Sunday, July 3rd, will mark the 158th anniversary of the fall of Marietta, Georgia, to Union Forces under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman. The importance of Marietta and nearby Kennesaw Mountain was that they were the key to control of the Chattahoochee River and to the vital railway leading into Atlanta from the Shenandoah Valley. Thus allowing the union forces to lay siege … Continue reading What Miss Mattie Said to the General

As I mentioned in an earlier post from about six months ago, I have been working on a complete rewrite of Gathering Leaves (and not just another edition.) My goal is to eliminate repetition, remove superfluous minutia, and strip out all the endnotes (I admit I was in competition with Edward Gibbon for most endnotes ever.) In addition to there being deletions, there are also … Continue reading On Down the Tallapoosa to the Gulf of Mexico

Here is something interesting that I found regarding a third great-grandfather on my mother’s side. His name was Evan Prothro (1788-1864), a.k.a. Evan the Planter, grandson of Evan the Patriot, and father of my great-great-grandmother, Martha Josephine Prothro. He was a plantation owner and slaveholder who lived in the upcountry in South Carolina near Aiken and across from Augusta on the Georgia side of the … Continue reading Three Valuable Sawmills for Sale

On April Fools’ Day 2022, the government made public the records of the United States Census for 1950. That night I made two discoveries. The first one is that it is almost impossible to find a particular household in the U.S. Census for 1950 without the aid of an index. The second one was a letter my step-grandmother wrote shortly after my maternal grandfather’s death … Continue reading An Old-school Southern Gentleman

One of the things that I learned about my ancestor, Col. David Dobbs, besides him being once a sheriff and later on the chairman of the Democratic Party in Cobb County, was that in 1859, he and several other citizens of Cobb County were authorized by the state of Georgia to build a railroad from Marietta to the Alabama state line. The legislation was entitled … Continue reading Once I Built a Railroad

I was searching Google Books for some information on my great-grandfather, James M. Dobbs, Sr., and as I was sifting through items where he was mentioned that I had seen previously, I came across a couple of hits for his son, my maternal grandfather, James Monroe Dobbs, Jr. One discovery was kind of funny: the other, not so much. In two books published a little … Continue reading The Frat Boy, the Flapper, and a Lost Cause

I have solved yet another mystery. For a long time, my working theory has been that my great grandfather, James Monroe Dobbs, was employed by the Panama Railway for several years in the 1880s. I had based my assumption on three things: a relative’s statement over 70 years ago, a newspaper article published in 1893, and two passenger lists that I found from the 1880s. … Continue reading International Man Of Mystery-Pt. 4

In a recent post, I described a research effort into when my slaveholding ancestors began the practice of owning slaves. Reviewing census and probate records, I was able to see evidence of which of my 19th-century antebellum ancestors owned slaves. In the post, I told of how I located a will of one of my seventh great grandmothers who died in the 1740s. I commented … Continue reading A Bill of Sale

The author reflects on the journey of their great-grandfather, James Monroe Dobbs, Sr., from joining the Merchant Marines to a diplomatic position in Valparaiso, Chile, attributed to support from influential figures, including a son from Steinway and Sons. James’ political affiliations reveal his unexpected alignment as a Tammany Democrat rather than a Bourbon Democrat. Continue reading The Piano Man of Mystery