Excerpts from: Danielsville Monitor, 1916 - Madison County, GA ***************************************************************** USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.rootsweb/~usgenweb/ Submitted by Rita Hand - gaatlanta@aol.com 20 May 2002 ***************************************************************** SKETCHES OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, GEORGIA By Rev. Groves H. Cartledge Copied from a typescript in the possession of Mr. Howard N. M. Floyd, R.F.D. #2, Danielsville, Georgia. This typescript was copied from the original handwritten manuscript of Rev. Cartledge. Some of the information herein was used in HISTORICAL SKETCHES, by Groves H. Cartledge, Athens, Georgia, 1960. This volume contains an autobiography of the Rev. Cartledge. Typescript loaned by Mr. Floyd to Marion R. Hemperley and brought by him to the Georgia Department of Archives and History for copying, November 20, 1967. In HISTORICAL SKETCHES it says "This was originally written in 1885 or 1886, and printed in the Danilesville Monitor in 1916. Copies of the newspaper clippings were donated to the GDAH in 1947, and parts of the articles were included in "Historical Sketches." Jeanne Arguelles Sec. 3 Editor Monitor Dear Sir: I have already stated that among the first settlers of Madison County there were two men with the name William Hodge. One William Hodge was from Pennsylvania and settled on the place now owned and occupied by Marion Henderson, and gave fourteen acres from one corner of his land to New Hope church, on which the church house now stands. He was an elder of the church but went with Allen Leeper to Tennessee in 1806. The other William Hodge was from North Carolina and was also an elder in the church of Pisgah, two miles south of Danielsville, and then when the church was removed and reorganized in Danielsville, he still held the office of elder until his death, which occurred about 1840. He married his cousin, the daughter of the widow Saye. His residence was on the southwest side of Soputh River. His mother-in-law, the widow Saye, settled the place next below Hodge's on the same side of the river. This William Hodge was a very good man but somewhat odd and eccentric in his manners. His case is one of the tens of thousands of cases that prove that persons closely related by blood should not intermarry. As has been said, William Hodge married his cousin. Of his children I knew three very well; Katie, William and Madison. Katie had ordinary sense, was a remarkably good woman but was a little peculiar in appearance and manners. In middle life she became the second wife of old Jim Bell, who afterwards deserted her to take up and run off to North Carolina with Mrs. Thompson, the murderess. But of Bell and the murderess more at another time perhaps. Katie Hodge, or Bell, lived to old age but is now gone to that good world to which all good people go and where there are no old Jim Bells to wrong them. Madison or "Mat" Hodge, as he was usually called had so little sense that his father left his portion of property in the care of a guardian or trustee. Yet, on one occasion at least, he said a very sharp thing. At a district courtground in a crowd, a young man, who tought himself very smart, undertook to draw some sport for himself and companions out of Hodge and began to quiz him to that end. At length Mat wearied of the sport and said to the young man; "Look here! I's a fool and knows it; but you's a fool and don't know it." The laugh of the crowd was turned on the youth and he hushed up. Mat, however, married a very sensible woman, the daughter of Robert Floyd. Both were dead, but I believe the place which was Williams Hodge's old homestead is yet in the possession of some of their children. William Hodge, Jr. was older than his brother, Mat. He also was deficient in judgment and common sense. He never had a guardian but he needed one for he soon squandered his patroimony and for many years lived something of a tramp life from place to place chiefly among his kindred. If I ever heard of his death, I have forgotton it. I saw him in Jackson County some twelve or fourteen years ago. And now I must relate a very strange and said occurrence in which "Bill" Hodge had a chief part. About 36 years ago Bill Hodge was making his home for the time with his cousin, James Thompson, the father of Empraim Thompson. It was winter. James Thompson had banked his potatoes about a hundred and fifty yards from the house. Some time after dark the dogs began to bark and run towards the potato banks. There was negro man run-away lying out in the