Marion County GA Biographies
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Marion County GAGenWeb
Trish Elliott-Kashima, County Coordinator |
Presented to the Ninth Hartage Family Reunion
Atlanta, Georgia
August 8-11, 2002
When Rev. George W. Hartage and the Shipp brothers decided to organize a new African Methodist Episcopal church at the abandoned old Good Hope Church at Doyle in 1925, their work was probably easier than it might have been because they were all long-time friends. The Hartages and Shipps had known each other since slavery times and were from the same area of Marion County: the old Red Bone district. This colorful name was dropped in 1878 and the village became known as Brantley, according to Nettie Powell in her 1931 History of Marion County 1827-1930. Brantley is four miles north of Buena Vista on Highway 41 and adjacent to Tazewell, which lies to the east.
George Hartage and the several Shipp brothers chose wives who were either from Brantley or nearby Tazewell. He wedded Laura Jane Battle whose family lived near Tazewell. Union Hill AME Church, later renamed Samuel Chapel after Samuel Shipp—father of the Shipp brothers, would probably never have happened without this shared history. The other enabling circumstance was that the Shipps had relocated at Doyle and the Hartages were living in the area as well. The Shipps apparently grew weary of the ten-mile journey to the old Sales Chapel AME at Brantley. George and Laura Hartage might have desired a church more convenient than Mahala Chapel AME, where they were members and which was about five miles away.
In this paper I report on the history of these three families from the late slavery period until 1880, three years after the official end of Reconstruction. The reader will recall that Reconstruction began after the end of the Civil War in 1865 and extended to 1877. It was a period during which the Federal government controlled the governments of the states of the Southern Confederacy, which had seceded before the war, in order to implement certain political, social and economic changes following the end of slavery. These states were then readmitted to the union. My report relies mainly on census data. I examined these data against the background of Nettie Powell’s History of Marion County, together with historical maps, historical facts and other historical information for Marion County contained on the web site of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia in Athens. I looked at the entire census for Marion County for the following years: 1860—both the slave census and the census of free persons, 1870, 1880 and 1900. (The 1890 census for most of the U.S. was destroyed in a warehouse fire.) For a reality check I visited the Brantley, Tazewell, Mahala Chapel, and Doyle areas on Tuesday, August 6, 2002.
THE HARTAGES
The history of the African Hartages in Marion County during slavery is easy to
trace because there was only one: Webster Joshua, who was the only slave
belonging to Zachariah Hardage and Delilah Hardage. (This is the usual
spelling of this old English surname, Hardage. When George, oldest son of Webster
Joshua, learned to read and write, he changed the spelling, whether
deliberately or in error is not clear.) The census of 1860 lists a nine-year-
old black male slave living in the household of this couple at Red Bone along
with their three children aged 4, 3 and 1. The slave censuses did not list the
slaves by name, only the name of their owner, their sex and age, and the
number of slave houses. We can be sure, however, of Webster’s identity because
the 1870 census lists him by name, age 18, as living in the household of his
former owners at Red Bone along with their five children. One wonders if
Webster Joshua was an orphan or if he had been separated from his family
through a sale. Zack and Delilah Hardage may have been able to afford only
him. They were of modest means, owning 300-400 acres of land, according to the
valuation in the 1860 census.
So Webster Joshua would have been born in 1851 or 1852, according to the census data. He married Manerva Butts or Mathis in 1872. She already had two sons: Jonas Butts and a younger son named Bris or Briscoe. Webster Joshua accepted Bris as his own and gave him his surname. The couple’s first-born, George, issued in 1873. In the 1880 census, they were enumerated in the Tazewell district, a large area that stretched from Brantley all the way east to the Schley County line. It included the Mahala Chapel area, Doyle and Putnam. Whether they had already moved to the large farm near Mahala Chapel owned by one of the several Hoggs in this district and where the Hartage family lived for many years is not clear.
