liberal is “soak the rich” (or “Eat the Rich” if you’re an Aerosmith fan). In other words, stick it to the rich man ‘cause it’s not fair that I’m not as well off as he is. Take money from him and give it to me.

But is that really fair? Do (most) rich people not also work for their income? Is it fair to take the money they worked for and give it to someone who didn’t work for it?

If liberals have their way there would be no incentive to reach a higher standard of living economically. The more you have the more it will be taken away from you (through taxes). You are better off being poor and living as a parasite on the rich; you’ll get the money you want without having to work for it. Sometimes we call this ‘welfare’, and it used to be something self-respecting people refused to take part in. But now the attitude is that welfare is my right since I’m not rich. Forget that I don’t work for a living; the fact is that I’m poor and you should provide for me since I cannot (or more likely, will not) provide for myself.

This culture of entitlements is killing us (in more areas than just economics, too).

It was the “pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps” mentality that made America great. Liberals would do away with that in favor of a socialist attitude of giving everyone the same resources regardless of whether or not they work for them.

Conservatives, on the other hand, seek equality in opportunity. After that, personal responsibility should take over and you should take care of yourself. People deserve to have the same opportunities, but if you refuse to capitalize on those opportunities then it’s your own fault. You shouldn’t rely on those who were smart enough to seize those opportunities to support your mistakes. So taxes should not be arbitrarily raised on “rich” people.

Further, being rich is not wrong. And we should strive to attain a higher economic standing.

Contrary to liberal belief, it is actually very beneficial (even necessary) to have rich people in our society. Rich people create jobs! A person on this PBS program said, “I’ve never been hired by a poor person.” Wise words if you think about them. Not many people are employing people out of a cardboard box in a back alley.

If taxes are raised on corporations, how will they recoup those losses? They’ll lay off workers so they can stop paying those workers and save that money. What if taxes are lowered on corporations? They will have more money to expand their business and create more jobs which will help the economy at large.

What is the smart thing to do in an economic downturn? The liberals would raise taxes on the rich and on corporations and give that money to the poor since the poor are hardest hit in hard times. But that is the absolute wrong thing to do. It will drive the economy further into the ground because entrepreneurs will lay off more workers to maintain their profits which are being hit by taxes. Now the jobless rate is increasing because of higher taxes and more families are going hungry.

What a conservative would do is lower the corporate tax rate. This will allow for economic growth by creating a condition that is more hospitable for job creation. Now the jobless rate is decreasing and more families are keeping their homes and feeding their children.

I’ve never been hired by a poor person. Indeed. And I’ve never had a liberal politician offer to give me part of their paycheck without working for it.

Civil War in the Georgia Mountains

Its been a few days since I've posted. I'll start back with some old family stories. The following comes from a book written by a distant relative of mine years ago. There are some grammar errors etc. in the book, but I left those in there. Also, this was written by a man who lived in the days when you wrote in the third person instead of the first person. Makes it difficult when you mention yourself, but that's how it was done. And its pretty long, but a good read nonetheless (I am biased, though). In case you are interested in how these people are related to me...my g-g-grandfather was Swinfield Stanley and my g-g-g-grandfather was William Stanley. Enjoy...



Stanley, L. L. 1971. A Rough Road in a Good Land. Chapter XVI-B. pp. 83-90.

The Civil War in the Georgia Mountains

At the time of the American Civil War, War of the Southern Confederacy or War between the states as it was called in the south, many families most of them slave holders many years before had freed their slaves. In the mountain counties of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee, there were many families who were non-slave holders, and who sympathized with the Union when the war broke out. There were hundreds of men who fled through the lines of the Confederate armies, and into the Union armies.

Many families wanted no part in the war on either side, and many men from such families who lived next door to the rugged mountains fled to the rocky cliffs, or laurel thickets as they called the dense patches of mountain laurel and rhododendron, where they established camps, to which they could flee to be safe from the roving bands of home guards, whose principal job was to find deserters from the army, and to force men who had not made a choice into the southern armies.

These home guards made up many times of neighbors of the men in hiding, were often the bitter enemies of such men, caused by disputes over property lines, cattle straying into a neighbor’s field, cattle and hog stealing and in at least two records examined by the writer the feud dated back to chicken and turkey stealing.

