William A. Hunter [42], son of Jason Henderson Hunter [44] and Rebecca Trammell [45], was born on 9 Nov 1842 in , Macon Co, NC, died on 20 Sep 1928 in Woodstock, Cherokee Co, GA at age 85, and was buried in Carmel Baptist Church, Woostock, Cherokee Co, GA.. Another name for William was William A. Trammell.
General Notes: Being born out of wedlock and raised by his maternal family he used as his last name his mother's last name - TRAMMELL. For the first twenty five years of his life he went by the name William A. TRAMMELL. About 1867, about the same time a murder charge was against him he and his family left North Carolina and he changed his name to his paternal name (which most Americans take for granted) William A. HUNTER.
After William changed his last name to HUNTER he and a half brother had the same name.
It is believed that the "A." was either the initial for Alan or Alanarine.
Before William was eight years old his mother had died. On the 1850 Census he was living with his grandfather Jacob B. TRAMMELL, grandmother Polly (a Cherokee Indian) and an assortment of aunts, uncles, and cousins.
His grandmother Polly was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. That would mean Rebecca was half
Indian, and William was one-quarter. Some believe that Jacob was a Indian, since we have a record of his paternal heritage the most he could be is one half, which would make Rebecca 3/4 and William .375 Indian.
Grandmother Polly drowned in the Little Tennessee River in Macon
County, south of Franklin, while working with her fish traps between 1850 and 1860, when William was between eight and seventeen.
In September of 1860, when William was seventeen, his grandfather Jacob B. TRAMMELL died. Evidently, at the time of his death he owned more than he owned, therefore, his property had to be auctioned off.
Apparently, this broke the family up. They scattered their separate ways.
It is unknown where William stayed for two years. I believe that he stayed in the area and courted his wife to be Emaline RAY (Apr 19 1846 - May 11 1925), daughter of John REA/RAY, wagon maker, and Nancy Sumner RAY. One oral story is that her parents disapproved of William and would lock her in a room to prevent this courtship but Emaline would slip out the window and see him anyway.
William joined the Confederacy. On, 1 May 1862, he enlisted in Macon County, North Carolina, into the 39th North Carolina Infantry, Company I. He was nineteen years old. He enlisted with the name he had used since birth - William A. TRAMMELL.
The first year of his war efforts has yet been uncovered. On 19 May 1863, he was admitted to the First Mississippi C. S. A. Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, for Febris Intermiten Quotidian. In layman terms he was having a reoccurring fever daily. He returned to duty 25 June 1863 after spending a month and six days in the hospital.
While on furlough, 19 April 1864, William A. TRAMMELL and Emaline RAY married. William was twenty-one and Emaline was eighteen just one week.
Shortly after they were married William returned to his Unit. The Unit went to be part of the "Battle of Kennesaw Mountain", near Marietta, Georgia.
Note- About one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five years later over a hundred of William and Emaline's descendants would be living within a few miles of Kennesaw Mountain.
William's unit, the 39th Regiment, Company I, was fixed on the crest between Big Kennesaw Mountain and Little Kennesaw Mountain.
His bosses:
Corps - Loring
Division - French
Brigade - Ector
William and two of his friends were at a spring kneeling down drinking water. Shots. One of his friends dropped with a bullet hole in his head. He and his remaining living friend got up to run. More shots. William was shot in the leg. He fell while his friend fled. The boys in blue ran by him in pursuit of his friend, evidently assuming he was dead.
According to the records William was shot in the knee July 18, 1864. That, incidentally, was the same day that the President of the Confederacy fired General Joseph E. Johnston of that campaign and replaced him with General Hood.
On his questionnaire for a pension a question was what date he was wounded and William replied "July 18, 1864". Another question asked where was his unit at the time he was shot and he replied "Peachtree Creek" (Atlanta) which is historically accurate. Unfortunately, the questionnaire did not ask the applicant where he was when he shot, only where his unit was, which could be two different places.
A note: There are eight active springs on Kennesaw Mountain and several dried up ones.
Peachtree Creek or Kennesaw Mountain? Or Chickamauga, Georgia?
Ms Thelma Swanson, a TRAMMELL/RAY descendent/researcher, found that the North Carolina Troops Roster, page 108, shows that he was wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia.
The Chickamauga Battle was held in the Northwest corner of Georgia, September 19th and 20th, 1863. I personally think this
could be another William TRAMMELL listed (Mrs. Swanson later stated that it could have been William K. TRAMMELL wounded at Chicamauga).
On August 6, 1864, William appeared on a receipt roll at Marshall Hospital in Columbus, Georgia.
