Welcome to C Boyd's Wiregrass Trivia

A very special thanks to Aunt Clara Ruth Boyd Smith who let me photograph Jacob Riley White and Cecilia Ann Corbitt White. And thank you cousin Brenda Smith Herrin for the wonderful copies of family you sent so graciously to me.


The picture of Myrtle was taken when she was 24 years old. We had gone to Olan Mills Studio in Jacksonville, FLA to have our pictures taken. I remember telling her she was beautiful.

The picture of Oscar was taken in either Waycross, GA or West Palm Beach, FLA, as a gift for Mother.

The picture of Christopher was taken at the end of the summer of 1976 in Wroxton, St. Mary's, England. We were celebrating the end of the summer term and I had just completed my M.A. in English. I look rather menacing here, eh?

The picture of Minnie was made not too long before she died. She was one of the great loves of my life.

INTERESTING TRIVIA:

Grandfather Thomas Latimer Boyd had bright ginger colored hair. His nickname was "Hick". He was mortally injured when he stepped out of the cab of a moving pickup truck carrying barrels of turpentine from Manor to Waresboro to retrieve his hat which had blown off his head. He was run over and died from the injuries. (He was accustomed to the speed of a horse and wagon and not a truck.)

Grandfather Peter Griffin was over 6 feet tall and was known as a bear fighter. Lone Thrift is quoted in Okefinoke Album by Francis Harper and Delma E. Presley. Lone said that his father, Robert Thrift "Uncle Bob" and his friend Peter Griffin were known as bear fighters. "Not a bit afyeard of any bear in the world, they would fight a bear with anything, if it was only a light'ood knot." page 65. Bob and Peter were brothers-in-law.

Peter and his brother,John Griffin, went to the War together. John Griffin(born 10 January 1839) was mortally wounded in the Second Battle of Manassas on 28 September 1862 and died of his wounds five days later.(Does anyone know if he left children behind or what happened to his wife Julia Hughes?) Peter was wounded outside of Richmond. (Judge Ben Smith says that it is on record in the Waycross Courthouse that Peter Griffin as well as Lewis Jerrell Henderson were at Appomattox at Lee's surrender.) Due to the pain from his injuries, Peter took morphine and became dependent on it. He and Margaret Thrift Griffin spent the last 11 years of his life with his son, Joseph and wife, Minnie Henderson Griffin. Grandmother said that Peter was like an infant. "He couldn't do anything. Everything had to be done for him." Early one morning she had just fed him breakfast. All the others were in the kitchen eating and she saw Peter die. "I wouldn't have known that he died but I was looking right into his face."

Grandfather Joe Griffin had people come to him to have him "touch" their warts so the warts would die. He was hired by locals to find water with a forked branch but he never called it a diviner's rod nor used the term "water witch" and never charged for his services.

Grandfather Art Boyd was skilled as a carpenter and could draw perfect plans for building "out buildings" as well as homes and never had schooling for that. He also was a coffin maker and believed that coffins made from cypress would not decay. He asked to be buried in a homemade cypress coffin in his overalls. I have a copy of the bill of sale for the materials used by my father and my Uncle Alvin Otto for his coffin. (His wishes weren't granted and he was buried in a suit and white shirt and tie.)

Grandfather Jacob White left each of his children a working farm and house and outbuildings on 150 acres of land each. Out of the 9 farms only one remains in the family. He hired a teacher to come to his farm to teach his daughters piano, organ, voice, and elocution lessons. Jacob had blue eyes and one of them was an artificial eye, beautifully made. I saw it this summer at my Aunt Clara Boyd Smith's home.

Grandfather James Henderson is mentioned 8 times in the book, Okefinokee Album. James was hired by his Aunt Catherine Miller Lee and husband Uncle James "Jim" Lee to live with them on Billy's Island and work on their farm. It was while living here that he came upon John and Sarah Wilson Bennett's log cabin on Harper's Hammock and met his future wife, Nancy Ann. Even though she had older sisters he "fancied" Nan and they were married by George W. Thornton who was a justice of the peace and James' stepfather. (It was later discovered he was out of his jurisdiction and they were married again in Homerville, Clinch County.) They had a premature son born which died while they lived in the Swamp. He is buried in the Lee Cemetery on Billy's Island. They moved from there to Manor when James' Uncle Lemuel Miller hired James to work on his woodrack near the railroad in Manor.

Grandfather Berrien "Berry" Henderson was born Berrien Sweat and had his name changed to Henderson before he married but no reason was given. Two of my cousins who are genealogists believe that Berrien's first wife was a daughter of Christopher Mercer and that is the reason Berrien is listed in Mercer's will. We are still trying to find out who his real father was. We believe we will eventually tie him in with the other Henderson family in the Manor area. (More about this interesting man to come.)

