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Juanita, 15, was killed by her husband on October 24, 1940 James M. Carney was born in 1921. Carney's father was from Ball Ground but moved to Texas to sell marble for the Georgia Marble Company. James moved back to Georgia after his parents died and moved in with his uncle Tom. James met his future bride, Juanita, while living in Tate. She was a senior at Tate High School. They were married in May of 1940, a few months after she turned fifteen, and promptly moved into

The Body In the Well On Tuesday, February 22, 1949, a grey 1947 Chevrolet with a blue top with a sign that read Veteran’s Cab arrived at the Asta Café on Main Street in Jasper. The driver, Earl Holbert, thought it was going to be a short evening. He was right, but not in the way he planned. G. "Earl" Holbert Around 6 p.m. Earl had picked up a passenger at the cafe (inside what is now the Old Mule House building). At 7 p.m. he traveled to Low’s Service Station in Talki

Many newcomers to Jasper drive past Church Street and Burnt Mountain Road, look at the Walgreens without giving it a second thought. Some residents likely remember when Greystone Village had been there - a series of small shops and a restaurant known as the Yellow Bird. A few elders who lived their whole lives here might remember the Greystone as a reincarnation of the Archer Tourist Court. Fewer still remember the Archer Hotel which burned down at the site back in 1947.

On March 6th, 1963, About 25 men from the Gilmer County Public Works camp started their early day working at a rock quarry located on the northwest side of Highway 52 near the present day Oak Hill Independent Church. The night before had been filled with heavy rain. As soon as their day began, two prisoners and a guard were caught in an unexpected landslide. A guard named F. M. Miles, and two prisoners, Robert Hamby and Lawrence Mulkey were trapped under the debris. Twent

Bent Tree Community, a private gated community located four miles east of Jasper, Georgia, had its first houses built in 1970. Today, there are over 1,100 homes. When I moved into the community in late 2018, I was told a murder had never happened within Bent Tree's gates throughout its entire history. Forever a skeptic, I set out to determine the truthfulness of that statement. In 2022, as we approached the 50th Anniversary of the Bent Tree Golf Course, I reached out to two

The history of violence, especially when used to protect tradition, and/or fighting against a centralized power structure is frequently found in the historical record. A common perception is that all, if not nearly all of the violence committed by vigilantes groups in the United States was inspired by racism. (K.K.K., Christian Nationalist Movement, Black Panthers) And while this is historically accurate, the anti-revenuer groups of North Georgia during the late 1800s did

Reported photo of Elias Allred My late grandfather John Richards Davis, in speaking about his ancestry, said that he knew little of the Allreds except that their lineage had been traced many times. He was correct although, with such a big and far flung family, much remains unknown about its many branches. Some of what is in print is incorrect. One of the m

The home guards remain one of the most confusing aspects of the history of the Civil War in Georgia. Family tales and reminiscences...

As with Lindsey Williams Evans, Carter Lee Smith, C.L. “Seal” (a pronunciation of the C and L together) Smith, was determined not to spend a life in jail. He was convicted and sentenced to life along with Hoyt Evans. Carter Wilson and Carter Jones were sentenced to 12 months of hard labor. Like Lindsey Evans and his wife, Carter, and Rosetta Harriet Matilda Rosetta Smith, nee McCollum, gave birth to a daughter about two weeks before Cape was murdered. Once incarcerated, C

Policeman Lee Cape had always suspected his enemies would eventually get him. But he would tell his friends, “but when they do, I’ll be so old I won’t have lost too many years anyway.” William Lee Cape, better known as Lee Cape, spent the better part of four decades in law enforcement. Lee was born two years before the Civil War began and by the age of 18, had moved in with his grandmother who lived in Pickens County. Lee had a reputation by his early 20s of being a tough g

During the heart of the Civil War, Pickens County was torn between sides. The flag that flew over the courthouse yard was a Union flag. Yet, many of the residents fought on each side. Many of the Darnell family fought for the North, while those from the Fields side predominantly fought for the South. And while many neighboring counties were far more aligned with the Confederacy, as with Pickens's history with race and slavery, Pickens was more of a mixed bag. There we

Convict Camp laborers were held in iron cages between 1923-1938 The system was born of the southern states' emergent need for free labor at the end of the Civil War. Within a decade of the end of the war, 12 southern states had adopted what became known as the Convict Lease System. This article will primarily focus on the camps in Georgia, with an emphasis on those in Pickens County. Of the few existing prisons at the time, many had suffered damage from arson during the Civ

Pickens County has a history replete with convicts who escaped local authorities. This particular story took place near Sharptop Church (near the present-day corner of Grandview and Pendley Road) and moved to the Connahaynee Lodge grounds within Tate Mountain Estates before the convict escaped our county. On September 2, 1937 a group of convicts were near Sharptop Church, when one of the convicts, a man convicted of murder, escaped from the group and ran up an embankment. A