If the men could not be found the home guards often took out their spite on women and children left unprotected by the hiding out of fathers husbands, and brothers.

The Stanley family in the south originally were from the fighting stock of their English ancestors. In England these men had fought for and against their kings and were not afraid of a fight, the majority preferred to be left alone, living as they did on the very edge of the new world civilization they felt they had done enough fighting in the Revolution and against the Indians. They very suddenly found themselves caught between the lines of southern and northern armies, in a terrible civil war.

Shortly after old William Stanley moved from North Carolina, to the Bull Frog branch farm in Fannin County, he moved again this time up Toccoa River to a creek valley on the opposite side of the river and some twelve miles above the little village of Morganton, Ga. which he had helped to establish and name for their old Morganton in far away Burke County, North Carolina. The creek took his name and has been known until this day as Stanley Creek.

The junction of this creek with the river was about three miles down stream from Shallow Ford, a famous crossing of the river at the time. Old Swinfield Stanley another son of William, had come down from North Carolina, and lived near his father. After the war ended he went back to North Carolina and did not return until the eighteen nineties, at which time he brought his wife and fourteen children and their families.

On September 2, 1864, while Elisha Stanley, one of the older sons of William, brother of Swinfield and Rickles S. who was the writer’s great grandfather, was sitting under a shed used for a shop near his home on Stanley Creek, a home guard band made a raid into this Stanley Creek community. Elisha age 42 had the reputation of being a good gun smith. One story says he had been repairing rifles for his neighbors that very day.

He had stopped to rest and his baby boy Buell Stanley, had wandered out to the shed, climbed up into his father’s lap and gone to sleep. Telitha Stanley, his niece who lived nearby had made this man a hat out of pine straw, and used a piece of her red calico dress to make a band for the hat. He was wearing the hat as he sat with the sleeping baby in his arms.

The home guard band said to have been under the leadership of a man named Al Brookshire, who was afterward killed by a man named Barney McHan, rode up concealed by the bushes, one of them took deliberate aim and when the rifle cracked the red hat band was cut almost in two pieces. Elisha Stanley fell out of the chair with a bullet through the brain.

The blood from the wound ran across the yard when his wife came running out of the house, she found the baby lying or sitting in a pool of blood.

The home guards spied at the same time a boy running away from the house towards the woods, they fired again and a bullet struck the boy in the thigh, who fell at the edge of the woods and the home guards thinking they had killed him did not bother to go and look for him. This boy named Elisha for his uncle who was dead on the ground lived to be more than eighty years of age. As a boy the writer saw this man many times. The bullet was never removed from his leg. He suffered much in his old age from the crippling effect of this wound.

The home guards having disposed of the only males they found decided to rob the house. One of them found the newly pieced quilt made by Telitha that winter. He had the quilt in his hands and started to his horse, when Telitha came running out of the house and saw the man with her quilt. She reached for one end of the quilt and jerked the man flat on his face on the ground.

The next instant one of the home guards, a man named Snells Adkins struck Telitha across the side of her head with the stock of his gun. The blow fractured the ear drum, the resulting infection destroyed the ear drum on the other side. This woman lived to be 81 years old and was stone deaf until the day she died in 1920.

She lost the sight of one eye and her power of speech was also effected. As a boy the writer was not able to understand what she said when she came to visit his mother and had to depend upon his father, mother and grandparents with whom she lived to interpret what she said when she told stories about the suffering of her family and many others in the area during the terrible war days. He does remember her tears as she talked about the loss her family suffered on that day in 1864 when the horrors of war moved to the Stanley Creek Valley.

The same day Elisha Stanley was killed, Evan Hughes who had married Vian Stanley, sister of the dead man and brother of Jane Hughes Stanley the writer’s great grandmother, was found and captured by the home guard band and without any trial or charges of any kind except that he was the kinsman and friend of the Stanley’s, he was stood against a pine tree on the river bank near Shallow Ford and shot to death. This big tree was still standing when the writer was a boy and was pointed out to him by his father many times as they passed this ford in the river.

