Wiley's "Indian War" Service Record

     Back on September 4th, I wrote about my trip to the Atlanta branch of the National Archives.  There, I found the service record index card for my 4x Great Grandfather, Wiley Powell.  Using the information from that card, I submitted a research request via the National Archive's online research request form.  I filled out the form on September 4th and only 15 days later, they shipped my records.

     I was a little disappointed in the records I received; this three page service record:

     The information that I did receive will allow me to further research what exactly my ancestor was doing during his service.  Unfortunately, it's not exactly uplifting.

     Wiley Powell joined the 1st Georgia Militia, Bowman's Company, on 16 May 1838 in New Echota, Georgia.   This date coincides with the May 23rd deadline for Cherokee Indians to voluntarily relocate to Indian Territory and New Echota was the Cherokee's capital.  It's pretty much certain that Wiley was involved in rounding up the Cherokee who did not voluntarily leave on their own.

     You never like to find out upsetting things about your ancestors.  However, facts are facts and there's no point burying the information.  I plan to do more research on the 1st Georgia Militia and Bowman's Company to find out more about Wiley's activities during this tragic time.

Our House is a Very, Very, Very Fine House

Week 5 of the Book of Me, Written by You blog prompt series.

     The house that I consider my childhood home isn't the one we lived in when I was born.  We only lived at that house until I was a few weeks old, so I often forget about it entirely.

     Instead, I consider "The Duplex" on Cruse Road to be my childhood home.  It was right on the corner of Cruse Road, a busy two lane surface street, and... some other road that lead into the subdivision. Being the first house on the entrance of a subdivision, we had a large yard with one of those big brick neighborhood signs.  People pretty often ran into it, and my parents didn't like my siblings and I to play in the yard unaccompanied.

     My favorite memory of this house has got to be the back patio (and by patio I mean the the barely 5x5 concrete slab off the kitchen door).  The back yard couldn't have been deeper than 10 feet before it dropped into a wooded swampy area.  Every spring the backyard would be flooded by tiny little frogs.  I love frogs!  One year, McDonald's was on an environmental kick and was giving out seeds and tiny greenhouses in their happy meals.  I remember catching a frog and keeping it in the tiny plastic greenhouse for a few minutes.  Frogs!

     We moved out of the duplex when I was in third grade, but I do have a number of fond memories of living in that house.  Here are some photos of those times:

Babies on the porch

Our tiny garden

Our first bikes

The Most Memorable Season: Fall

Week 4 of the Book of Me, Written by You blog prompt series.

     Thinking back on childhood memories, I think some of my fondest occurred in the fall. Sure, Summer is fun - but the heat! The sunburns! Spring is nice, but kinda boring actually. And winter is fun with scarves and mittens and the chance to build a snowman about once in five years; but in the end it's too cold. But Fall? It's just about perfect.

     When I was a kid, Fall started off all about Halloween and leaves falling. Because you know the two go together. There were a few years where we got those big orange trash bags with pumpkin faces on them. We'd get together with some of the neighbor kids and get the leaves out of everyone's yard and -viola- giant pumpkin! Add some tissue paper ghosts and paper skeletons to the yard and you're good to go! 

     At school, we always got to do fun little fall themed project.  We made paper pumpkins for Halloween, as well as a variety of Thanksgiving projects such as "pilgrims and indians" and this adorable hand-print turkey from when I was 5 years old.

     Fall also signifies the beginning of the family holidays. My maternal family always got together for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.  It's not the same now, so I look on back fondly on those memories today.

     And finally, in Georgia, Fall doesn't necessarily equal cool weather. But it usually does equal not hot weather. And regardless of the temperature, the leaves will turn and you'll get the longer shadows all day. Even if it doesn't feel like fall, it will look like it!

     And finally, when the weather does start to turn cold, you get to drink hot chocolate. With marshmallows.

A Biography Disguised as a Pension Record

     I have been meaning, for years, to put together an application for the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).  I had one line that I was going to pursue, but upon seeing the pension application that his children submitted, I had some doubts as to his service.  Since then, I've decided to pursue an alternative ancestor: John Cash.

     John Cash applied for a pension in 1832, when he was 75 years old.  Thanks to this pension application, I know about his military service: dates, locations, jobs, etc.  But what really surprised me was the amount of information that I learned about the rest of John's life.

     John's application is mainly about his service, but does also detail where he lived and when he moved.  I now know that John and family lived in Amherst and Bedford Counties, Virginia, and moved to Elbert County, Georgia, in 1802.  But where the really good stuff comes in is actually after his death, when his wife and then his children apply to continue the pension for themselves.

     Take this portion of his wife, Lucy's, application for example:

     The document gives the date of John and Lucy's marriage, "as well as remembered," her birth date, and her husband's birth date.  The very next page states that these dates were recorded in a family Bible, but that it was lost in a house fire in December of 1831.  However, Lucy does remember that she and John were married by a traveling minister in the home of Charles Rore and that the marriage was not recorded with the government.

     As the documents go on (73 pages!), this lack of legally recorded marriage becomes a problem.  The family Bible was the only recording of the the couple's marriage and the children's births.  Government recorded vital records just aren't available for this time. Eventually, Lucy does receive a pension, but it's unclear if the children ever received benefits.

     Probably the most interesting document is one regarding the burning of the Cash family home.  The document itself is not dated, but other documents in the file state the the house burned in December of 1831.  The family was petitioning the community of McDonough, Georgia for charitable donations to support the elderly couple and their unmarried daughters.  The petition is followed by a list of those in the community who donated a dollar or so each to help the family.

     I am a bit concerned that this pension application, which mentions John and Lucy's children, does not mention their son and my ancestor, Moses Cash.  However, Moses is listed as one of John's children in his will.  

     When I started organizing documents for this line, I also realized that I was missing some pretty basic documents.  What do you mean I don't have death certificates for my 3x Great Grandmother and 2x Great Grandfather?  I'd simply never needed them to confirm the family line and hadn't ordered them.  I've started to do so now, and hopefully I won't procrastinate too much longer and can work on my DAR application.