The Mitchell Families in Fayette County, Georgia
Kenwood/Inman Area
by Nancy Mitchell Morris, Griffin, GA, direct descendent, contact e-mail at c_nmorri@bellsouth.net
Henry, Jonathan, and Danville Mitchell are all found in the 1830 census of Fayette County, Georgia. Jonathan was listed on the 1824 tax digest of Fayette County, owning 64 ¼ acres on land lot 68, district 12 in Capt. Charles A. Dickson’s district. He married Sallie Hightower in Fayette County in March of 1827. In the 1829 Tax Digest, Jonathan was listed as having 202 ½ acres of land of 2nd quality on land lot 5, joins Yeates. Henry was first mentioned in the tax digest of 1827, no property listed, and a tax of 0.31¼. Danville was first mentioned in 1829, owning 101¼ acres of land of 2nd quality and 101¼ acres of 3rd quality in Capt. Edmondson’s district on land lot 55, district 5, grant Turner, joins Smith and Hulsey. Henry Mitchell was listed as agent for Danville. Henry was listed as agent for Danville for the same lot in 1831. In 1832 and 1833 Danville is listed for the same lot but no agent was listed. By 1834 Danville had 202 ½ acres of land of 2nd quality (land lot 55, district 5, and 202 ½ acres of land of 3rd quality on land lot 42, district 5. Jonathan had 202 ½ acres of land of 3rd quality on land lot 43, district 5 in 1833. These records show that these families were among the early settlers of Fayette County. Danville may not actually have moved to Fayette County as early as Jonathan and Henry since Henry was acting as his agent for the earliest tax records. There are some land records that show a Danville Mitchell and a Henry Mitchell in Gwinett County in the early 1820s and a newspaper account of a letter left for Danville Mitchell in a Gwinett County post office in 1832.
The Mitchells of Fayette and Henry Counties were prolific families, and, unfortunately, they had a tendency to recycle the same names, resulting in a confusing mess for researchers to sort out. The identities of Julia Hightower Mitchell’s two husbands, both named Henry M. Mitchell, are now well established. Her first husband was the son of Danville and Frances Mitchell and her second husband, the son of Jonathan and Sallie Hightower Mitchell. What is less clear is the parentage of Jonathan and Danville and their relationship to each other. In First Families of Henry County, Georgia, Mary Jane Childress Voegtlin, claims Jonathan as the son of Hinchey Mitchell of Henry County.
However, in the 1850 census of Fayette County, Henry Mitchell (age 85, born in VA) is listed as head of a huge household including Joseph N. Banks and his wife Elizabeth and 2 children; William and Martha Banks & 6 children; Joseph, Mary, and Catherine Banks; Joseph and Nancy Banks & 8 children; Jonathan and Sarah Mitchell & 13 children (including Henry); Anna Turner and 10 children. All of these were listed as Family 1046.
Daniel (sic) and Fanny Mitchell (both born SC) and 8 children (including Henry, age 18) are listed as a separate family (House 1035, family 1045). James and Manerva Hightower and 5 children (including Julia) were listed as family 1099. In the 1860 census, Henry Mitchell (age 99, b VA) was listed in the household of Frances Mitchell (age 50, b SC) along with Henry Morris (30, b GA) and Kissiah Mitchell (17, b GA). Danville and Jonathan are separated by just a few years (about 3) and both were born in SC. They settled in close proximity to each other in Fayette County. Given these parallels and the number of intermarriages between Danville and Jonathan’s families and the Banks family, I believe that Danville and Jonathan were brothers and had the same relationship to Henry Mitchell (b VA). It is possible that Danville was also Hinchey's son (Danville died in 1860, Hinchey in 1863) and that Henry was Hinchey's father (making him Jonathan and Danville's grandfather). However, if this is true, based on birthdates estimated from census records, Henry would have been about 14 at Hinchey’s birth (1775), which seems rather young, even for that era of early marriages.
The 1850 (date of enumeration 5 December 1850) Agricultural Census for the 29th District of Fayette County lists Danville Mitchell as owning 50 acres of improved land and 51 acres of unimproved land, cash value $400; value implements $100; 4 horses, 4 milk cows, 4 other cattle, 13 sheep, 22 swine, value of livestock $350; 20 bu wheat, 350 bu corn, 30 bu oats, 3 bales ginned cotton, 18 lbs wool, 80 bu sweet potatoes, 60 lbs butter. Others listed in this census included Isaac Hightower, James Hightower, Thomas Turner, Mary McLucas, Jos Banks, Wiseman Banks, Jacob M. Banks, Jos. Banks, Jonathan Mitchell, Ann Turner.
The following are excerpts from a memoir written by the youngest child of Manervia Mitchell Thornton. Her grandson, Mark Bolding, of Kansas provided the memoir as well as copies of entries from the Henry (first husband) and Julia Hightower Mitchell Family Bible. In conversation with Mark Bolding, he said that, according to his grandmother who authored this memoir, Manervia did not have the most placid of temperaments. Mark said that his grandmother described a visit by her mother (Manerva Frances Mitchell Thornton) and herself to the Mitchell family when Grace was about five or six. She remembered Lewis Anthony Mitchell fondly, telling her grandson how kind he had been to her. As you can see from the memoirs of her daughter, Manerva did not have an easy life but she evidently had a great deal of anger and a formidable temper. Manerva died in 1941 and these memoirs were written 38 years later (in 1979) so it is understandable if some things were not clearly remembered, and, of course, Grace’s memories are colored by her mother’s attitudes and experiences. The work is mostly in Grace Thornton Matson’s own words, editing was done only when needed for clarity. Some obvious errors are pointed out in parentheses in the body of the text. Those parts of her text that refer only to Texas or Louisiana or to more modern times have been omitted.
