Johnson, Craft, Strickland, Peek, Williams,
Baldwin Connections
Georgia and South Carolina
The earliest account of the Johnson family in our ancestrial line
that I’ve found is T.
Johnson, born about 1820 in Georgia, probably Elbert County where he
was located at
that time. I still haven’t determined his parents names.
Although he is listed in 1850
census as T. Johnson, I learned his full name was Thomas C. Johnson and
he was a
farmer at the age of 30 living in household #513 with a wife Nancy Jane
(Denard)
Johnson, age 19 with three children. Georgia marriage records
show that Thomas
Johnson and Nancy Jane Denard were married 15 November 1848 in Elbert
County. The
children living in their household were::
S. Johnson (m) age 1
J. Johnson (f) age 14
E. Johnson (f) age 12
The first child is Singleton Johnson and the son of Thomas and
Nancy. The other two
girls are too old to be their children. I believe these children
to be nieces or sisters of
Thomas Johnson. Further research is required to determine who
they are and why they
are living with him.
The next official record for the Thomas C. Johnson family is in the
1860 Elbert County
census. In 1860, his wife N. J. Johnson is shown as the
head of household and having
remarried. She is listed as N. J. Patterson, with two Johnson
children in her household.
Her new husband isn’t listed.
The children listed are:
Singleton Johnson (m) age 11
Thomas Johnson (m) age 6
It was told to me by another researcher (whom I can’t remember) that
Thomas Johnson
was thrown from his horse and killed. I have no proof of that
however. Using the
childrens ages, it can be determined that he died after 1854.
Georgia marriage records
indicate that Mrs. Nancy Jane Johnson married Nimrod Patterson on 28
April 1857 in
Elbert County. So, between 1854 and 1857, her first husband
Thomas Johnson deceased.
No children other than the Johnson children were listed in N. J.
Patterson’s household in
1860. By 1870, Nancy Jane Patterson is shown as a domestic
worker in the house of her
uncle, Michael G. Denard. She is also shown with 2 more children
at this time named
Willis J. Patterson (m) 7 yrs old, and Martha Patterson (f) 1 yr
old. So, I guess we can
conclude that her second husband, Nimrod, had passed away within the
last year.
Singleton Allen Johnson (1870)
Thomas Johnson’s eldest son, Singleton who was known by the
initials, S. A. Johnson,
was found in the 1870 census in Elbert County Georgia living in
household # 1125. His
age is given as 20 and he is listed as a farmer. His wife’s name
is shown as Mary J. and
keeping house. Her age in the census appears to be 31. They
were married 2 September,
1869. There were no children listed in their household in 1870.
Singleston’s wife’s maiden name is Mary Jane Hansford, born June 19,
1838. She was
the daughter of William Patrick Hansford, born 1814, and Lucinda Hardy,
born 1816.
Williams Patrick’s parents were William Hansford III (1775 - 1823) and
Milley
(unknown). William III parents were William Hansford II born 1735
and Janet Brown.
Of course, his parents were William Hansford (the first) and Bathsheba
Archer, birth
dates unknown.
According to family folklore, Singleton Johnson was affectionally known
as Sing-Sing.
This was learned when I visited with Sallie Mae Johnson Wallace,
Singleton’s
granddaughter, who lived in Hart County, Georgia. She said
she never knew him but she
did hear about him. Sallie Mae was 94 yrs old when I visited with
her in the year 2000.
The next official account of Singleton Johnson is in the 1880 census as
a farmer 34 years
of age still living in Elbert County Georgia, household #339 with his
wife Mary Jane, age
42 and they had the following children listed at that time:
James Johnson (m) age 10
Lou Johnson (f) age 8
Louie Johnson (f) age 6
Babe Johnson (f) age 1
I’m assuming Babe was an unnamed child. It was common in those
years for families
not to name their children when they were born. Don’t ask me why,
but I see it alot in my
research. I believe they waited to see if the child was going to
live before giving them a
name. The death rate for infants was extremely high.
Since there isn’t an 1890 census available because it was destroyed by
fire, no further
research has been done with this family, except that we know the
surviving children were:
James William Johnson, born November 12, 1870
Eva Sallie Johnson born March 1883
I believe this family lost several children and they are buried at Bio
Baptist Church in
Hart County Georgia. I am open to input here from other family
members that know
more about Singleton’s children than I do.
