Mitchell County Georgia - Biography - Rev. John Levi Underwood 1836 - 1907 ********************************************************************************************** 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.usgwarchives.net ********************************************************************************************** This file contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Charlene Parker" Oct 2002 From "History of Bethel Association Including Centennial Meeting", by Alexander Lee Miller Rev. John Levi Underwood, son of Launcelot Viverett and Martha Thomas Underwood, was born in Sumterville, Sumpter County, Alabama, March 28, 1836. In his youth he enjoyed the best educational advantages offered by the schools and academies of the time. In 1846 he was converted at the age of ten and was baptized the next year into the fellowship of the Baptist church at Black Hawk, Mississippi. He entered Oglethorpe University, which was then located at Milledgeville, Georgia, in 1853 where he graduated with first honors in 1855. When he returned to Alabama in 1849, he removed his membership to Newborn Church, Greene County, by which church he was licensed to preach in 1857. His father was an elder in the Presbyterian church at Livingston, Alabama and this step of his young son was a disappointment to him as he had been ambitious for him to study law. After having had charge of the Newborn Academy, Alabama for two years, in 1857 he entered the Theological Seminary, Columbia, South Carolina, where he enjoyed, above every other opportunity there, the tutorage of the great Presbyterian divine, Dr. J. H. Thornwell. Completing the course there in 1859 he went to Europe, hoping to spend four years in study, but after one year at the University of Heidlebert, Germany, the War between the States seemed so imminent that he changed his plans and hurried to Paris where he studied at the Sorbonne until the declaration of war in 1861. On his return he landed in New York and, to escape being taken prisoner by the "yankees" he spoke only French until he crossed the Mason and Dixon line. His first act after reaching the States was to go to the home of Mr. Joel Curry at Currytown, Edgefield District, S. C. where he was married to Miss Amy Curry, a sister of his beloved friend Rev. William Lewis Curry, who was a fellow student at the Theological Seminary. Mr. Underwood and his bride then went to the home of his father in Sumpter County, Alabama. During the summer of 1861 he took charge of a school and church at Homewood, Mississippi, where he was ordained in the autumn of that year. The War between the States had assumed such proportions by this time that he felt it his duty to enlist against the foe, so the day following his ordination he went to Mobile where he enlisted as a private in the 20th Alabama Regiment under Col. Q. W. Garrett. In 1863 while at Vicksburg he was commissioned a Chaplain of the 30th Alabama Regiment under Col. Shelby. He was at Vicksburg all the while during the siege and contracted typhoid fever which so weakened his constitution that he was compelled to resign from the army in December, 1863. After a few months he took charge of a school at Currytown and a church at Red Oak, Edgefield District, South Carolina. Mrs. Underwood continued her studies under her husband and took special interest in the study of French. He regained his health so rapidly that he again enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army and was under General Wright, and did active service in front of General Sherman when he marched through Georgia. After the war John Levi Underwood settled in Decatur County, Georgia, and accepted the pastorate of the Bainbridge Baptist Church, serving also Milford and Red Bluff. During the years 1867, 1868 and 1869 he was pastor of the Cuthbert Baptist Church. He served also as pastor of the churches of Springvale, Bluffton and other churches within the bounds of the Bethel Association. He served the churches at Cairo and Boston for a number of years; also Ocklocknee and others. The Foreign Mission Board employed him to travel in Texas in the year 1871, which time he spent in the then sparsely settled country near Houston, and traveled on horseback with his saddle bags for carrying his personal effects and the necessities for his work. After returning to his country home in Decatur County he plowed his own fields and served weak country churches until the fall of 1871 when he received a call to the churches of Camilla, Evergreen, and Mount Enon in Mitchell County. In the year 1876 Rev. J. L. Underwood was appointed Chairman of a committee to bring in a report the following year to the Georgia Baptist Convention making suggestions as to meeting the problems then facing