POLK COUNTY, GA - History John W. Stark Home ***************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm *********************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Diane Sanfilippo This is my own interpretation of the home that my great grandparent's built just before the war - it is verified by an interview with my great-grandmother, Rebecca Malcom Stark for the Dalton newspaper. There is an old house in Dalton, GA on the main highway south of town. Here, newlyweds John W. Stark and Rebecca Malcom Stark built their home on land that her father, John Malcom received during one of the land grant draw as an orphan of a Revolutionary soldier. Old James had been a private during the Rev war and lived in Augusta County, Virginia at the time - he fought in the Battle of Guildford with Capt. John Dickey's Company, but after the war the family moved to Georgia. It was not long after John and Rebecca's first child was born in May of 1859 that the heated conversations between north and south, slavery and anti-slavery, and state's rights to decide which way their state would be handle the issue, that the only logical conclusion became war. War between brothers, uncles, fathers and sons, but war that brought a firestorm that tore through Dixie and left many homes, both grand and not so grand, burned to the ground. On the day the yankees came to Stark Springs, Rebecca watched as they approached through the field, and later said it seemed as it the field had been mown, so great was the destruction as the yankees, some mounted, some not, came towards her new home. She knew they had only one thought in mind and what few precious possessions they owned had long been buried in the woods, but there was no way to do this with a house and livestock. First the yankees began rounding up the livestock - everything that moved was taken for their army's needs, including Rebecca's prize mare. Finally, their work in the yard finished, they came for the house, and as Rebecca held tightly to her baby girl, the house was emptied of belongings. As the soldiers carried a large trunk downstairs, one slipped and the trunk fell open at the feet of the officer in charge, who knelt and picked up an object. Rebecca knew exactly what it is was, and she had no idea how it had not been hidden, but here it was held tightly in the officer's hands, John's Mason's apron. "Is this your husband's?" he asked, this time with an almost gentle tone to his voice. "Yes," she replied, "It is my husband's, and yes, he is a Mason, and so is my father, and his father before him!" she almost haughtily answered. The officer said no more, he carefully folded the apron that had fallen at his feet, placed it back into the trunk, and ordered his men to replace everything that had been removed from the house. "I am a Mason too," murmured the officer, "and I cannot burn my brother's home." Although they took the livestock, and again he officer apologized saying that he had hungry men to feed, the house was left intact. It still stands today alongside the highway, although John and Rebecca's oldest son, Sen. Buell Stark, sold it, as he said so his 'poor' relatives would stop coming to live with him! He built a small house on a hill across the road where he could watch the home of his youth, but all the family knew there was no room at his house anymore! Sometimes I thought that he also did not want too many grandchildren around at once since he was a very old man before most of us were born, but how I wish he had kept the house! When I was young, I could not imagine wanting anything to do with the old house across the road, although I do remember visiting there, but now as my years are too rapidly coming to a conclusion how I wish the house was owned by the family. I cannot imagine a house in Sherman's path with a history so rich and rare!