James William Johnson
James William Johnson, born Nov. 12, 1870, in Hart County
Georgia, died Oct. 1956, in
Greenville, South Carolina and was Singleton Allen Johnson’s eldest
child. He married
Lucy L. E. Vickery, born March 24, 1868, Hart County, died July 28,
1943. James, also
known as Jim Johnson, lived for many years in the Spartanburg,
Anderson and
Greenville areas of South Carolina. He is buried in the Graceland
Cemetary in
Greenville, SC.
During my visit with Sallie Mae, I was told that Jim might have also
lived in Royston,
Georgia on a farm he bought after selling another one in Anderson,
South Carolina. He
and Lucy had the following children:
Mary Bessie Johnson, born June 9, 1893
Henry Thomas Johnson, born Oct. 31, 1894
Eva Sallie Johnson, born June 10, 1896
Jessie J. Johnson, born Jan. 30, 1898
Charles Keys Johnson, born Oct. 21, 1899
Lucius Johnson, born Feb. 16, 1902
W. Hester Johnson, born Dec. 21, 1903
Sallie Mae Johnson, born Dec. 15, 1905
Mattie Johnson, born July 25, 1910
Maude Johnson, born Aug 7, 1914
Infant Johnson, born April 7, 1908
I was told a story by Sallie Mae about a time when Henry got a new pair
of pants and
came out to the field to show his father. He got to strutting
around showing off the pants
and a bull got after him. His dad had to get between him and the
bull until Henry could
escape.
She also said that Hester had the devil in him. She remembered
one time when a visitor
came, he changed the reins on their horses so that when you wanted the
horse to go right,
it would turn left and vice-versa. She said he got into a lot of
trouble for that.
It was also interesting to learn that Sallie Mae’s occupation was a
carpenter. I’m sure this
was in a time when women carpenters were extremely rare. She told
me about building
and roofing houses. I thought that was interesting because Henry
Thomas was also in the
carpentary business. There are still quite a few houses in
Whitmire, SC that he was
responsible for building. Of course, he was also a barber, store
owner, and other things
such as a geese and chicken raiser, and part-time dentist when us
grandkids had a loose
tooth.
Lucy L. E. Vickery, the wife of James William Johnson was the daughter
of John
Lewis Vickey, born 1839, died 1912 and Martha Catherine Evans, born
1845. John’s
parents were Thomas J. Vickery Sr., born 1821 and died in 1893.
His wife was Winney
Nancy Peek, born 1825 and died 1879.
Everyone one has heard of the Indian in the family, I’m
sure. Well this is were it began.
Winney Nancy Peek, was the daughter of Ransel Abel Peek, born 1765 and
Elizabeth
Williams. Elizabeth was the daughter of George Williams and his
wife, a full blooded
Cherokee Indian, named Peggy. Some say her name was Piggy.
I tend to go along with
Piggy. George Williams was a soldier in the Revolutionary War,
and married Piggy in
Virginia according to historians researching this family. Several
attempts have been
made by our ancestors to claim Indian heritage but to my knowledge they
failed because
this marriage occurred in the 1700’s and Piggy’s ancestrial
heritage couldn’t be proven.
Remember, there weren’t any records kept on Indians that early in the
development of
this country. But, it is commonly accepted by historians of the
Peek and Williams
families that she was a Cherokee indian and the marriage did
occur. It is my
understanding that quite a few members of the Peek family are buried on
Sand Mountain,
Alabama where they moved after leaving Georgia. This particular
time in our family
history is an entire book by its self that is being written by a family
historian from
Atlanta. It seems George was quite a warrior and was involved in
several wars during his
lifetime.
