Wilcox-Irwin-Stewart County GaArchives News.....No Title March 18, 1886
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Donna Newman centavo@lserv.com March 1, 2011, 2:51 pm

Hawkinsville Dispatch March 18, 1886
Last Monday, at Abbeville, Wilcox County, we met Mr. Nat Statham, who is one of 
the oldest men in Georgia, and was among the first settlers of Western Georgia 
when the country was inhabited by the Indians. Mr. Statham was born in 
Washington County, Ga., on the 20th of June, 1795... sixty-eight years ago he 
was engaged in a battle with the Indians on the west side of the Ocmulgee 
river, at a point a few miles below Abbeville... Speaking of him a few years 
ago the late Gen. Eli Warren, of Houston, said that Nat Statham in his younger 
days was one of the stoutest men he ever knew, and was not afraid of any man in 
a rough and tumble knock-down fight... Mr. Statham will be ninety-one years old 
on the 20th day of June next. He told us last Monday that his memory is good, 
and that he is as competent to attend to his business as he ever was. He has 
had three sets of natural teeth... A few years ago "Uncle Nat" told the editor 
of the Dispatch that he had never taken a dose of medicine in his life except a 
drink of whiskey. Last Monday we asked him if he had yet taken any medicine. 
'No', said he, 'I never take any medicine except a little whiskey, and 
occasionally a dose of Dr. Tutt's pills to act upon my liver.'...

[In the same edition of the Dispatch]:  We clip the following from the Weekly 
(Fla.) Tallehassean, whose editor, Mr. R. Don McLeod, visited this section a 
few days ago: 'During our brief stop in Georgia we were glad to meet our old 
friend Capt. Nat Statham of Wilcox county. The Captain is now in his 92d year, 
and looks about the same as he did twenty years ago. He is still quite 
sprightly and reads fine print without glasses. In the early settlement of this 
county, which was then Gadsden, Captain Statham came to Florida as a carpenter 
[ca 1824-dn]. He helped build the first frame house ever erected in 
Tallahassee, and also helped to build the first State House Florida had. It was 
a frame wooden building, and stood somewhere near the southwest corner of the 
present State House square. Capt. Statham was a gallant Indian fighter in the 
struggle between the Whites and the Indians, both in Georgia and Florida.'



Additional Comments:
The same piece appeared in the Macon Telegraph on March 26, 1886, with this 
addition: "The burning of Roanoke and the bloody battle with the Indians on the 
Chattahoochee are still fresh in the memory of Uncle Nat Statham." From other 
references I've seen, Roanoke is in present day Stewart County, Georgia, and 
Nat Statham also fought under the command of General John Floyd of McIntosh 
County in what is present day Barbour County, Alabama.  

Nat Statham is specifically mentioned in a United States Senate report dated 
June 3, 1890, regarding pensions for those who served in the Indian wars 
between 1832 and 1842. From the earlier US House of Representatives report of 7 
April 1890: "The claimant served as a second lieutenant in Captain Jemigan's 
company of 'Mounted Stewart Rangers,' Georgia Volunteers, from June 20, 1836, 
to September 8, 1836, in the Florida Indian War."

For more on Thompson Nathaniel Statham and his family, see here: 
http://newman-oaks2acorns.com/Thompson-Nathaniel-Statham-b.shtml



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