Grandfather John Bennett went blind before his death. He lived his last years with his son William Elias in Manor. He is buried in Providence Cemetery without a marker, at this time. Glaucoma is inherited in our family and if you look at the eye problems among our early Thrifts you can see we inherited some vision problems. He also always told his children to look under their beds before they went to sleep at night. (I have a story here about one night when Nancy and her sisters forgot to look. SCARY...see page II) We believe John met Sarah Wilson and family on one of his trips to FLA when he was driving a herd of pigs with their eyelids sewn shut to sell in North Florida. (I just learned new evidence which means something different. I have to change this somewhat.)

When John went to the War, Sarah's father and mother, Jesse and Mary Snowden Wilson, loaned Sarah one of their slaves who was a "strappling", young girl who plowed and helped her "make provisions". (I would love to know what happened to this young woman after the War. Her name was Posey)

Grandmother Nan Henderson buried silver dollars and they have never been found. When she lived with Minnie and Joe she would help Minnie prepare the food in the kitchen and just before it was time for them to eat, she would take off her apron and go through her room to the front porch and sit in her high back, apple green rocker with the starched white cloth on the rocker's back. Minnie would come to the porch's screen door and say, "The food is ready, Ma." Then little Granny would get up and go to the table. She always loved to be "called" for a meal. I asked Grandmother Griffin what the cause of Granny Nan's death was and she replied, "She wore out."

Grandmother Minnie Griffin and Grandmother Sarah Ella Boyd knew each other as girls and they both had the belief that if you sit in a porch swing during a thunder and lightning storm that the chains on the swing would "draw lightning". So at both their houses we were never found sitting in their swings durning storms.

Grandmother Martha Ann Henderson-Thornton married Judge George W. Thornton after Grandfather Lewis Henderson died at the age of 40 (due to complications with mumps) and had two more daughters with him, Amy Celestine and Laura Belle. Yet, she is buried next to neither husband. She is buried in Mt. Olive Primitive Baptist Cemetery out of Manor, GA on the Swamp Road. Next to her is her sister, Catherine Miller Lee and brother-in-law, James "Jim" Lee. Near by is her son James Henderson and her granddaughter, Minnie Jane Henderson Griffin.

Grandfather Ezekiel Stafford Miller was in the CSA and was the father of 15 children. Grandfather William Miller was in the Revolutionary War. His great grandfather was Jacobus Mueller, a German Protestant from the Palatine who migrated to NC in 1709.

And one of the more interesting family facts is about Martha Ann Davis who was probably Berrien Henderson's third wife. After Berrien died, Martha, born 1856, married his grandson, Cuylor W. Byrd, born 1861, by his former marriage to Julia Ann Newbern. In a sense, did she become her own grandma? Did the grandson become his own grandpa? Something to ponder here, eh?

And we have two cases where our male ancestors moved their wives and children away from friends and relatives and neighbors so that they could be near or in the Swamp to hunt and fish in spite of their wives' and children's objections. John Bennett moving Sarah and children from Clay County, FLA to the cabin in the Swamp, and James Henderson moving from his farm in Manor to the "place out in the sticks" as Grandmother Minnie Griffin called it.

The house had a room which ran across the top of it. When Nan and Jim's oldest daughter, Isabelle May Henderson Strickland died in childbirth and her husband John Perry Strickland was about to remarry, Jim told John he would take in his children if John would build a stairway up to the second floor. I don't know how long these grand children lived there. (If you look at the picture of this farm house on Greg Wainright's Photo Page you will see where a window was added upstairs next to the chimney. You can see that it was not part of the original plan for the second storey.)

Later Leon Thomas Henderson's two sons, Samuel Alton(29 Aug 1911- 28 Dec 1972) and Gilbert Kenneth (6 Dec 1909- 9 Oct 1970), were taken in when their mother, Zelpha Lee Barber Henderson(4 Apr 1887- 17 Feb 1921) became ill and had to be institutionalized in Milledgeville, GA. She was never "right" after the birth of Alton. Ironically, Alton later had to be admitted to Milledgeville and remained there for the remainder of his life.

Grandmother Griffin said that her father and some of the other men rented a house for a school and a Mr. Ermin King was their teacher. "Shucks, I knew more than he did!" Grandmother told me.

So many more things to add here... Does anyone know where the name Sobnob comes from?

Click here to see Berrien Henderson on Wiregrass Roots VIII.

Click here to return to I, Intro.