Grave of 4th/5th Great Grandma Sarah Wells Stover - located in Shoal Creek, White County, GeorgiaHere's a little bit of information about Elisha Postell, Jacob Stover & Daniel Boone
Elisha Postell was born on 15 Jan 1833 to James Postell and Artemelissa Stover. It is through Artemelissa that we are related to Daniel Boone.
Jacob Stover, 7th or 8th Great-grandfather to you (depending on who is reading this), came to Virginia from Bern, Switzerland in the early 1700s. On June 17, 1730 he was granted leave by the colonial council to take up 10,000 acres of land on the south fork of the Shenandoah, for the settlement of himself and assorted Germans and Swiss immigrants whom he proposed to bring over within the next two years. The said land were to be laid out in such tracts as he should judge fitting.
Here is some more info -
"The Blue Ridge Mountains stood as a barrier against the Virginians for four generations. Only a few young men had climbed into them. On winter nights around the fireplaces, and in summer in the dooryards while families took the breeze and watched the fireflies, they speculated on what might be there beyond the Mountains. Rumors, about Indians, game herds and rich land, were told.
Governor Spotswood organized an exploring party in the summer of 1716, to cross the Mountains and find out for sure what lay beyond. A troop of horsemen clattered out of Williamsburg that August with the 40-year-old governor at the head. They rode to the foot of the Blue Ridge and climbed it (along presen day Route 33 from Stanardsville west), contending with hornets, blackberry thickets and the late summer sun.
They reached the summit on September 5, then peered down at the grand sweep of the Valley of Virginia. John Fontaine, the expedition's chaplain, noted that "We drunk King George's health here and all the Royal Family."
Then they descended into the Valley (near present day Elkton) and camped two nights by the Shenandoah River. Once back in Williamsburg, Spotswood advertised the Valley. He gave each member of the expedition a pin, a miniature golden horseshoe engraved "Sic Juvat Transcendere Montes" (What a Pleasure It Is to Cross the Mountains). So he dramatized the Valley and created a wave of interest. Presently a few brave families dared to move there.
The very first of these families was Quaker connected. They were the Stovers or Staubers, Jacob and Sarah and their children who moved in 1727 from their farm near present-day Reading, PA. They settled in sight of Massanutten Mountain in what is now Page County. The families of Adam Miller and eight more German-speaking families from the Pennsylvania Colony either accompanied the Stovers or followed them there."
Jacob selected his grant in two tracts, of 5000 acres each, on along the river between the present Luray and Elkton, the other along the same river, higher up, between Elkton and Port Republic. The conditions upon which Stover received his grant were that he should actually locate a family of settlers upon each thousand acres within two years. These were the conditions usually imposed upon those receiving large grants of land at that time. Upon satisfactory proof that these conditions had been discharged, a permanent title was given.He has been described as "enterprising to a fault". It seems he'd sold these tracts of land to his friends before he'd actually been granted the land by the colonial council! In the end it all worked out, but there were some scares that it would fail and one man started to take him to court. The area now is known as Rockingham Virginia.
Jacob Stover, a Mennonite by religion, married Sarah, the Quaker daughter of George Boone in 1715. Her parents (YOUR 8th/9thgreat-grandparents) were George Boone and Mary Milton Maugridge. George and Mary had Sarah and they had a son called "Squire" Boone. Squire Boone and his wife had a son named Daniel... THE Daniel Boone you may have heard about in history class.
The Stover and Boone children were reared under the influence of both religious backgrounds, for Daniel Boone, when he testified in a Caroline County court case in 1742, refused to swear on the Bible. He explained that he was not a Quaker but professed the same tenets as the Quakers; after which the court allowed him to affirm the truth of his testimony.
You can find a lot of information about Jacob Stover online. The Stover/Stauffers can be traced back to the 1400s!
Anyway, Jacob and Sarah (Daniel's aunt & uncle) went on to have a son named Abraham. Abraham begat...I mean HAD a son called Jeremiah, and HE had a son called Jacob (they liked keeping the name in the family)... and that last Jacob was Artemelissa's dad.
So Arty married James Postell and amongst their 13 children they had Elisha, our great-great(great) grandfather.
Elisha was born in Suches Georgia. Even now, Suches is a pretty isolated place. My grandmother, Mary Postell, was born in Woodygap, Suches, Georgia. Woodygap has the smallest school in America and is, even now, fairly unpopulated.
Elisha grew up to be a farmer, like his dad. He married Martha Elizabeth Lunsford in Union County, Georgia on January 15th 1855, when he was exactly 22! She was 23 and came from Buncombe County, North Carolina. Her parents were Thomas Lunsford and Louraina Dockery. Someone's written a book about the Dockerys called "The Dockerys of Dixie" but I've never read or seen it.
