THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
After a brief diversion to
pursue another
topic, I return in this column to write about families with the surname
Denton
who were early settlers in Union County.
In the 1834 Union County census,
three
families had the name Denton, with seventeen total Denton residents,
eight
males and nine females. Two heads of households of these early settlers
were
women with similar names: Eliza Denton had two males and two females in
her
household. Elizabeth Denton had two males and one female residing in
her home.
The third Denton household was headed by James Denton whose family had
four
males and six females.
I expected to find these three
households
listed in the 1840 Union census, but the search for these three Denton
families
was not that easy, for none of the three appeared as heads of
households in
1840 or in 1850.
Five residences in 1840 had
Dentons as
follows:
Household
numbered by the census taker as 115 had Levina Denton (one female
between the
age of 20 and under 30).
Further on, in household 328.
was Samuel
Denton, with three males under five, one male aged 20-30, 1 female
under five,
and 1 female aged 20 – 30. (Note: This Samuel Denton is not to be
confused with
the Samuel Denton, Jr. who, we will learn shortly, married Elizabeth
Ann
Chastain.)
Jonathan Denton in household
numbered 331
had the largest of the 1840 Denton families with one male (10-15), two
males
(15-20), one male (40-50), one female (5-10), one female (10-15), one
female
(15-20) and one female (30-40). We will see that his household is also
listed in
1850.
In Elijah Denton’s family (house
# 469) was
one male (10-15), one male (40-50) and one female (30-40).
The last Denton household in
1840 was #
471, George M. Denton, with one male (under 5), one male (20-30), one
female
(under 5), one female (20-30) and 1 female (60-70). The older female in
Jonathan’s household may have been either Eliza or Elizabeth listed in
1834,
who possibly was the mother of George Denton.
By the 1850 census, the number
of Denton
households had climbed to six in Union’s census, and we find that some
of the
names are the same as those we discovered living in the county in 1840.
The
total Denton population in 1850 in Union numbered 31 as follows:
Household 929: George Denton,
age 37, his
wife, Catherine, age 31, both born in North Carolina, and six children,
all
born in Georgia: Elizabeth, 13; William, 11; Elisha, 9; Nancy, 7;
Madison, 5;
and Jeremiah J., 2. This household had also been in Union since 1840.
We will
hear more about these in next week’s column.
Household 1057: Samuel Denton,
25, born in
Tennessee, his wife, Missa, 23, born in North Carolina, and children
John, 6;
Mary, 4: and Melissa, 4 months. A search of the Union marriage records
shows
this Samuel Denton married Artemica Berrong on August 5, 1842. She must
have
preferred her shortened name, Missa, to Artemica.
Household 1081: Jonathan Denton
(remember
he was listed in the 1840 census), age 56, his wife, Agnes, age 46,
both born
in North Carolina, two older children also born in North Carolina,
Francis, 20
and Rachel, 15; and three more children born in Georgia: Jonathan, 10;
John, 7;
Agnes, 5. Living in the household with them (as in 1840) was Betsey
Denton, age
79, born in Virginia, no doubt the Elizabeth listed in the 1834 census.
By
searching the Pierre Chastain Family History (for several Dentons
married into
this line of Chastains), I discovered that Jonathan Denton was a son of
Samuel
Denton, Jr. and his wife, Elizabeth Chastain Denton. “Betsy,” living
with
Jonathan and Agnes in 1850, was, indeed his mother who was the
Elizabeth Denton
in Union by 1834. Her father was the famous Rev. John “Ten Shilling
Bell”
Chastain, known for establishing several Baptist churches in Virginia
and the
Carolinas. Her mother was Rev. Chastain’s first wife, Mary O’Bryan
Chastain.
Samuel Denton, Jr. was born in 1775 and died in Haywood County, NC
before some
of the Dentons moved into Union County prior to 1834. Elizabeth and
Samuel
Denton, Jr. had these known children: Jonas, Jonathan, Jemima Mimi who
married
John Middleton; Elijah who married Jane Coward; Hulda who married Mark
Burrell;
John N. who married Sarah (mnu), Cloey who married James Coward; Isaac;
and
George (1813-1881) who married Catherine Wood (more on this family
later).
This second son of Samuel, Jr.
and Elizabeth
Chastain Denton, Jonathan Denton, was born May 12, 1794 and died
February 17,
1881. His wife, Agnes, was a McConnell, born in 1804 and died August
23, 1860.
Jonathan and Agnes had two older
children
who were already married and gone from home by the 1850 census. Their
oldest
was Samuel (b. 1822) who married Artimissey (sic) Berrong in 1842. They
were
living in their home near his parents in 1850.
Jonathan and Agnes’ other older
child, gone
from home in 1860, was Elizabeth Ann Denton, born in 1824, who married
Walter
Mounteville Burrell on July 16, 1840, with Rev. Abner Chastain
performing their
ceremony. This family lived in Household numbered 1090 in 1850. He was
33, she
25, both born in North Carolina. Their children were William, 9,
Jonathan, 7,
John, 6, Marcus, 4, Laura, 2 and Sarah, 4 months.
Household 1082: William Denton,
listed as a
teacher, age 30, and his wife, Betsy Ann, age 27, both born in North
Carolina.
They had three children in 1850, all born in Georgia: Jane, age 8,
Sarah, age
5, and Elizabeth, age 7 months. Union marriage records show William
Denton
married Elizabeth Ann Chastain on January 26, 1841 with Rev. Abner
Chastain
performing their ceremony.
Household 1085: Elihu Denton,
age 23, born
in Georgia, his wife, Marcena, 20, born in North Carolina, and their
one month
old male son, Pinckney, born in Georgia. I looked for this marriage
record in
Union’s listings, but did not find these names.
Household
1086: Elijah Denton, born in South Carolina, age 52, and his wife,
Jane, age
47, born in North Carolina. This couple was listed in the 1840 census
with a
son, age between 10 and 15 still at home then. From what I learned in
the
Chastain book, Elijah was the fourth child of Samuel Denton, Jr. and
his wife,
Elizabeth Chastain Denton. Elijah was born in 1798 and married Jane
Coward.
In next week’s column, we will
pursue some
of these Denton families to other places where they became a part of
the fabric
of new counties as they formed.
[Note: My columns have not
gotten to the
paper by the deadline on a regular basis recently because of computer
breakdowns due to severe storms. Call the delays an “act of nature”
rather than
my being ill or negligent. We were not severely damaged, like hard-hit
areas,
but we were without power for three days and many electronics were
damaged in
the storms that raged at different times My computer was a “victim”,
and hard
was the task to get up and running adequately again.-EDJ]
[Ethelene Dyer
Jones is a retired educator,
freelance writer, poet, and historian. She may be reached at
e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]
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