-Chapter IV- TOWNS, COMMUNITIES, AND MILITIA DISTRICTS (1880-1980)
Spring Place Cemeteries
The Spring Place area has some of the most historic burial grounds in Murray County. The oldest cemetery was the God's Acre of the Moravian Mission. The final resting place of Cherokee Chief Joseph Vann's mother, a devoted missionary, Indian children, and others, this graveyard has been long since destroyed. A State Historical marker, a D.A.R. marker, and a marker for Chief Charles R. Hicks stand at the corner of Ellijay Street and Highway 225, commemorating the mission and the cemetery. The cemetery was actually located east of that spot.
According to Mrs. Bessie Mae Adams and the late W.K. Jones, the Presbyterian church had a cemetery also. However, the names of any who might have been buried there have been lost. Undoubtedly the congregation had an area set aside for a cemetery, but all of their known leaders are buried elsewhere, so the church plot must have been used very seldom and in early days-if at all. A third cemetery near Spring Place is the Williams-Reed family burial ground off the Williams Road, north of town and south of Green Road. The Williams family were once very prominent in the town and owned much land near the cemetery. Those buried in the cemetery were all related to Seaborn Reed who lived from 1809 until 1884. His four daughters. Morning Reed, Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Gallman, and Mrs. Johnson and their descendants are interred there. In 1921 Mr. Charlie Williams asked the deacons of the Spring Place Baptist Church to accept a deed to the Williams-Reed Cemetery. Nol used in more than 30 years, the cemetery is not in good condition.
South of Spring Place off the Bishop Pond Road was an old black cemetery, possibly dating back to pre-Civil War days. Long abandoned, the graves were barely distinguishable in the 1920's.
The most famous cemetery in all Murray County is Spring Place's Treadwell Cemetery named for Smith Treadwell, an extensive landowner, whose face is said to have appeared on his monument soon after his burial. Treadwell descendants Ethel Green Brown and Aldyne Maltbie supplied the following information about Mr. Treadwell.
In 1838, while living in Henry County, Georgia, Smith Treadwell, Esquire and William White purchased land in recently created Murray County. Soon after, he moved to Murray County and in 1840 married Mary (Polly) Mobley {1818-1851}, the daughter of Peyton and Susannah Hill Mobley, residents of Cross Plains (Dalton). Smith and Polly lived in the Tunnel Hill area and he rode horseback to Spring Place where he served as a county Justice of the Inferior Court for a time. The couple had seven children: Mary Ann, Susan Ann, Rachel F., John, Martha E., Miriam, and Smith Jr. called "Tuck. "
Polly Treadwell died in 1851 and was buried in the "Mobley Hill"Family Cemetery in present day Whitfield County. Before her death, Polly asked her husband to try to win her sister, "Betsy," as his second wife and on November 12, 1854, Smith married Nancy Ann Elizabeth Mobley (1826-1905). To this union were born Sarah Jane, Mahala Evaline, Ellen Lucinda, William Peyton, Tuton /Torn/, Nancy Augustine, Stephen Lee, andAdelade.
Mr. Treadwell served as State Senator from the 43rd District (Murray, Gordon, and Whitfield} in 1857-58. Also during this time, he accumulated many acres of land, owning property in Floyd, Cass, Terrell, Whitfield, and Murray Counties. He owned a colonial home at Tilton and his descendants still own portions of this property.
During the war Between the States he moved the family to his Terrell County plantation near Dawson so they would be out of danger while he was away at war. Though he was too old for active duty, he enrolled from the Eleventh Senatorial District in Military Company District 1150 under the Reorganization Act of 1863. Mr. Treadwell was sent to guard prisoners at Andersonville, Georgia.
After the War, he freed his Terrell County slaves and moved to Spring Place. His home was a two-story colonial home on the Chatsworth Highway, later owned by the King family. Also on his property was a small cemetery called the Seay, or sometimes the Black, Cemetery. From this time on, however, it would bear the name of its most famous owners-the Treadwells.
During the time he lived at Spring Place, Smith Treadwell built and owned several wheat and com water mills and also several bridges.
According to his descendants. Smith Treadwell lost much of his land paying damages to other landowners whose property was destroyed when heavy rains caused the mill ponds to over-flow. Fortunately, he had given most of his children some land at the time of their marriage.
In his later years Smith moved several times, living at Tilton, and in Rome before returning to Spring Place in 1888. On February 20, 1893 Smith Tread-well passed away and was buried in the Treadwell Cemetery.
