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Subject: [GAPAULDI] Ga-Paulding-Carroll Co. Bios (McBrayer)
Date: 2 Jan 2004 01:39:41 -0000


Paulding-Carroll County GaArchives Biographies.....Andrew Erwin McBrayer June 28 1807 - October 29 1889
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Dianne Crawford diannegen1 January 1, 2004, 8:39 pm

Author: several sources
Andrew Erwin McBrayer moved to GA with his father and mother about 1821. It is
said they left North Carolina, perhaps went into South Carolina, then traveled
by way of Huntsville, AL, where they supposedly spent about a year. They then
moved over the line into Tennessee where they spent a couple of years on a
farm "in sight of Winchester, Tennessee". The next year they moved east to
Gilmer Co., GA (Hall Co.), where his father settled on an Indian Claim, land
that had just recently opened to settlement. Andrew remained here with his
parents until about 1827, when he moved on the old Villa Rica, Carroll Co., GA
area, where he met and married the daughter of the farmer for whom he was
working as a farm hand.
They are both buried in the Draketown Baptist Church Cemetery.
An annual family reunion was begun in Jul 1889 by the children and
relatives of Nancy Leathers McBrayer to commemorate and celebrate her
birthday. This reunion has been held every year since, with the exception of
one year during WW II. It is still held at the original site - the Draketown
Baptist Church - the third Sunday of July each year. Draketown is located to
the southwest of Dallas, GA, on Highway 120.
(ED NOTE: Data supplied by Terrell McBrayer, which was supposed to have
been taken from an old family dictionary, indicates that Andrew had two sons,
Andrew and George, and a daughter, Susannah, who died in infancy. This
information was supposed to have been compiled by William Clark McBrayer and
was recorded on a blank page of an old dictionary now in the possession of his
daughter Mrs. Tessa McBrayer Gray.)
From 'Memoirs of Georgia, Vol II, published by The Southern Historical
Association, Atlanta, GA' in 1895 .... "was born in Buncombe County, NC,
whence the family migrated to GA in 1817, making the journey in an ox-cart,
and settled in what is now Campbell and Paulding Counties - living in a tent
until land could be cleared and a house built. Three months schooling, under
serious disadvantages, was all received out by reading and studying by a pine-
knot light he acquired a fair practical education at home. In 1831 he moved to
what is now Paulding County, where he accumulated a fortune and died in 1891."
(provided by Jimmie Sue Blaylock - 1999)

Andy and Nancy stories and facts from my grandmother's notebook are as
follows:
When Andy and Nancy Leathers McBrayer were married they settled near
Villa Rica. They lived on one hill and the Candlers (coca Cola Candlers)
lived on another (close neighbors).
Their homes, as were all the pioneer homes, were built of big logs
chinked with mud. The mud would fall out leaving cracks. Andy would be away
on business at Court at Dallas, leaving Nancy at home with the children.
Almost all the land was full of Cherokee Indians. She said at night she could
hear them prowling around, see their eyes shining in the cracks as they peeped
through. She said she was so scared, almost afraid to breathe.
Their boys and the Candlers played together. Her son Joe and Billy
Candler were pals. One morning they were going down the road. No stock law
at this time. At this particular place the fence ran along each side of the
road making a lane of the road. A yealing jumped up in from of them. Joe
threw a rock at him, hit him on the head and killed him. Some scared boys.
Nancy said the Paulding and Carroll County line was an old Indian trail.
Andy was a home guard during the Civil War.

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