neighborhood. At length one of the boys remakrked, "that runaway is robbing the potato banks; let us make the dogs catch him". All agreed and as he passed out the door, Bill Hodge reached up and took a loaded rifle in his hand. As they approached the banks the dogs took off in full pursuit and cry as if on a fresh trial. Bill Hodge said, "Boys, I'll shoot off my gun and scare him anyhow." He fired the gun, aiming as he supposed too high to hit anyone. But he did not consider that the ground was ascending in front of him. They followed the dogs and the dogs soon caught the runaway; and the boys immediately took him to his master on the adjoining farm. After their return they went to shut up the potatoes, as it was a cold night, and while there they made a discovery that there were the tracts of two negroes and they had caught but one. Therefore, taking the tract which the dogs did not take, they pursued about a hundred yards then they found a dead negro, the younger brother of the runaway. He was lying on his face and seemed to have fallen dead without a kick. The bullet had struck him plumb in the center of the back of the head. He was not a runaway but had gone with the runaway to rob Mr. Thompson's potato banks. It was a sad occurrence. Bill Hodge was not prosecuted. At some future time I will try to tell more of Old Jim Bell and the bloody murderess, Mrs. Thompson. The Thompson's Alexander Thompson and his two sons, James and William, were from Burke County, NC and settled on the South Fork of Broad River about 1790. Alexander Thompson located on the place now owned and occupied by his grandson, Dr. Berry M. Thompson, and build the first mill on the place. He was a man then somewhat advanced in life. His oldest son, James, settled the place opposite his on the west side of the river, the same placed owned by his grandson, Ephraim Thoompson, James Thompson had, in his young manhood, fought the British and tories at the Cowpens, King's Mountain and Guilford Court House. He married after the war, Sarah, the daughter of the widow Saye, whose husband had been killed in the Battle of Savannah, Ga. On the 9th of October, 1779. James Thompson's wife, Sarah, died in old age about 1840. She was an excellent woman with some peculiar ways. Early in this century it became fashionable for ladies to wear tall bell-crowned beaver hats. Mrs. Thompson fell into the prevailing fashion and when the fashion changed, she would not change with it. As late as 1836 I have seen Mrs. Thompson in New Hope church wearing her tall bell crown beaver hat. Speaking of hats reminds me to say that amont the early settlers there were a number of good hatters and that excellent hats of both fur and wool were made in Madison County as late as 1825. James Thompson and his wife, Sarah, raised two sons and several daughters. Two of their daughters became the wives of two Carrington's, the sons of Rev. Timothy Carrington, a Baptist minister and perhaps the first pastor of Lystra Church. From these two daughters of James Thompson have sprung numerous Carrington's now residing in Madison County and elsewhere. James Thompson's youngest daughter, then somewhat advanced in life, became the wife of John Bell of Hall County, Georgia, a nephew of old Jim Bell, of whom more anon. James Thompson's oldest son, Alexander, settled the place on which John Hopkins lived and died. He was a most excellent man and was one of the first elders of the Presbyterian Church of Danielsville before its removal to town, when it stood two miles south of town and was known as Pisgah Church. About 1820, Alexander Thompson, Jr., son of James Thompson, sold his place near Danielsville to Mr. Towns and removed to Mississippi and the subsequent history of him and his family is unknown to me. James Thompson's youngest son, bore his father's name and inherited his father's farm. Many people yet living remember James Thompson, Jr., sometimes called "Red-headed Jimmie" to distinguish him from his cousin of the same name and sometimes called him "Old Summertime" for what reason I never knew. James Thompson, Jr. was a most excellent man and at the same time the most eccentric and waggish man I ever knew. To illustrate his goodness I will relate what I know. After the death of his good old wife, James Thompson, Sr. became helpless as a little baby and had to be nursed and fed as a little child. For ten or twelve years he lay upon his bed in that helpless condition with no family except negroes to wait upon him. James Thompson, Jr. resided nearly a mile distance and had a farm and negroes of his own as well as a wife and children