“An antebellum staging ground for moving west….”
The Rock Hill Herald reported on Sept. 29, 1887 – “Mr. A.D. Holler is preparing to establish a brickyard at the crossing of the 3C’s RR and the GC and N RR, seven miles SE of Rock Hill. On Oct. 6th it reports that the brickyard will furnish bricks for culverts for the railroads.”
The Rock Hill Herald reported on Sept. 2, 1886 – “It is understood that the Coates Tavern Farmer’s Club was organized for the benefit of its members and is not in full sympathy with the Tillman Movement. The officers of the club are: D.T. Lesley – Chairman, W.C. Abernathy – V. Chair., and Dr. R.T.M. Hall – Clerk. The club will give a picnic on Saturday in a grove of trees one hundred yards above the residence of Thomas Spencer. The public and political candidates are invited to the picnic and the Rock Hill Coronate Band will furnish music.”
The RH Herald reported on Aug. 2, 1888 – “We direct the attention of the highway supt., to the bad condition of the road between Rock Hill and Coate’s Tavern.”
The YV Enquirer reported on Oct. 1, 1890 – “Mr. T.W. Hayes, who has had charge of the Roddey Academy for the last session, is leaving for Huntersville where he will prepare for college.”
The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Oct. 8, 1890 – “It is thought that the long desired post office at Roddey’s will be opened soon.”
The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Feb. 4, 1891 – “Ms. Lizzie Pierce of Newport is teaching at the Roddey Academy.” On July 29, 1891 the Enquirer reported, “Mr. W.T. Hayes has a flourishing school at the Roddey Academy.”
The YV Enquirer reported on Jan. 13, 1892 – “Ms. Sue Shannon left Sharon to go to Roddey’s where she will take charge of a school today.”
The Enquirer reported on Sept 13, 1895 – “Prof. J.B. Kennedy has returned to Yorkville from Roddey’s where he has been conducting a school during the summer.”
City Directories and History: While the name Roddey Station is not a familiar one today, at one time it was one of the best-known communities in eastern York
County. The small community surrounded a rail stop on the Southern Railway (originally the Three C’s Railroad and now Norfolk Southern) between Catawba Junction (two miles south) and Rock Hill (seven miles north). During an earlier period, the area was known as Coats’ Tavern. A tradition in the Gettys family is that the Roddey-Gettys home, which burned in 1943, was the structure which had originally housed Coats’ Tavern. The purpose of this paper is to establish the location of Coats’ Tavern and its relation to the Roddey community.

Capt. W.L. Roddey, one of Rock Hill’s leading businessman was featured in the Charleston News and Courier in 1890. He was one of many young entrepreneurs from Chester and Lancaster Counties who moved to Rock Hill following the Civil War. He was also one of the men who recruited many of his kinsman to also relocate to the city.
Soloman Coats (often spelled Coates) operated a tavern on the Upper Lands Ford Road in the early 1800s. This road came from Lands Ford on the Catawba River, about seven miles distant in Chester County. Just below the tavern, a fork in the road led southeast to Cureton’s Ferry, earlier known as McClanahan’s Ferry. Both these crossings of the Catawba River provided access to the Waxhaws area of Lancaster County, the town of Lancaster, and eventually Camden. To the north, the Upper Lands Ford Road led to Ebenezerville and then to Yorkville (Rock Hill did not yet exist). Soloman Coats purchased 260 acres from Laughlin McIntosh in 1819.[1] This was probably a purchase of a Catawba Indian lease, as the area was within the ownership of the Catawba Indian Nation. He was granted a license for keeping an “inn, public house, or tavern” by the Commissioner of Roads for York District in 1823.[2] There may have been an earlier license, evidence of which has not been found. The tavern became a voting place, post office, and gathering place for the surrounding community. There are traditions that wagon trains of persons emigrating to the “west” would gather at Coats’ Tavern in the 1830s through the 1850s. Many residents of the area settled portions of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and other mid-south states during this period.
