Nash Family & Farm History
HISTORY OF THE NASH FAMILY AND PROPERTY
The Nash family of Henry County migrated to the area in the
1830's and 1840's from Laurens County, South Carolina, where
they had prospered during the early years of the nineteenth
century. However, exhausted soils and a national depression in
the 1820's prompted the family to scout for new opportunities.
(McConnell 1992). John
Nesbit Nash was in Henry County by 1836, when he purchased LL
155 of the 6th district, about a mile south of Nash Farm
property. In 1841, he purchased 125 acres to the northeast of
the Nash Farm, which included the east half of LL 102, from
William Crawford, (Henry County Superior Court {HCHS} 1836: Deed
Book {DB} H:462; 1841: DB J:512.
In 1845, John Nesbit Nash's oldest son, Elihu Nash purchased 150 acres known as the Crawford place in LL 102, 103, and 122, which appears to have included the 125 acres purchased by his father four years before. Elihu Nash purchased the land from R.M. Milner for $350. This land included the approximately 10-acre tract in the northeast corner of LL 122 north of McDonough Road that is part of the Nash Farm. Elihu Nash later added to his holdings in LL 122 by purchasing 123 acres from Benjamin Nail in 1853. This property, for which Elihu paid $900, appears to have included the land north of Walnut Creek on which the present Nash house and outbuildings are located (HCSC 1845: DB L:43; 1853: DB O:131). Because the price paid was considerably more than Elihu had paid for more acreage in 1845, it is likely that improvements had already been made to the property.
Elihu Nash probably established a residence on the Crawford Place in 1845, or occupied an existing dwelling on the property, which would have been on the north side of McDonough Road. After purchasing the 123-acre Neal property in 1853, he may have built a new house on the south side of the road on the current Nash Farm property. The 33-year-old Elihu appears in the 1850 census of Henry County with his wife Elizabeth and five children between the ages of 10 and 2. There is also a five-year-old girl whose last name is Adams, born in South Carolina, living in the house (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1850). She is likely an orphaned relative. Nash is listed as a farmer whose estate was valued at $1,000. At that time, he had not purchased the 123 acres in Land Lot 122 that was considerably more valuable than the land to the north that he had purchased in 1845.
In 1858, Elihu Nash sold the entire property to his older brother, Thompson Edward Nash, and moved to a farm in the Bear Creek District of Henry County near Hampton. Thompson Nash had been in Georgia since about 1835 and had purchased land just to the northeast of his brother's farm on the McDonough Road in the 1840s (see Figure 9). He had lived briefly in what is now Clayton County at Orr's Crossing in the 1830s, and then had moved to Campbell County where he resided near his uncle, James Abercrombie. In 1846, he reportedly bought a farm about three miles east of Lovejoy in Fosterville (Nash Family Bible in possession of Ron Brown of Jonesboro). This is consistent with deeds that show that between 1847 and 1849, he purchased three tracts totaling about 450 acres in Land Lots 72, 89, and 90 of the Sixth District of Henry County, on the north side of McDonough Road (HCHS 11835: DB G:395; 1847: DB L:468, 483; 1849: DB M:52; 1858: DB O:593). He apparently occupied the house on that property that is still standing, just to the northeast of the Nash Farm property (see Figure 9) (Ron Brown, personal communication 20, June, 2006).
Thompson E. Nash was a minister who contributed land for the County Line Methodist Church (now County Line Congregational Christian Church), and also served as postmaster of Fosterville, which at that time apparently was located on McDonough Road near the County Line Methodist Church or possibly near Walnut Creek. Thompson Nash must have fared very well with his Henry County farm over the next ten years. In 1856 and 1858, he purchased the 270 acres from his brother, Elihu, for $1,750, to which he added 80 acres on the west side of Land Lot 102 (see Figure 9) (HCSC 1856: DB O:619; 1858: DB:616, 617). By 1860 he owned 26 slaves and was one of the largest slaveholders in Clayton County. His real estate was valued at over $20,000, and his personal estate, which included the slaves, was valued at over $21,000. He lived with his wife Elizabeth Shaw Nash and their 8 children (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1860).
