Strickland Town Cemetery

Original Artwork by Granddaughter Emma, Age 8

I want to stress that while my grandparents didn't have all the modern conveniences we now take for granted, that doesn't mean they were unhappy or poor.

Aunt Ann recently confirmed what my mother and their other siblings all believed, that they lived wonderful childhoods on that farm where they grew up.  They always spoke lovingly of their amazing parents.

The rural deep south was technologically a half century behind modern urban America at the time.  I consider myself very fortunate to have spent time at their family farm before they added an attached modern bathroom in the mid-1960's.  Granddaddy subsequently sold the farm and moved to the city after his health deteriorated in his eighties.

I remember Mom saying she always thought of her family as being relatively rich compared to their neighbors.  Smart phones, laptop computers, video recorders and wide screen televisions aren't necessary for happiness, and anyone who had pale imitations of them even in my youth a generation later would have been among the super-rich.

Sad to see how many lives have been cut painfully short

Compare that to college students who live privileged lifestyles with all modern conveniences but require "safe spaces," thinking themselves superior to the working class they believe should indirectly subsidize their commencement to earning higher salaries, even if they waste their opportunities by studying specialties of limited real world value without ever realizing they were in fact making speculative, often highly-leveraged investments in potential future income streams.

I'd say the legacy of visiting that farm and understanding what real happiness looks like has proven to be far more valuable than anything I learned in college.

It taught me in vivid images that we can never judge the past by the standards of today, whether in terms of what middle class housing or amenities may be or what the sociological norms of the era may be.  That's not to say that we can't learn from the past and strive to improve.

Flying into Atlanta gave Julie and me the opportunity to consider deeper family tree roots at Strickland Town, a Georgia cemetery off the road between Atlanta and Montgomery.

My cousin Donald, who as one of two sons of Granddaddy's only son, attends extended Strickland Family reunions with distant cousins sharing the same surname in Georgia, Virginia and elsewhere.  A few years ago, Donald brought home an ancestral search tracing back ten generations to Matthew Strickland II of Isle of Wight County, Virginia, who was born in 1664.

In England, the tradition of primogenitor meant that the eldest son inherited the estate and title of his father, but Matthew Strickland II divided his substantial land inheritance from Matthew Strickland I equally among his brothers in 1699.

On his death bed in 1730, Matthew II didn't follow the English tradition but apparently had realized that a more egalitarian approach could dissipate his family wealth to a point where no one could benefit.  His first two sons shared the bulk of his estate, and I would assume that perhaps John already had a house and the land he inherited might have been superior land for some reason, possibly because it had been selected by John for his homesite.

"FIRST, I bequeath my Soul to God who gavit and my Body to be buried in a decent manner according to the Diserction of my Executors.

ITEM, I give unto my son, JOHN STRICKLAND one hundred acres of land more or less beginning at a Maple and running across the Neck to the Swamp~ I say unto my son, JOHN STRICKLAND and his Heirs forever lawfully begotten of his Body and for want of such Heirs then to the next Heir of the Family---never to go out of the Name of the Family.

ITEM, I give unto my son WILLIAM the land of the East Side of the Swamp, I say unto my son, WILLIAM STRICKLAND and to the Heirs of his Body lawfully Begotten and for want of such Heirs then to the next Heir of the Family never to go out of the Name.

ITEM, I give unto my son, SAMPSON STRICKLAND my now dwelling Plantation and the land thereunto containing one hundred and fifty acres. I say unto my son, SAMPSON STRICKLAND and to the Heirs of his Body lawfully begotten and for want of such Heirs then to the. next .Heir of the Family never to go out of the Name.

ITEM I give unto my son, MATTHEW 8TRICKLAND.one gray mare with one eye two years old.

ITEM, I give unto my son JACOB STRICKLAND one young horse bay aged a year and upwards..."

As may seem obvious, none of the four daughters were near the top of the inheritance ladder.  Like Jacob and Matthew III, the sisters and the other two brothers received horses, though some also received assorted other items including a few steer and heifers divided unequally among them.  I think it fair to assume that all probably had personal items received during their lifetimes that are not accounted for.

I suppose 15-year-old Jacob, as one of the younger sons, considered himself fortunate to inherit a young horse, probably the one he rode already.

With no land to cling to, Jacob eventually galloped off to North Carolina to seek his own American dream.  He settled in Nash County, where he accumulated a new 362 acre estate, which he left to his son Hardy.

Jacob is included as an American Patriot by Daughters of the American Revolution, as is his son Solomon Strickland with wife Amy Pace, the following generation in our family tree.

Besides Solomon being a Patriot Soldier and Amy giving birth to a lot of children, little more is known about them beyond the fact that they died in Georgia, where they migrated about the time the United States of America won independence from England. 

Born in North Carolina in 1774, their son Ezekial Moton Strickland was living with his wife Elizabeth "Eliza Jane" Haynes in Meriwether County, Georgia, by the time their first child Elisha was born in 1797.

We found their grave stones at Strickland Town Cemetery.  

In 1809, our direct ancestor Ephriam was born, and while we didn't find his gravestone among many unmarked graves, his son Ephriam Jr. is definitely buried there.

We also found the grave of Julius Floyd Strickland, my great-great grandfather, the last of our line to be buried in Georgia.

Julius was a Private in the Confederate States Army and lived another 45 years after the war concluded.  

Sooner or later, I need to address the Civil War, but I've written a lot already today, so I'll get to that in my next post.