Welcome to C Boyd's Wiregrass Roots IX

The above information is from cousins Deborah Barrington Callicott, Patricia McCoy, and W. Kenneth Sylvester.

My grandfather had to go to the Confederate War when my mother Nancy called Nan was an infant leaving granny with 3 little children, but her father had given her a farm some cows & hogs but she didn't know how to farm for her father had pleanty of black help for they had not turned them loose then. So her father gave her a strong young black girl and she could plow so she stayed with granny and they made support until my grandfather come home, but he was in poor health like all the olther soldiers. And he was restless didn't like to stay in one place long so he would take his gun and come to the Okeefenokee and hunt and while he was wandering in there he came to a hammock called Harpers Hammock and some one had built a log house in it. So it took granddad's fancy and he went back and sold granny's farm and her cows and moved in there but not until 2 of his daughters was grown. Adeline was 18 and Polly was 16 Nan (my mother) was 14 and another girl Leety 12 but there was no boys except the baby Bill. But there was 2 more little girls one was Sarah named for her mother. (I have no name for the other little girl nor any mention else where. Could this have been an error in GMG's memory or was there a girl who died?) And after they moved out of there granny had 2 more babies (John and Julia) But granny's health was failing she longed for her old home back in Fla. where she had a good house and plenty of hogs and cows, but she stayed with him & they lived in there 4 years. The closest neighbor was 4 miles away. Just imagine how lonely it was for those girls. They had to go to Homerville for supplies and it would take them 2 days to go and come back and they had to leave the girls all alone till they come back. (Sarah spoke of "details" or "patrols" that came into the swamp looking for deserters from the Confederacy during the war.)

QUESTION: When John and Sarah moved from the swamp, where did did they go? Back to Florida And what about their children? (Adeline married Isaac Jordan. Polly married James Oglesby. Celida married Ed Oglesby. Sarah married Shelton Oglesby. Bill married Julia Miller.) The Oglesbys were brothers. And where are they buried? Grandmother said that her mother, Nan, was Missionary Baptist until she married Jim. So possibly they are buried in a Missionary Baptist church yard near or in Green Cove Springs.
After John and Sarah Wilson left the Swamp, we believe she went back to Clay County, FL and John went to live with his son William Elias Bennett. At this time we can't find out when Sarah died nor where she is buried.

But one day a young man was hunting deer (he was my father) and he found this house and he said he found 3 pretty girls, my mother was 16 then, and he fell in love with her.

QUESTION: Where was his home and family? Homerville area in Clinch County?
James' father had died (See Lewis Jerrell Henderson page) and his mother, Martha Ann Miller Henderson had married George W. Thornton and they were living out of Manor, GA. (see George W. Thornton page)

Her parents thought she was too young and 2 older sisters there but dad wanted Nan. He always called her Nannie. So after a few calls they got married.

(They were married by James' stepfather, George W. Thornton who was a Justice of the Peace. He was an Indian War veteran and drew a pencion of 8 dollars per month. Grandmother said he was an old man when they married. Three weeks later they discovered that they were married out of his jurisdiction and were remarried in Homerville, Ga. Grandmother said Granny Nan would say to her children that Jim was the father of this child and the father of that child as a joke.)

But he built a cabin on the banks of the Suwanna River and he took her there. Of course they had to have a living and he had an uncle Jim Lee, who lived in and owned Billies Island. Uncle Jim Lee had a big house and fields and they grew every thing they had to have but coffee, salt and chewing tobacco & flour, and soda. ("Ma said the best peaches she ever ate came out of Billy's Island.") And they hunted deer & turkeys. But he paid my father for his labor. And my mother said that he would stay there some time for 2 weeks. She said some time she would go with him but sometime she would stay at home in that little cabin by the river.

She dipped water out of the river for all she used, and she was afraid of aligators and one day as she dipped her bucket for water one rose up close to her. She threw her bucket and ran when my father came home she told him about it and he took his gun and went with her and when the aligator rose up dad shot & killed him, he was 11 foot long if he had eaten my mother no one would ever have known where she went.

(Another account told to me and written down as I heard it: In the swamp by river Nan used river water for all purposes. There was a gator that used to come up where she went with buckets to the river. She was afraid and told Jimma that she wasn't going down to the river again because of the gator. "Pshaw, Nanny, that gator won't hurt you." "He aims to eat me!" He didn't believe her and he followed her with his gun and watched. The gator came up and he killed it. It was 11 feet long.

