Southern Patriot: Jame Fulcher b:1755 d:1839

James Fulcher was born in Virginia in 1755 and was the son of William Fulcher and Nancy Armistead. During the Revolutionary War he served as a soldier in the Continental Line from Georgia and saw service in Georgia and South Carolina. For his services to his country he received land grants in several Georgia counties including Richmond, Screven, and Muscogee.

He married Mary Elizabeth Huff in 1777 in Virginia and they are believed to have had the following five children.

1) Armistead Fulcher (born 1778) married Nancy Daniel.
2) Margaret Fulcher (born 1780) married Augustine Hewlett.
3) John LaFayette Fulcher (born 1781) married Mary Colson.
4) James Fulcher (born 1783, died 1823).
5) Nancy Fulcher (born 1789) married William Colson.

In addition to being a land owner, James served as a Justice of the Peace and was the owner of an Inn on McBean Creek not far from Waynesboro. George Washington breakfasted there on his tour of the South in 1791. President Washington entered into is diary "Wednesday 18th - Breakfast at Fulcher's, 15 miles from Waynesboro." The desk said to be the one at which George Washington made this entry in his diary has been passed down to a present day descendent of James Fulcher.

Though there are few records for James Fulcher, I do have a census record from 1830 stating that he was a plantation owner and was the owner of 8 slaves.  His plantation at the time was located in Richmond County, GA. Patriot James Fulcher died on March 23, 1839 in Richmond County and is buried in the Fulcher Cemetery located near the intersection of Piney Grove Road and the present day Highway 56. His example of duty and service to his nation and community serves as a model for us all.

Elizabeth Grace (Winter) Tinley b: May 1865 d: Mar 28,1940

Elizabeth Grace Winter was born in May of 1865 in Georgia (most likely in McBean, GA).  Grace was the daughter of John Winter and Indiana (Indie) H. Dove.  I have intentionally chosen Grace to be the first female I write about for several reasons.  1. There is very little information out there about females because we were such a  patriarchal society, but I do have some information about Grace. 2. Grace was a single mother in a time when there were not very many. and 3. Because she is Annie Mae Tinley's "Granny's" mother.  Since many of you knew and loved Granny, I thought it would be helpful to give you a glimpse into her story to better understand where she came from. 

Grace was born at the end of the Civil War in May of 1865.  Her father John Winter had been a 2nd Lieutenant for the Conferate Army (Company I, GA 48th Infantry) beginning in Nov of 1861 and mustering out in March of 1862.  He married Indie on November 5, 1863. John Winter seems to have been a successful planter/farmer based on the number of slaves he owned (19 before the war).  Grace grew up in Richmond County.  She could read and write and helped her mother "keep house" according to census documents.  She was married to John J Tinley on 13 June 1889 in Richmond County.  This has been a huge mystery for me for sometime because there was no 1890 census record for Grace and suddenly she popped up in 1900 with two kids, the last name Tinley and widowed???  I looked for a long time and finally, yesterday I found a marriage record and his middle initial "J".  When I googled it, I found a website for the Tinley Cemetary (http://www.thegagenweb.com/garichmo/cemetery/Tinley.html) in Richmond Co.  There is a grave marker there for a J.J. Tinely born 15 Jan 1866 died 10 Sept 1893, since the timeline and other family member match up, I feel that this has to be him.  I still have no idea how John died. 

John and Grace had three children, two survived a son Thomas (b 1892) and a daughter Annie Mae (b: 8 Nov 1893) which means that Granny never knew her father, he died two months before she was born.  Grace moved back in with her parents John and Indie Winter and was there with them with her kids through the 1900 census. 

In 1910 however, Grace and her children (now in thier teens) were living with the Byrd family.  Grace was the house servant for the Byrd family Thomas "Walker" (her son) was a serviceman for the telephone company and Annie Mae was a spooler at the local cottonmill.  In a strange twist of fate, the family have left the rural life for the more suburban life of Augusta to live with the Byrd family on Hicks Street, right down the way from the Roberts family, who also lived on Hicks Street.  Hicks Street in Augusta, GA is like ground zero for our family name. Generations of the Roberts family lived and were raised on Hicks Street.  I did look on Google hoping to find Hicks Street and while there are some houses from the era still standing, half of the street was turned into a highway and the houses that are there are in pretty bad shape.  The homes that our ancestors lived in were on the side of the street they turned into a highway. 