The site of the tavern of Soloman Coats can be determined from two sources. An article appeared in the Rock Hill Herald in 1891. Entitled “Coats’ Tavern”, it was written by Rev. Robert Lathan, a well-known Associate Reformed Presbyterian minister and historian who wrote widely of church history and local history. For many years he had served as minister of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Churches at Yorkville and Tirzah, but at the time the article appeared, he was a professor at Erskine Theological Seminary.[3] Rev. Lathan stated, “The original Coats’ Tavern …stood immediately in front of the dwelling of Mr. J. Wylie Roddey.” This home had just been completed in 1891 when the article was published. According to Lathan, the tavern building was rolled back to a site behind the new house. In the 1950s, my brother remembers helping to tear down an old outbuilding with the owners of the house at that time, the England family, and finding a number of old bottles in the walls. Perhaps this was the old tavern building. A second source for the site of the tavern is provided by Mrs. John E. Gettys, writing in “The Golden Cord,” a newsletter published during World War II by Neely’s Creek Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church to serve its members and its numerous servicemen around the world.[4] In an article entitled “History of Roddey Station,” she states, “In bygone days a man by the name of Coats ran a tavern at Roddey’s. His inn was situated across the road from the present Wylie Roddey home. In Coats’ Tavern was the post office and the post mistress was Jane Roddey Black. She and her husband, Captain Alex Black occupied a house opposite from the inn. Upon the site of the Black house now stands the Wylie Roddey home.”
According to a post office survey on file at the McCelvey Center in York, the Coats’ Tavern Post Office was established on November 19, 1823 with Jesse Simmons as Postmaster. Various names are listed as Postmaster until February 5, 1861, when the United States Postal Service was discontinued because of Secession. Among those who served were Alexander Fewell, William P. McFadden, and John Roddey. As these were merchants in the area, it is likely the location of the post office was moved from the tavern to their store buildings. The voting precinct for the entire southeast corner of York County was named “Coates Tavern” until it was renamed “Catawba Junction” in 1950.[5] I have a voter registration card for my father, James W. Gettys, dated May 21, 1948, which states that he is entitled to vote at Coates Tavern Voting Place.
Soloman Coats operated the tavern until his untimely death sometime before 1828. In his article, Lathan relates that Coats was killed in an argument with a Negro named Tom Polk (perhaps Poag) at McClanahan’s Ferry on the Catawba River. “Tom Polk was tried, condemned, and hanged on a chestnut tree which once stood nearly opposite the dwelling of Mrs. Mary G. Roddey. The stump of the chestnut tree is still to be seen.”[6] The land passed from the Coats estate into the hands of John Scott. As Scott received a license to operate an inn and tavern in 1826, it is possible that Coats’ death occurred before that point. Lathan described Scott as a “rigid Covenanter” (a Reformed Presbyterian). He states that Scott operated the inn, a store, and a gin house. It is not known how long the Scott operations existed. Lathan tells an amusing story about Scott, whose family retained the Scottish brogue. He fell from the platform of the gin and struck his cow named Spot. A member of the family ran to the house and announced that “Father is kilt.” Everyone ran to the gin and yelled, “Father, are ye kilt?” He responded, “Na, I am na kilt, but I fear that I ha kilt Spot!” It is not known how long the Scott family operated the tavern and other businesses, but it seems that the name “Coats’ Tavern” was retained locally as the identity of the community around the tavern. The Catawba Indian Grant Book (page 331), located in the York County Courthouse, records a grant to John Scott in 1845 of 297 acres formerly leased from the Catawba Nation. The grant, one of many made after the Catawba Indian treaty of 1840, verified ownership of land previously leased from the Catawbas. The survey was done by Squire John Roddey.
We now turn our attention to the land immediately south of the Coats/Scott land. The Catawba Indian Grant Book (page 312) shows a 101 acre parcel which had been leased to Thomas F. Dunlap and assigned to William P. McFadden. On January 4, 1844, it was granted to McFadden as part of the transfer of leases to white ownership after the treaty with the Catawbas in 1840. Lathan states that McFadden opened a “Large store, a shoe shop, a tailor shop, a tan yard, and ran a farm” beginning about 1840. The businesses were likely located in the fork of Cureton Ferry Road and Upper Lands Ford Road. Just to the west and across the road, he had a house built. William P. McFadden was born in 1813 near Coats’ Tavern, the great-grandson of Candor McFadden, an early settler of Chester County. Many of his family members are buried at the Old Stone Cemetery near Lands Ford in Chester County. Much information about Mr. McFadden is available in the history of the First Presbyterian Church of York, prepared by William Boyce White, Jr.[7] White states that McFadden operated a mercantile business at Coats’ Tavern as a young man, then moved to York in 1838, where he opened a general store. After four years, he returned home to Coats’ Tavern, where he contracted for “…a large residence that could serve as a business house and as a rooming and boarding house. It was the largest structure in that section and was generally recognized as the center of all public activities in that eastern part of the [York] District…Mr. McFadden not only ran a large farm but also operated a general store, a shoe shop, a tailor shop, and a tan yard. His house was used as the post office and voting precinct.” The 1850 Census lists McFadden and his wife and eight children. Along with the family, six others are listed in the household, including a tailor, a physician, and two clerks. The Dunn Reports, an early credit reporting system, listed Wm. P. McFadden as winding up his store operation in December 1854 at the “Crossroads,” a likely reference to the store at Coats’ Tavern. He is described as a poor merchant, who took too much credit and lost money. The Dunn Reports also lists a store operated by Alexander Fewell at “Coates Tavern” from at least 1845 to December 1856. He was described as a good business man.[8] The exact location of his store is not known.
