Journeys

Kin present & past
August 4, 2015

Wending our way back to Tryon to spend a few days with Mom again leaves us with nice memories of relatives - the current kind and the very long-ago ones.

Still in Georgia before we returned to North Carolina, we greatly enjoyed spending time with two of Chris’ first cousins and their families. We were honored that the clan gathered for our visit, and what a gracious and cordial group they were. Very fun also to be with the children who were just as loving as could be; interesting that as soon as Chris began to play the piano, they grouped themselves in the room to listen.

There's a real rogue's gallery!

Our day with the family was a welcome respite from being on the road, lovely to relax and revel in that welcoming family atmosphere - the bonus was the feast that left us more than sated.

We had chosen Bishop, Georgia, for our stay to be centrally located for visiting with our kinfolk and to be do ancestral research in counties the other direction.

In the course of our research, we became very well acquainted with the veritable web of two-lane byways that criss-cross that region. The area has a wealth of delightful small towns filled with well-kept enchanting historical neighborhoods - one after the other, each one calling to me to settle there to sit on an inviting wrap-around veranda and sip sweet tea.

With all the hiking we’ve been doing, I probably could have lost some weight were it not for the gallons of sweet tea I have consumed in the meantime. And then there’s the buttermilk pie - wowza - thank goodness that has tempted me only once, but a memorable once it was - at Yesterday’s Cafe in Greensboro.

We also ventured to Athens, the home of the University of Georgia, a very happening place, hundreds of attractive historical buildings, commercial and residential, and bustling with tourist and student activity alike.

Revolutionary . . .

Knowing that our Patrick Vance participated in the Battle of Kettle Creek during the American Revolution, we went to War Hill, the site of that engagement. It is a little-known, little-visited place, a lonely prominence at the end of a long gravel road through the forest. One other couple arrived shortly after we did: an interesting encounter - he flies the Memphis Belle for the Commemorative Air Force.

I can never quite wrap my mind around what Revolutionary times must have been like for individuals. I tend to think of it as evolving from political discussions with friends to disagreements, arguments and eventually to out-and-out warfare between neighbors, whether they were wiling to fight for independence from England as Patriots or sided with the home country as Loyalists. Surely the latter group might have viewed the other as traitorous, and just as surely, it had to be terrifying as a Patriot to think of the odds they were facing to go to war against British troops.

In the case of the encounter at Kettle Creek, no British troops were involved. Patriot militias, of which Vance was a part, were deployed to stop the march of Tories who had been recruited to join the British. The battle prevented them from joining the regular troops and was decisive in preventing English domination in the Colony of Georgia.

War Hill memorials to the American Patriots who fought at the Battle of Kettle Creek.

The battle is worth reading about: it is probably more representative of what transpired during the American Revolution than are those better-known engagements. When all was said and done at War Hill, the Loyalists had 70 killed or wounded and 150 men captured. Some of those who were captured were later convicted of treason and hanged. Nine of the Patriots were killed and 23 wounded or missing.

Settlement Road . . .

The militia advance toward War Hill as they pursued the Loyalists was via what is today a seldom-used two-track through the forest. We were able to drive on a part of it, following the same route that my ancestor marched. It was an exhilarating experience to follow in his footsteps, so to speak.

Settlement Road, so named for its access to a tiny back-woods village near Hammett's Farm, where 1770s British supporters stole cattle to butcher on War Hill before they were ambushed and defeated by American Patriots.

Burials none . . .

We came away from our library research time with paper enough to keep us busy for quite a spell analyzing and charting the family history material. One of our finds was the location of property owned by our Owen ancestor: it was described as on the east bank of the Oconee River just below the big shoal, which is now called Barnett Shoals. That river drop-off marked the final navigable place upstream on the Oconee.

We typically attempt to locate ancestral burial sites and to place flowers to honor them; however, we have not found Patrick & Sarah (Harrington) Vance, although they may have continued on to Kentucky, nor William & Drucilla (Echols) Owen, whom we think are in Georgia. It is also possible that some of their parents also went to Georgia from Virginia.

We walked one churchyard that dated early enough - 1780s - for them, and it has an Echols memorial in it. We do know that some of Lydia's Echols kin remained in the area; that stone is most likely a memorial for relatives, but none of the individual markers were legible, so we can't be sure.

The church itself was striking, amazingly preserved for one so old that is no longer in regular use, although it is evidently kept up for special events.

Scull Shoals . . .

How permanent we think we are on this Earth; yet we visited another example that illustrates just the opposite. Scull Shoals was a bustling community on the Oconee River. The village was tucked up on the river bank where its mill could be powered water. Workers accessed the mill via a beautifully constructed arched brick bridge.

This picturesque brick bridge arches over the canal that carried water to power the 1800s mills at Scull Shoals.

The Oconee there was bridged by a toll road, now nothing left but an unrecognizable pile of rubble - a mid-stream rock pier.

Portions of the warehouse's walls, grown over by leafy vines, and collapsed piles of brick marking the site of the supervisor's home are virtually all that is left of this once-lively enterprise and town.

Many communities have come and gone; however, I am surprised at how quickly Scull Shoals melted down into little more than a grassy forest clearing.

It was populated as late as the 1930s, yet archaelogical excavations are necessary to find its remains.

Covered bridges, birds . . .

Another covered bridge - this one from 1897 constructed to access the Elder Mill, but moved from its original location over Calls Creek in 1924 when the road was rerouted.

It was interesting to see how the Elder Bridge's framework was joined by wooden pins. The chalk notations evidently were made when the structure was taken down for moving.

It gets increasingly difficult to identify birds that we haven't already seen on this long foray across the country. In Bishop's environs, we spotted gray catbird and chipping sparrow. During a long country road wander, a lone killdeer opted, like the proverbial chicken, to cross in front of us; otherwise, we would not have gotten him, and that led my eye to who was flitting around over a grass pasture where we saw our first eastern bluebird perched atop a fence post.