Elisha and Elizabeth had nine children. Their first one, Joseph Postell, was born in 1856 but died in 1861. I haven't yet found out what killed him, but there are others interested in this stuff so maybe someone will find out some time.
Their next son was James Thomas Postell - JT Postell. He gets his own story posting. Let's just say he had a very interesting life, and his son, Bill, was very close to Grant Postell and was there when Grant was murdered. But that too is another story...
When baby Joe Postell died, in 1861, Elisha and Elizabeth had another birth - this time it was twins: John Wiley and Luraina Vianna. They were followed by little Mary Elizabeth, and she was followed by the Civil war.
Now you and I know what we were taught in school about the Civil War - and we've maybe seen Gone With the Wind or Cold Mountain. But there is a huge part of that history that is left out. The fact is, not all Southerners were in favour of the war. The areas that wanted to secede were primarily the low land areas that had huge plantations, lots of slaves, and were rich upper-class gentry.
The in the Blue Ridge mountains, where east Tennessee, North Carolina and North Georgia all meet were just plain folk. Farmers with no slaves and no interest in slave holding. They were very independent and pleased that the railroad and, indeed, roads in general were finally coming to their area. Development meant that they were on the verge of joining their northern fellows in making some money through industry rather than trying to farm the hilly land. They protested that it was a "rich man's war, but a poor man's fight" and wondered why they were expected to jeopardise their lives for something that had nothing to do with them.
So the CSA (the Confederate States of America) sent Colonel Weir Boyd to drum up some business. And they passed a law making it a criminal offence not to go. So on March 4th 1862 Elisha and his brother-in-law Allen "Little" Ingram, joined the 52nd Georgia Company "G" - the Union County Allegheny Rangers.
If you look at this website: http://files.usgwarchives.org/ga/union/military/civilwar/rosters/52ndcog.txt you'll find Elisha Postell and Little Ingram on the list, showing their enlistment dates and something more. On November 14th 1862, Elisha and several companions deserted. Little Ingram stayed on, but then went absent without leave October 8-December 31, 1863. Maybe it was because his brother was killed at Baker's Creek Mississippi the previous May. Maybe it was because back home the women and children were struggling to survive and some weren't making it. In any case they could have been shot had they been found (as in some of the Cold mountain Scenes) but they went home anyway.
But it wasn't all peace and harmony, even a year after the war ended... I found this little story on the Genforum Postell site:
"John Wiley Postell was a twin to Luraine Vianna Postell. At the end of the Civil War the family was travelling with their father Elisha Postell on a retreat going from Tennessee to Georgia. The young twins were in saddle bags on a horse. It was winter time and conditions were bad. John Wiley was sick and died enroute. He was buried at the base of a tree as there was nothing else they could do at that time. The family descendants think it was on the Georgia side of Lookout Mountain but it is not known for sure and may have been on the Tennessee side."
Following the Civil War the top of Lookout Mountain became a haven for anarchy. Displaced former Confederate soldiers formed bands of resistance against the Union conquerors until 1868, when the last remaining group was dispersed. As Georgia recovered, life at the top of Lookout Mountain began to return to normal, but a large number of tourists were being attracted to the area. These tourists had heard of the mountain from the men who had served in Chattanooga. They would journey south to Chattanooga by train, then go to the livery and secure a buggy. From here it was a four-hour ride up the mountain to Whiteside Park (now Point Park). It cost $2.00 to get to the top of Lookout Mountain and return on Whiteside Pike. In addition to Point Park, the Natural Bridge and Lake Lula were popular attractions.
As for Elisha and Elizabeth they went on with their lives. They were Baptists and went to the Mt. Airy Baptist church, in Suches. Internally that church stands exactly as it did when it was built in 1867. You could go there now and sit on the very same bench Elisha sat on.
Mt. Airy Church - Suches GeorgiaElisha and Elizabeth out lived all of their sons. Joseph and John Wiley died as little boys. Grant was murdered on May 18th 1909 (Grant gets his own story too) and JT died of a heart attack in 1917. His son came along and found him just sitting all natural like in a rocking chair.
Elizabeth had died in 1904 and is buried at Red Marble Church, in Topton North Carolina. I visited there in 1990 and took pictures of all the Postell grave stone, little knowing that I would eventually find out what some of them meant to me!
Elisha lived 15 more years and even remarried! He's shown in the 1910 census as living in Calhoun Georgia with his wife Margaret!
So that's Elisha Postell. As I said, JT and Grant get their own posts because they have even more interesting stories to "tell"!
