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
Tracing more
Townsend ties
With the disaster of Katrina and
that
hurricane’s aftermath, the thousands dislodged from their homes, the
hundreds
injured and killed, and with statistics and losses still rising, it is
difficult to pull away from reports of the present catastrophe long
enough to
return to a quieter time and trace connections through the mists of
time.
The ties to Eli Townsend and
Sarah
Elizabeth (Sally) Dyer Townsend’s descendants are so numerous that to
trace
them all would take a long book. For the benefit of this short column,
I will
focus today on a child of Eli and Sally’s first child, Andrew (Andrew
Crockett
Townsend, Sr.) and trace connections through Andrew’s sixth child,
Elizabeth,
who married William Jackson Shuler.
E l i z a b e t h Townsend
Shuler (Feb. 1,
1861-June 9, 1947) grew up in a household of seven children. They were
the
children of Andrew Townsend (1826-?) and
Malinda Ingram Townsend (1829-1903). Malinda’s parents were John Little
Ingram
and Mary “Polly” Cagle Ingram. The marriage of Andrew and Malinda
brought
together two early-settler families of Union County.
Elizabeth’s siblings were
Thompson L.
(known as “Bud”) Townsend; Thomas Simpson (known as “Simp”) Townsend
who
married Ruthie West and Wilda Hood; Nancy J. Townsend (who married
Thomas N.
England); Amanda Jane (who married Enoch Chapman Hood).; Andrew
Crockett Jr.
(who married Myra Anne Duckworth, Mary Duckworth, and Mary Hunter); and
Clarasie Townsend (who married Joshua Columbus Fortenberry).
The story of Elizabeth Townsend
Shuler and
William Jackson Shuler is told in the book by their third child, the
Rev.
Edward Leander Shuler, entitled Blood
Mountain: An Historical Story about Choestoe and Choestoeans. To
the union of Elizabeth and Jack Shuler were born 14 children, all but
two of
whom grew to adulthood and married. Two sets of twin girls were among
the 14
children. The children grew into productive citizens, two becoming
ministers,
five choosing to be teachers and the others following other vocations.
In order of birth the 14
children were:
Allen Candler Shuler (April 19, 1883-Sept. 1, 1967) married Lillian
Lipscomb
and Louise Rogers. William T. (Sept 8, 1884-April 16, 1901) died at age
16;
Edward Leander (March 15, 1886-?) married Laura Collins (sister to Dr.
M.D.
Collins, Georgia’s long-time State Superintendent of Schools); Benjamin
Franklin (Feb. 14, 1888-March 7, 1978) married Gertrude Wilson (March
27,1892-March 6, 1980). They were educators, she teaching mainly at
Union
County High School and Frank serving for 20 years as Superintendent of
Union
County Schools. He was a founding director of the Union County Bank.
Andrew
Harve (1889-?) married Ophelia Maddox. Della (1891 ?) married J. M.
Chastain.
Lydia Jane (1893-1967) married Lester Stovall. Ruth (1894-1948) married
Epp L.
Russell. Ada and Ida, twins, (born April 21, 1897, death dates
unknown); Ada
married Ralph Cavender and Ida married Herbert Jones. Alice (March 27,
1899-March 21, 1989) married James I. Wilson, a brother to her
sister-in-law,
Gertrude Wilson Shuler. Henry Grady (Dec. 31, 1900 ? June 16, 1901) was
buried
at Union Baptist Church Cemetery. Twins Myrtle and Bert, known as Mert
and
Bert, were born February 10, 1904. Mert married Watson Collins. She was
a
teacher. She died January 29, 1988. Bert married Joseph Warnie Dyer.
She died
May 31, 1987. The twins Mert and Bert and their spouses were interred
at the
Choestoe Baptist Church Cemetery.
In his book recounting life at
the Jack
Shuler farm along the Logan Turpike, Edward Shuler tells about the
Ponder Post
Office being in a portion of their house and of travelers stopping by
to spend
the night and take the supper meal and breakfast with the Shulers and
rest
their mules or horses before going on to Blairsville or to Cleveland,
depending
on whether they were traveling north or south. The Shuler boys helped
their
father keep the Logan Turnpike, the major trade route in those days, in
repair
by removing brush, filling in potholes, and shoring up the roadbed.
Never
knowing when guests might arrive unannounced, Elizabeth Townsend Shuler
always
seemed ready to give them a good mountain meal of cured meat,
vegetables,
cornbread and biscuits, and fruit cobbler or apple stack cake for
dessert. Jack
Shuler also had a country store. He and his wife were founding members
of the
Union Baptist Church.
Even though their formal
education was only
in the oneteacher schools of the communities where they grew up, they
were
ambitious for their children to get an education. The girls went to the
Blairsville Collegiate Institute. The boys attended Hiawassee Academy.
Beyond
these institutions, the children on their own pursued further college
education. Two sons, Allen Candler and Benjamin Franklin served in
World War I
and were deployed to France.
When surveying was in progress
for the
right-of-way for Highway 129, Jack Shuler “walked many miles with the
surveyors
over the hollows and around the cliffs out in the Blue Ridge…on Oak
Mountain
…above Harkins old fields over in White County…at Tesnatee Gap…by Cow
Rock and
Camp Branch to Frogtown Gap…northward along Wolf Creek and down under
Blood
Mountain.” (Shuler, “Blood Mountain,” p. 142) The road was finished and
opened
in 1925. It took the place of the old Logan Turnpike, and the laborious
work
Mr. Shuler and his boys had done to keep the old road open was no
longer
necessary. Jack Shuler built his third house in “Lower Choestoe” close
to the
new highway, but he always longed to return to the Hood Chapel and
Union Church
Community where he and Elizabeth Townsend Shuler had reared their large
family.
They were interred in the cemetery at Union Church. Their tombstones
read:
Elizabeth Townsend Shuler (Feb. 1, 1861Jun. 9, 1947); William Jackson
Shuler
(June 14, 1860-July 4, 1936).
[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.]
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