More Photos from My Sister's Attic Part 4

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our trip through a box in my sister's, Becky Holliman Payne, attic continues.  These are odds and ends.  They are not in any order but each photograph tells a story of a different time and place.

To All:  My articles are scattered on various names of persons mentioned in my blogs below and in other Ancestry.com sites.  An archive of material may be found in the Records page of www.bholliman.com.

I want to begin with the picture below.  Can anyone help identify him?  Several clues here - one Damascus in the background.  From 1908 - 1910, my great grandparents, G.W. Washington and France Wilson Osborne owned a boarding house in that southwest Virginia town, not far Tennessee and North Carolina.

Notice this young, handsome man is sewing.  Is he a tailor?  A clothing store owner?  The fascinating advertisement for Bruner Woolens illustrates a pre-World War airplane.  Can any one help with the clothing styles?  Could this be Ward Wright, the brother of David Wright who married Pearl Osborne in 1912?

This picture was taken indoors when such pictures were usually studio shots.  The lighting is perfect, and we can enjoy the young man's snazzy bow tie and horizontal stripped socks!  He would do well to sweep the floor before the boss comes in.

The girl, second from left, in the white blouse is my great grandmother, Mayme Osborne (Stansbery) probably taken when she was 14 in 1910.  The setting appears to be in Damascus, Virginia, a village whose mountain rivers still overflow on occasion.  The other young ladies are unidentified.  Who does the hair of the girl on the extreme right? 

Mayme would move with her parents to Afton, Tennessee later in 1910 when she would meet and marry Charles S. Stansbery, Sr..  They married in 1914, with her father, G.W. Osborne conducting the ceremony.

Horse and buggy photographs, especially when this clear, can't be passed up.  Who is the chap in the seat?  He appears to be dozing with a bowler hat tilted to protect him from the sun.  In the meantime, the horse obliges with a stately pose.  Any information on person and place, most welcome.

And I will stop with these pictures....first is of my late Uncle Charles Stansbery, Jr. (1918-2006), age 6, in 1924 living in Bristol, Tennessee.  He looks like a living advertisement for Buster Brown shoes.  Charles, or 'Red' as he was know due to his red hair, joined the Army Air Corp in 1938, serving until the early 1960s. 

The second picture was taken 19 years later when Charles was home on leave in 1943.  It was a fortuitous leave.  During the three weeks home he met the love of his life, Anne D. Smith (Stansbery).  Caught up in the rush of war, they married after knowing each other only five weeks.  The marriage only latest until Anne's death in 2002!  A beautiful love story involving a Tennessee boy who was dressed as 'Buster Brown'.

 

Below, Charles and Anne Stansbery in 1975, no longer with a Buster Brown hair-do or an Army uniform.

 

 

 

 

For more information or to ask for an invitation, please contact Glenn N. Holliman at glennhistory@gmail.com.

K

Ancestors from East Tennessee, Part II

by Glenn N. Holliman

More on the Stansberys and McCrays of East Tennessee....
 

Below, back right by the check mark with the catcher's mitt is Charles S. Stansbery (1893-1957) this writer's maternal grandfather posing with the Tusculum College baseball team, Afton, Tennessee 1912.  From the Greenville Sun, 1975.
 

My mother's (Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick) father, Charles S. Stansbery, was born on a farm in Washington County, Tennessee near Limestone, the son of William Luther and Anna McCray Stansbery.  In this posting, we explore the McCray family and other maternal lines,  some of the first Anglo-American families to move in the 1770s and  1780s into what became East Tennessee.

The 1880 census states that Anna McCray (1866-1936), my generation's great grandmother, lived in the 3^rd district of the county, which includes Limestone, a sleepy village near the Nolichucky River.  It's most famous son, born 1786, was one David Crockett who went on to serve in Congress and died at the Alamo in 1836. 

 

Recently in visiting web sites under McCray Family history, I have been able to move our McCray family back to its Scottish origins.  Here is what is known.

Anna McCray was the eldest daughter of John McCray (1838-1909) whose middle name is probably Daniel (named after his great grandfather) and Mary Elizabeth Beard McCray (1845-1876).  More on the Beard and other lines including the Bayless families in future posts.

Below the gravestone markers at New Salem Baptist Church Cemetery in Limestone, Tennessee near the Nolichucky River for John and Mary Beard McCray.  This writer took the photo in March 2012.