In 1855, McFadden placed an advertisement in the Yorkville Enquirer for the sale of his properties at Coats’ Tavern.[9] The ad stated, “The Subscriber, wishing to change his business, offers for sale his well-known stand for merchandising at Coates Tavern, with about 260 acres of land. Well-improved, with a good dwelling and outbuildings, together with a good Gin House and Screw, Tan Yard with twenty vats and all necessary outbuildings and a good Store House – one of the best stands for merchandising in the District. There can be from Fifteen to $20,000 worth of merchandise sold in a year into good hands. The stand is located on the main road leading from Yorkville to Lancasterville by Cureton’s Ferry, seven miles from the Rock Hill Depot, on the Charlotte Railroad, with an excellent road to the Depot. About 110 acres are in cultivation; also 230 acres adjoining above (known as the Sitgreaves Place) also 162 acres all woodland about one mile from above. W. P. McFadden.”
The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Aug. 20, 1885 – “Mr. Beckford Mackey who is the US Consul to Brazil reported on the colony of former Confederates who live there. There are about 600 people in the colony located in the province of San Paulo. They have been there about 19 years and are successful in agriculture growing cotton, coffee, corn, and tobacco and are also active in the manufacture of wagons, plows, and other agricultural implements.”
The purchaser of the McFadden complex at Coats’ Tavern was Squire John Roddey. McFadden returned to Yorkville, opening a carriage manufacturing business. At the beginning of the Civil War, he moved to Chester County. In 1867, he joined a large number of Chester County families who emigrated to Brazil rather than live under northern rule. He died at his home near Sao Paulo in 1899 and is buried with many of the other Chester County settlers in the Campo Cemetery, Americanas, Brazil. McFadden had been a member and elder of Hopewell Presbyterian Church near Lesslie when he lived at Coats’ Tavern, and while in Yorkville, became a charter member and elder of the York Presbyterian Church. He served as a member of the Board of Davidson College and as a Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.
Unfortunately, no photograph of the McFadden house at Coats’ Tavern has been found. The house burned in 1943, and in the early 1950’s the site was being cleared when a corner stone was found. On the stone is carved “R. Hare, Dec. 9, 1843.” Richard Hare was a well-known stone mason who lived in Yorkville. He was born in County Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1813 as Richard O’Hare, the third child of George O’Hare and Sarah Palmer. The family came to America sometime between 1817 and 1825 and settled in New Jersey. At some point the name was changed to Hare and Richard settled in Yorkville. He placed advertisements for tombstones in the Yorkville Enquirer as early as 1854. His advertisement on November 21, 1861 described the York Marble Yard capable of supplying “every article in the marble line of the highest style of finish and at reasonable prices…specimens of his work may be always seen at the Yard, nearly opposite the Enquirer Printing Office and a few doors north of Stowes Hotel.” It is known that he worked for the Great Falls Locks and the Kings Mountain School in Yorkville in 1855.[10] It is likely that Hare provided the masonry work on William McFadden’s house built in 1843, and others, perhaps including slaves, worked on the house itself. From the quantity of stone on the site, the chimneys must have been very impressive.