In 1858, Clayton County was created, and Land Lot 122 became a part of that county. It is not clear if Thompson Nash moved to the property he purchased from his brother or remained on his earlier farm on the north side of the road. According to the family Bible, "about 1855 he built a new house and moved the old house where it now stands near the church." This presumably refers to the County Line Church, just to the northeast of the Nash Farm. If the date is correct, the new house would have been built on the original farm north of McDonough Road, and the fact that the old house was moved when the new one was built suggests that the new house was built on or near the site of the old one. However, the date is given as an estimate, and it may be that that the new house was built on the property he purchased from his brother. This is supported by the fact that Thompson Nash is listed in Clayton County in the 1860 census, while his old farm would have still been in Henry County (Brown n.d; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1860).
Thompson Nash apparently did not serve in the Civil War, but his younger brother Elihu did. He was a number of other members of the family enlisted in Company H, 27th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry, later known as "Zachry Rangers," when the Civil War broke out. Among those in his company was Thompson E. Nash's son, John Pleasant Shaw Nash, who was 19 years old in 1860 and living in his father's household. There is some evidence that Thompson Nash had set up his son in a house on the side of the McDonough road in Land Lot 122 just prior to the Civil War. John P.S. Nash would have been about 20 years old and unmarried when the war began. He definitely moved to the property sometime after the war and was later granted the lot by his father.
One account of the Civil War action at the site mentions that there was an abandoned farm, and the Ruger map from the Civil War seems to indicate a vacant house in this location (see Figure 8). His regiment was serving in Virginia during the Atlanta Campaign, which may explain why the Nash Farm was described in one Civil War account as abandoned. If he was starting a household at the beginning of the war but had no family, it would have been abandoned while he was away. If Thompson Nash or some other family member had been living on the Nash Farm property at the start of the Civil War, there likely would have been family there during the war.
John P.S. Shaw Nash was wounded in the hip at Bentonville, N.C. in the final days of the war and was paroled on May 1, 1865. He returned to Clayton County by 1870, when he is listed in the census rolls for that county. John P. Nash, then 29, is listed in the Jonesboro Post Office District of Clayton County in 1870. He was married to 19-year-old Mary Jane McCollough, and had a 3-month old boy named Oliver. He reported no real estate or personal estate. The curious thing about the census listing for John P. Shaw for 1870 is that he is listed as a resident of an African American household headed by 38-year-old James Brown, a "farm laborer/farmer," who was married and had three young children. A 15-year-old African American girl named Jane Nash lived in the house as well and worked as a domestic servant.
A pencil line in the census ledger separates the blacks in the household from the whites, but there is no indication that this was a separate household (Brown n.d.; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1870). Whites and blacks rarely lived under the same roof at this time, but it would be almost inconceivable that the black family would be listed ahead of the white one in the census return, which put the head of the household first, followed by immediate family members and boarders or other relatives. Four of the adjacent households were also occupied by black families, including 48-year-old Joseph Nash, who may have been a former slave of the Nash family. It is possible that a number of former Nash family slaves were residing on the large Thompson Nash property on McDonough Road, and that John P.S. Nash and his family were occupying one of their houses while building a new house for himself and his family.
Whoever was living on the south side of the road in the 1860s, Thompson Nash still owned the property. He is not listed in the 1870 census and may have suffered considerable financial losses as a result of the emancipation of his slaves and damage to his property. It appears that John P.S. Nash had moved to his father's property on McDonough Road by 1880, although the exact location of his house is not known. Nash's neighbors included members of the Konkle and Dorsey families, who are known to have resided in the area. He is listed as a farmer, but still owned no real estate. At that time he and his wife had four children: Lula, 10, Quincy, 5, Minnie, 4, Emmet, 1, Oliver, his infant son in 1870, must have died during the preceding 10 years (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1880). In 1880 the family posed for a formal portrait, shown in (Figure 10).