The 1880 census indicates that neither Webster nor Manerva could read or write. In addition to Bris, 8, and George, 7, the couple had Martha or Mattie, 3, and Richard or Robert, 8 months. Webster Joshua died around 1887 at age 35 or 36. His grave location is unknown. Manerva, who died in 1927, is buried in Mahala Chapel Cemetery. Webster Joshua’s slave owners are buried at New Providence Baptist Cemetery at Brantley across the fence and about 25-30 yards from where Samuel Shipp and his sons are buried in the Shady Grove Baptist Church Cemetery.
THE BATTLES
In 1860 there were three whites by the name of Battle who owned slaves in the Tazewell district: Rhody Battle who had three slaves in two houses, W.L. Battle who had 21 slaves in four houses, and John R. Battle who had 18 slaves in three houses. Henry Battle, the father of Laura Jane Battle who married George Hartage in 1896, could have come from either the W.L. Battle plantation or the John R. Battle plantation. He was born between 1832 and 1842. The census records for 1880 and 1900 are in sharp conflict as to his age and year of birth. (He could not be located in the 1870 census, which is not unusual because of the upheaval, displacement and dislocation in the aftermath of emancipation and the war.) The writer inclines toward the later date.
By 1880 he was married to a woman named Tymy whose family is unknown. They had nine children: Ann, 14, Martha, 13, Pinkney, 12, Lucy, 9, Harrison or William Harris, 7, Lula, 6, Olela, 6, Oscar, 4 and Laura, 2. Neither Henry nor Tymy could read or write. Tymy passed around 1890. Henry remarried in 1899 after practically all his children had left the nest. He lived until 1927. The places of burial of Henry and Tymy are unclear.
THE SHIPPS
Several families by the name of Shipp were among the earliest settlers of
Marion County, which was created in 1827. They were from North and South
Carolina, were for the most part wealthy planters, and they settled from
Brantley west to the Kinchafoonee district and beyond. When Chattahoochee
County was created in part from Marion County in 1854, some of the Shipp
plantations were incorporated into the new county. When they arrived in Marion
County to claim land that they acquired either through the land lottery or
through other means, they would have brought their slaves with them. So like
their masters, the slaves owned by the Caucasian Shipps most likely came from
the Carolinas.
The census of 1860 shows a David Shipp, 60, living with his wife, Lucina, 55, and a son David, 18, at Red Bone. He owned 2,500 to 3,000 acres of land but had only three slaves at his homestead. The slaves were living in a separate house. There was a female, 40, a male, 18, and a female, 12. When compared to age data in the 1870 census, it seems that the slaves would have been Samuel Shipp, his sister Louiza, and their mother. The 1870 census shows Samuel Shipp, 30, married to Carry (Mary) Bonnett or Barret, 25. Living with them were John R., 10, Ellen, 4, Emma, 3, and Albert, 1. Samuel’s sister Louiza, 23, was enumerated in the next house where she lived with Henry and Daffne Story, 23 and 18 respectively, and one Bradford Gray, 22. One could question whether John R. is the child of Samuel and Mary Shipp or whether his age is correctly stated. In any case, he was not enumerated with them in the census of 1880. Neither Samuel nor Mary could read or write in 1870.
Although the 1880 census of the household of Samuel Shipp contains some obvious errors in age, the data will be reported as recorded. Listed were Samuel, 45, Mary, 35, Lula Barret--Mary’s daughter, 15, Albert, 14, James, 13, William, 11, Menzer, 8, Joseph, 6, Arto, 5, Ellen, 15, Emma, 14, and Louisa, 30. Samuel had learned to read and write by 1880; Mary could not. Samuel Shipp died some time after 1900; his wife Mary died in 1905.
CONCLUSION
Neither Samuel Shipp nor Webster Hartage was plantation-reared. They were both
raised close to their masters as personal servants, which gave them an
advantage and improved their social and economic chances and opportunities in
life. Although Samuel was about 12 years older than Webster, in the close-knit
slave community of Red Bone they would certainly have known each other,
especially since they were from the same social class.
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