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
Last week we looked at “A Dream
Deferred,”
how Hix and Caroline Burgess Souther moved to Union County, Georgia
from North
Carolina about 1840, and how Hix died not long after they settled here. His widow, Caroline Burgess Souther, married
Rollin (Roland?) Wimpey, combining their families, moving on to Gilmer
County,
Georgia where they had three children born to them, thus combining her
family
of three children and his family of three children with their own
children,
Martha, Robert and Andrew Wimpey.
The focus of this story will be that
of Hix and Caroline Burgess Souther’s second child, Jesse Wilburn
Souther, born
November 11, 1840 in McDowell County, North Carolina who died March 6,
1920. Both he and his wife, Mary Delia
Souther (May 1, 1858 – Nov. 15, 1915) reared their family in Union
County. Interment for this couple was at
New Liberty
Baptist Church Cemetery on land that Mary Delia’s father, John Souther
(he was
also Jesse Wilburn’s uncle) gave for a cemetery and church site.
When Jesse Wilburn Souther’s widowed
mother, Caroline Burgess Souther, married Rollin Wimpey on August 25,
1844,
Jesse Wilburn was not quite four years old.
We know that the couple moved, with her children and his
children, six,
all very young, “little stair-steps” as we would say, six and under.
They moved
to Gilmer County, Georgia and settled in the Gates Chapel section of
that
county where Rollin Wimpey farmed. From
there, some of the Southers later moved to Whitfield County, Georgia
and
settled in the Deep Springs section north of Dalton.
Jesse Wilburn Souther joined the
Confederacy in May, 1862 and fought in
the Civil War in Company F, 60th Regiment of Georgia,
Gordon’s
Brigade. He was wounded in 1864, losing
one of his fingers. A family photograph
with his wife and four of their eight children shows a finger missing
from his
right hand. He was on the pension list
of 1893.
We have no record of the courtship of
Jesse Wilburn Souther and his first cousin, Mary Delia Souther,
daughter of J.
W.’s uncle and aunt, John and Mary “Polly” Combs Souther.
Perhaps they became attracted to each other
as Jesse Wilburn visited his uncle after his mother moved to Gilmer
County. After the Civil War, and following
Jesse
Wilburn’s recovery from his wound that took a finger, we learn from
Union
County marriage records that he and Delia married on September 17, 1868. They made their home on Choestoe near New
Liberty Baptist Church, probably on land where Jesse Wilburn’s uncle
John had
settled in the 1830’s. Jesse Wilburn and
Mary Delia Souther had eight children as follows:
William Leason Souther (1869-1948)
married Elizabeth Goforth
Johnathan Hix Souther (1871 – 1957)
married Julia Vesta Woodring
(1869-1950)
Bailey William Souther (1876- 1956)
married Lydia Plott (1882-1969)
Jesse Benjamin Souther (1876-1964)
married Dovie Caroline
Townsend (1883-1975)
Emory Spier Souther (1878 - ?) married
Iowa Nicholson
James Henry Souther (1881 - 1958)
never married
Daniel Loransey Souther (1883 – 1961)
married (1) Alice Collins and (2)
Dora Collins
Mary Elizabeth “Mollie” Souther
(1886-1910) never married
Several of Jesse Wilburn and Mary
Delia Souther’s children moved to Colorado and other points west. Leason and Elizabeth Goforth Souther
homesteaded in Upper Disappointment Valley near Norwood, Colorado. But they got to that location by moving first
from Choestoe to Mulberry, Arkansas, then to Montrose, Colorado and
finally to
Disappointment Valley. Despite its name,
that area proved to be a good place for Leason and Elizabeth to
homestead. They raised cattle there and
Leason had a
postal route from Norwood to Cedar, Colorado for sixteen years in
addition to
his ranching operations. Leason and
Elizabeth
had seven children, three of whom died in infancy and four of whom
lived to
adulthood, married and had families.
Johnathan Hix (Hicks) Souther and his
wife, Julia Vesta Woodring Souther, also went to the Upper
Disappointment
Valley near Norwood, Colorado and settled there around 1900. However, they did not remain in Colorado but
moved back east to Towns and/or Union, County, Georgia with their
children
Garnie (?), Ambrose, Esta and Gordon.