to look after, and also his father's farm and negroes and all his father's business to see after and at the same time to nurse and take care of his old and helpless father. With a faithful old female slave to help him, James Thompson, Jr. fed, nursed and cared for his father for ten or twelve years, and during that whole time never spent a whole night in his own house. After eating his supper at home, he went to his father's and remained until about two o'clock, when, if the old man seemed to be resting well, he went home to his bed. Eight or nine o'clock he rose and ate his breakfast and during the rest of the day attended to his own and his father's business and farms, making at least one visit to his father's bedside during the day. This was his regular routine for ten or twelve years. Few sons ever manifested greater filial respect and affection. For several of those ten or twelve years the writer was the young paster of James Thompson, Jr. and numbered him among his special friends as long as his life lasted. Another anecdote. In the beginning of the year 1865 James Thompson had a large store of corn for sale, which he was selling to poor soldiers' families for money or no money. When the Confederacy and Confederate money went down together in April that year and the poor Confederates came straggling home in rags, and with no money, James Thompson continued to sell his corn to the returning soldiers and to the families of soldiers, for money or no money. One of the Thompson's neighbors, who was running a still, heard that Thompson was selling corn at a dollar a bushel in greenbacks, and wishing to keep his still running when he knew there was hardly enough corn in the country to feed the people, visited Thompson for the purpose of buying up all his corn. "Mr. Thompson," said his neighbor, "I understand that you have corn to sell" "Yes", cam the answer. "What is your price?" "I have two prices. To my neighbors and to the returned soldiers and to the soldiers' families who want corn for bread, my price is one dollar, money or no money. But to you and such as you, who want to buy corn to boil into whiskey, my price is five dollars a bushel in gold, cash down." Section 7. The Thompsons I will now give one or two anecdotes illustrative of his waggery. When James Thompson, Jr. was a young man, before his marriage he followed the wagon a good edeal. His father always had the best waggon and the best team in Madison County. Perhaps some old people yet living besides the writer may remember the huge horses that James Thompson, Sr. had from 1835 to 1845. Thompson then called to a negro man at work in a field about two hundred yards distant and said: "Bill, O Bill, run here quick, quick, be in a hurry, I tell you." When the man came up panting, Thompson said to him, "I am going to the house to get my measure to measure up some corn for those men and I want you to go and stand right before the crip door while I'm gone, and keep those men from stealing my corn. For they say they have some red rum in their wagon and I have heard it said that any man that will drink rum will steal." James Thompson, Jr. raised three daughters and four sons. Of his four sons, only the third one, Ephraim remains. Samuel, James and William died in the service of the Southern Confederacy. The two latter left posterity as well as widows, who remarried and still live. Samuel left a childless widow, who is the sister of the writer; their only child having died in childhood before her father. Mrs. Mary McCurdy, whose husband died in the army. Mrs. Sarah Gloer, wife of Joseph Gloer, and Mrs. Permesia Barnet are daughters of James Thompson, Jr. William Thompson, a younger brother of James Thompson, Sr. and son of Alexander Thompson, Sr. must have been only a lad when his father brought him to Georgia about 1790. He married in Georgia and inherited his mother's farm and mills. He lived to be an old man and died within the memory of many now living, his youngest son, Dr. Harry M. Thompson now owns and occupies the same place. William Thompson raised a large family. His sons were John A., Ansel, William, James and Berry M. Thompson. His daughters were Elizabeth, wife of Amos Carithers now a widow advanced in years, the wife of James Carithers, but her name I cannot recall. Mary who was the first wife of John A. McCurdy and Harriet the widow of Merit Landers. John A. Thompson was sheriff of Madison County many years, and latterly, his sons, I believe has been sherriff. Many of William Thompson's posterity are still in Madison County and are good citizens, while other have gone westward.