John McCray's father was William McCray (1797/98-1836), the oldest of thirteen children.  William McCray's wife, Hannah Lenizy Taylor, was born 1800 and died 1858. Her father was one Henry Taylor, whose family story we will examine later. 

John Daniel McCray was the fourth child and borne during the year of his father's death, if indeed 1836 is accurate on the McCray Family web site.  The 1880 census has John McCray born in 1839.  His grave stone reports 1836.  He and his wife had seven children.

So who was William McCray's father?  The McCray web site states the parents are Captain Henry McCray (1775 ca - 7 February 1847) and Mary Moore McCray who died in Washington County, Tennessee in 1825.  

Henry, who died in Summerville, Chattooga County, Georgia, first saw the light of day in Loudon County, Virginia and moved south with his parents to occupy East Tennessee in the early 1780s.  During the War of 1812, he served as an officer with the 1st Regiment, East Tennessee Militia.  His role in the Redstick Creek Indian War at the Battle of Horse Bend, Alabama will be written about later in this blog. 

Henry's father was Daniel McCray, born in Ross-Cromarty, Scotland in 1845 and died in Jonesborough, Tennessee 25 June 1819.  He is buried at the Cherokee (Baptist) Community Cemetery in Jonesborough.  Below, the Daniel McCray headstone photo  found on the Internet. 

Daniel McCray's wife was Sarah Nodding (1750-1809).  She may be buried near her husband.  Maternal families such as Bayless and others lie resting in this historic East Tennessee burial ground.  Picture below taken by the writer in 2012.

The McCrays, Taylors, Baylesses and others - were pioneers of the Watauga settlements of the State of Franklin and later East Tennessee.  They lived through the dangerous and bloody 'contact period' when European settlers intruded upon and acquired Cherokee and Creek traditional homelands. 

From the 1770s and into the middle 1790s, reprisal Indian raids of plunder and murder were common in the Watauga region and later Middle Tennessee. Militias turned out regularly to pursue Native Americans.   The Revolutionary War was part of this multi-decade conflict which involved my additional maternal ancestors who lived on the North Carolina side of the mountains - families such as the Wilsons, Greers and Osbornes.

Law and order were in short supply leading in the 1780s to the formation of the State of Franklin, a frontier example of an attempt to establish constitutional law while separated by rugged mountains from the home state of North Carolina.  There are several valuable books on this period of history to recommend, two for example being 'The Wataugans" by Max Dixon and "The Southwest Territory 1790-1796"  authored by Walter D. Durman. 

Further information on these families and individuals can be found at Holliman-Long Ancestry.com site and at the virtual archive www.bholliman.com. 

 

Ancestors from East Tennessee, Part 1

The Stansberys and McCrays of Tennessee
by Glenn N. Holliman

For the past year or so, I have been writing about my mother's maternal ancestors - the Wilsons, Greers, Osbornes, Wilcoxsons, Browns, Boones and others who lived in the highlands of Western North Carolina.  While I will continue to highlight the lives of these relatives, I wanted to share more information on the other side of the mountain - that is my mother's paternal ancestors in upper East Tennessee - the Stansberys, McCrays, Broyles, Taylors, Bayless and others.

As with my North Carolina and Southwest Virginia ancestors, so too did my Tennessee 5th, 4th, and 3rd great grandparents arrive during the contact period with the Cherokee nation. Unlike my North Carolina ancestors, the frontier Tennessee families also had to contend, not only with the Cherokee tribes but also with the mighty Creek nation that also took violent exception to the Americans encroaching on their ancestral lands. 

I pick up the East Tennessee story with another tragic family tale. GNH


My mother, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, told me as a child of the frightful story of her paternal grandmother, Anna McCray Stansbery (1864-1936), who warmed herself one cold January morning by her open fireplace in Afton, Tennessee.  Her dressing gown caught fire, and before her husband, William Luther Stansbery (1864-1943), could snuff out the flames, Anna ran into the yard and died of burns.

The above clipping is from the Greeneville Sun.  Note Rudyard Kipling, the famous English novelist and poet, was seriously ill.  He would die that month, the same day as King George V in January 1936.

