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
Jason Coward
Chastain
(March 10, 1818 – June 12, 1900) was of the sixth generation from
Pierre “The
Immigrant” Chastain, a son of John C. Chastain (1791-1880) and
Nancy
Coward Chastain (1800-1867). John C. Chastain was a son of Edward
Brigand
Chastain (1769-1834) and Hannah Brown Chastain (1771-ca 1832-37).
He was
descended from John “Ten Shilling Bell” Chastain, Pierre Chastain, Jr.
and
Pierre “The Immigrant” Chastain.
Jason Coward Chastain was born in Jackson County near Sylva, North
Carolina. He went to the area along the Toccoa River in Upper
Dial
Community of then Union County (in 1854 this area became part of
Fannin) and
bought land and built his first cabin there. He returned to North
Carolina where he married Mary “Polly” Rogers on Christmas Eve in
1840.
They moved by covered wagon, bringing boxwoods with them to transplant
at their
new home. Her father gave Mary Rogers Chastain a slave named Isom
to
assist with the farm work. Jason and Mary had eight children,
seven
daughters and one son. As they prospered, Jason added to his
holdings and
buildings. He later built a fine ten-room plantation-type home
which is
still intact today.
Noting that Isom seemed depressed, his master found that it was because
he had
to leave his beloved named Leah behind in North Carolina. Jason
went
back, purchased Leah, the slave, and presented her to Isom for his
wife.
Jason and Mary provided well for them and treated them kindly. A
story
has been passed down about Mary baking fresh yeast bread and giving
Leah’s
children bread spread with butter and honey as they sat on her back
porch
steps. When the emancipation proclamation came, they wanted to
remain at
the Chastain farm because they had been so kindly treated. The black
families
did all eventually leave the Chastains and returned to North
Carolina,
but in 1896 some of Isom and Leah’s children visited Mary once again
before her
death.
One day a lamb was missing from Jason’s flock. A son-in-law felt
he could
find out where the lamb had gone. Suspecting Isom and Leah of
stealing
and killing the lamb for their dinner, Taylor Stephens slipped to their
cabin
and looked in at their window, expecting to see roast lamb on the
table.
Instead, he saw Leah, Isom and their children bowed in prayer and heard
Isom
praying for “Old Mastuh Jason and Ole Missey Mary, and bless Mr. Taylor
and
pretty Miss Mary, too.” No lamb was on the table, only the
simplest fare.
But in the hearts of the couple was gratitude for their blessings and
prayers
for their owner’s family. About three days later the lamb
wandered back
onto the farm.
Jason Chastain had a large farm, kept a store, had sheep and cattle,
and was
involved in church and community activities. A family cemetery on
the
hill back of his house has his monument bearing this epitaph: “I
have
been a soldier for the right.” In addition, these words are
inscribed on
his stone:
“Dear friends
and
neighbors,
Come one, come
all and see
Where the old
man lies.
Then, dear
children,
When you die
Be placed here
by me
On this hill
Which God has
formed.
So, on the
Resurrection
morn
We may rise in
unison
And join that
blood-washed
throng
And abide
throughout the
cycles of eternity
In that clime
of eternal
bliss.
So mote it
be. Amen.
Indeed, in
remembering
several in the Chastain generations, we agree with Longfellow:
“Lives of great
men all
remind us
We can make our
lives
sublime,
And, departing,
leave
behind us
Footprints on
the sands of
time.”
Yes, the face of these mountains of Appalachia from Virginia where
Pierre “The
Immigrant” Chastain and his family settled, to these hills of North
Georgia, he
and his people have left giant footprints in the sands of time.
As Union
County poet Byron Herbert Reece wrote in his poem, “Choestoe”:
Yes, sprung from the
hard earth,
Nurtured by hard labor,
We
know the names that built the
fallen dwellings
Going
to ruin in old dooryard
orchards.
There
is peace here, quiet and
unhurried living,
Something
to wonder at in aged faces.
These
are not all I mean, but symbols
for it,
A thing, if one but has
the spirit for it,
Better,
I say, than many rabbits
dancing.
(published in “The Prairie Schooner,
Spring, 1944)
We have become cosmopolitan in the mountains. With our increasing
population and changing culture, we should come to appreciate even more
our
legacy from hardy pioneers who carved out farms and built homes in a
mountain
wilderness. We laud their efforts to endow us with a sound work
ethic and
keen sense of responsibility for our environment, our family values,
our
religious ideals. With economic instability and political unrest,
we need
especially to learn from the past as we face the future. We need
time to
consider whence we have come and where we are going. I invite
you, as
does our mountain poet, Byron Herbert Reece, to take time apart and, as
he says
in this poem:
In the Far Dark Woods Go Roving
Whenever
the heart’s in trouble
Caught
in the snare of the years,
And
the sum of the tears is double
The
amount of youthful tears,
In
the far dark woods go roving
And
find there to match your mood
A
kindred spirit moving
Where
the wild winds blow in the
wood.
-Byron Herbert Reece
from Bow Down in Jericho, 1950
[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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