Places, Times, Events and Dates
by Grace Beatrice Thornton Matson
Daughter of Manervia Mitchell Thornton
January 1979
My mother was born Minivir (sic) Frances Mitchell in 1862 in the state of Georgia, near Jonesboro, on a small farm. Too small to have any slaves before the Civil War, and she used to say that people that did not own slaves were considered poor and were called “white trash.” A term that she had grown up with had always heard it, and her pride was so very much that she violently hated the very breath of the word. She said they had two families that worked on their place, both colored, but not slaves, more or less had just grown up there over the years. It seemed they had been treated as her parent’s children in a way, as to being cared for, and they had their own cabins, but the land of course belonged to her father.
Her father was Henry Mitchell and her mother was Julia Hightower. When the Civil War began her father went along, as all able-bodied men did of their community, leaving her mother with three sons, and my mother an infant; her oldest brother was twelve years old (John Tarpley was 6 in 1862 when Henry enlisted). They stayed on the farm the first years and it seemed they were making a living, and in no trouble, then the colored people on the farm began to change, almost in two or three months time. The first change was no one worked. Her mother tried to explain that they, along with herself, and her two oldest, all had to work the small patches of corn, beans, and whatever was being raised, so they could all eat. But they paid no attention. Then one morning her mother put a sack of shelled corn on the porch, and told one of the colored men to put it on a mule and take it to the mill to have it ground into meal. He said to her in a tone that never had he used before, “Put that meal on that mule yoreself, Miss Julie, iffen you wants it up there.” That kind of “back talk” was as uncommon as if he had cursed her and it frightened her out of her wits. She put her oldest son on the mule and sent him 12 miles to her father’s home. He came and from then, they went to live at his home. His name was Billy Hightower (actually it was James C. Hightower, his father was William (Billy) Hightower) and he had six, or maybe ten slaves (this is in error according to research by J. H. H. Moore, see Hightower), and he had never had any trouble. But he was afraid to leave my mother, her brothers and her mother alone on their own small farm. They must have lived there for a year or two, then her father, Henry Mitchell, was sent back home from the camps too sick to do army duty with dysentery. She used to say that he was “invalided home.” He must have lived a month before he died.
Four years later (date of second marriage, December 23, 1866, a little over a year and a half after the death of Henry I), her mother married again, and his name was the very same as my mother’s own father, Henry Mitchell. She always said she knew that all stepfathers were not mean, because hers was so good to her brothers and to her. He had three children, their mother was dead, and it seemed the two families became welded together, and as the years past (sic) they became even closer. Her mother had four or five children by this husband, but over the years, I’m not sure. I do remember there was a set of twins, a boy and a girl, Oscar and Mary. My mother helped to raise them up until she was married at the age of 17 years in 1879.
My mother’s grandfather (James C. Hightower) and she always referred to him as “Grandfather Hightower,” was her idol. Her love for him was even in the way her eyes would sparkle when she talked about him, and would go so far as to say “My Grandfather Hightower never told a lie in his life,” a statement ridiculed of course by especially, my smart alec six brothers. They always made sure that she was not listening however when they did.
He (here she is referring to her grandfather who was James C. not Billy) was one half Cherokee Indian. His father lived with the family and lived to be 103 years old. He, too, was named Billy Hightower, and had never really accepted the ways of the white people, his wife being white of course, and was Grandfather Hightower’s mother. He was of course a full-blooded Cherokee, of a Georgia tribe. My mother remembered him as being a scary figure, wrapped in a blanket, his straight black hair in two plaits down his back, silent, and mostly sitting on a certain part of the porch, that was in the full sunshine. She said they were ordered to leave him be, and she always said they certainly obeyed! They called him “Grandsire.” His sleeping place was a sort of a teepee they had put up in the yard, because he simply refused, especially as he grew older, to come inside and sleep in a bed. (According to research by J. H. H. Moore, there is no evidence to support this story. See Hightower. Her grandson, Mark Bolding, theorizes that since this was in the early days of settlement of the former Indian lands, it may be that this old Indian refused to leave and was granted hospitality by the Hightower family. Another possibility (pure speculation on my part) is that he was the father or grandfather of Manerva Ann Armstrong.)