In October of 1881, John P.S. Nash bought Land Lot 101 and a small portion of Land Lot 102 from John Abercrombie and Rachel Abercrombie (Clayton County Superior Court (CCSC) 1881: DB C:382, 384). The Abercrombie's were closely allied with the Nash Family in Henry and Clayton counties. The Civil War map in (Figure 7) shows a "Wid. Crumby" to the northwest of the site and this was probably actually a member of the Abercrombie family. According to Evans (1996:438), Union cavalrymen had stopped at Rachel Abercromby's house asking where the Dorsey plantation was on the morning of August 20, 1864, before the action at Lovejoy's Station. The name Crumby is probably a variation of Abercromby. The location of the house on the map is very close to where Land Lot 101 would be.
In July 1882, Thompson E. Nash traded Land Lot 122 to John P. S. Nash for Land Lot 101 that John had purchased from the Abercrombies. A little over a year later, for "the love and affection" he had for John P. S. Nash and "for the better maintenance and support of him," Thompson Nash gave John P. Nash approximately 202 acres in Land Lot 101 and a fraction of Land Lot 102. John Nash then held about 420 acres in the area. (CCSC 1882: DB C:514, D:6, 9). He probably lived on the south side of the road in Land Lot 122, perhaps where he had been living for sometime.
A photograph from about 1910 shows an elderly John Pleasant Shaw Nash and his family on the porch of the old house that is still standing on the Nash Farm property (Figure 10). Another photograph shows a barn on the site (Mark Pollard, personal communication, from original photographs in the possession of Ronald Brown). Nash sold the land on the north side of McDonough Road in Land Lot 101 in 1904, retaining only the 202 acres in Land Lot 122, what is now known as the Nash Farm property ( CCSC 1904: DB K:58).
Nash had at least five children, but two sons died young, and one daughter died when only 17. John Quincy Nash (1875-1956) and Minnie Nash (1876-1962) both lived to adulthood. Quincy Nash had one son from his first marriage; but when he divorced, his ex-wife took his son to live with her in Arkansas where she remarried. One of Nash's daughters married and had a daughter. John P. S. Nash died in 1924, and his son, John Q. Nash, apparently continued to reside on the property. He added approximately 73 acres in Land Lot 104 to the estate. In 1941, Quincy Nash asked the court, as J. P. S. Nash's "son and only next of kin entitled to any interest in said estate," to appoint Miss Ruth Harris as the administrator of the estate. His sister, Minnie Nash, who was still alive at the time, may have already conveyed her interest in the property to her brother.
The court compiled with Quincy Nash's request, and Harris had the Nash Farm surveyed for sale (Brown n.d; Clayton County Probate Court 1941: Minute Book G:48). The plat of the property (see Figure 10a) made in 1941 (CCSC 1941: Plat Book 1:213) shows that there were four structures in Land Lot 122, three on the south side of Babbs Mill Road and one on the north side (Figure 12). Lot 122 had been divided into approximately 52-acre parcels for sale, but the lot was sold as one tract to O.J. Coogler in 1941. Coogler apparently lost the property in 1942 and it was eventually acquired by Georgia Savings Bank & Trust Company, which sold it to Hugh Schneider in 1949. Schneider also acquired 77 acres adjoining Land Lot 122 in the eastern part of Land Lot 123 at the same time (CCSC 1941: DB 36:328; 1942: DB36:586; 1949: DB 65:547; 1949: DB 69:222).
The Schneiders built two new houses on the property as well as a barn. Hugh Schneider sold the property in 1975 to B. A. Barnette, who owned it for 10 years. Barnette built a third residence on the property as well as another barn. He sold the property to James S. and Paul C. Rosser and Michael Strayhorn in 1985. In 1991 the property was acquired by the Gresham family and operated a cattle farm until it was occupied by Henry County for use as a park.
The original house on the property has been extensively modified over time. Henry County tax records give the date of construction of the house as 1920 (Henry County Tax Assessor's Office 2006), and this is certainly too late, based on the photographs of the house and its association with John P. S. Nash, a long-time resident. The reason for the 1920 date is probably because the Nash home was located within the Clayton County boundary line in 1919 and relocated into the Henry County line in 1920. However, assertions that the house was in place during the Civil War cannot be proven from the available evidence, although it seems likely that some house stood on or near the site from at least the 1850's. Five unknown house site ruins were also identified on the Nash Farm property during the March 2007 archaeological survey. These house site ruins may also one day shed further valuable historical information.