They lived by the river till mother had two children (Really three for the first child was a premature son who is buried on Billy's Island, and Isabelle and Leon, pronounced Leeun.) And oh! how she longed to get away from there. But they had a hog in a pen to fatten for meat and she had to stay and feed him. But one P.M. about sundown she saw 2 men with 2 mules and a wagon coming and to her surprise it was 2 off dad's brothers. She was so happy she cried for they said they had come for them. But my Father was in the island helping his uncle grind his cane and make syrup. My Mother told them where my Father was so they stayed all night. They told Mother they needed Daddy to help them cut and haul cord wood for their Uncle Lem Miller (Lemuel Miller was Martha Miller Henderson Thornton and Catherine Miller Lee's brother.) who had put up a wood rack by the rail road so my uncles spent the night and went fishing next day,--when they came in they asked has Jim come home yet? My Mother said no so they went back fishing but that P.M. my Father come home he had a fat hog in the pen so they butchered the hog and Mother cooked up bread and potatoes and baked some pork for them to eat while on the road so early next morning some of their neighbors come to go with them part of the way and they would stop and go deer hunting so they went about half way and struck camp. They eat a cold supper and was preparing to go night hunting with torches. But my Mother said Jimmy are you going to leave me and these 2 babies here by our selves? He told her that nothing would harm them but she said I'll go too Dad said. What are you going to do with the babies, she said I will take one and you can take one so he desided to stay with her & the babies. He cut palmetto leaves and covered the wagon. (For it had started to rain! He then put quilts around the wagon and made a bed for Mother & the babies it didn't rain long but began to turn cold for it was Nov. There come a freeze that night (Grandmother told me that the palmetto leaves turned blue.) But they kept a big fire going. Next morning they went hunting again for in those days it seemed like that was all they wanted to do. But when they came back they loaded up and started on their neighbors turned back for home and the sun was setting when they got to Manor which was called Lick Skillet then. (At this point Grandmother moves very quickly with events and time. Many years are tumbled together.)

But several families moved there and finally they took a vacant house for a school house and hired and old maid Miss Mammie Clark to teach school. Then a man named Bill Manor come and put up a post office and they called it Manor. Finally a man by the name of Tom James put up a store later on M D L Ray put up another store and finally the Brantly Co. from Blackshear put up a big store with every thing needed groceries dry goods and farming tools. Dan Henderson had a store too but one night his store burned down he never built back. So all the stores on the south side dwindled away and they built stores on the north side there were 4 stores owned by Lance Strickland K. Henderson Huey Boyd and Howard Rowel They built a good school house off brick. It was for high school and grammer school. And had a good ball court and gym and one of the best lunch rooms in the county but they finally took the high school away from Manor and put it to Ware Co. High but they still have grammer school there but the little town is still there a place I still love.

Jim and Nan lived on a farm in Manor with 160 acres. He sold 60 acres to Bill Baldree.

My Father lived in the little town called Manor till they had 7 children then they swapped their farm for one 4 miles south of Manor where Mattie and John was born. Their children were Isabelle, Leon, Minnie, Annie and Mae, Jim, Nora, Mattie and John. My Father died at the age of 74 my Mother lived on at the old home with her oldest son who was left a widower with 2 little boys Mother helped him raise them then she broke up and moved in with us, but in her last days she went to live with her youngest daughter Mattie, she died at 97 It was told that the Hendersons came from Irland and settled in N.C. (North Carolina).

Granddaddy Jim swapped their home in Manor for 490 acres in swamp five miles from Manor. Out in the sticks! It was a two storey house with a kitchen off to one side. Grandmother was fifteen when she moved there. For three years the upstairs was never used until her oldest sister, Isabelle Mae Strickland died in child birth. Her husband, Perry Strickland, and six children survived her. Granddaddy Jim told Perry that he would take the children if he would fix up the house. He made stairs to up stairs. He was about to get remarried.

There was no school in the swamp so Jim and other farmers hired 20 years old teacher, Ermin King, to teach their children in an old vacant farm house. (I have copies of the children at this school house.) Grandmother said that she knew as much as Mr. King did. She said that her mother could read but that she quit writing. She forgot how. Her father could read and write. He was self taught. (I have copies of pictures of the Henderson children and other children taken at that school house.)