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Allen Jacob Baggett, this editor's great-grandfather, and his family moved with his parents, Stephen Baggett and Sarah Sikes, from Campbell (Douglas) County to Paulding in 1859. Jacob died 29 June 1863 while serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He married Elizabeth Ann James, daughter of Judge John James of Douglasville, and they first settled near the Douglas County line in Paulding. After Jacob's death, Elizabeth moved to the Hay community, where she purchased several hundred acres of land around where Zion Baptist Church now stands and reared her family. The neighborhood still goes by the name of Hay, Georgia. There was a Post Office located in the General Merchandise Store owned by Joseph Baggett named Hay in the community.
The Hay Post Office and Hay Elementary and Middle School were within a mile's distance of Zion Baptist Church in the Hay Community, and in two miles distance from Union Primitive Baptist Church. A gentleman, who lived almost 100 years, said that Steve Baggett laid the first sill for the school. He said he was walking down the road near the school ground early one morning and Steve Baggett said, "Come and help me with this." Later on that day there were several people working to build the first school in the community. A picture of the school taken in 1904 is shown on the link above, along with a list who was in attendant the day the picture was taken (link is on school picture).
Several historic places are gone in the communities of Union and Hay in Paulding County, GA. One historic place of business, the oldest country store in the Union Community, which was across the road from Roses Store, was called Embry's General Store. At one time there was a post office there named Embry. The man who owned the store was Postmaster. Embry Store is now a thing of the past. Roses was replaced and is now called Roses Convenient Store. Another historic place in the Hay Community that has vanished and never been replaced is the Baggett General Merchandise store.
A Historic Home in the Hay Community is the former Baggett home built behind the lake. The house was built in the 1950s and was remodeled in the 1970s. It was sold in the 1990s and the new owners remodeled the house again. They completely remodeled the inside and built a utility room on the rear of the house. The home is near the Joe Baggett place where the Hay Post Office was located earlier.
The children of Jacob and Elizabeth: Mary, Sarah, Stephen, Joseph, and John Baggett.
Mary F. (Frances?) Baggett married Jasper Rainey. Jasper and Mary settled in Haralson County, had children.
Sarah Elizabeth Baggett married Emory Britton Hughes and settled in Carroll County, had children.
Stephen Zachariah Baggett, married Ellen Elgyrine Little and they had eight children, six sons and two daughters: William Lucious, Joseph Alexander, Ruth Leola, Homer Cornelius, Arthur Allen, Oliver Alonzo, Elerna Capitola, and James Grady Baggett. Five sons survived and remained in Paulding County: Zannie, Homer, Arthur, Ollie, and Grady Baggett.
Zannie,
died 1942, married [1st] Ola Beall, died 1910. Zannie married [2nd] Maggie
Hembree, died
1970. Zannie had no children.
Homer, died 1973, married [1st] Katie Wix, died 1910, married [2nd] Anna Daniell, died 1956. Homer was a farmer and schoolteacher. He served on the Paulding Board of Education. Homer's children: Alton, Pauline, Lloyd, Eula, Floye (died infant), Audrey, Vesta, and Jeanette Baggett.
Arthur, died 1960, married Claudia Beall, died 1963. Arthur owned a sawmill, gristmill, and several acres of land. Arthur's children: Aubrey, Glenn, Grace, Infant (died), Lowell, Ethel, Nobbie Lee Baggett. Ollie Baggett, died 1951, married Ela Brown, died 1990. Ollie was a farmer. Ollie's children: Ruth, Edna Baggett
Ollie, died 1951, married Ella Brown, died 1985. Ollie was a farmer. His children : Ruth and Edna.
The youngest son, Grady Baggett (B/W picture of Grady and Mollie) (buried in Zion Baptist Church Cemetery), owned about 500 acres, a sawmill, and was a merchant for several years. Grady, born 1893, died 1959, married [1st] Mollie Duncan (her picture), born 1892, died 1929 (buried Union Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery), daughter of Levi Duncan and Lucy Dobbins. The Dobbins family lived in the New Georgia community. Levi and Lucy lived near Union Primitive Baptist Church. Their children later moved to Carrollton. Their son, Senoia Duncan, a Baptist Preacher, was once Pastor of Concord Baptist Church. Grady married (2) Della Williams (her picture), daughter of Joe Williams and Oda Thompson.