His obituary (clipping, undated by person who saved it, 1957)
stated
that he was “a life-long resident of Union County,” but this statement
was in
error. His funeral was held at New
Liberty Baptist Church with the Revs. Henry Brown, Tom Smith and John
Thomas
officiating. There is not a marked
tombstone for him at New Liberty. His
son Gordon and Gordon’s wife Thelma Ensley Souther were both interred
at
Harmony Grove Cemetery, Union County.
Bailey William Souther (1873-1956)
migrated to Pueblo, Colorado in 1890.
He worked as a carpenter and farmer.
He cut and sold the first crossties used for laying the rail
line to
Telluride, Colorado. He returned to
Towns County and married Lydia Plott (1882-1969) in Young Harris on
February 2,
1901. Their children were Vernon,
Arnold, Elizabeth Lillian and Mary Delia.
They went back to Colorado where they made their home in Eaton. They were buried in the Eaton Cemetery.
Jesse
Benjamin Souther (1876-1964) married Dovie Caroline Townsend
(1883-1975) in
Union County, Georgia on July 30, 1903.
Like his siblings before him, Ben Souther went west as a young
man, and
the first child, Bertha Edna, was born in Telluride, San Miguel County,
Colorado in 1904. They returned to Georgia where son Paul Wilburn was
born in
1906, Pearl Iowa was born in 1909, Mary Lee was born in 1911. They went back west for another few years and
Gladys Delphane was born in Colorado in 1913.
About the time World War I ended, Ben Souther moved his family
back to
Georgia, settling in the Gum Log section of Union County. Gladys died
at age
six in 1919 and was buried at Ebenezer Baptist Church Cemetery. Ben and Dovie Souther were buried at Old
Union Cemetery, Young Harris.
Emory Spier Souther (1878 - ?) married
Iowa Nicholson. They had one child, a
daughter, born about 1911, named Emorie for her father.
Emory Souther was a dentist and a
pianist. This family lived in Cheyenne
Wells, Colorado and later at Eads in the same state.
Emorie had made application to teach school
in Georgia, evidently wanting to live in the state where her father was
born. However, she got a bad boil on a
thigh and
contracted blood poisoning. She died
January 5, 1937 and was buried in Eads, Colorado. Emorie,
with her father’s penchant for music,
was a good pianist and singer. Family reports are that Emory Souther
died in
the Murphy, NC Hospital while visiting his brother, Johnathan Hicks
Souther,
and was buried in New Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery.
However, there is not a marked tombstone
there for Emory Souther.
James Henry Souther (Dec. 4, 1881-
Oct. ?, 1958) never married. He went to
Colorado and was living in Eaton when he died in 1958.
Daniel Loransey Souther (1883-1961)
was married twice and had children by each spouse.
Alice Collins (1893-1919), daughter of Joseph
Newton Collins and Sarah Melissa Nix Collins and Daniel Loransey
Souther were
married August 31, 1913 in Union County, Georgia. Their
children were Thomas Roy Souther
(1915-1994) and Jesse Clyde Souther (b/d August 26, 1918).
Alice died in 1919. “Ransey”
Souther married Dora Iowa Collins
(1900-1989), daughter of Isaac and Josephine Hunter Collins in Union
County on
March 26, 1922. Their children were
Blain, J. D., Reba, Mamie Eulene and James Ralph. Like
his siblings, Daniel Loransey Souther
lived and worked in the area of Weld County, Colorado.
He died January 17, 1962 and was buried in
the Eaton, Colorado Cemetery. [Note:
This Ransey Souther should not be confused with Frank Loransey Souther
(1881-1937) son of William Albert Souther and Elizabeth “Hon” Dyer
Souther, who
served as a US Marshal in North Georgia, Alcohol and Tax Unit, from
1920-1937.]
Jesse Wilburn and Mary Delia Souther’s
eighth and last child, Mary Elizabeth (1886-1910) never married. She preceded her parents in death and was
buried at the New Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery, Blairsville, dying
before
her 24th birthday.
Resources for information on the
family of Jesse Wilburn Souther and Mary Delia Souther were Watson
Benjamin
Dyer’s “Souther Family History”
(1988) and Dianalee Reynolds Gregar’s “Souther
Lines,” (1998), covering especially the “Western” Southers. It takes special people and careful research
to dig through countless records to compile family histories.
[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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