Old Roads and Indians

The story which appeared in The Magazine Feb. 5, 1967, "Roads and Taverns 142 years Ago," by Andrew Sparks was one of the most valuable stories ever printed in your Magazine. The 1825 map was a masterpiece of work and I am sure I am one among hundreds who now have it framed and on the den wall as a proud possession for generations to come.

My father Hope Emory Moore was accidentally killed during construction of the Spring Street Viaduct in Atlanta on May 15, 1923, ending a long history of road building in our family. All my father's people spent most of their life constructing early roads for the early settlers to travel on, and I am sure there are other Georgians who had proud ancestors do the same.

Before this, of course, the Indians had their own trails and always traveled in single file. Their trails were never changed. Many counties used these Indian trails as their boundaries when they were laid out. When my great-grandpa Arbin Moore drew 40 acres in Paulding County, he was happy that there was already a vacant log house on the property with a hall down the center. But shortly after moving in he found out the reason why the house was vacant. Unbeknowing to the builder, it was erected in the path of the Indians. They refused to go around the house but continued down the hall, which was in their direct path.

At 31, Arbin built his own house off the trail and as the Indians sometimes became hostile he added a side room and had enough firewood cut to cover it and conceal it completely. He cut one door as an entrance. When the family heard Indians coming, they would go into the room and close the door, which had a large chifferobe built on the outer side, concealing the entrance.

My grandfather Wyatt Selser Moore was born in nearby Heard County next to where Chief McIntosh, the Creek Indian, was burned to death in his house by his tribe which turned against him. They say when my grandfather was born, the Indians came for miles around and danced around his cradle with their bows crossed in the air, circling the cradle and chanting "Baby too pretty, baby too pretty." No doubt his mother, the tiny little Susannah Harriett Casper Moore, felt perfectly at ease. This was July 26, 1835.

At this time Susannah was living with her father and mother who had drawn the property in 1828. The creek, then called Yellow Land Creek and now Yellow Dirt Creek, near Glenloch, Ga., would rise so high that they were afraid of being hemmed up by the Indians in their 202½ acres so they moved to Randolph County, Ala., just across the Georgia line. The State of Georgia lost a valuable citizen in George Henry Casper, my great-great-grandfather, who had been elected by the General Assembly as the first commissioner of Heard County in 1830. He had been ordained to preach by the illustrious Frances Asbury in 1815.
Upon his arrival in Randolph County, he was appointed the first postmaster in Eastville, now Graham, on Feb. 20, 1839. He built a house there which is as good as new today. The one small grave which he suggested should be decorated with flowers on May 1 was the beginning of a living memorial. Today hundreds of people gather at his church each May 1 and place flowers on countless graves.

At the June term of court in Gwinnett County in 1821, my great-grandfather Shadrack Bogan along with John Winn and Patrick L. Dunlap were ordered to lay out and mark a road, the nearest and best way from the Gwinnett courthouse toward the ... [2 unreadable lines] ... Fields were appointed as commissioners to view the ground and mark a road the nearest and best way from Mathew McRight's ferry on the Chattahoochee to the Hog Mountain. At the September term of court, 1831, it was ordered that the petition to open a road from McAdam's ford in Harkness' field on the Chattahoochee River to Sugar Hill at Samuel Born's be accepted, provided the petitioners will keep the road in repair, and that Thomas McAdams, Thomas Rutherford and Thompson Moore be appointed commissioners to lay off the road. Thompson Moore was the father of my great-grandfather Arbin Moore.

The road which Shadrack Bogan laid out passed by his tavern, the Hog Mountain House, and was named the Bogan Road which it still is until this day.
The inferior court had jurisdiction over taverns and the rates were fixed by the court.

These were typical:
Single meal, each.................................................................... .37
Persons traveling in public conveyances, each meal.................. .50
Man or woman per day.......................................................... 1.25
Man and horse per night......................................................... 1.50
Horse, per day....................................................................... .75
Board, man per week............................................................ 5.00
Board, horse per week.......................................................... 3.00
Board, man per month........................................................... 15.00
Board, horse per month......................................................... 10.00
Board, Man per year............................................................. 150.00

I am told that the men who laid out the Peachtree Road were paid $150 for their work and returned to the Hog Mountain House and blew in on a Saturday night dance. William Nesbit was "boss" and his buddies John Young, Lewis Lawley, and a Negro man did the work. Hiram Williams and Gustin Young drove the cart and served on picket duty as the Indians were not to be trusted. Old John Rogers, the ancestor of our late and beloved Will Rogers, had some political pull and the road was extended from Hog Mountain through John Rogers' property in Old Suwanee Town and thence to the new fort at Standing Peachtree, now Bolton, Ga.

One of my aunt's relatives, the ancestors of the late Lusianne Strickland, had their house moved from near Old Suwanee Town and had it erected on their 2,000-acre lot located on the Peachtree Road in 1832.