As stated above, when McFadden sold his property at Coats’ Tavern the purchaser was John Roddey, an important figure in the early nineteenth century in eastern York County. He was the son of David Roddey (1755-1822), who had immigrated from Northern Ireland about 1787 and settled in Chester County. There is a family tradition that David Roddey had earlier been to America and had served as a soldier in Col. Banastre Tarleton’s British Legion. A search in the British National Archives in London failed to document David Roddey on the roster of any unit which fought with Tarleton. David Roddey acquired several tracts of land and eventually moved to the Neely’s Creek area of York County. His home site and place of burial are not known. An excellent summary of the Roddey family was authored by Louise Pettus in 1998.[11] John Roddey, son of David and his second wife Elizabeth McAteer, was born in 1805. He was a minor when his father died in 1822, but as early as 1830, he received a portion of his father’s Catawba Indian lease. He gradually added to his holdings until his plantation consisted of over 900 acres, including the land purchased from W. P. McFadden. His home site prior to moving to Coats’ Tavern in 1855 is not known, but his placement in 1850 census files indicates that he was living on one of his tracts near Neely’s Creek Church. In 1828, he married Mary Grier “Polly” Wylie, daughter of Thomas Wylie and Nancy Grier. Both the Wylie and Grier families had lived in the Lands Ford area of Chester County, although the Griers later settled in the Steele Creek area of Mecklenburg County. It is likely that Thomas Wylie and Nancy Grier were cousins. The Wylie home still stands, and was very close to the Roddey home.
John Roddey was widely known as “Squire” Roddey. He served for many years as a magistrate, which entitled him to place “Esquire” with his name, and this was shortened to Squire. In addition to farming the 900+ acres he amassed, he operated the store and other businesses he purchased from W. P. McFadden, and served as a surveyor. He drew many plats, including a number of those used to describe properties being granted to former owners of Catawba Indian leases after the treaty of 1840. In 1851, he surveyed the original twenty-three lots on Main Street in the new community of Rock Hill for Alexander Templeton Black. He also purchased the second lot sold in Rock Hill from Black. The village was born when a new rail line was placed through eastern York County, and Black was eager to take advantage of the line’s location through his property.[12] A later survey done by Squire Roddey in 1856 extended the original plat and created Church Street, now known as Black Street.
John Roddey and his wife Polly had eight children: Josephine Roddey Miller, Jane Roddey Black, Mattie Roddey Gettys, Sarah Lavinia Roddey Gettys, William Lyle Roddey, Thomas Elihu Roddey, David Clarkson Roddey, and Joseph Wylie Roddey. Squire John Roddey died in 1860, just before the outbreak of the Civil War. His widow Polly Roddey continued to live in the home until her death in 1892. In the 1870s, her daughter and son-in-law moved into the Roddey home. Sarah Lavinia had married Gillom Alexander Gettys, and the home site has been in the Gettys family since then. By the late 1800’s the Roddey store was being operated by William Lyle Roddey as part of the Roddey Mercantile Company, which also operated a large store in Rock Hill. After the store at Roddey Station was destroyed by fire, it was replaced with another operated by Ward Patton. For a time, the Coats’ Tavern Post Office operated in the Patton store, and at other times, it is recorded as being operated by Polly Roddey in the Roddey home. J. Wylie Roddey operated a cotton gin, saw mill, and grist mill to the south, farther down Cureton Ferry Road. As stated earlier, he built a home at the site of the old Coats’ Tavern in 1891.
The Herald reported on Nov. 23, 1904 – “R. D. Owens accompanied a force of hands to Roddey’s Station yesterday, where he has a contract to paint the house of Wylie Roddey.”
The Roddey home and store complex became an important focal point for the surrounding rural area. As Coats’ Tavern became more of a memory, the community began to be identified more with the Roddey home and store, and references to the community in the latter 1800s were often to “Roddeys” or “Roddey Station” instead of Coats’ Tavern. After the Civil War, the Roddey home served as the voting place for the Coats’ Tavern Precinct. Voting took place on the front porch. In her article in “The Golden Cord,”
Mrs. John E. Gettys related that during the turbulent election of 1876, the Red Shirts of Gen. Wade Hampton stacked their weapons in the back room of the Roddey house in order to be prepared for any trouble as the voting took place on the porch. Mrs. Mary Massey of Catawba remembered shopping trips to Rock Hill. “On our way home from town, we often stopped at Coate’s Tavern for our mail. Coate’s Tavern itself was in the old Roddey home and I remember Miss Polly Roddey…was postmistress there.”[13] This seems to indicate that the perception of the location of Coats’ Tavern has shifted to the Roddey store and house area. Mrs. Massey is clearly referring to the Roddey house and store complex as Coats’ Tavern.