He was put on wounded furlough. He told his grandchildren that he recuperated in a private home in Andersonville, Georgia.
Andersonville was not far from the Marshall Hospital in Columbus (about 20 to 30 miles). The Andersonville Confederate Center had the facilities for a hospital and a prison. The cruel conditions at Andersonville Prison still shock people. Men were forced to suffer and die in painful and cruel ways just for fighting in a cause they believed in or had to fight. Some of the prisons in the North were just as bad - one that comes to mind is Camp Chase, Ohio.
Another academic question: Which Andersonville? During the Civil War times there was a Andersonville Community in Cobb County at the northern border of Cherokee County, where Highway 92 is today, only about three or four miles east of where he eventually settled in Woodstock.
He said that in that private home where he recuperated the lady that nursed him was named Amanda Jane. A few years later he would honor that lady by naming his only daughter after her.
After he got well enough he somehow gained possession of a mule and walked (or limped) back home to Macon County, North Carolina, which if the Andersonville was in Cobb-Cherokee County it would be slightly over a hundred miles away, if the Andersonville was in Southwest Georgia it would be close to three hundred miles away.
Apparently, he arrived home before November 1864 (based on the incubation period and birth date of their first born Charles). He was about twenty-two when he returned from the War.
For the next couple of years William and Emaline lived just south of Franklin, North Carolina and had two children.
Posey C. Wild was a close friend. He was the close friend who was with William at the time he was shot by Union Soldiers by the spring, and was lucky to flee with his life. After that event,
10 August 1864, Posey was promoted to Second Lieutenant.
Another close person to William was his uncle Jacob Van Buren "Van" TRAMMELL. Van was only a few years older than William and they lived in the same household during their childhood lives. With William and Van living in the same house; with the same last name; and close to the same age - some thought they were brothers.
With that, this story has been handed down through the generations in the RAY Family:
"Van TRAMMELL and his brother William were trying to collect pay for a horse that had been stolen from William. The man refused to pay. William hit the man with a gun and killed him. Van left for Arkansas and William for Georgia."
The man who William and his uncle Van Trammell killed was named Lambert. - Surname TRAMMELL from nformation submitted by Darlene Lackey. June 18, 2004, posting no. 1405.
Actually, Van went to Round Prairie Township, Benton County, Arkansas.
The William A. HUNTER family went to Texas. In Texas, William acquired "twelve or fifteen" tracts of land and tried being a cattle rancher. He had problems supplying water and had to give it up.
It is unknown where or when they ranched in Texas. We do know that one of their children, Frank Paris Hunter (my grandfather), was born in Granbury, Hood County, Texas, in 1879.
A little puzzle: Based on a Family Bible Frank Paris Hunter was born in Granbury, Texas. It has been handed down orally that Frank Paris was named after Paris, Texas. Paris, Texas, is about one hundred and fifty miles east of Granbury. Not close enough for namesakes - but apparently so.
1879 was also the year William and his family came back east and settled in Cherokee County, Georgia, less than ten miles away from Kennesaw Mountain, where he fought in the Civil War fifteen years earlier.
They first settled in the Kelp Community, which was in the area of what is presently the vicinity of the intersection of State Highway 92 and Bells Ferry Road.
William joined the Masonic Lodge which was located just a few miles east of Woodstock, which was the community of Anderson- ville. This "Andersonville" was discussed earlier the possible "Andersonville" William recuperated from his Civil War wounds.
When their oldest son Charlie grew up he opened a store appropriately called "Hunter's Store". He was also the Postmaster of Kelp. The Kelp Post Office was in a section of Hunter's Store.
Charlie also wrote a newspaper column of local news. The name of the column was also "Hunter's Store".
William A. HUNTER's son William Jason HUNTER was killed in June of 1896, at the age of twenty-one, in a hunting accident. William Jason when killed, had a pregnant wife (Fannie) and a daughter. William A. and Emaline had their daughter-in-law and granddaughter move in with them. They took up their late son's responsibility of providing food and shelter. The child that Fanny was pregnant with was named Lois. They lived with them until their death.
William A. HUNTER was also raised by his grandparents because of a parent dying. Which may be why William did this deed, because he knew the feeling. Again, history repeats itself.
Although it appears that William fled Macon County, North Carolina, in the 1860s, around the turn of the century he would return each year during apple season to see old friends and relatives, and of course to get a load of apples.
About 1908, William and his oldest son Charlie bought land in Woodstock, on Main Street, just a couple of blocks south of the center of town. They both built houses on the property.
Now (1998), the house is a store for rental company.
