Pulaski-Burke-Dooly County GaArchives Obituaries.....McCormick, Major Mathias  January 10, 1874
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M Sgt. Robert [Bob] K. Nobles, Jr. http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00005.html#0001076 June 14, 2014, 5:27 pm

Marriages, Deaths and Etc., Hawkinsville Dispatch, Hawkinsville, Pulaski County, Georgia, By: M Sgt. Robert [Bob] K. Nobles, Jr., Vol #8, #3., Thursday Morning, 15 Jan. 1874, Pages 29. & 30.
Marriages, Deaths, and Etc.,
Hawkinsville Dispatch
Hawkinsville, Pulaski County, Georgia
By: M Sgt.Robert{Bob} K. Nobles, Jr.
Vol. #8.,  #3.  Thursday Morning, 15 Jan. 1874.
Page 29. & 30.

Maj. Mathias McCormick, one of the oldest settlers of Pulaski County, died of 
pneumonia at his plantation seven miles above Hawkinsville on Saturday night 
last.  Mr. McCormick was born in 1794, and was nearly 80 years old.  When he 
settled in this country, it was thickly inhabited by Indians and at one period 
when there was trouble between the whites and Indians, he was made prisoner by 
the natives and kept in confinement by one of the chiefs for three days, at 
which time he was assisted to escape by a friendly Indian. He was married in 
this county, over 55 years ago, to a Miss Cannon, who still survives him. 
During their long lives they never change homes but once, and that was in  
moving across the river to their present old homestead.  In the early days of 
of the country, before steamboats were known on the Ocmulgee, Maj. McCormick 
was engaged in running pole boats on the river.  After many years in this 
business he became Captain of a stemboat and continued his life on the river 
for a long while.  He was a member of the Primitive Baptist Church for more 
than fifty years.  He was the father of D. G. McCormick and the father-in-law 
of Judge John H. Woodward of Dooly besides many other descendants living in 
this and adjoining counties.  We had often promise ourselves a visit to his 
home for the purpose of learning facts and incidents connected with the past 
history of our section, but the opportunity has now passed forvever.  He knew 
a great deal of the Indian character, and to this day one of pure blood, of 
the Chotaw tribe, lives at his home. he is mute, and when a boy was given by 
his parents to Maj. McCormick at tht time the Indians were compelled to 
emigrate to the Great West.  Sam, as this Indian is familiarly known, had 
formed a great attachmet for one of Maj. McCormick's sons, and for this he was 
often cruely punished by his old mother squaw.  Often times he would hide in 
the fields and wait for young McCormick to join him.  He had a mortal fear of 
all other whites, but on one occasion when his parents had determined to whip 
him, he fled to Maj. McCormick's and ran in the yard.  They dared not follow 
him, lest of being bitten by the dogs.  Sa is a stout able-bodied man, and is 
perhaps, the only living full-blooded member of the Choctaw tribe of Indians 
now in this country.



Additional Comments:
Compiler Notes:  I was told when I copied the Orange Hill Cemetery in Lot "M" 
not marked,  was the the grave of "Indian Sam"  and the one who befriended him 
was David Gray McCormick. So he was buried in that lot.  There are two unmaked 
graves in this lot. (when I copied it in 1976).  Further Notes: Major Mathias 
McCormick was born 18 May 1794 in Burke County, Georgia and died as stated in 
his obituary  above.


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