There were two brothers whose last names were Kelley, first names unknown who were friends of the Stanleys. They were found by this home guard band in the neighborhood of Stanley Creek. One of them jumped into a deep pool in the river and by diving and swimming under water he escaped the bullets fired at him. His brother was not so fortunate and was shot down and left in the woods. Telitha Stanley and her mother Jane Hughes Stanley, sister of Evan Hughes, who had been killed by this same band, guided by the vultures found his decaying body. Telitha using her mother’s apron as a screen, pulled out a front tooth and a lock of his hair was pulled from his head, as Telitha told the writer’s mother once to send to the dead boy’s mother.

This body was taken up wrapped in a blanket or sheet, put on a sled and hauled to the Stanley Creek graveyard. No one knows today who dug the grave, or where it is located in this old cemetery.

Telitha and her mother with help from a Mrs. Falls dug the grave for Elisha Stanley and Evan Hughes, since there were no men left in the community who dared come out of hiding to bury the dead. They decided to bury both men in the same grave. Telitha as the youngest did most of the digging. They tried to make a box out of boards pulled from the barn and could not find nails enough. The bodies were rolled in blankets made by these women and both were buried in the same grave.

The tombstone erected at a much later date contains this inscription. Elisha Stanley born October 6, 1822, died September 2, 1864. Evan Hughes died Sept. 6, 1864. This means that Hughes’ body had to be brought from Shallow Ford after it was found and four days after he was killed. Telitha said once that they were killed the same day and by the same band of home guards.

Both men were born in North Carolina. Hughes near Hughes Gap of today. His wife Vian Stanley went back to North Carolina and so far as the record shows she never came back to Georgia.

A man named John Birchfield who lives on Hampton Creek near Roan Mountain, Tennessee told the writer in 1969 that as a boy he went to the home of Vian Stanley Hughes many times. He called her aunt Vian. She was related to his family by marriage.

About the time that Stanley, Hughes and Kelley were killed, a second band of home guards under a Capt. Crowder made a raid into the Toccoa River Valley in the neighborhood of Stanley Creek for the purpose of capturing old William Stanley the writer’s great, great, grandfather and his sons, Rickles S., Swinfield, Sam, Press and Baxter Stanley as well as two neighbors, Jim Ortan and Dock Falls. There may have been others that this band hoped to capture who had been with the Stanleys, and who had fled from home and were camping out at one of their hiding places back in the mountain wilderness in this river valley.

One of the camping places was on Butler Creek across the line in Gilmer County and has been described elsewhere in this narrative. The other was on the head waters of Stanley Creek not very far from the Stanley home. The writer believes from the stories told in his presence by members of this family that the camp was on Stanley Creek on the day when a neighbor who hated this family betrayed them to the home guard band. This band surrounded the camp and demanded the surrender of all who were there.

Press and Sam Stanley, younger brothers of Rickles S. and Swinfield were just boys. They were said to have appeared to be younger than they really were, had gone to the camp that morning. They were captured along with the older men. They were overlooked or the guards were careless while the men were being secured and walked out into the woods with their rifles and escaped.

All the prisoners were mounted upon mules or horses with their feet tied under the belly of the animal and the whole group started on the road toward Morganton, Ga. The supposed intention of this home guard band was to lodge the prisoners in jail. The road they followed led through some of North Georgia’s most rugged country. There were places near the junction of Persimmon and Wilscot Creeks with the river where the road had been hewed out of the rocky bluff above the river.

At one such place the road ran over a ledge of solid rock, across the river was a grove of giant white pine trees that grew right down to the water edge. Before the party reached this place which was ideal for an ambush, old William Stanley rode his mule up beside two of his sons, and said in low tones so the guards who were riding in front and behind the prisoners would not hear him, “Boys Press and Sam have gone for help. They will ambush this road before we get to Morganton. When a rifle cracks fall under the mule if you can, it is better to be kicked or stepped on than to stop a bullet, pass the word to the others.” The prisoners rode their mules close and told the others what the old man had said.

Within a few minutes after this warning was given while they were riding over the ledge which formed the road bed, bullets began to pour down from behind the big pine trees across the river, where Sam, Press and Baxter Stanley, with Dock, Whitt and Wash Falls were hidden. The prisoners did their best to fall under their mules.

It was said later that Sam and Press fired with deadly intent at the man who was wearing some kind of a gray uniform, without knowing that this Capt. Crowder who feared an ambush had forced Mr. Ortan who was about his size to change clothes with him just before they reached the scene of the ambush. Jim Ortan fell under his mule with two bullets through his body.