Further architectural and archaeological investigations of the Nash house, material components, and surrounding areas within the property could help us understand the answers to these questions.
In 1845, John Nesbit Nash's oldest son, Elihu Nash purchased 150 acres known as the Crawford place in LL 102, 103, and 122, which appears to have included the 125 acres purchased by his father four years before. Elihu Nash purchased the land from R.M. Milner for $350. This land included the approximately 10-acre tract in the northeast corner of LL 122 north of McDonough Road that is part of the Nash Farm. Elihu Nash later added to his holdings in LL 122 by purchasing 123 acres from Benjamin Nail in 1853. This property, for which Elihu paid $900, appears to have included the land north of Walnut Creek on which the present Nash house and outbuildings are located (HCSC 1845: DB L:43; 1853: DB O:131). Because the price paid was considerably more than Elihu had paid for more acreage in 1845, it is likely that improvements had already been made to the property.
Elihu Nash probably established a residence on the Crawford Place in 1845, or occupied an existing dwelling on the property, which would have been on the north side of McDonough Road. After purchasing the 123-acre Neal property in 1853, he may have built a new house on the south side of the road on the current Nash Farm property. The 33-year-old Elihu appears in the 1850 census of Henry County with his wife Elizabeth and five children between the ages of 10 and 2. There is also a five-year-old girl whose last name is Adams, born in South Carolina, living in the house (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1850). She is likely an orphaned relative. Nash is listed as a farmer whose estate was valued at $1,000. At that time, he had not purchased the 123 acres in Land Lot 122 that was considerably more valuable than the land to the north that he had purchased in 1845.
In 1858, Elihu Nash sold the entire property to his older brother, Thompson Edward Nash, and moved to a farm in the Bear Creek District of Henry County near Hampton. Thompson Nash had been in Georgia since about 1835 and had purchased land just to the northeast of his brother's farm on the McDonough Road in the 1840s (see Figure 9). He had lived briefly in what is now Clayton County at Orr's Crossing in the 1830s, and then had moved to Campbell County where he resided near his uncle, James Abercrombie. In 1846, he reportedly bought a farm about three miles east of Lovejoy in Fosterville (Nash Family Bible in possession of Ron Brown of Jonesboro). This is consistent with deeds that show that between 1847 and 1849, he purchased three tracts totaling about 450 acres in Land Lots 72, 89, and 90 of the Sixth District of Henry County, on the north side of McDonough Road (HCHS 11835: DB G:395; 1847: DB L:468, 483; 1849: DB M:52; 1858: DB O:593). He apparently occupied the house on that property that is still standing, just to the northeast of the Nash Farm property (see Figure 9) (Ron Brown, personal communication 20, June, 2006).
Thompson E. Nash was a minister who contributed land for the County Line Methodist Church (now County Line Congregational Christian Church), and also served as postmaster of Fosterville, which at that time apparently was located on McDonough Road near the County Line Methodist Church or possibly near Walnut Creek. Thompson Nash must have fared very well with his Henry County farm over the next ten years. In 1856 and 1858, he purchased the 270 acres from his brother, Elihu, for $1,750, to which he added 80 acres on the west side of Land Lot 102 (see Figure 9) (HCSC 1856: DB O:619; 1858: DB:616, 617). By 1860 he owned 26 slaves and was one of the largest slaveholders in Clayton County. His real estate was valued at over $20,000, and his personal estate, which included the slaves, was valued at over $21,000. He lived with his wife Elizabeth Shaw Nash and their 8 children (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1860).