In the 1880s, a change took place which would have a great impact. The “Three C’s” Railroad was constructed through the area. The Charleston, Cincinnati and Chicago Railroad passed through Lancaster, Catawba, the Roddey community, and Rock Hill. The first train entered Rock Hill on this line on August 10, 1888.[14] A stop was made at Roddey and a small shed built for passengers. It is instructive that the stop was named “Roddey Station” even though the train passed directly adjacent to the old Coats’ Tavern building, which was still on its original site at this time. From this point on, the community has been known as “Roddey” or “Roddey Station.” The station at Roddey was never a regular stop, as the train would only stop if there was a demand for passenger service. A service schedule for the line printed in 1895 [then renamed the Ohio River & Charleston Railroad] lists regular stations including Lancaster, Catawba Junction, Leslie, and Rock Hill, then states, “At Roddey’s, Old Point [Ebenezer], Kings Creek, and London, trains stop only on signal.”[15] The small station building at Roddey, which was open on one side, was moved to the Oliver Faris home at Catawba Junction after the trains abandoned passenger service.[16]
An interesting sidelight is the development of a very early rudimentary telephone service at Roddey Station. Douglas Summers Brown, in her A City Without Cobwebs, provides the story: “Among the other very early private and semi-private phone lines in this area was one installed by the Roddeys. Sometime in the 1880’s, Samuel L. Reid on one of his buying trips to the North had seen a telephone demonstration in New York City and had purchased two instruments for the firm of Roddey Mercantile Company for whom he worked. A single iron wire was erected between the two stores – the one in Rock Hill and a branch store at Roddeys Station – and a telephone installed at each end, the ground being used instead of a second wire. This proved satisfactory, and since the roads were at times impassable it was decided to install a phone at the home of Dr. Orr, who lived along the route of the line, and another at a point now known as Lesslie, and another at the home of Mr. John Steele located at Steele’s Crossing of the railway so that neighbors living along the line could summon a doctor.”[17] Mrs. Brown states that this may have been the first telephone system in the Upstate. The exact date is unknown, but she states that the phone line was used during the construction of the Three C’s Railroad through the area to communicate along the line. It also seems to predate the first telephone service within Rock Hill, which was installed by John Gary Anderson in 1887-1888.[18] This system went through several owners, and was the beginning of the current Comporium Communications.
Mary Grier (Polly) Wylie Roddey continued to live in the house at Roddey Station until her death in 1892. After the marriage of her daughter Sarah Lavinia to Gillom Alexander Gettys, the couple moved to the Roddey house. A portion of the Roddey land (142 acres) and the house were transferred to Gillom Gettys. Other portions of the land went to other children of John and Polly Roddey. Although Lavinia died in 1925, Gillom continued to live in the house. After the death of their son Thomas Gettys, his widow, Missouri Martin Gettys, and her children moved into the house with Gillom. After the children were grown, Gillom lived with his other son, John E. Gettys and his family in Rock Hill. In 1941, John and his wife Maud Martin Gettys, moved from Rock Hill to the share the Roddey-Gettys home with Gillom. They modernized the house, installing plumbing and a modern kitchen. On November 6, 1943, a fire destroyed the house, although the family was able to save some of the furniture with the help of passers-by. The news article on the fire stated: “The 98-year old home of John E. Gettys at Coates Tavern, Roddeys Station, was completely destroyed by fire about 10:30 last night…It was the Coates Tavern Community center before and during the Civil War.”[19] Among the furniture saved was a secretary on which Squire John Roddey is said to have drawn the original survey of Rock Hill in 1851. The original survey is located in the York County Library, and the secretary is still in possession of the Gettys family. In 1945, James W. Gettys, Sr., son of John E. and Maud Martin Gettys, built a new house located a few feet north of the site of the burned Roddey-Gettys house.
The general area is still known locally as Roddey. Because it has never been an incorporated municipality, the exact location of Roddey has varied. The post office and voting precinct which used to be at Roddey have been relocated to Catawba, some two miles south. Modern highways have changed the area, and the location for Roddey on many maps and on highway signs is generally shown to be north of the original site at the junction of old US 21 and old SC 5, where a convenience store is located. Most residents of York County are today unfamiliar with the names Coats’ Tavern and Roddey Station.
A tradition among many in the Gettys family was that the Roddey/Gettys home which burned in 1943 was the remodeled Coats’ Tavern structure. This idea probably resulted from the gradual shift of the identity of the Coats’ Tavern community center to the Roddey house and store complex. It can now be understood that the Roddey/Gettys house was never a part of or on the same site of Coats’ Tavern, which stood several hundred feet to the north.