Her grandfather (James C. Hightower) had one daughter at home that must have been about the age of 18 years that my mother always fondly spoke of as “Aunt Charlotte.” During the Civil War years, one story that was most dramatic in the telling was about Aunt Charlotte. The way my mother told about her grandfather’s home was that the house sat back from the main road up on a hill, with a fenced yard, then another yard-like enclosure with the Big Gate, she called it, extended on down to the main road. Always in Georgia she said, people had a well that was complete with rope and pulley, so passing people could stop and draw water for their horses as well as for themselves. The story about Aunt Charlotte was that every afternoon, as all the young ladies did, she had dressed up and was strolling down near the Big Gate for a breath of air, and just for a short walk. Then, all of a sudden, a Yankee calvary (sic) came charging down the main road, making a lot of noise of course, with harness rattling, horses in full gallop, and some of the soldiers spied Aunt Charlotte having her stroll. They commenced yelling and waving as they sped along and screaming things like “Long live things like Southern Womenhood.” Well, this was a grand insult for a lady to be put through, and Aunt Charlotte “grabbed up her hoop skirts, ran to the house, and went inside her room into deep seclusion!” She was purely in disgrace! My brothers again, would whisper that no wonder the poor Yankees hollered and waved, because she must have been a real fine sight to girl-starved guys.
Another story that always called up a lot of unpleasant memories to my mother was more of “Yankee mean doings” that was a lot worse than what the did to poor Aunt Charlotte; which had really fanned Grandfather Hightower’s hatred into a pure flame of all Damn Yankees! Late one afternoon, he was on his front porch she said and another troop of the noisy calvary (sic) came into view. Grandfather leaped to his feet, shook his fist at them and called them names that were terrible, especially about the low status of their mothers. The officer that could hear it the best halted and sent five men up to the porch. They took Grandfather, put him on a pack mule, made him balance a five-gallon keg of rum and they rode on. They took him 60 miles and the officer told him before he let him go, “Old man, we could kill you, but we won’t. This was to teach you that you are too old to fight, so you stop insulting us that are in this war.” They took his shoes and it took him four days to get back home. There were houses on his way back, but the route was along Sherman’s march to the sea and the homes were all destroyed and vacated even to the garden plots. She always thought that caused his death, but I don’t recall how long he lived afterward. (Could this be her memory of the story told by Moore in this book?)
I was the youngest of my mother’s twelve children, and, of course, I heard and saw a lot of things my brothers did that my mother did not. She was the absolute monarch of her family. A born leader, hard worker, no nonsense at all, and was 43 years old when I was born. She had grandchildren. They all called her Granny and I did too till I was nearly school age. My sisters really raised me because “Ma” as they called her just did not have time! Two of them stayed at home, cooked, cleaned, and whatever, because my mother led the way for my brothers into the fields. Her main advice was that there was no money in our family for anybody “to hide behind” and therefore they had all better “walk the chalk line” and above all, let their word be their bond.
She used to say that Our Lord gave her the most absolute Blessing when he gave her a healthy body. Never sick, strong as any man, and I’ve wondered if her marvelous strength and health came from so much outside work. She hated housework, loved to clear a new field, put up a rail fence, plant, harvest, and was above average as a farmer even though she was only 5-4 in height, but her weight was about 180 lbs. And hard muscles entirely.
Up until now I have not mentioned my father at all. The real truth is, I suppose, that I really never knew him. Everything or anything that I knew about him was mostly talk that I overheard among my brothers and sisters about him. Evidently my mother and father were a complete combination of opposites. He came from a family that were slave owners, wealthy, of a much higher level in Georgia society, than my mother did. As I’ve already told she came from just the opposite in all these. However, her fierce sense of pride must have made up for anything else, and I believe it must have grown over the years, as the hardships came to her, into such an extremity, that temper, bitterness, and protection of her family became almost God-like.
She was 17 when she met my father (he was 21) one hot day, down at the well by the road, as she “drawed” water to fill the horse trough. He was accompanied by two young colored boys; they were hunting for some stock that had strayed. She said when they stopped to water their horses, one boy held his horse, the other took out a cloth and cleaned his boots of any dust. As she told them to help themselves to the water, my father began talking to her, and she used to say that she must have fallen in love right then. She had never even been off her father’s home place more than five miles, and that had been to Jonesboro, the first town she had ever seen when she had been 12 years old. All men of that era went to town about twice a year for supplies for their homes and farms. All women and children stayed at home. Anyway, I suppose he must have been attracted by her very much too because from then on he came a-courting about once a week for maybe 4 or 5 months before they married in September 1879. He only lived 12 miles away, but that distance was equal to 100 miles now. She never dreamed in her very best dreams anyone could be so happy, because now she had everything. All of her life she had been poor as to worldly things, surrounded of course by her family’s love that she had taken for granted and never realized any pure, plain hatred that she was to meet head on.
People of that part of Georgia had a custom about cleaning their homes in the spring and fall; they called it “scalding and scouring” and it meant exactly that. Beds were taken apart (wood bedsteads), mattresses all put out on fences, or planks, or two sawhorses, while every room in the house was scalded and scrubbed with lye water. Of course all this caused the entire house to be in a most topsy-turvy state. Receiving any company was certainly not looked forward to, and Sunday being “church day”, this was no more done on a Sunday than laughing out loud at a funeral. This is what greeted my father when he drove up (to his family home) in the buggy with his new bride. They had been married at her mother’s home in a morning service, then had started for his parents home where he had always lived. His father, his brothers (Felix and Sharp) and his two grown sisters met them in the yard. They were all embarrassed, but no one said why everything was so torn up on a Sunday. Then his father told him that his mother had ordered all this over his head, and she had left, for where he could not say. My mother thought he had told them about her, and he had, but only just the day before. When his mother went into such a tirade, forbidding the entire thing and making threats about what she could and would do that he had just drove off.