Above, the monument at Shiloh Cemetery, Tusculum, where William Luther and Anna McCray Stansbery are resting.  Near them are other family members of the Stansbery family.

My mother, a grand daughter of Frances Wilson Osborne (1851-1940), does not remember much else about these grandparents and their Afton, Tennessee home except for an attic filled with books.  It was 'scary' in the dark attic to a child, and unfortunately Annie's personality was not especially comforting.  Perhaps from her seven children, she had had more grandchildren than she could remember or wanted to remember! They had married January 1, 1884 in Washington County, Tennessee (source, Tennessee archives).
 
As I have written in earlier posts, one of William Luther and Anna McCray Stansbery's sons was my grandfather, Charles Skelton Stansbery (1893-1957).



Left is a 1920s photo of Charles who in 1914 married my grandmother, Mayme Osborne (1896-1943), a daughter of G.W. and Frances Wilson Osborne. Raised on a farm near Greeneville, Tennessee, he moved his growing family in 1919 to Bristol, Tennessee.  There he entered the new 'high tech' business of his day - the supervisor of the Ford Motor Company maintenance department in that twin city! He and Mayme had three children - Louise Francis Stansbery Sherwood (1915-2006), Charles S. Stansbery (1918-2006) and my mother, Geraldine, b 1923.
 
Stricken with paralysis in 1930 due to tainted 'Jamaican Ginger', his marriage disintegrated and he returned to Afton, Tennessee to farm and local employment.  He later married Lucy Lee Barkley (1912-1978) and had two children who lived to maturity - Nancy Stansbery Higgenbothem and Jean Stansbery (1944-1999).

Above, two half sisters, Nancy Stansbery Higgenbothem left, and Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick, right in Greeneville, Tennessee in 2009. Both are daughters of Charles S. Stansbery and grand daughters of William Luther and Anna McCray Stansbery.

The Charles S. Stansbery Family

A Lineage of the Stansbery Family through the Life of Charles S. Stansbery (1893 – 1957) and his Immediate Descendants
by Glenn N. Holliman, a Grandson of Charles Stansbery, Sr.

Part II

The Parents, Brothers and Sisters of Charles Skelt Stansbery Sr. (1893 – 1957)

Parents: William Luther Stansbery (4/29,1861 at Hopewell, Knox County, TN - 4/9/1943 in Afton, TN). Annie Eliza McCray Stansbery (12/20/1863 at Jonesboro, TN - 1/11/1936), m. 1/1/1884. Annie died when her night gown ignited as she stood next to an open fireplace in her home.

William's father was Pryor Lee Stansbery, an Union Civil War veteran. An earlier grandfather was a N.C. Revolutionary War veteran, Luke Stansbery, incarcerated by the British in Charleston, SC in 1780. The Stansberys immigrated to Maryland in the 1660s after several generations in the Netherlands. Originally from England, probably Devonshire. (Note: My first wife and mother of my children, Lynn Draper Armstrong (5/28/1946) and this writer share a common great-great grandfather, Pryor Lee Stansbery who is buried at the New Hope Baptist Cemetery in Knoxville, TN.)

Children of William Luther and Annie McCray Stansbery

Margaret Edith Stansbery (10/15/1884 - 10/26/1954) in Bristol, VA. Married Roe Williams, 5/19/1907. One son, J.C. Williams.

George Lee Stansbery (11/14/1886 - 9/25/1965 in Jefferson City, TN.) M. Annie Lee Stansbery 12/20/1906, one son and two girls.

James Arthur Stansbery (12/19/1888 - 6/14/1969 in Virginia). M. Nellie Homes 3/4/1914.

Fred Walker Stansbery (5/9/1891 - 5/27/1969 in Greenville, TN). M. Flora Eunice Dennis (11/11/1891 in Bristol, VA.) M. 9/10/1913. Additional lineage added courtesy of Laura Davenport of Greenville, Tennessee September 2011. Laura is the daughter of Mike Davenport who is the son of Doris and Carl Davenport. Doris is the daughter of Fred and Flora Stansbery.

Charles Skelt Stansbery Sr. (12/5/1893 - 11/19/1957 in Afton, TN). M. Mayme Tarrence Osborne 4/29/1914 and who died 12/3/1943 in Philadelphia, PA of a abdominal infection. Buried in East Hill Cemetery, Bristol, TN. The couple divorced in 1933. Charles is buried in Afton, TN in the Stone Dam Road Methodist Church cemetery with his second wife, Lucy Lee Barkley Stansbery and daughter Jean Stansbery Dobbs. Charles Stansbery is this writer's grandfather.