A short time after his death, a marble monument was placed at his grave and soon people who visited the grave noticed that the streaks in the marble resembled the face of a man. Levi Branham, a former slave, who knew Smith Tread-well for many years, wrote the following about the marker in his book, My Life and Travels:
"1 helped bury Mr. Treadwell but I did not help put the tombtohis grave. 1 was there a few days after his tomb was put up, but I never saw any sign of the picture which resembles a man. Within a year 1 noticed the picture.
"I think it resembles him very much. It seems to me that the picture becomes plainer every day ."(p. 47)
Walter L. Bogle wrote the following about the marker:
"The face on the tombstone in the cemetery just off the Dalton Chatsworth Highway near Spring Place is a wonderful likeness of the man who is buried beneath it. The marks in the marble outline the face in a remarkable way and hundreds of sightseers have visited this." {Daily Citizen-News, May 22, 1875, p. 4)
However. Mrs. Thelma T. Bond of Dalton, a granddaughter, says the likeness in the stone bore little resemblance to pictures of Smith Treadwell. So the question. "Was the likeness on the stone really that of Smith Treadwell?" will continue to amaze people. Two people who knew the man write that it was his likeness, yet pictures do not bear this out.
When asked why the likeness came on the monument, Mr. Branham replied:
"1 was not able to tell them. One man asked me if the picture came there because Mr. Treadwell was a good man ... or a bad man ... I told him ... a good man. I had ... always found him to be an honest man. He attended to his own business and let other folks' business alone. That's what it takes to be a good man." {p. 47)
Family members and others who knew or knew of Smith Treadwell agree that he was a good man.
However, another statement by Mr. Branham throws a different light on the picture of Smith Treadwell:
"In 1889 Mr. Treadwel! told me that he had distilled whiskey and brandy nearly all his life, but he had never been arrested ... If anyone wanted to buy whiskey from him . . . they would have to carry it from his premises. 1 suppose that accounted for his not being arrested." The statement is true, but requires clarification. Mr. Treadwell did make whiskey at times, but for the government, reports Mrs. Bond. She adds that Mr. Treadwell "was not a bootlegger," Murray County was not voted dry until 1886 (Georgia Laws 1886).
Regardless of the tales told about Smith Treadwell a man's likeness did exist on his marker. Photographs reveal this, but the face is more easily visible to those who know they are supposed to see a face.
The Smith Treadwell marker received national attention when it was featured in Ripley's "Believe It or Not" column sometime in the 1930's. The article featured an exaggerated drawing of the marker and the following information: "The Tombstone Portrait—Spring Place. Georgia. A few years after the death of Smith Treadwell an exact likeness of him appeared on his gravestone."
After this, hundreds of people visited the grave site and almost that many tales about Mr. Treadwell sprang up. One said that the likeness appeared because he was a mean man who had murdered his wife. Another said he was a thoroughly dishonest man and a bootlegger. The list is as long as mankind's imagination.
Mr. and Mrs. Carl B. Davis moved to Spring Place in 1922 and bought a house near the entrance to the cemetery. In the months following the Ripley's column, people were constantly at their door, asking about Smith Treadwell. the cemetery, and the marker. The Davises said people would come at all hours and they never knew who or what they would find at their door next, nor what new tale they would hear.
As the years passed, the Treadwell saga would be revived now and then and a new stage of visitors would descend on the cemetery, Mrs. Bond, and the Davises. In 1951 the marker was stolen and was not located for some time. Finally, some fishermen found the marker in Mill Creek near Dalton. The family had grown tired of the phone calls, unwanted visitors, undesirable publicity, and much damage and vandalism in the cemetery so the decision was made not to re-erect the tombstone. They welcomed the relief and wanted to let Mr. Treadwell rest in peace.
Mrs, Davis said that many stories were told about the theft of the marker, Someone even said that foreigners stole it and sometimes people in uniform would go to the Davis' making inquiries about the marker.
Mr. Davis told of another interesting burial at Treadwell Cemetery. In 1941, while digging a grave, the workers discovered an earlier burial. The men, one of whom was Mr. Davis, obtained permission to move the coffin to another spot. In doing so the men found that the coffin was buried north and south, not in the usual manner facing east. Another fascinating thing was that the coffin was , solid iron and sealed air-tight. In the process of moving the casket, a piece of ; glass over the face of the body was broken and the men discovered that the . deceased was a golden-haired girl about seven or eight years old. The men reinterred the coffin a short distance away, once again in the north-south direction.