In 1858, Clayton County was created, and Land Lot 122 became a part of that county. It is not clear if Thompson Nash moved to the property he purchased from his brother or remained on his earlier farm on the north side of the road. According to the family Bible, "about 1855 he built a new house and moved the old house where it now stands near the church." This presumably refers to the County Line Church, just to the northeast of the Nash Farm. If the date is correct, the new house would have been built on the original farm north of McDonough Road, and the fact that the old house was moved when the new one was built suggests that the new house was built on or near the site of the old one. However, the date is given as an estimate, and it may be that that the new house was built on the property he purchased from his brother. This is supported by the fact that Thompson Nash is listed in Clayton County in the 1860 census, while his old farm would have still been in Henry County (Brown n.d; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1860).
Thompson Nash apparently did not serve in the Civil War, but his younger brother Elihu did. He was a number of other members of the family enlisted in Company H, 27th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry, later known as "Zachry Rangers," when the Civil War broke out. Among those in his company was Thompson E. Nash's son, John Pleasant Shaw Nash, who was 19 years old in 1860 and living in his father's household. There is some evidence that Thompson Nash had set up his son in a house on the side of the McDonough road in Land Lot 122 just prior to the Civil War. John P.S. Nash would have been about 20 years old and unmarried when the war began. He definitely moved to the property sometime after the war and was later granted the lot by his father.
One account of the Civil War action at the site mentions that there was an abandoned farm, and the Ruger map from the Civil War seems to indicate a vacant house in this location (see Figure 8). His regiment was serving in Virginia during the Atlanta Campaign, which may explain why the Nash Farm was described in one Civil War account as abandoned. If he was starting a household at the beginning of the war but had no family, it would have been abandoned while he was away. If Thompson Nash or some other family member had been living on the Nash Farm property at the start of the Civil War, there likely would have been family there during the war.
John P.S. Shaw Nash was wounded in the hip at Bentonville, N.C. in the final days of the war and was paroled on May 1, 1865. He returned to Clayton County by 1870, when he is listed in the census rolls for that county. John P. Nash, then 29, is listed in the Jonesboro Post Office District of Clayton County in 1870. He was married to 19-year-old Mary Jane McCollough, and had a 3-month old boy named Oliver. He reported no real estate or personal estate. The curious thing about the census listing for John P. Shaw for 1870 is that he is listed as a resident of an African American household headed by 38-year-old James Brown, a "farm laborer/farmer," who was married and had three young children. A 15-year-old African American girl named Jane Nash lived in the house as well and worked as a domestic servant.
A pencil line in the census ledger separates the blacks in the household from the whites, but there is no indication that this was a separate household (Brown n.d.; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1870). Whites and blacks rarely lived under the same roof at this time, but it would be almost inconceivable that the black family would be listed ahead of the white one in the census return, which put the head of the household first, followed by immediate family members and boarders or other relatives. Four of the adjacent households were also occupied by black families, including 48-year-old Joseph Nash, who may have been a former slave of the Nash family. It is possible that a number of former Nash family slaves were residing on the large Thompson Nash property on McDonough Road, and that John P.S. Nash and his family were occupying one of their houses while building a new house for himself and his family.
Whoever was living on the south side of the road in the 1860s, Thompson Nash still owned the property. He is not listed in the 1870 census and may have suffered considerable financial losses as a result of the emancipation of his slaves and damage to his property. It appears that John P.S. Nash had moved to his father's property on McDonough Road by 1880, although the exact location of his house is not known. Nash's neighbors included members of the Konkle and Dorsey families, who are known to have resided in the area. He is listed as a farmer, but still owned no real estate. At that time he and his wife had four children: Lula, 10, Quincy, 5, Minnie, 4, Emmet, 1, Oliver, his infant son in 1870, must have died during the preceding 10 years (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1880). In 1880 the family posed for a formal portrait, shown in (Figure 10).
In October of 1881, John P.S. Nash bought Land Lot 101 and a small portion of Land Lot 102 from John Abercrombie and Rachel Abercrombie (Clayton County Superior Court (CCSC) 1881: DB C:382, 384). The Abercrombie's were closely allied with the Nash Family in Henry and Clayton counties. The Civil War map in (Figure 7) shows a "Wid. Crumby" to the northwest of the site and this was probably actually a member of the Abercrombie family. According to Evans (1996:438), Union cavalrymen had stopped at Rachel Abercromby's house asking where the Dorsey plantation was on the morning of August 20, 1864, before the action at Lovejoy's Station. The name Crumby is probably a variation of Abercromby. The location of the house on the map is very close to where Land Lot 101 would be.
