The few residents of old Cherokee and Gilmer Counties, Georgia, probably didn’t
know what to think when they saw the caravan arrive in the fall of 1844. The
covering of one of the wagons was striped, with broad red bands dyed with
pokeberry juice separated by white canvas. Pokeberry bushes were planted
in pots at the front and the rear of the wagon, and attached to it was a long
hickory pole. In all, there were over 50 men, women and children in the group,
all but one the members of one family, the Collins, and they were completing a
long journey from Lincoln County, North Carolina.
The pokeberry
stripes and the hickory pole were symbolic. They announced to all that the group
were Democrats, and revered “Old Hickory,” former president Andrew Jackson,
whose protégé and successor Martin Van Buren had completed his task of cruelly
and forcibly removing the Cherokee from the area only six years before. The
symbols also announced their support of the Democratic candidate James K. Polk
in the presidential election that fall. Polk defeated his Whig opponent Henry
Clay by 2.9 million votes, 50% to 48%, losing their native North Carolina but
carrying their new home, Georgia. Polk won without any help from the Collins,
however. They were not allowed to vote in Gilmer County, and a descendant claims
it was because Whigs controlled Gilmer County.
It was not the last
time the Collins would be involved in a public conflict. (See “The Scared
Corn-Ryo Murders”)
The Collins family probably traveled south out of
Lincoln County to Greenville, South Carolina, on the Great Road, or Great Indian
Warpath that ran from Philadelphia down through the Shenandoah Valley through
Yadkin County, North Carolina, into the Spartanburg District, South Carolina.
There the Great Road connected to the Lower Cherokee Trader’s Path, which led
into Georgia. The Collins would have then followed the Old Federal Road that
used to connect what is today Forsyth County, Georgia, with Ross’s Landing
(Chattanooga), Tennessee.
The Old Federal Road began about a mile
north of present-day Flowery Branch in Forsyth County, Georgia, at a place on
the Chattahoochee River known as Federal Crossing, and passed through what
are today Cherokee, Gilmer, Gordon, Murray, Whitfield, and Catoosa Counties in
Georgia before reaching Ross’s Landing on the Tennessee River. Travel was not
easy. The Old Federal Road had been built starting in 1805 by a large number of
individuals, including Cherokees, and the quality and maintenance of it varied
widely. In its path were four rivers and numerous creeks, and when the road
builders encountered a ridge, they built the road straight up one side and down
the other.
When the Collins entered what was then a portion of Gilmer
County, they had just forded the Etowah River a few days before at Hightower in
Forsyth County, and immediately they encountered a steep hill. From the top of
it, they could see for the first time the breadth and scope of what lay ahead.
They were in the ridge and valley province now, and from their vantage point
they could see Sharp Mountain, Sharp Top Mountain, Grassy Knob (Mt. Oglethorpe),
and Burnt Mountain, with elevations ranging from 2,332 feet to 3,287 feet. In
this region, the major ridges all run from southwest to northeast, so they
crossed the path of the Old Federal Road again and again. No doubt the Collins
learned that ahead of them they faced higher and steeper ridges, narrower
valleys, and two mountain rivers, the Coosawattee and the Conasauga, not to
mention another winter on the road.
After they passed through a gap
where the town of Jasper would later be built, the Collins came into a fertile
plateau crisscrossed with a large creek, the Talking Rock and its tributaries.
At the settlement of Talking Rock (present-day Blaine), they paused at a
crossroads. Ahead on the Federal Road lay steeper and higher ridges, dangerous
rivers and another winter of travel, but to the southwest along the
Cassville-Ellijay Road, the wooded ridges and gorges cut by Talking Rock Creek
and its tributaries such as the
Scarecorn and Little Scarecorn were mixed with
meadows of good farm land and rolling hills.The choice was easy enough to make,
and it is on this plateau, which would become part of Pickens County in 1853,
that they settled.
In the group were seven brothers and a sister,
all but two of the 10 children of William Collins, who was born before the
nation in 1775 in Lincoln County. He is said to have died in 1845, but it may be
that his death actually occurred earlier and precipitated the migration. But,
this group was not the only members of the immediate or the extended family to
settle in Georgia, however.