Mr. Davis made many inquiries but no one had any knowledge about the old burial, the unknown girl, or the solid-iron coffin. Mr. Davis said the only thing that might have served as a marker was a cedar tree at the end of the coffin. However, the men had already cut down the tree before discovering the grave.
The oldest marked grave in the Treadwell Cemetery is that of Margaret Baxter who died in 1847. Other pre-Treadwell burials include Caroline Buck-hanan (1852), Elizabeth Seay, and Mary Black (1860). Mrs. Bond said that she felt that these women were related to the Seays since the cemetery once went by that name.
The main Treadwell section was once surrounded by a hedge, fence, and filled with cedar trees. Now only part of the hedge and a few trees remain. In the early 1900s another section was added, north of the Treadwell family plots. Among those families using the newer part are the Ridley. Elrod, and Ballew families.
Spring Place Cemetery is the oldest and largest burial ground in the area which is still is use. An 1868 deed from W.W. Gates to A. Dexter and C.C. Clark provided 2 acres for a graveyard in lot 246 (9th District, 3rd Section). However marked burials date to the 1840's. Located on the Ellijay Road at the western boundary of Spring Place, this cemetery is the final resting place of many interesting and prominent Murray Countians.
Dimple Johnson Ferguson of Atlanta told the story of the Unknown Soldier who is buried near the original entrance to the cemetery: Mrs. Ferguson wrote that he was
. . . found in the McGhee barn after a contingent of Yankee soldiers marched by on the Calhoun Road. He was very young, 15 or 16, He was unconscious and died of dysentery a few days laler. They never knew his name. Granny told us that the women and children of Spring Place buried him because the men were all away at war. All my life we have visited this grave and told this story. 1 told it once to a Mr, & Mrs. Jones who were working in the cemetery and they, in turn, told the American Legion who contacted me for details. On a Sunday afternoon in November, 1976 they marked the grave with a lovely Patriotic Ceremony.
Two former slaves. Issac and Patience Venable, are also buried in the cemetery. Moving to Spring Place after the Civil War, the couple lived on the McGhee farm for many years. Only one of the graves is marked—as "Patient Venerable"— , on the westernmost edge of the graveyard.
In 1975 well-known Murray County journalist Olivene Godfrey wrote about some of the other important burials at Spring Place:
Captain W.C. Tillon who died in 1897 buried his bird, a parrot named "Ludie," in the family cemetery plot. The bird's marker reads: "Ludie, brought from South America. October, 1368 - died October 23, 1892 - Beautiful Bird - sweetest of pets." Stories handed down by old-time citizens say the bird was gorgeous and a "great talker."
Another old marker reads: "Captain Francis Marion Dwight, Company 36, Regiment C.A. Vol. died May 13, 1816, at 49 years old."
When a fire swept through Spring Place in the 1800s, a Dr. Bagwell, his six-month-old baby, two small boys, his housekeeper, a Mrs. Williams, were burned to death and are all buried at the Spring Place Cemetery.
V.C. Picketing, a prominent Murray County pioneer, who served as a state senator and helped to build the first hospital here is also buried in the cemetery, Mr. Pickering is credited with helping to build a road across Fort Mountain and the building of several Murray County churches. George Campbell, a midget who worked as a comedian for Paramount Pictures and for Ringling Bros, Circus, is buried in the cemetery. Byron Campbell, a pioneer resident of Murray County, and Charlie Campbell, who served as Justice of the Peace for 16 years in Chatsworth are buried in the cemetery.
Mrs. Virginia Bernard of Chatsworth had her husband, Lew Bernard, buried in the Spring Place Cemetery, Mr. Bernard, a native of Vienna, Austria, performed in silent movies and was later a banker before his death in 1955.
Among the other prominent Murray citizens buried there are Dr. J.E. Bradford, Civil War Colonel William Luffman, Major R.E. Wilson. War of 1812 Veteran George Cleveland. Educator Lula Gladden. Dr. J.F Harris, Jason Robinson, Dr. Anderson, Samuel Field. James, John and Tom Polk Edmondson, Dr. Sam Dwight of Hopedale, and many who served as county officials. Margaret Jones and her late husband, Luther, have worked for many years to beautify and maintain the cemetery. Due to their work and the generosity of Mrs. Edna Loughridge Gregory a perpetual care fund has been established for this historic burial ground.
Murray County Heritage