Henry Thomas Johnson
Henry Thomas Johnson was born October 31, 1894 and died April 7,
1966. He was the
son of James William (Jim) Johnson. He was married to Cora Lee
Craft, born July 2,
1896 and died June 10, 1970. Both are buried in the Whitmire
Cemetary, Newberry
County, South Carolina. They had the following children:
Lucy Elizabeth Johnson, April 19, 1914
Ruth Ella Johnson, April 30, 1916
Frances Lenora Johnson, Feb. 8, 1918
Helen Keller Johnson, Oct. 18, 1920
Claude Calas Johnson, Sept. 12, 1922
Florence Louise Johnson, Dec. 28, 1924
James W. Johnson, May 30, 1926
Eletha Luginis Johnson, Dec. 20, 1928
Macy Pauline Johnson, April 15, 1932
Henry T. Johnson Jr., Dec. 14, 1933
Olin Dewitt Johnson, Jan. 25, 1936
Craft Family
Cora Lee Craft, the wife of Henry Thomas Johnson was the daughter of
John Luther
Craft, born July 18, 1869, died in Whitmire, SC (if I’m not mistaken)
while living with
his daughter there in 1935. John’s wife, Jane E. Baldwin,
was born Dec. 6, 1868, died
August 12, 1918. Both John and Jane are buried together at Rock
Branch Baptist Church
in Elbert County Georgia. Her name, craved into her
tombstone, reads Janie Baldwind,
which I have learned was the Dutch spelling of the name Baldwin.
I believe the correct
spelling for her name is Baldwin though after further research.
John L. and Janie were married October 23, 1892 and had the following
children:
Cora Lee Craft, born July 2, 1896
Lottie Tallula Craft, Jan. 7, 1900
In the 1900 census, John L. Craft is shown living with his wife, 2
daughters and a sister,
Mary Steadman, age 42, born May 1858. He was living on a 400 Ac.
rented farm.
Neither he nor his wife were able to read or write according to the
census. It also shows
that he had 3 children, but only 2 were alive. Where that third
child is buried, and it’s
name is not known.
John L. Craft was the son of William T. Craft, born in Virginia
about 1826 and Sarah
Jane Stricklin, born about 1834 in Georgia. I have not determined
the parents of
William T.,. William and Sarah had the following children:
Asa M. Craft, b. Sept 30, 1853
Mary E. Craft, b. May 1858 (shown living with John L. in 1900)
Nancy E. Craft, b. about 1861
Adda J. Craft, b. about 1864
John Luther Craft, b. July 1869
Joseph Washington Craft, b. Oct. 1859
Jasper Craft, b. 1871
Sallie Craft, b. 1873
William Craft, b. 1876
Colloway Craft, b. 1879
Another interesting note: Mary Bessie Johnson married
Walter Stevens Craft, who was
the son of Joseph Washington Craft who was a brother of John L. Craft.
Mary Bessie was
the sister of Henry T. Johnson, and she was born June 9, 1893 and
died in 1966 when she
was hit by a car while she was crossing the road to check her
mailbox. So, this
Johnson/Craft line of the family is connected to our line by both
family names.
I was told by C. W. Cooper, the son of Lula that his mother told
him the Craft’s were a
wealthy family prior to the war between the states. She said
there were trunks full of
Conderate money in the attic when Sherman’s army came through and
burned everything.
She said the family lost everything they had in that war.
Sarah Jane Strickland, the wife of William T. Craft was the daughter of
Joseph
Stricklin, born about 1793 in North Carolina and Sara Davis, born about
1793 in
Georgia. Joseph died about 1855 in Elbert County Georgia and Sara
died between 1850
and 1860 in Georgia. Joseph and Sara had the following children:
F. Stricklin, b. abt. 1828
M. Stricklin, b. abt. 1830
Nancy Ann Stricklin, b. abt. 1832
Sara Jane Stricklin, b. abt. 1834
J. Stricklin, b. abt. 1835
Eventually a separate paper will be written on the Strickland family
surname.
Jane E. Baldwin, the wife of John L. Craft, was the daughter of
John Baldwin. John is
shown living with his wife Elizabeth (last name unknown) in the 1920
census in
Anderson County, South Carolina.
A separate paper has been written for this family line. See the
Baldwin Family
Connections for more details.
I didn’t include the families of the children and grandchildren of
Henry T. and Cora
Johnson. I thought each individual family could carry this paper
further if they so
desired. At this time I just don’t have all of that information,
and I didn’t want to include
some and exclude others. If you would, I would appreciate you
sending me that
information from your family lines if you haven’t already done so for
future expansion of
this family tree.
Anyone wishing to contact me can do so by USmail at:
Ken Sparks
608 S. Broad Street
Clinton, SC
29325