He was one of three sons, born near Fairburn, Georgia in 1857, and his full name was Harris Herod Thornton. He must have been his mother’s pride and joy. Being just older than his brother Felix, she entered them together in a school in Rome, Georgia. It must have been something like a high school, but I have never heard the name. It was a boarding school for young men, and Harris was a new graduate the year they were married. The Civil War had wiped his father out. Every slave gone that had worked his fields, except for a family or two that had stayed on because they wanted to. I imagine she must have had a hard time being able to scrape enough money together to send her two sons to school. And now, for this son, her oldest, to throw his life away by marrying this girl of Cherokee Indian blood (no research on the Hightower line has turned up any evidence of Indian ancestry for this family), must have been like a blow from an ax. Indians were on the lowest list she could think of, except for people with nothing – Georgia’s hated and looked down on “white trash.” So when she (Harris’ mother) did finally come back home (I don’t know how long) she told him he could take his “nothing” as she called my mother, and live in an empty slave cabin. Indeed they had a lot to choose from, all one room with a fireplace to warm by and cook on. His sisters slipped them warm quilts, a feather bed, and iron pots to cook with. They never worried about his mother seeing any of these things because she never put her foot inside the cabin with the dirt floor.
My oldest sister, Sarah Elizabeth, was born in July (5th), of 1880. The insult that my mother suffered at my Grandmother Thornton’s hands, the day she had just been married so in love with the world and everything in it, seared her very soul with a hatred that she never got over. In fact, I don’t think she ever even wanted to get over it. To call her dear Grandfather Hightower “A dirty greasy Indian” even behind her back cut off every tie with her husband’s mother. Her nature was such, that once the die was cast, so be it, the fact of the deed had spoken for time and eternity. I wish a lot of times that for her own peace, she could have used “Vengeance is Mine said the Lord, I will repay”; but she couldn’t do it or she wouldn’t do it. To repay the deed would have been such a pleasure to her, if she, and she alone, could have delivered it. Or so she thought, but revenge isn’t always all that sweet. During that first year of her marriage she found that my father did not intend to work to make their living, and although it went against every instinct of her being, she could see why in a way. Men of the wealthy in the South had been told from boyhood that a real gentleman did not do manual work. His hands had never done a days work in his entire life. Nigras worked, but not white men. So he was perfectly contented to take handouts from his father’s smokehouse and gardens for them to live on, while his main work, or pasttime was trying to make his wearing apparel presentable. She (Manerva) had no way to work herself even though she had a new baby, because there were not any kind of jobs to be had for a woman.
Then in 1882 on December 1st she had my twin brothers, Harris Burdyn and Felix Redwyn. She was trapped and she knew she was by the 17 months old baby and baby twins in a one room deserted slave cabin with a dirt floor and a young husband that wouldn’t work. She was too young and ignorant to be really aware of what a plight her life had fallen into, so she kept silent as her Indian nature demanded, and plodded along from day-to-day. She watched her husband’s mother come out of The Big House, as it was called, every afternoon, dressed up in her one dress she still hung onto from the rich days before the War, seat herself on the front porch, a young colored girl of about 10 years old on each side of her rocker with a palmetto fan that they kept in full motion as she rocked. Her dress was so time worn that its color, black, had turned almost to a sickly green. But she was still the high society lady that she had always been, broke flat in money, but still very rich in her mind. She was doing what was referred to in the South as “receiving” as she sat on the big porch. That meant that should visitors arrive as they had always done in days gone by, she would be all dressed up for them. But her friends had long ago lost their big carriages, fancy horses, and so on, and were just as poor as she was, so of course no visitors would arrive.
My mother early decided she was a crazy mean old woman and she detested her. Gradually, as time passed my mother began to spade her own vegetable garden around the cabin for the land was free and her nature being what it had always been, to enjoy work, they at least began to live better as for food. Then in 1884 she had my brother Conley. Born January 20th. She did not visit her folks, and it seems they did not visit her, so they never were aware of the way she lived, or rather had to live. The thing was, I think, she was ashamed. My father had long since made up with his mother, and had gotten back under her wing, even though she had continued to ignore my mother and his children. His was a weak will and had rather bow to his mother than to be responsible to and for a family. His father, his brothers, and his sisters were all good to my mother and kept her children from going hungry more than once.
Before her last child, when the twins were about five months old, an old man had built her a five-foot cradle for them out of some sort of light wood so that she could pull them around with her while doing her work. While cutting wood with an ax one day, the ax slipped and cut off her little toe all except the skin. She used soot from the fireplace and sugar, bound it up tight, and began to use crutches that my grandfather brought her. She was hobbling around one morning starting to cook. The cabin was made of logs of course and she always kept her knives lying between the logs after she had washed them. This morning when she reached up to get one of the knives, her hand touched a black snake that had chosen the place where her knives lay to nap. It scared her so that she fell back off her crutches and across the cradle, spilling both babies onto the floor where the snake had fallen. She found herself on the dirt floor among crying babies, a frightened snake, and her toe torn off again. Somehow, she righted herself and her infants. The snake ran out the door and she bound up her foot once again. As long as she lived she had a thin black scar on her foot that was caused from the black soot in the wound that she had used to heal her toe. That was an Indian remedy and I don’t know if the soot had healing powers or not, but she swore by it.