Brantly Duncan is as far back as the family has gone with the Duncan Family. There has been rumors by older people of the family that there were three brothers who came to Georgia in the nineteenth century. No one has yet to find either. One may have been George and another Elbert Duncan.
Brantly Duncan served in the Confederate Army on 6 June 1864. Personnel Record: Record number 321 composed of five documents. Recorded on Document number 5. He died of Febris Typhordas. Tombstone information: B. Duncan, County K, 60 GA. C.S.A., Stonewall Confederate Cemetery, Lagrange, Troupe County, GA. Main Residence: Walnut Grove area, 88 Division, Walton County, GA. He entered the Military 22 September 1863 as Private, Company K, 66th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry, Army of TN, C.S.A. He was enlisted by Captain L. T. Langston for the duration of the war. Brantly’s first appearance in public records was when he bought his marriage license to marry Matilda Head on 22 March 1845 in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
There are records in 1849 in Bumcomb District where Brantly Duncan paid one poll tax of 39 cents. Again in 1850, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862. The above was taken from the 1862 Walton County, GA tax digest of six children living between the ages of 6-18 year, and this fits Brantly’s six oldest children (ages 6-15). The other two children are less than 6 years old in 1862 (ages 2 and 5). Following this assumption then Brantly and Matilda most likely had no additional children after William in 1860 or any that lived there in 1862.
If Brantly stayed in Gwinnett County, GA until moving into Walton County, GA by September 1850, then his first two children (Martha and Margarett) would have been born in Gwinnett County. His third child, Georga W. Duncan, at the time of the 1850 census (4 October 1850) is listed as 1 ½ months old, thus making him being born in September 1850, and the first child was born in Walton County, GA. Brantly does not appear on the Walton Couny, GA tax digest between 1854-1859 and 1861. He had moved out of Walton County and moved to Jackson County, which is northeast of Walton County, GA.
Brantly Duncan was born in 1821 in South Carolina, died in Cannon Hospital on 6 June 1864 in LaGrange, Troup County, GA. He married [first] 23 March 1845 Matilda Head (birth and death date unknown). She died in Georgia. Brantly and Matilta were married in Gwinnett County, GA. They had eight children.
Joe Williams, father of Della Williams above, had four brothers: Isaac (Ike); Jailian (Jailllie); and Thomas (Tom); James (Jim) Williams and three sisters: Cindy, never married; Sally, married "Bud" New; Betty, married Harrison Tibbitts. Jim Williams lived in Alabama. Jim asked Joe and Oda to move in with him after his wife died to take care of him. He promised his farm to them after his death if they would, but Oda did not want to leave Paulding County, GA. Jaillie and Ike lived somewhere near Paulding County, GA. A black walnut tree still stands from a seed from a tree that Jaillie had. The tree is more than sixty-five years old and still bearing black walnuts. It was planted in the early 1930s at the home place of Grady and Della Baggett. Three hills were planted and the seeds came up, but only one tree survived. Ike and Jaillie Williams are buried at Union Primitive Baptist Church Cemerery in Paulding County, GA. Jaillie's daughter Angie is buried there also.
Joe Williams and Oda Thompson lived for many years in a house just across the road from Zion Baptist Church. Oda Thompson was a daughter of Frederick Thompson and Della Shead of Paulding County, GA. Joe and Oda are buried at Smyrna Methodist Church Cemetery in Paulding County, GA. Their son Tom Fred, brother of Della Williams above, never married. His sight began to deterioate when he was a young man. In the early 1930s, when Joe, Claude, and Lloyd were plowing cotton near the house, Tom Fred asked to let him try to plow a row of cotton. Joe gave him the plow and he went one round, plowing almost all of the cotton up in the row. He never tried again. He was near total blindness at that time.