Article written and researched for R&R by P.M. Gettys – 2016
*** The Yorkville Enquirer of Oct. 2, 1852 contained an election notice which listed Fewell’s Old Store as an election voting place with the poll managers being John Roddey, John Massey and W.P. McFadden. This seems to indicate that Fewell’s Old Store was at Coates Tavern not at Lesslie, S.C.
[1] Deed records, York County Courthouse, February 24, 1819.
[2]York County Library, Rock Hill, SC, local history file 929.3.
[3]Centennial History of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Charleston, SC, Walker, Evans & Cogswell Co., 1905, pp. 192-194.
[4]Mrs. John E. Gettys, “History of Roddey’s Station,” The Golden Cord, Neelys Creek Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, May 1945.
[5] The Herald, Rock Hill, SC, April 4, 1950.
[6] Rev. Robert Lathan, “Coats” Tavern: Some History of the Ancient Precinct.” The Herald, Rock Hill, SC, October 7, 1891.
[7] William Boyce White, Jr., compiler and editor, First Presbyterian Church, York, SC: One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary. Published by order of the Session, 1992.
[8] Copies of Dunn Reports available at the Historical center of York County, McCelvey center, York, SC.
[9] Yorkville Enquirer, September 6, 1855.
[10]Information on Hare is available in the family files and other files at the Historical Center of York County at McCelvey Center in York.
[11] Louise Pettus, A Roddey Family, published for the Roddey family, 1998.
[12] Information on the early history of Rock Hill is available in A City Without Cobwebs by Douglas Summers Brown, 1953, Columbia, SC, USC Press and Along the Land’s Ford Road: A History of the Ante-Bellum Village of Rock Hill, South Carolina, 1850-1860 by William B. White, Jr., published in 2008 by Historic Rock Hill.
[13] Mrs. Mary Massey, “History of Catawba,” The Golden Cord, Neelys Creek Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, April 1945.
[14] Brown, A City Without Cobwebs, p. 290.
[15] Railroad schedule printed in The Chester Reporter, October 31, 1895.
[16] Andrew Dys, “Little Remains of the Roddey Community But Memories,” The Herald, November 24, 2002, p. 1B.
[17] Brown, A City Without Cobwebs, pp.179-180. Mrs. Brown takes this information from an article on the Reid family in the Evening Herald of July 2, 1949.
[18] Brown, A City Without Cobwebs, p. 179.
[19] The Herald, Rock Hill, SC, November 7, 1943.
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It is stated above that the Thomas and Nancy Grier Wylie home still stands, near the Gettys home. Does it still stand now? If so, where is the location? Is a location known for the William B. Wylie and Elizabeth Ann Wylie home?
The Thomas Wylie home is located on a 56-acre parcel at 1045 Hall Spencer Road. The current York County tax map # is 6860000005 and the owner listed is John Zayicek of Marietta, Georgia. It used to be owned by a Partlow, but must have been sold. The property is not accessible. There is a gate and numerous “no trespassing” signs. I visited the home once years ago when it was vacant. The current clapboard siding farm house encloses an earlier log structure.
Thank you for the info Wade. I am familiar with that house but had no clue that it was the Thomas Wylie home. I had wondered if the green two story house on Cureton Ferry in Roddey by the overpass on 21 was that house.
Great article! I have been researching a potential link to my Ray County MO family (Hogue). My data lends me to believe that the Hogg family in what is known as the Blairsville area is the same. (circa 1830’s) I have been looking for a launching point for travelers west around this time period. Is there a list of families that someone around that time period might have kept? I am researching James Hogg, Sr’s Grandson, James Hogg who looks like he left the area( Western York County) after his Grandfather past in 1835. He was the step-brother to Rev. Russell who taught at the Hogg School in Blairsville around 1818-19.
Hi, All of these families reside on the pages of R&R. Your information on Russell and Hogue being connected is new information. Unfortunately, these type records have been lost. This is one of the reasons we are trying to start this conversation. So little information and no one is connecting the stories or travel routes.
Logically, it seems a gathering spot for travel west via Western YC S.C. would have been Bullock’s Creek. Please share any data you have with R&R! In about six weeks we will be offering a new Southern Queries section, where items of this nature can be posted and hopefully others can assist as well. Send whatever you have as per letters, pictures, stories, etc. our audience has responded to this blog with overwhelming enthusiasm and I know we can help future. Wade@R@R