Hicks Street Augusta today

Grace lived the rest of her life in Augusta.  I have years worth of phone address books always listing her as Grace Tinley, widow of John.  She had various addresses over the years, but she eventually moved in with William and Annie Mae to help them keep house and raise thier 4 children.  Grace never remarried after her brief 4 year marriage to John.  It seems like she devoted the rest of her life to working for her family and raising her children.  Though she had been living in Fulton County with Mage and Granny as recently as 1930, she died in Richmond County, GA on March 28, 1940.

William Henry Roberts b: Jan 1870 d: ?

 In this blog I don't anticipate following a particular order when delving into the stories behind each of our ancestors. I would like to start with William H(enry?) Roberts, b: January 1870 and died somewhere between 1910-1920. I am starting with William because he has become an enigma to me. I have so many more detailed records on people that died long before he was born and yet, somehow, I have very little information on William.

Most of the information I have to rely on for William is through census data. However, I can tell you that he was the third child born to George David Roberts (1839-1927) and Susan Rivannah McElmurray (1838-1925) in Burke County near McBean/Green Cut area. When William was born, Georgia was still in reconstruction from the war and would not actually be readmitted to the Union until July 1870. As a result, it is reported that the “The 1870 census in the Southern States omits a great many persons.” Much of the economy of the late 1800’s in Georgia revolved around agriculture, specifically cotton and corn.

While there is no 1890’s Census Data on, in 1900, William was living in Richmond County (Augusta), GA. He was married to Mary A Green and had two sons at the time William David -7 and Robert Lee – 3. William worked at a Cotton Mill as a Cardroom Hand. Based on what I researched, a Cardroom Hand was someone who helped combine the wool and cotton together so that it could be woven into thread. This seems like a common job, just from looking at the number of the other people on the census who had this same job.

In 1910, I again have census data listing William living on Hicks Street in Augusta, GA down the road from his mother Susan. He and Mary had added two more sons to the group and they had also lost an infant child along the way. They had a house full of four boys William D – 17, Robert L – 12, James W – 7, and John J – 4. This time William was employed as a farmer raising corn & cotton while William D, his son, managed the home farm.



1910 Census, Roberts Family is second from top.



The next record I have for the family is the 1920 census, which shows that Mary is a widow raising two sons James W – 19, and John J – 16 and a daughter Carrie L -10. (You may notice that the math on the ages of the kids doesn’t add up with the 10 year census cycle, and that is pretty common in this era with the lack of proper documentation and education. Unfortunately, I cannot find a death certificate or obituary for William, and so I am afraid our story ends there.

Unfortunately there is even less information on Mary. I do not have a record for a Mary A. Green prior to 1900 and then all I have are the three census records. Something I did find interesting was that in the 1920 census after Mary had been widowed, she went back to using her maiden name, Green instead of Roberts. It just seemed odd. I tried to trace the other children but came up short. I did find record of the death of Mary A Roberts in Elbert, GA at age 88 on Oct 6, 1965. The age may not align exactly, but as we have seen, they sometimes don’t. I would say that without seeing a copy of the actual death certificate, I hesitate to say this is her. I am hoping that maybe some of you heard stories along the way from Mage about his daddy or from Grandaddy about his Grandmother or Grandfather (even though they would have never met).

Where it all started?

I originally got interested in searching our family’s genealogy when Preston, our second child was born in September of last year. My Grandparents, Cliff and Jeanette Burnett had written down thier story for the family and it made me really start to question...where and who did we come from? I have heard stories for years, but they were more myth than actual accounts of events. I was determined that my children would have an actual record of thier ancestry to pass down.  I have used ancestry.com and other internet tools to help me in this journey. While I can't answer all the questions, I have tried to be diligent in confirming my sources of information. I initially thought this would be something that I could do pretty quickly, but over the past few months I have realized how arduous of a journey this is and at times it begins to generate more questions than answers. There are spaces that I hope you, my family can help me fill, but even more than that, I hope you come away from this knowing more about the amazing people that came before us and in turn have a better appreciation for the blood that flows in your veins and the name we carry(ied).

While I could just post a diagram on a webpage with all of the trees, I wanted to actually tell the story of these people.  I want them to be more than a name on a piece of paper for you and me.  I decided to start with the Roberts side of the family since there was little information available to me about my last name.  After months of research, I can tell you that our ancestors were patriots, scoundrels, pioneers, fighters, inventors, slaveholders and have been woven into the fabric of this great country before it even was one.  Please enjoy...