William Collins daughter, Susannah
Martin, and her husband Anderson stopped in Cherokee County, probably in the Salacoa District a few miles southwest of Blaine as the crow flies. Also, Jacob
Archibald Collins, Jr., William’s brother, and his family arrived in 1847. He
and two of his sons, David Hardin and Thomas, also settled along Salacoa Creek
near Greely, Georgia. And Jacob’s son, Moses, went a little farther on up the
Old Federal Road to settle in Murray County. In any case, William and Jacob,
Jr.’s mother, Susannah Hardin Collins, was in Gilmer County by 1850, the year
she died.
The families in the wagon train were:
– Isaac
and Francis Logan Collins, and their children Susan, Elizabeth, Viana, James,
and Thomas;
– William James and Mary Collins, and their children
Martin, William Jasper, and Aaron;
– Thomas and Nancy Collins, and
their children Perry G., Drucilla, Rhoda, George W., Wiley and Neler. Thomas and
Nancy are my ggg-grandparents;
– Ransom and Rhoda Martin Collins, and
their children Miller, Fielding Bell, Mary, Hannah, Sarah Ross, and Elizabeth;
– Davis and Martha A. Jackson Collins, and their children Julius, Miles,
Margaret, and James;
– Wylie Harris and Nancy Martin Collins, and
their children Elvy, Emaline, and Emmy J.;
– Anderson and Susannah
Collins Martin, and their daughter Nancy;
– Jacob A. and Mary
Collins, and their children Mary, James, and Joseph Bynum.
Times were
undoubtedly hard for the Collins family because the area was a wilderness. The
Cherokee indians had only been removed, forcibly and cruelly, in 1838 to march
the "Trail of Tears," and the wilderness took its toll on the family. In
addition to Susannah Hardin Collins, her son Wiley died in 1851 at the age of
39, and Thomas before 1860 when he was about 60.
The Collins did not
arrive impoverished, however. By 1850, Davis owned $2,500 in real estate, Wylie
owned $1,500, Ransom $400, William Martin $100, and Jacob Jr. $250. And indeed,
the Collins thrived in their new home. By 1860 William James Collins was one of
the richest men in Pickens County with real estate worth $6,500 and personal
wealth of $1,500. These were substantial holdings in the pre-war era when land
could be less than $1 an acre, corn was only 15 cents a bushel and meat 2-1/2
cents a pound.
The Collins family distinguished itself in other ways
as well. Ransom Collins was a member of the first grand jury ever convened in
Pickens County, 15 May 1854. Martin Collins was one of the first justices of the
peace in Pickens County.
Aaron Collins was on the Second Petit Jury
during the first session of court in Pickens County, convened 15 March 1854.
In 1870, in the Cartersville census, he owns $3,000 in property and has $400 in
personal wealth. His occupation is “Asst. Marshal,” a title that probably had to
do with his being an officer of the court. He was also a census taker for the
1870 Bartow County census. He later became a county judge.
A Martin
Collins, perhaps a descendant, was the treasurer of Bartow County from November
1910-November 1914.
Also, a Collins descendant, R. W. Knight of
Cartersville, grandson of Derinda and Martin Collins, was appointed aide de camp
by Georgia Governor Richard B. Russell in 1932.
And perhaps no family
in the region risked more than the Collins did in the Civil War. Archibald G. B.
Collins was a “fourth corporal” in Company A, 43rd Regiment, CSA, of Cherokee
County, and was wounded, permanently disabled, and captured at Vicksburg, but
after he was paroled he enlisted in a cavalry unit, probably the 11th Georgia
Cavalry.
Miles Collins entered the war as 1st sergeant of Company D,
23th Georgia Volunteer Infantry, and ended the war as a lieutenant in command of
the company, and Joseph Bynum Collins served in the unit as a corporal.
In all, there were seven Collins in Company D, including known family members
Miller Collins, James V. Collins, and Berry M. Collins. William James Collins
also served, probably in the 6th Regiment, Georgia Infantry, and Boswell Collins
served as well, possibly in Company D.
And Martin Collins was a
sergeant in Company I, Cherokee Legion, Georgia Volunteer Infantry, “Pickens
Raid Repellers.” (For more on the service of the Collins, see
Collins in the Civil War).
The Civil War produced one of the
major mysteries in the Collins family, the exact identity of Boswell Collins,
the principal player in an outbreak of violence in Pickens and Gordon Counties
in 1865 that resulted in the deaths of seven people, including his own, and that
of Berry and Fielding Bell Collins. For a detailed account of the events, see
the “Scared
Corn-Ryo Murders.”
In all, the Collins gained both
notoriety and respect in their new Georgia homes, and their
obituaries consistently indicate that they were held in high esteem.