During the last part of 1884, my father’s cousin made the Thornton family a visit. He was a year or so older than my father and his name was Albert Heath. My father’s mother and father made him very welcome. They gave barbecues for him, picnics, big family meals; but my mother and her children were not invited to any of all this. She always said it was exactly what she had expected and she would not have gone anyway. This cousin was unable to understand why she was so left out, because my father was so proud of his children, especially the twins. He had his cousin visit them, log cabin and all. My mother liked Albert Heath at once and he had been so kind and friendly, she sensed that he would be a good friend; and that is what he really proved to be. He began by telling my father about how he had heard that the state of Texas was the coming place to live. Good rich land, cheap to buy, good people, and pretty well settled. He talked my father into the notion of taking his family, and of course Albert Heath would go too, and going to this new state. My father really wanted to go; he was unhappy but had to have a leader, and Albert Heath became just that. I don’t recall how they got the money for the train fare, but they did. And Albert Heath, my mother, father, and the four children came by train to Atlanta, Texas. I don’t know if they all stayed together; but I think they must have until Albert Heath was married. He taught school in the country near Atlanta, Texas and taught my older sister and the twins the alphabet, how to count to 100, and tried to get my parents to send these to school. But then there was no law that forced people to send children to school so they just didn’t send them.
On December 29th 1886 my mother had the second pair of twins, a boy, John William, and a girl, Jewel Lillian. She always said the next nine years were the happiest years of her entire marriage. My father commenced to even work and found that he was a very good farmer. And, for her not to be under the constant feeling of not being treated right, it caused her to work day and night harder than ever before. Her spirit had been tried by fire and had survived. She didn’t express it this way, but I do. Anyway they both were working together now, and my father was becoming a good worker, blooming from not being under his mother’s misguided influence and under his cousin’s wonderful guidance. He had always loved Albert Heath as they had grown up together, had trusted him as a good friend as well as a relative, and took his advice completely, except for his children’s education. She (my mother) had no education, only enough to be able to read print, so she always blamed herself too for her older children not being sent to school. My father’s mother had created such a shell over him about how Southern men should act, that it was only Albert Heath that was able to get through that shell and to convince him that his duty and responsibility was now to his family and not to Southern traditions. He must have really been of a lazy disposition, but he began to work and they were almost happy.
(Several pages of stories about Grace’s family in Texas and Louisiana have been omitted from this account.)
Awhile back you may have noticed that I stopped mentioning my father. The truth is that I really never did see him. In the year 1904, in November, he and my mother parted, or separated, after 26 years. I was born in April (the 4th) of 1905. He had already left to go back to Georgia and he began living in the house where he had been born and raised. His youngest brother and family lived there so my father took up residence with them. In retrospect, as I try to analyze my parents, I believe their early way of their being raised, their stations in life, etc. was so welded into their very souls, neither could go over to the other’s way of thinking, which of course caused them to live lives as different as night and day. And without a doubt, my mother was the stronger in every way of the two. Her big family was all she lived for. She died in March 1941. My father had died about 1935 or 38. The day my mother was stricken to die, she was in her usual good health, but she told my sister as she helped her to undress for bed that the bed was her deathbed. Her last conscious words were:
“I’ve had a long, good, hard life. There is no one that can help me now, but just one person and He is not of this world. And if He doesn’t, well, I’m really a goner.”
Mitchell Genealogy of Kenwood/Inman area, Fayette County
The following is the genealogy of the Mitchells who settled in the Kenwood/Inman area of Fayette County based on census records, Fayette County tax digests, land records, Fayette County marriage records, and on the Henry Mitchell Family Bible, which is in the possession of Mark Bolding of Kansas, the great-grandson of Manerva Frances Mitchell Thornton. Also some of the information is taken from research by Joe Henry Hightower Moore and from Frances Banks Storey’s research on the Banks family.
Generation No. 1
1. HENRY1 MITCHELL was born 1760 in VA, and died Abt 1860 in Fayette County, Georgia.
Possible children of Henry Mitchell are:
2. i. DANVILLE2 MITCHELL*, b. 1800, South Carolina; d. March 02, 1860, Fayette County, Georgia.
3. ii. JONATHAN MITCHELL*, b. Abt 1797, South Carolina; d. Aft 1880, Fayette County, Georgia (Inman).
iii. JULIA ANN? MITCHELL*.
iv. HARDY?? MITCHELL.*
v. ANNA?? MITCHELL*, b. Abt 1806; m. ?? TURNER.
vi. MARTHA* ?? MITCHELL, b. Abt 1804.
*None of these are proved as descendants of Henry Mitchell. They have been associated with him in census and other records. No will or other documents naming Henry’s children have been found.
Generation No. 2
2. DANVILLE2 MITCHELL (HENRY1) was born 1800 in South Carolina, and died March 02, 1860 in Fayette County, Georgia. He married FRANCES Abt 1827. No record of this marriage has been found. The death of Polley Banks (May 9, 1852) was included in his son Henry Mitchell’s Bible as was that of Danville Mitchell (March 2, 1860). This leads to speculation that Polley Banks might have been the mother of Frances.