In July 1882, Thompson E. Nash traded Land Lot 122 to John P. S. Nash for Land Lot 101 that John had purchased from the Abercrombies. A little over a year later, for "the love and affection" he had for John P. S. Nash and "for the better maintenance and support of him," Thompson Nash gave John P. Nash approximately 202 acres in Land Lot 101 and a fraction of Land Lot 102. John Nash then held about 420 acres in the area. (CCSC 1882: DB C:514, D:6, 9). He probably lived on the south side of the road in Land Lot 122, perhaps where he had been living for sometime.
A photograph from about 1910 shows an elderly John Pleasant Shaw Nash and his family on the porch of the old house that is still standing on the Nash Farm property (Figure 10). Another photograph shows a barn on the site (Mark Pollard, personal communication, from original photographs in the possession of Ronald Brown). Nash sold the land on the north side of McDonough Road in Land Lot 101 in 1904, retaining only the 202 acres in Land Lot 122, what is now known as the Nash Farm property ( CCSC 1904: DB K:58).
Nash had at least five children, but two sons died young, and one daughter died when only 17. John Quincy Nash (1875-1956) and Minnie Nash (1876-1962) both lived to adulthood. Quincy Nash had one son from his first marriage; but when he divorced, his ex-wife took his son to live with her in Arkansas where she remarried. One of Nash's daughters married and had a daughter. John P. S. Nash died in 1924, and his son, John Q. Nash, apparently continued to reside on the property. He added approximately 73 acres in Land Lot 104 to the estate. In 1941, Quincy Nash asked the court, as J. P. S. Nash's "son and only next of kin entitled to any interest in said estate," to appoint Miss Ruth Harris as the administrator of the estate. His sister, Minnie Nash, who was still alive at the time, may have already conveyed her interest in the property to her brother.
The court compiled with Quincy Nash's request, and Harris had the Nash Farm surveyed for sale (Brown n.d; Clayton County Probate Court 1941: Minute Book G:48). The plat of the property (see Figure 10a) made in 1941 (CCSC 1941: Plat Book 1:213) shows that there were four structures in Land Lot 122, three on the south side of Babbs Mill Road and one on the north side (Figure 12). Lot 122 had been divided into approximately 52-acre parcels for sale, but the lot was sold as one tract to O.J. Coogler in 1941. Coogler apparently lost the property in 1942 and it was eventually acquired by Georgia Savings Bank & Trust Company, which sold it to Hugh Schneider in 1949. Schneider also acquired 77 acres adjoining Land Lot 122 in the eastern part of Land Lot 123 at the same time (CCSC 1941: DB 36:328; 1942: DB36:586; 1949: DB 65:547; 1949: DB 69:222).
The Schneiders built two new houses on the property as well as a barn. Hugh Schneider sold the property in 1975 to B. A. Barnette, who owned it for 10 years. Barnette built a third residence on the property as well as another barn. He sold the property to James S. and Paul C. Rosser and Michael Strayhorn in 1985. In 1991 the property was acquired by the Gresham family and operated a cattle farm until it was occupied by Henry County for use as a park.
The original house on the property has been extensively modified over time. Henry County tax records give the date of construction of the house as 1920 (Henry County Tax Assessor's Office 2006), and this is certainly too late, based on the photographs of the house and its association with John P. S. Nash, a long-time resident. The reason for the 1920 date is probably because the Nash home was located within the Clayton County boundary line in 1919 and relocated into the Henry County line in 1920. However, assertions that the house was in place during the Civil War cannot be proven from the available evidence, although it seems likely that some house stood on or near the site from at least the 1850's. Five unknown house site ruins were also identified on the Nash Farm property during the March 2007 archaeological survey. These house site ruins may also one day shed further valuable historical information.
Further architectural and archaeological investigations of the Nash house, material components, and surrounding areas within the property could help us understand the answers to these questions.