JESSE LEWIS

The new information on the Lequires has rekindled my interest in family history enough to make another stab at locating Jesse Lewis (1790 - 1849). We learned several months ago that his wife Millie was the daughter of Charles Rollings of Pitt County, North Carolina. So, it seemed logical to think that maybe Jesse Lewis also came from Pitt County, but I never could find a connection - 'til now!

The 1820 Federal census of Pitt County has recently been transcribed and posted to the Internet by a local researcher. The county was divided into districts. As I worked my way down the list to Carney's District, there at the bottom - the last entry in the district - was our Jesse Lewis.

So, we know now that he came from Pitt County along with several families of Highsmiths, also on the census. And, we know that the move to Georgia came after 1820. Unfortunately, that census only named the head of the household, counting others in the household as just numbers in each age group. Jesse was listed as being between 26 and 45 years old. His wife was under 26, and there was 1 male child under 10, and 3 female children under 10. All that fits with what we know of the family after they reached Georgia.

Also in that census was a Willis Lewis who was of the age that could be Jesse's father. Willis Lewis also appears in the 1790, 1800, and 1810 census records. But, while the connection is probable, we need something else to prove it. So, more digging.

Just thought some of you might like to know..... Old Jesse was Ann's great great grandfather.

More on the Lequires

Since posting the previous story of the Lequires, I have received these photos. The legible tombstone is that of Mira Lequire. The stones back in the trees mark the graves of Joseph Lequire and his wife. The portrait is of Mira Lequire and Anderson Davis. There seems to be a lot of interest in the Lequires now. A reunion of Lequire descendants is scheduled for 2007 in Maryville, Tennessee, and another in Bryson City in 2008.

The Lequire Family

Several years ago while visiting our "mountain house" in North Carolina my son John and I happened up on a small cemetery just off SR28 between Brush Creek and Bryson City that included several Davis graves. Knowing of the Davises in Ann's ancestry, we began searching for some known names and found the graves of Anderson Davis and Mira Lequire - Ann's great grand parents. The markers were crude with the names apparently scratched in the stones by hand. I did a little research and found a great deal about the Davis family, but was never able to trace the family of Mira Lequire.

Yesterday, I found an entry in the World Connect section of the RootsWeb website that mentioned a Joseph Lequire of Swain County of an age that could have been Mira's father. Checking further revealed the connection along with this family story.

Joseph Lequire was born in Rutherford County, North Carolina about 1788, the son of John Lequire who came to America as an eight year old boy with his father from France. Joseph married a girl from South Carolina, Jane Watkins. They proceeded to raise a family of nine children, most of whom were born in Rutherford County.

The children were John, Minor, Miranda, Narcissa, Joseph, William, Artie, Isaac, and Margaret. Miranda was our "Mira." She and her new husband, Anderson W. Davis, moved to the Bryson City area shortly after their marriage in 1843 while it was still Macon County. (Swain County was carved out of Macon in 1871.) Their first child - Sarah Jane Davis - was born there.

The rest of the family remained in Rutherford County until the Civil War came along. As with many family during those traumatic days, there were some who were loyal to the South and others whose sympathies were with the Union. During the winter of 1862/63, four of Joseph's children - Joseph, William, Artie, and Isaac - with their wives, husband, and children, left North Carolina, making a long, arduous move to Cades Cove, Tennessee where they had heard that most of the people there were sympathetic to the Union. Two of Artie's children died of "exposure" on the trip. After the war, Isaac - the youngest - returned to North Carolina for about five years, but returned to Cades Cove in 1875 to live out his life. Perhaps even then it was not a friendly atmosphere for a "Yankee."

Cades Cove was "overcome" by the new Smoky Mountain National Park in the 1920s. Most of the residents accepted what they were offered for their land. Most of the remaining Lequires moved out, some of them to north Georgia - right where we live now in Union and Towns County.

Jane died in 1871; Joseph shortly after in 1872. He is buried in the Lequire Cemeter near the Blankenship Cemetery which is near Bryson City. The next time we go Brush Creek, I plan to try to find his gravesite.<

Ann's Birthday - 2006

She couldn't think of a thing she wanted other than a weekend away for a change. So, away we went to a B&B in faraway Helen, Georgia's alpine village. Actually, the B&B was in Sautee-Nacoochee - distance from home, about 25 miles. Lucille's Mountain Retreat was featured in Southern Living, and it was very nice. Lucille found this mountaintop five years ago, and her architect husband designed and built it. She does all the cooking herself and made her 14 guests very welcome. We ate lunch one day on the bank of the Chattahoochee River where hundreds of tubers were floating through the rocks, trying to cool off on the hot summer day.

The Tabor Obelisks

The Tabor obelisk grave markers mentioned in my last posting have a unique history. I've described that in one of the stories on my web site, but since it is fresh of mind, I'll repeat it here. These obelisk shaped marble stones mark the graves of Nathan Tabor (b. 1784; d.1851) and his wife Elizabeth (Condra)(b. 1791; d. 1860). Upon their mother's death, the stones were ordered by their sons from the Tate Marble Company near Tate City, Georgia. By the time they were shaped and engraved, the Civil War had disrupted most transportation facilities in the South. Unable to arrange shipment the company placed then in a storage barn. When Sherman made his infamous march through Georgia toward the end of the war everything in his path was burned, including this barn and all records, and the residents of the area were scattered. With the disruption and upheaval throughout the South after the war, I guess delivery of the markers were not the highest priority. They remained buried in all the rubble until 1928 when they were discovered. Noting the name Tabor, a local resident named Hattie Tabor was asked if she knew anything about where they belonged. She contacted her cousins in Brush Creek, North Carolina and arrangements were made to ship them to the mountains and place them in their rightful place - on the graves of Nathan and Elizabeth. Shipment had been delayed for 68 years!

This unique story may yet have been lost to history but for the efforts of Verlin Tabor, who in 1965, told it to a free lance newspaper reporter named John Wikle who had it published in both the Asheville Citizen-Times and the Atlanta Journal. Now 146 years old, the markers show signs of erosion, but can still be read. They stand at the highest point on the hill of the Tabor Cemetery in the Brush Creek area of Swain County, North Carolina - a spot near the site of Nathan Tabor's long gone pioneer cabin.

The men in the picture are William Lewis, Barry Creighton, and Alex Creighton. William is a third great grandson of Nathan and Elizabeth. Alex is a fourth great grandson. You can just barely see the legs of Anna Knowlton, also a fourth great grand child of Nathan and Elizabeth.

If anyone would like to have a legible copy of the newspaper story, send me an email - whberg@hughes.net. I'll send it as a .pdf file attachment to my reply.

Mini Reunion - Tabor Lewis Clan

Saturday, July 8, 2006 - The five branches of the Mary Tabior Lewis family were represented at a bountiful cookout at the Brush Creek mountain house - William and Jesse Lewis from the Clyde branch; Frederick, Dian, and Tim from the Ruth branch; Cathy Tyler from the Mary Love branch; Martha Louise and Stan III from her branch; and Ann from her branch - plus special guest Barry Creighton, spouses, and grandchildren. Here's some pictures.
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Cathy planted "letter" boxes under the bridge, down by Dan Springs (the water's flowing great now), and by the Tabor obelisks in the Tabor cemetery.

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