Georgia Baptists regarding the "state Mission task" and the "eliciting, combining and directing" of the funds for the ongoing of the Kingdom in Georgia. On Monday, April 23, 1877, the seven men composing the committee met at Gainesville, Georgia and submitted their report to the Georgia Baptist Convention which was then in session at Gainesville. As a result the "Mission Board of the Georgia Baptist Convention" was organized. There are many Georgia Baptists today who are yet grateful to Mr. Underwood for his services toward the inauguration of a system of state missions. About this time Mr. Underwood bought a farm one and one-half miles south of Camilla where he lived for thirty years. He reared a large family, eight daughters and five sons, who did most of the work necessary about the home. "Pearland," as he called his home, was surrounded by all kinds of fruits, flowers and vegetables that helped to make it one of the happiest homes in the whole section. Mrs. Underwood had enjoyed the best musical education in her girlhood and assisted greatly in the education of her children, all of whom have become useful musicians wherever they have lived. A frequent visitor to "Pearland" has said that "Whoever crossed its threshold remembered it with pleasure. It was a place where luxuriant wealth was a stranger, where frugality and economy were practiced but where culture, refinement and the graces of mind and heart were diligently encouraged and cultivated. There was no home in Georgia where the friend received a more cordial welcome or the stranger was made to feel more thoroughly at ease." For many years Mr. Underwood was an active Trustee of Mercer University, which institution conferred on him the degree of Master of Arts. He very often received calls from stronger churches and offers of professorships at colleges, but he was satisfied with the happy surroundings of his country home and felt that God had definitely called him to serve among the country people of southwest Georgia, which section he loved as much as he prized the healthfulness of her balmy breezes. After fourteen years of service as pastor of the Camilla Baptist Church he resigned. Finding it impossible to provide the necessary funds to support and educate his large family by his ministerial efforts he resorted again to the school-room and writing. About the year 1881 he founded "The Camilla Clarion," of which paper he was the sole proprietor and editor for eight years. Through its columns he was untiring in his efforts in the advocacy of local option prohibition, and it was largely through his influence and that of his paper that Mitchell was the first county in the state to carry for prohibition. Mr. Underwood also studied Law, and in 1885 he began the practice of law and was very successful, being appointed in 1891, Judge of the County Court of Mitchell. However busy during the week in this profession and practice he was always found on Sundays preaching either to country or village churches, or to the poor and negroes. Few men have had a stronger hold on the better class of colored people. Judge Underwood was a man of fluent speech and delivered many lectures in his section of the state, one of the best of which was his "Eulogy on Confederate Women" delivered for the benefit of the Confederate Monument in Cuthbert, Georgia in 1895. He was chosen president of Bethel College in Cuthbert in 1895 and he and his daughter, Miss Don, taught there. He was especially fond of young people and was very tactful in his dealings with them, wielding an enduring influence for good wherever his life touched theirs. There are those living today, who, as laborers in his Master's vineyard, claim that by his faithful teaching and the living example of his nearness to his Savior they are better men for having had the privilege of contact with him. "He was a man of a happy disposition, evidenced in every walk in life, which had its foundation in his unfaltering faith in God, which faith remained the same in the sunshine and shadows of an eventful life." In 1906 Mr. Underwood published "The Women of the Confederacy," a splendid volume of more than three hundred pages in which he "presented the heroism of the women of the Confederate States and accounts of their trials during the four years of war and the fourteen years of Reconstruction, with their ultimate triumph over adversity." In the strength and vigor of manhood, before he began to feel the weakening approach of old age, he was afflicted with a lip cancer. On account of his affliction he moved his family to Blakely. He spent the greater part of the last three years of his life in Kellam Hospital, Richmond, Virginia, where his "life went out as a candle" on June 6, 1907, and he sleeps in the cemetery at Blakely. Quoting from his writings he said "In this simple presence (his closet of prayer) of a gracious, living God, this hospital for months of unmeasured pain, has proved a palace to my soul. Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise. Praise God for the anchor, Hope, that entered within the veil and binds the storm-tossed soul to His very throne." A beautiful life ended. His "works do follow." ======|==================================|========================================|========================================| | Free 1840 Sumter County Al page 154 | Male | Female | | 0 5 10 15 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 | 0 5 10 15 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 | LINE | Firstname Lastname | 5 10 15 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 . | 5 10 15 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 . | ======|==================================|========================================|========================================| 4 | Martha W Underwood | 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 1850 Sumter Co. Al page 271 220 Launcelot V. Underwood 41 NC Merchant William E. 24 NC Clerk 1850 Greene Co. Al page 254 164- Benjamin F. Herndon 32 NC physician Martha T. T. 23 Al Green J. 4 MS John H. 7/12 AL Martha W. Underwood 46 GA Julia A. Cobb 17 AL John L. Underwood 13 AL Jane Rath? 55 England 1860 Sumter Co. Al Sumterville page 595 225-L. V. Underwood 51 NC m Merchant Emma C. 42 Va f Mary E. 6 AL f D. L. 4 AL m John L. Underwood 24 AL m Baptist Minister W. T. Harrell 17 Va m Clerk James D. Harrell 15 Va m Clerk 1880 Mitchell C. GA District 46, District 791 And 1194, Mitchell, Georgia Name Relation Marital Status Gender Race Age Birthplace Occupation Father's Birthplace Mother's Birthplace Jno. L. UNDERWOOD Self M Male W 44 AL Farmer And Teacher NC GA Amy UNDERWOOD Wife M Female W 37 SC Keeping House SC SC Martha UNDERWOOD Dau S Female W 16 SC Attending School AL SC Mary UNDERWOOD Dau S Female W 14 GA Attending School AL SC Amy UNDERWOOD Dau S Female W 12 GA Attending School AL SC Elizabeth UNDERWOOD Dau S Female W 11 GA Attending School AL SC Ida UNDERWOOD Dau S Female W 9 GA AL SC Sarah UNDERWOOD Dau S Female W 8 GA AL SC Ann UNDERWOOD Dau S Female W 6 GA AL SC John UNDERWOOD Son S Male W 2 GA AL SC William UNDERWOOD Son S Male W 11M GA AL SC William J. SMITH Other S Male W 24 GA Farm Laborer GA GA Booker COEN Other S Male B 21 SC Farm Laborer SC SC 1920 Early Co. Ga ed 69 sheet 11 235 John Underwood 42 m GA AL SC head Emmie 43 f Ga Ga GA wife Tom 19 m Ga Ga GA son John Jr. 16 m Ga Ga GA son William 12 m Ga GA Ga son Petrina 9 f Ga GA GA dau Laura Howard 65 f Ga Ga GA mother in law Alabama Marriages: William D. Underwood Clivia E. Godfrey 08 Jun 1853 Sumter County Thomas R. Underwood Emma Jane Hendon 21 Nov 1854 Sumter County J. B. Underwood Bettie Larkin 03 Dec 1866 Sumter County B. S. Dozier Mary E. Underwood 11 Oct 1875 Sumter County D. L. Underwood Mollie J. Mason 14 Apr 1881 Sumter County Amy Curry Underwood named in Elizabeth J. Curry's will at http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/mitchell/wills/curry.txt GA Marriages BROWN, R. E. UNDERWOOD, AMY 12-Feb 1890 GA Mitchell HOGIS, C. S. UNDERWOOD, IDA 22-Dec 1896 GA Mitchell SPENCE, R. E. L. UNDERWOOD, BRUCE 30-Jun 1896 GA Mitchell TWITTY, WILLIAM CASWELL UNDERWOOD, MARTHA THOMAS 20-Dec 1882 GA Mitchell Blakely Cemetery Early Co. GA Plot 17 Lot 1 Underwood, Amy Carry 31 July 1843 19 Nov 1921 Underwood, Emmie Howard 22 Nov 1876 26 Nov 1947 Wife of John Underwood Underwood, Eugenia E. 23 Mar 1881 4 Apr 1926 Underwood, John Levi 27 Mar 1836 7 June 1907 Confederate Soldier Underwood, Robert Meriweather 10 Feb 1883 25 July 1928 Plot 18 Lot 1 Albany Herald, Saturday, June 17, 1899 "Marriage at Blakely - Mr. Jno. L. Underwood, Jr. Weds Miss Emmie Howard" Blakely, Ga. June 12 - (Special) - Last night, at the residence of the bride's parents, Dr. and Mrs. T. M. Howard, Miss Emmie Howard and Mr. Jno. L. Underwood, Jr. were united in the holy bonds of matrimony. Rev. W. H. Patterson performing the ceremony. The marriage was a very quiet one indeed, only a few relatives of the contracting parties witnessing the ceremony. Miss Howard is the only child of Dr. and Mrs. Howard and is a young lady of rare beauty and many accomplishments. Mr. Underwood is one of the managers of the Surprise Store and is one of Blakely's most worthy and energetic young men. Georgia Death Index Name: John L Underwood Death Date: 21 Nov 1965 Race: W Gender: M County of Death: Early Certificate: 033099 Age: 88 years County of Residence: Early Name: Emmie H Underwood Death Date: 26 Nov 1947 Race: W Gender: F County of Death: Early Certificate: 23562 Age: 71 years County of Residence: Early