Children of Danville Mitchell and Frances are:
4. i. ELIZABETH3 MITCHELL, b. December 19, 1826; d. March 10, 1909, Walker County, Alabama. She was not listed by name on any census with this family since she married before 1850. There were three females under 5 listed in the 1830 census.
ii. BOY MITCHELL, b. Bef 1830.
iii. GIRL MITCHELL, b. Bef 1830.
iv. LUCINDA MITCHELL, b. Abt 1830; m. HOWELL HUBBARD, July 24, 1856, Fayette County, Georgia.
v. MARY MITCHELL, b. Abt 1832. Marriages for Mary Mitchell to Jacob M. Banks (December 17, 1845) and to James R. Banks (September 14, 1851) are recorded in Fayette County.
5. vi. HENRY M. MITCHELL, b. December 19, 1832, Fayette County, Georgia; d. April 17, 1865, Fayette County, Georgia (Inman).
vii. RACHEL (OR ROCHELLE) MITCHELL, b. Abt 1834.
6. viii. PATHENIA A (NETTIE ANN) MITCHELL, b. Abt 1835; d. July 30, 1885, Fayette County, Georgia.
ix. ALLA MITCHELL, b. Abt 1838.
x. SARAH MITCHELL, b. Abt 1839; m. SANFORD BANKS, January 27, 1857, Fayette County, Georgia.
xi. KISSIAH MITCHELL, b. Abt 1842; m. Nathaniel Bonaparte (Lee) Williams, March 29, 1868.
3. JONATHAN2 MITCHELL (HENRY1) was born Abt 1797 in South Carolina, and died Aft 1880 in Fayette County, Georgia (Inman). He married SARAH HIGHTOWER March 29, 1827 in Fayette County, Georgia, daughter of William Hightower and Sarah Fann.
Children of Jonathan Mitchell and Sarah Hightower are:
7. i. HENRY M.3 MITCHELL, b. August 15, 1827, Fayette County, Georgia (Kenwood); d. June 25, 1911, Georgia.
ii. THOMAS JEFFERSON MITCHELL, b. December 16, 1830, Fayette County, Georgia; m. EFFIE ANN MCLUCAS, December 29, 1853, Fayette County, Georgia.
iii. RALEIGH MITCHELL, b. Abt 1832.
iv. JOHN MITCHELL, b. Abt 1834.
v. MARTHA MITCHELL, b. Abt 1836.
vi. JANE MITCHELL, b. Abt 1838.
vii. GEORGE CARROLL MITCHELL, b. Abt 1840.
viii. SARAH MITCHELL, b. Abt 1842.
ix. JONATHAN MITCHELL, b. Abt 1844.
8. x. NANCY MISSOURI MITCHELL, b. November 05, 1843, Fayette County, Georgia; d. December 09, 1940, Fayette County, Georgia.
xi. JAMES MITCHELL, b. Abt 1846.
xii. CHARLOTTE MITCHELL, b. Abt 1847.
xiii. SURANA MITCHELL, b. Abt 1850.
xiv. WILLIAM MITCHELL, b. Abt 1858.
xv. CHARLES MITCHELL, b. Abt 1860.
xvi. J. MITCHELL, b. Abt 1862.
See Joe Henry Hightower Moore’s story about the Hightowers for more on this family.
Generation No. 3
4. ELIZABETH 3 MITCHELL (DANVILLE2, HENRY1) was born December 19, 1826, and died March 10, 1909 in Walker County, Alabama. She married JOSEPH NEWTON BANKS October 23, 1842 in Fayette County, Georgia. In a letter from Frances Banks Storey to Raye Mitchell Cousins (a descendant of John Tarpley Mitchell), Frances says that Elizabeth was called Betsey and that the family moved to Walker County, Alabama about 1876. Betsey is buried at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, Boldo, near Jasper, Walker County, Alabama. In this same letter, she says that Betsey is supposed to have a sister Kizzie who married Nathaniel Bonaparte Williams. They were in the wagon train to Alabama in 1876. Frances Storey did not know who the girls’ father was, but it must be Danville since Betsey named a son William Danville, daughters Lucinda and Sarah were named for her sisters and Martha Frances for her (Betsey’s) mother.
Children of Elizabeth Mitchell and Joseph Banks are:
i. WILLIAM DANVILLE4 BANKS.
ii. LUCINDA BELLE BANKS.
iii. MANSON GLASS BANKS.
iv. MARTHA FRANCES BANKS.
v. SUSAN JANE BANKS.
vi. BURTHENY CATHARINE BANKS.
vii. SARAH BANKS.
viii. JOANN SAMANTHA BANKS.
5. HENRY M.3 MITCHELL (DANVILLE2, HENRY1) was born December 19, 1832 in Fayette County, Georgia, and died April 17, 1865 in Fayette County, Georgia (Inman). He married JULIA ANN HIGHTOWER December 19, 1852 in Fayette County, Georgia, daughter of James Hightower and Manerva Armstrong.