An act of Congress was passed in 1910 authorizing a soldier's pension for men who fought in the Civil War, for the North as well as the South. That same year, going on sixty-eight, William applied for his pension. On his application he stated that he was in Company I of the 39th Regiment (Infantry) of North Carolina. The application was turned down because no one by the name of William A. HUNTER was on the roster.
The roster did show a William A. TRAMMELL who enlisted on 1 May 1862. He and Posey C. Wild enlisted the same day. And at the Kennesaw Mountain Park, on the list of all those who fought, his name as TRAMMELL is listed.
He had a slight dilemma. He could admit he changed his name after the war. But what would be the consequences?
His solution worked. He gathered up three witnesses to swear to a questionnaire affidavit that he had not only fought but also was wounded in the War.
The witnesses:
1. Posey C. WILD on the questionnaire said he had known William all his life "and have seen him occasionally since he left this county in 1867". Posey also wrote that William lived in Woodstock, Georgia, since 1879, and still occasionally saw him "through my relation living there".
2. Doctor T. W. MCCLOUD said he witnessed William wounded in the knee on or near Kennesaw Mountain during what is known as the
Georgia Campaign.
3. George A. CAMPBELL said he saw William wounded in the knee or near the knee, the bullet tearing away much of the muscle and going through the leaders of the upper part of the leg about the knee.
In his latter years his grandchildren remembered him walking stooped over, carrying a cane, and speaking in a deep whispery voice.
CONFEDERATE NORTH CAROLINA TROOPS
39th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry
39th Infantry Regiment was organized at Camp Patton, Asheville, North Carolina, in July, 1861, as a five company battalion. In November the unit moved to "Camp Hill" near Gooch Mountain where it was increased to eight companies. In February, 1862, it was ordered to Knoxville, Tennessee, where two more companies were added. Its members were from the counties of Cherokee, Macon, Jackson, Buncombe, and Clay. The 39th took part in the Cumberland Gap operations, then saw action in the Battle of Perryville. Assigned to Walthall's, McNair's, and Reynold's Brigade, it fought with the Army of Tennessee from Murfreesboro to Atlanta, then endured Hood's winter campaign in Tennessee. In 1865 it shared in the defense of Mobile. This regiment lost 2 killed, 36 wounded, and 6 missing at Murfreesboro and had 10 killed, 90 wounded, and 3 missing at Chickamauga. During the Atlanta Campaign, May 18 to September 5, it reported 16 killed, 57 wounded, and 10 missing. On May 4, 1865, it surrendered. The field officers were Colonel David Coleman, Lieutenant Colonels Hugh H. Davidson and Francis A. Reynolds, and Major T.W. Peirce.
Robert (?) moved to Mr. Hunter's Friday, Dec 17, 1915.
- From Minnie Durham Westmoreland's journal, page 4.
Pa sold his house to Arck? McCleskey Oct 9, 1917, and moved in with Mr. Hunter in Woodstock.
- From Minnie Durham Westmoreland's journal, p9
Mr William Hunter and Mr Buck Medford died in the Fall of 1928.
- From Minnie Durham Westmoreland's journal, p19
William married Emaline Ray [43]4 [MRIN: 19] on 19 Apr 1864 in Franklin, Macon Co, NC.5
Children from this marriage were:
i. Charles Jefferson Hunter [551]6 was born on 3 Sep 1865 in , Macon Co, NC, died on 15 Feb 1954 in Woodstock, Cherokee Co, GA at age 88, and was buried in Carmel Baptist Church, Woodstock, Cherokee Co, GA..
ii. Arminda Jane "Nin" Hunter [577] was born on 22 Dec 1866, died on 31 Dec 1955 in , Cherokee Co, GA at age 89, and was buried in Enon Cemetery, Woodstock, Cherokee Co., GA.
iii. John Rafas Hunter [688] was born on 28 Jun 1870, died on 21 Nov 1940 in , Cherokee Co, GA at age 70, and was buried in Bascomb United Methodist Church, Cherokee Co., GA.
iv. William Jason Hunter [698] was born on 6 Mar 1875, died on 25 Jun 1896 in , , GA at age 21, and was buried in Carmel Baptist Church, Woostock, Cherokee Co, GA..
16 v. Frank Paris Hunter [40]
vi. Oscar Ray Hunter [709] was born on 2 Aug 1884 in , Cherokee Co, GA, died on 18 Jun 1963 in St. Petersburg, , FL at age 78, and was buried in Cremated.
vii. Arthur Riley Hunter [718] was born on 2 Aug 1884 in , Cherokee Co, GA and died on 23 Oct 1967 in Sanford, , FL at age 83.
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