Later on in life he became totally blind and lived by himself. He did whatever needed to be done, not seeing at all. He kept house, did his cooking, cleaning, and anything else that needed to be done. It is amazing how someone blind can do things for themselves. This was after his father and mother were deceased. The other children married and moved away. But most of them lived in the City of Rockmart, GA, where he lived also. He probably inherited the blindness from the Thompson family. His Aunt Burnice Maulding could see a bit in her young days, but as time went on she lost more of her eyesight. She was totally blind at the time of her death.
Grady Baggett built his new home in 1928 in the Hay Community and resided there until his death in 1959. He owned both of his father's homes at one time, along with several other homes on his 500 acre estate. He and Mollie had lived in a three room house near where the new house was built since their marriage in 1916. The old house was torn down. His Store Building was built just above the old house.
Joseph Baggett married Cappie Beall and was State Representative of Paulding, Justice of the Peace, and Postmaster of Hay, Georgia. He owned a cotton gin, sawmill, and gristmill and prospered during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Joe and Cappie had no children.
John Baggett, the youngest son of Allen Jacob, married Martha Cole. They moved to Alabama and had a large family. Most of this family is still in Alabama and Mississippi.
Steve and Joe were large landowners. They purchased all of their mother's land and several hundred additional acres. Steve owned about 400 acres of farm and timberland in the 19th District of Paulding County, GA. Some of his land was in a mountainous region. There were two creeks running through the property and the land had a lot of good timber on it. He owned what was called the old Buzzard's Roost property. The Buzzard's Roost was an interesting place to go on picnic, etc. It was situated at the creek miles from the main road, and there were two large rocks on the side west of the creek about 20 to 30 feet long. There was barely enough room for a horse to enter between the rocks. Legend is that Granny Whitehead hid her horses between the two rocks during the Civil War to keep the Union Army from taking them. It was a mountainous region and very thick with trees, so it would have been difficult for the soldiers to find them. It probably held as much as three horses. Granny Whitehead lived down further on the road somewhere near Whitehead Creek. Further on down the mountainous road there, on the upper bank of the little road, was a huge rock called "bloody rock" because of the appearance of blood on the side of the rock. The road made its winding way several miles down to Whitehead Creek.
There were lots of birch trees on the sides of the creek. Children would go to the Buzzard's Roost to get the birch to chew and to play in the creek water. The birch trees have a very good flavor. On the east side of the creek, across from the spot where the horses were hidden, there was a large rock that reached about fifty to sixty feet above the creek and a tiny cave about forty feet up. There, on the cleft of the rock above the tiny cave, it is said, the buzzards roosted at night. Those that remember going to this secluded place as a child and as teenagers have a lot of pleasant memories.
Joe Baggett, brother of Steve, had a sawmill and Steve cut the timber on the land to build his homes at the old place and also at his place he later built up on the main road. Joe sawed the timber into lumber. The old Home Place of Steve was located on a small road that went down to the Buzzard's Roost described above about one-quarter of a mile from the main road. He built a large barn for storing farm products and to house his mules, cows, and horses. Portions of the old barn are still there, but shortly after Grady Baggett's heirs sold the place, the old house burned. The way the barn was built was interesting. It was built at a deep drop off at the road, with the upper loft being level of the road. The lower story contained the stables for storing the farm animals. Steve had built a thick solid cement wall at the edge of the road to support the barn wall.
Grady bought all of his father Steve's land in 1928 and farmed the land that once belonged to Steve. If there happened to be a thunderstorm when people from Grady Baggett's farm were plowing in the fields near the old barn, they would carry their horses or mules into the upper loft of the barn to get out of the rain and stormy weather. After Grady's death, the land was sold and the house at the old place that once belonged to Steve Baggett burned, leaving only the barn. Remnants of the old barn are still standing.
When he was middle-aged, Steve built another house and barn near the Grady Baggett home place. During the 1050s on Christmas night, the newer house that once belonged to Steve upon the main road burned. Remnants of the old barn at the old place going down towards Whitehead Creek are all that is left of Steve Baggett's building properties.
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