In May of 1862 he enlisted as a Pvt., CSA Co C. 53rd Regiment GA Volunteer Infantry, Army of Northern VA (regiment also known as Fayette Planters). Source: In Roster of Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, H. M Mitchell, Sr., was listed as Pvt., 1 May 1862; 2nd Corporal, 20 Oct 1864; d Apr 18, 1865. In the Compiled Service Records, Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, Henry M. Mitchell, Sr. is shown on the Oct 31-Febr 29th Muster Rolls as present “on extraordinary duty”. He was appointed 2nd Corporal on Oct 20, 1964. He was admitted to the CSA General Hospital, Charlottesville, VA on Sept 26, 1864 with chronic diarrhoea and was transferred to Lynchburg, VA on Sept 27th. After that he was shown on the muster rolls as “absent sick,” and “absent without leave” (Jan/Feb 1865). This may have been when he went home to die. He is buried in Inman Methodist church cemetery with a headstone shared with his son, James Osgood Mitchell. Both this Henry and his cousin, Henry M. Mitchell, Jr. on the company rolls (son of Jonathan and Sallie) served in the same regiment.
Children of Henry Mitchell and Julia Hightower are:
i. GEORGE DANIEL WASHINGTON4 MITCHELL, b. March 13, 1854, Fayette County, Georgia; d. November 28, 1857, Fayette County, Georgia. (Birth and death recorded in Family Bible)
9. ii. JOHN TARPLEY MITCHELL, b. February 20, 1856, Fayette County, Georgia; d. May 17, 1933, Sunny Side, GA.
iii. LEWIS ANTHONY MITCHELL, b. May 26, 1858, d. Macon, Georgia; m. ROXIE KERLIN. (See Moore’s story of the Hightower family for more on this family.
iv. JAMES O MITCHELL, b. August 26, 1860, Fayette County, Georgia; d. September 13, 1883, Fayette County, Georgia.
10. v. MANERVA FRANCES MITCHELL, b. November 26, 1862, Fayette County, Georgia; d. March 1941.
6. PATHENIA A (NETTIE ANN)3 MITCHELL (DANVILLE2, HENRY1) was born Abt 1835, and died July 30, 1885 in Fayette County, Georgia. She married KENYON (KINAIN A) BANKS November 05, 1851 in Fayette County, Georgia, son of Joseph Banks and Nancy Draper. The 1880 Census of Fayette Co, GA shows Nettie Ann and Kenyon (her son) living with Frances Mitchell (her mother), age 75, b. SC and Hal Morris (Henry Morris had been listed on the census with this family since the 1850 census when names of all family members were listed) age 52, cousin
Children of Pathenia Mitchell and Kenyon Banks (from Grandpap’s Family: A Banks Family Genealogy by Mary Frances Banks Storey) are:
i. LOUISE JANE4 BANKS, b. September 27, 1852, Fayette County, Georgia; d. January 12, 1941; m. JOHN HARBIN BELISLE, April 19, 1868.
ii. ELMIRA V. BANKS, b. June 01, 1854, Fayette County, Georgia; d. March 29, 1903; m. E. SANFORD COOPER.
iii. JOHN GIDION BANKS, b. December 24, 1855, Fayette County, Georgia; d. February 09, 1931; m. NANCY J. COOPER, June 15, 1873.
iv. PERMELIA (PAMILA) FANNIE BANKS, b. Abt 1856, Fayette County, Georgia; d. August 31, 1885; m. JAMES B. SHIPPE, December 19, 1872.
v. ABRAHAM DRURY (OR DEWEY) BANKS, b. August 23, 1859, Fayette County, Georgia; d. March 09, 1926; m. ELIZABETH ANN (LIZZIE) SCOTT, December 11, 1879.
vi. SARAH ELIZABETH (BELLE) BANKS, b. April 09, 1861, Fayette County, Georgia; d. April 1948; m. BEN H. SCOTT.
vii. KINNION (KENYON) BANKS, b. July 16, 1863, Fayette County, Georgia; d. July 08, 1941; m. (1) TABITHA ANN COGGIN, March 16, 1884; m. (2) HENRIETTA LONA COGGIN, February 09, 1928.
7. HENRY M.3 MITCHELL (JONATHAN2, HENRY1) was born August 15, 1827 in Fayette County, Georgia (Kenwood)4, and died June 25, 1911 in Georgia. He married (1) MARY ANN HOLT. He married (2) JULIA ANN HIGHTOWER December 23, 1866 in Fayette County, Georgia, daughter of James Hightower and Manerva Armstrong. (Moore has more on this family in the Hightower history.)
Children of Henry Mitchell and Mary Holt are:
i. WILLIAM (BILLY)4 MITCHELL.
ii. THOMAS JEFFERSON MITCHELL, b. 1858; d. 1930, Fayette County, Georgia.
iii. THENA CATHERINE MITCHELL.
Children of Henry Mitchell and Julia Hightower are:
iv. JEFFERSON4 MITCHELL, b. Abt 1868.
v. HILLIARD MITCHELL, b. January 03, 1869, Fayette County, Georgia; d. September 16, 1906, Fayette County, Georgia; m. TESSORA G JOHNSON.
vi. GEORGE RICHARD MITCHELL, b. Abt 1873.
vii. OSCAR MITCHELL, b. Abt 1878.
viii. MARY MITCHELL, b. Abt 1878.