William Cecil Stansbery (12/15/1896 0 d. ?). Was a doctor in Cleveland, TN. M. Etta Mayers Henley, 9/20/1925. They had one son, a dentist and one daughter.

Harry Price Stansbery (12/14/1899 - D ?). Lived in Georgia as of 1981. M. Zola Rymer 6/18/1924.

Selma R. Stansbery (4/10/1902 and died two days later.)

Eva Kate Stansbery (9/10/1903 - 1979 or 1980 in Afton, TN). M. Guy Williamson 14/14/1922, one son Guy, Jr.

Left to right, the children of William Luther and Ann McCray Stansbery, Afton, Tennessee, spring 1953: Maggie Stansbery Williams (Mrs. Roe Williams) of Bristol, VA; George Stansbery of Jefferson City, Tennessee;  Arthur ‘Pete’ Stansbery of  Virginia; Fred Stansbery of Greenville, Tennessee; Charles S. Stansbery of Afton, Tennessee; Cecil Stansbery of Cleveland, Tennessee, Harry Stansbery of Georgia and Eva Stansbery Williamson (Mrs. Guy Williamson) of Afton, Tennessee.

The year is approximately 1921 in Bristol, Tennessee with Charles Stansbery, Sr. playing with puppies. His daughter, Louise Stansbery Sherwood (1914 – 2006), pats one of them.

When We Were Greers, Part IV

by Glenn N. Holliman

In the early 1700s, our Ancestors Prospered along the Gunpowder River

Much of this article is from Maryland's Early Settlers Book, No. 18 under James Greer.

On Ancestory.com one will find family trees under Greer, Taylor and Day.

By 1688 the marriage of James Greer, first generation Scotsman to Maryland, and Ann Taylor (my generations 8th great grand parents (8th GGP), resulted in the birth of John Greer, Sr (b. between 1682 - 1688). John, Sr. in 1704 married Sarah Day (my generation's 7th great grandparents), the daughter of Nicholas and Sarah Day (my generation's 8th great grandparents) at St. John's Episcopal parish at Joppa, then Baltimore County, now Herford county.

The church was an unpainted log structure, 20 ft by 40 ft that soon, as did most untreated wooden structures, crumbled before the elements. Today, the Edgewood Officer's Club of the famous Aberdeen Proving Ground occupies the site.

Days Cove, named after our Day family line, is a backwater bay of the Gunpowder River near Joppatown, Maryland. Our 8th great grandfather, Nicholas Day, owned land here near Interstate 95 and Highway 40, the Pulaski Highway. Photostaken October 2010 by Glenn N. Holliman along Highway 40, the Pulaski Highway , south of Joppatown.


John and Sarah (7th great grandparents), purchased land near her father's plantation, Nicholas Day, along the Great Falls of the Gunpowder River. John's grandfather John Taylor (10th great grandfather), father of Arthur Taylor (9th great grandfather), lived near the ferry along the south side of the Gunpowder.

The old map belows shows Joppa, the Gunpowder, a ferry and the first roads in what is now Herford County, Maryland. The current major port of Baltimore is west of Joppa, not shown on this map.

We know that in 1687, Arthur Taylor sold 75 acres of land from 'Arthur's Choice on the south side of a branch of the Gunpowder River, called Bird Run to James Greer and daughter, Ann Taylor Greer. Bird Run is now the Bird River which flows through a modern suburban mall in Whitemarch, Maryland, not far from Days Cove. Arthur Taylor was the oldest son of one John Taylor. Arthur had acquired the property in 1683. This land will eventually become the site of Joppa, a major port that later disappears and becomes a classic American ghost town.

Ironically, also along the Gunpowder another family, the Stansberys, had settled. Stansberys live in and around Baltimore to this day. One of the Stansbery families will treck south in the 1700s, and generations later will result in my grandfather, Charles S. Stansbery, Sr. (1893 - 1957). Charles will marry Mayme Osborne, whose grand mother was, yes, one Caroline Greer Wilson (1828 - 1911). My immediate family has deep Maryland roots!