(Make sure you read below the schedule for exciting news about an upcoming post!!)
The beginning of January and into February will be fairly slow since I did a good job of blogging at the beginning of last year and this year’s schedule is basically to pick up where I left off last year plus adding in blog posts about marriage anniversaries (like the one on Saturday about Lum and Mary BATES). So this week’s schedule looks like this:
Sunday– weekly blog schedule.
Monday– I may or may not blog today about race and race relations. It really depends on how I feel and whether anything comes up to interrupt those plans.
Saturday– Karl BRUMM and Wilhelmina FISCHER’s marriage in 1861. This couple is Bart’s maternal 3rd great grandparents.
Typically, if I find any information that didn’t quite make it into the blog post I will share it here. I will be sharing some additional information in the next paragraph but right now I want to tell you that I just made an exciting discovery about John C. BATES’ military service! I’m currently doing a little additional research and then I will be writing a Special Edition blog post about John so I can share with you what I’ve found. Be looking for it, Bates family! Now, on to the information that came in after Saturday’s blog post.
On Saturday afternoon I checked the mail and found a quarterly historical society journal in the box. This quarterly journal is from the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society in Dalton, Georgia (the place where Lum BATES was born). There were a couple of articles with information that I’d like to pass on to you that gives you a little better feel for what North Georgia was like back in Lum’s childhood. One bit of information was something that I’d forgotten from my trip there a year or so ago. It’s that Dalton and the surrounding area was the heart of the old Cherokee Nation before the removal of the Native Americans. In the Dalton area you can find the old Cherokee ball field where the tribes met and played ball. You can learn more about stick ball here and here. If you do a Google search for Cherokee stick ball you can also find images as well as YouTube videos. Near Dalton you’ll also find the old Cherokee Council Grounds and the Treaty Cabin where Ridge and Ross met to discuss the removal of the Cherokee people. You can see Chief Vann’s home and Principal Chief John Ross’s home. A place that I would have liked to spend more time is New Echota, the last capital of the Cherokee Nation. The area was closed off when I was there but had I been able to go there I could have seen Elias Boudinot’s home and a burial site where his wife was buried. (Coker White, Marcelle, editor. “Whitfield is in the Heart of the Old Cherokee Nation.” The Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, Fall 2014, pp. 14–15.) There are so many important Cherokee historical sites in this area that you would need an extended vacation to the area to visit them all.
The other article in the journal I received today described the Dalton area as it was about 8 years before Lum BATES was born. It was described as a “wild country” with “scarcely anything by trackless forests” and only occasionally a small clearing with a log cabin on it. This was only about 10 or 12 years after the forced removal of the Cherokees. In 1847 it was still a newly (and sparsely) settled area for the white settlers. You could travel by rail up from Atlanta but at some point shy of Dalton the train would stop and you would have to transfer to a stagecoach. The trip up from Atlanta in those days “frequently took a whole day”. The area was known back then as “Cherokee Georgia” and Dalton specifically was then called “Cross Plains”. Prior to being the town of Cross Plains, the area was a meeting ground for the tribes to play stick ball. (Whitman, J. T. “Early Days: Reminiscences of Dalton in the Antebellum Times.” The Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, Fall 2014, pp. 17–18.) You can learn more about the historical society here. They also have a Facebook page. If you ever get to the Dalton area you should definitely look them up and go through the museum.
If you’re interested in learning more about Karl BRUMM and Wilhelmina FISCHER, you can check out the blog on Saturday. If not, I’ll see you back here next Sunday for the week 4 schedule.
I found the photo above while doing genealogical research at Sara Hightower Regional Library in Rome, Georgia. It was on the cover of the book Civil War Stories, Letters, and Miscellany of Murray and Whitfield Counties, Georgia. The book was compiled by Marcelle White for the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society. It’s the drum used by the 39th Georgia Infantry in the Civil War.
Until next time,
Lisa @ Days of Our Lives blog
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8th grade