Sam and Press were fond of Mr. Ortan who was in some way related to them. One of the home guards, a neighbor of the Stanley’s named John Griffith, was killed and another had his heel shot off. Capt. Crowder and the remainder of his band ran their horses across a hillside covered with small pine bushes. Tradition has it that these pine pushes died where they were pushed over by the men and horses in a mad rush to escape the hail of lead from the men and boys hidden behind the trees across the river.

Men who were there said that Sam and Press Stanley came wading across the river holding their rifles and powder horns above their heads. They came up over the ledge of rock and saw the stream of blood which had run all the way across the road. When they saw that it was Jim Ortan instead of the man they intended to kill on the ground, that they stood over his body while their companions cut the others loose from the mules. They switched their rifles to their left hand, reached out their right hand and gripped hands for a moment and stood without a word, but with lips drawn tight against their teeth in what has always been believed was a silent, solemn pledge to kill every man they could find who had been a part of this home guard band.

The blood of Jim Ortan was believed to have remained on this rock as a pale red stain for ten years. The writer’s grandfather, who was a seven year old boy at the time, told the writer once that the blood streak remained on this rock until he was a grown man.

Sam and Press Stanley fled through the Confederate lines and joined the 13th Tennessee Cavalry. They came back to Georgia when the war ended and started in carrying out their pledge made over the dead body of Mr. Ortan.

One story says that Press killed John Griffeth in the ambush. He is also said to have killed a man named Carter and a man named McClure. Sam killed a man named Joe Beavers on the street in Morganton. Another man name unknown was killed by these men for a total of five men killed within two years of the end of the war. Five men dead as a result of their being driven to take sides and because of the home guard band’s brutal treatment of their family.

These two men fled from Georgia back to North Carolina. There are stories told in both states about the exploits of the two men in the years after the war. They were said to have ridden good horses, dressed in the best clothes available at the time. They wore a pair of pistols buckled around their waists over their clothes. They were both dead shots and bullies of the day kept out of their way.

Country folk dances were about the only recreation that mountain people had for years after the war and the writer talked to a man who said that when Sam and Press Stanley appeared at a party and dismounted from their horses with their guns in plain sight, the young men who recognized them and knew their reputation, left the party, mounted their horses and rode away to avoid an encounter with these two dangerous exsoldiers.

Press Stanley died after three days illness on Big Rock Creek in Mitchell County, North Carolina. His grave is in the Beans Creek Freewill Baptist Church cemetery. There were stories in Georgia among his relatives, that he died from a drink of poisoned whiskey given to him by one of his bitter enemies. Some years ago, Jane Hughes Peck, who had lived on Big Rock Creek went with the writer to the cemetery and pointed out the grave.

This woman, who was the nurse for Press Stanley during this last illness and was with him when he died, when asked about the poisoned whiskey story that the writer has heard many times in Georgia many years before, replied that she did not believe that he was poisoned, but the she believed he died of a ruptured appendix.

Another grave in this cemetery has an inscription that reads Jason Stanley, born 1894, died 1911. He was the son of Jane Hughes Peck and Oliver Stanley son of Swinfield Stanley. She divorced him after the birth of this son and he married Hattie Burlison and brought her to Georgia at the same time his father took all of his family and moved to Fannin County, Georgia. Oliver and Hattie Stanley are buried in the Stanley Creek cemetery.

Jane Hughes Stanley married a man named Peck, several years after she divorced Oliver Stanley and since the interview described above, she died and is buried in the Beans Creek cemetery very near the grave of her son and the grave of Press Stanley.

In this same cemetery there is a stone inscribed with the names of William and Elizabeth Garland. He was born in 1826. These people could have been the parents of Guttridge Garland who married the daughter of Joseph Stanley. According to Hattie Butler, an aged woman who lives at the home of her son on Spring Creek near Buladean, N.C., Gooch or Guttridge Garland married Polly Stanley. Mrs. Butler is a granddaughter of Joseph Stanley.

Evan Hughes, who married Vian Stanley moved to Georgia in 1842. He was killed in 1864 and his wife moved back to North Carolina. She later married a man by the name of Jim Bice. There were two children, names unknown. She is buried at Roan Creek Baptist Church cemetery, Roan Creek, Avery County, North Carolina.