8. NANCY3 MITCHELL (JONATHAN2, HENRY1) was born November 05, 1843 in Fayette County, Georgia, and died December 09, 1940 in Fayette County, Georgia. She married JOSPH NEWTON BANKS April 15, 1860 in Fayette County, Georgia.
Children of Nancy Mitchell and Joseph Banks are:
i. GEORGE WILLIAM4 BANKS.
ii. DANIEL JEFFERSON BANKS.
iii. SARAH JANE BANKS.
iv. PERMELIA WILMOUTH BANKS.
v. MAXIE MILLION BANKS.
vi. ROTHY ETTA BANKS.
vii. DAVID LEWIS BANKS.
viii. MISSOURI BABEL BANKS.
ix. CUMI TABITHA BANKS.
x. JOHN MARVIN BANKS.
xi. BRITTON JOSEPH BANKS.
xii. JAMES RALEIGH BANKS.
xiii. ELEXANDER GARDNER BANKS.
xiv. AABRAHAM CARROLL BANKS.
xv. ISAAC ZIFFLIN BANKS.
xvi. EMORY WADSWORTH BANKS.
xvii. NANCY PANOLA BANKS.
Generation No. 4
9. JOHN TARPLEY4 MITCHELL (HENRY M.3, DANVILLE2, HENRY1) was born February 20, 1856 in Fayette County, Georgia5, and died May 17, 1933 in Sunny Side, GA. He married (1) IDA ANN ELDER 1876 in Spalding County, Georgia. He married (2) BESSIE JANE GRIFFIN June 11, 1905 in Spalding County, Georgia, daughter of Robert W. Griffin and Martha Barfield.
Children of John Mitchell and Ida Elder are (information from census and Raye Mitchell Cousins):
12. i. HENRY OSGOOD (H.)5 MITCHELL, b. December 1879, Spalding County, Georgia; d. 1961, GA.
13. ii. FANNIE PEARL MITCHELL, b. March 1881, Spalding County, Georgia; d. 1924.
14. iii. EMMETT MARVIN MITCHELL, b. December 1882, Spalding County, Georgia; d. 1930.
15. iv. LEWIS ROGERS MITCHELL, b. June 07, 1885, GA; d. 1916, GA.
16. v. PAUL JONES MITCHELL, b. October 21, 1886, Spalding County, Georgia; d. November 11, 1971, Griffin, Spalding County, Georgia.
vi. GUSSIE MITCHELL, b. Abt 1888, Spalding County, Georgia; d. 1890, Spalding County, Georgia.
17. vii. EARNEST GRADY MITCHELL, b. 1889, GA; d. 1964, GA.
viii. OPAL MITCHELL, b. 1890-1899, GA.
18. ix. RUBY BLANCHE MITCHELL, b. 1891, GA; d. 1983.
Children of John Mitchell and Bessie Griffin are:
19. x. ROBERT TARPLEY5 MITCHELL, Sunny Side, Georgia (Spalding Co).
20. xi. ROY EUGENE MITCHELL, b. November 24, 1907, Sunny Side, Georgia; d. October 20, 1979, Henry County, Georgia.
21. xii. SARAH IRENE MITCHELL, b. November 07, 1909, Sunny Side, Georgia; d. December 06, 1987, Sunny Side, Georgia.
xiii. JULIA ANN MITCHELL, Sunny Side, Georgia; m. GORDON WARE BOYD, December 30, 1930.
22. xiv. WEBB MITCHELL, b. August 06, 1913, Sunny Side, Georgia.
23. xv. MARTHA ELIZABETH MITCHELL, Sunny Side, Georgia.
24. xvi. BESSIE JANE (JANIE) MITCHELL, Sunny Side, Georgia.
25. xvii. NELLIE DORIS MITCHELL, Sunny Side, Georgia.
10. MANERVA FRANCES4 MITCHELL (HENRY M.3, DANVILLE2, HENRY1) was born November 26, 1862 in Fayette County, Georgia, and died March 1941. She married HARRIS HEROD THORNTON in 1879 in Fayette County, Georgia.
Children of Manerva Mitchell and Harris Thornton (from Grace Beatrice Thornton’s memoirs) are:
i. SARAH ELIZABETH5 THORNTON
ii. HARRIS BURDYN THORNTON
iii. FELIX REDWYN THORNTON
iv. bCONLEY THORNTON
v. b JOHN WILLIAM THORNTON
vi. JEWEL LILLIAN THORNTON
vii. BEE THORNTON
viii. EUNIA THORNTON
ix. EDDIE THERON THORNTON
x. MERTIE MAYBELLE THORNTON
xi. HENRY THORNTON, b. 1903, Bright Star, Arkansas; d. Stillborn, Bright Star, Arkansas.
xii. GRACE BEATRICE THORNTON
11. THOMAS JEFFERSON4 MITCHELL (HENRY M.3, JONATHAN2, HENRY1) was born 1858, and died 1930 in Fayette County, Georgia. He married ANNIE LOU.
Child of Thomas Mitchell and Annie Lou is:
i. NANNIE MAE5 MITCHELL, b. 1882; d. 1954.