Vian’s Valley in Mitchell County is the present day Lofer’s Glory and was not named for Vian Stanley, but for a pioneer woman named Vian Burleson.

Sam Stanley had three sons, Riley, Clay and John. Clay married a woman named Jones whose family lived on Jacks River in Fannin County, Georgia. A man named As Jones lived on this river and one day Sam and his two sons, John and Clay, went to this home to protest the treatment of a boy who was a relative of Clay’s family. Sam and his sons ordered the women to leave the house so they would not be hurt. In the fight that followed, John was shot in the head and Sam and Jones finished the fight with knives. Jones was cut to pieces. He had 27 cuts on his body.

A trial was held in Morganton, Ga. Sam was not allowed to pay a fine. Both he and John were sentenced to jail, perhaps this sentence was given because he had killed Joe Beavers in this town and had only paid a fine. He and John were lodged in the Morganton jail with Webb Finley, Ben Tilley and four other men to guard the jail. That night the two men escaped and went down on Tennessee River near the junction with Hiwassee. The writer remembers seeing John Stanley at the old Stanley Creek church when taken to that place by his father.

Sam Stanley, as has been stated, moved back to North Carolina. He died in the old soldiers home at Johnson City, Tenn. and the writer has found no record of the burying place of this fighting man who died in a peaceful Tennessee town.

The world is spiraling out of control

So the other day I was paying for a sandwich in Subway. The total was $5.69. I gave him a $10 bill. My change should be $4.31. I'm not paying attention when he says, "Do you need your penny?" Since I wasn't really listening I asked him to repeat what he said. He did. At this point I'm thinking I misheard the original price or something and I just said, "No." Then he handed me four dollars and 30 cents. As I walked out the door I thought to myself, "Did he just ask me if I didn't need all of my change? He did. He asked me if they could keep part of my money." As I drove down the road I kept repeating, "Do you need your penny?!"

A day or two later, in a gas station in New Madrid, MO, I bought a sandwich and drink. The total was something and 18 cents. My change should have been 82 cents. That's easy; I calculated it in my head. She looked like she was having a hard time figuring it out and then she handed me some coins and said, "Your change is 77 cents." Are you kidding me?! I didn't say anything cause I figured she is going to have a rough enough life since she can't do simple math and all.

Later I get a flyer in the mail from a car dealership with a scratch-off thing. I take these things seriously because I have won a free gas card in the past. So I scratch off the thing and it says I'm a winner and I must call this particular number to reserve my prize. I call the number. They tell me my prize has been reserved. I show up the next day at the car lot. The guy askes if I am going to buy a car. I answer, "Probably not. I received this in the mail and it says I'm a winner." The salesman says, "Aww, you're gonna be p***ed just like everybody else. We sent out 500 of these things and somebody earlier today got the last prize." I understand that he is just a salesman and not the manager or the owner. I've had to give bad news to people in the past because someone else messed up so I can sympathize. I didn't argue with this guy. I kind of did want to ask for his manager and reenact the Seinfeld 'Reservation scene'. (If you haven't seen it, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FIpLWUT3yw)

What is wrong with the world??? Can people not count anymore???

Genealogy

So, the past couple of weeks I've been in contact with some distant cousins. Some of them very distant, genetically and geographically. I actually have family living in upstate New York. Not sure how I feel about that...

Anyway, with the closest relative of the lot I've been sharing some pictures and stories about the Stanleys' big move from North Carolina to Georgia. She has in turn sent me some pictures from North Carolina. This is the first time I've seen the area where the Stanleys lived in NC. I have yet to visit there myself, but I hope to one day.

With the more distant cousins I have found a big mistake in what we believed about our family history. Turns out the person I thought was my g-g-g-g-g grandfather was actually the step-brother of my g-g-g-g grandfather. I'm glad to clear things up, but disappointed that the stories we had heard all these years are not entirely accurate.

At least some of the more recent (100-150 years ago) stories are accurate since people in NC who are not family even know these stories by heart. Some of these stories didn't even take place in NC, but the stories made their way there over 100 years ago and remain the same as the ones we tell in GA.

I'm looking forward to learning more about the gaps in my family history and hopefully visiting some of those areas of NC one day.