The following article was written by Dr. Benjamin Clarke Smith about 1911 or 1912. Dr. Smith's wife was Moses and Tamar Tyner Hunt's great-granddaughter. Small typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected and footnotes added. The footnotes are mine alone and I take responsibility for their content and any errors I made therein. --NJHM

About fifty-eight years ago Dr. George White sold his "Historical Collections of Georgia" extensively in the state.¹

He located the Tyner massacre on Goody's Creek in lower Elbert but it certainly was on Coldwater Creek in upper Elbert.

The late Joel Chandler Harris ("Uncle Remus") in his stories of Georgia², page 186, gives White's account substantially, but does not mention Goody's Creek, and names William Tyner as the head of the raided family, but White names Richard. The difference cannot now be reconciled.

An ancient issue of the Danielsville Monitor gives White's account almost verbatim, but does not give him credit.

A few years ago the State Department of Agriculture published "Georgia, Historical and Industrial"³, using White's story; probably including the preposterous fabrication of Tamar's canoe voyage down the river by nights and hiding in swamps for days, regardless of the ever alert and savage Creeks on the western side of the river, and the raging shoals below, or the difficulties in finding swamps before day, or means of concealing her canoe. (I loaned the book and cannot refer to it.) Had the landing been made it must have required a resourceful imagination to provide transportation over the stormy gulf and around the coasts, and back to Elbert county; but, like Uncle Remus' rabbit climbed the tree Tamar was 'jest obledged to come!' These events are timed "soon after the war was over." (Revolutionary War.)

As is generally understood, Indians as friends, are faithful, but as enemies, are relentlessly savage.

Cause of the Indian Raid

Joshua, being fleet and strong, ran and climbed a tall walnut tree, a few hundred yards from the spring, but was pursued and shot down dead. Noah was a small boy, and concealed himself in the hollow of a large tree at the spring, and pulled the washpot in after him; therefore, that tree was called "Noah's Ark" as long as it stood.

Another son is said to have made his escape by flight. Harris was caught and scalped and beaten until pronounced dead; but he revived and lived many years afterwards. Once on a hunting to the region of the present Hart county camp ground, he observed an elevated knoll, and remarked, "Right here is the center of the world," and that place is so-called to the present time.

The three daughters were ordered to march with the departing mob, but one refused to go, and was promptly scalped and buffeted and left in a supposed dying condition, but relatives say she 'possumed' until the Indians were gone, and recovered.

Mary and Tamar, seeing their sister's fate, consented, and went, becoming slaves. Tamar was first sent to hoe corn, but she feigned ignorance, cutting out the little corn and leaving the grass. She was then required to get fire-wood and catch fish with Mary.

Soon after these events, John Manack, a man who traded with the Indians, went to their region and knew the Tyner girls. Being fascinated by Mary's features of nobility, he bought her and brought her back home, and married her.

On Manack's next trip he tried to purchase Tamar, but failed.

After Mary came home Tamar became very lonely and despondent and seeing no prospect of better conditions, resolved to desert; so when out fishing one night, with some parched corn in her pocket, she got on an improvised raft and floated below the section inhabited by her captors, and took her bearings for Elbert county. At first the sparsely settled country was almost a wilderness. As nights approached she watched for cow trails and listened for bells in order to follow the cows to their home. She was an interesting guest when she related her experiences, and was piloted on her way some miles next morning until she reached a denser population.

After reaching home she married Moses Hunt, of this community, who lived to great age and extreme feebleness. After Tamar's death⁴ Jeff and Dinah (Diner) were his special attendants.

One day⁵ he was seated in front of the fire leaning his head the end of his staff when Diner was out gathering turnip greens for dinner; when she returned he was lying dead with his head in the fire, burned beyond recognition. It was a supposable case of sudden death from natural causes.

His sale bill which I have the privilege of looking over, is in a perfect state of preservation, dated 1843, and amounts to $4,681.44.

After Manack's death his widow married to Rev. James Riley, well-remembered by a generation now almost gone, as "Uncle Jimmy Riley." He moved from this community6 to Mississippi, and little is known of him since.

William Adams., Sr., came from Virginia. His son, Lawrence married Nancy, daughter of Moses and Tamar Hunt and lived and died at the place where Moses died. James, his brother⁷, was only two years old when he came, and lived to great age, mostly in about a half-mile of the place where the Tyner tragedy occurred and the Tyner "grave-yard" which is pointed out by his grand and great-great-grand children. He married Mary Hunt, daughter of Moses and Tamar, who yet have an extensive progeny in this county.

By marriage I am closely related to the Tyner family, and have been intimate with many of the generation many years.

My wife's grand-mother was Tamar Hunt's daughter, Mary Adams, whom she remembers in her last long affliction, when she gathered "Jimpson" leaves for Dr. Barret to dress her sores with. My children drank water from the Tyner spring when going to school-it is now called the "Dobb's Spring." I have seen the walnut tree from which Joshua was shot, the largest one I ever saw. It was cut for saw-logs more than forty years ago.

I gratefully appreciate the kindness of Mr. John M. Craft for information about the early settlers in the Coldwater community. He is in his eighty-seventh year⁸, and remarkably vigorous physically and mentally. He has clear recollection of seeing Mary and Tamar Tyner.

This sketch is made from reminiscences rather than printed history, where it does not agree, and is open to criticism.

Elberton., Ga., R. F. D. 7

B. C. Smith

² Possibly (I will check this out): Harris, Joel Chandler, 1848-1908. Free Joe, and other Georgian sketches, New York, C. Scribner's sons, 1887.

³ Georgia. Dept. of Agriculture. Georgia, historical and industrial, By the Department of Agriculture ; illustrated, O.B. Stevens, commissioner ; R.F. Wright, asst. commissioner. Atlanta, Ga. G.W. Harrison, State Printer, 1901.

⁴ 1839.

⁵ April 1842.

⁶ Coldwater, Georgia.

⁷ That is, James and Lawrence Adams are brothers and married sisters Mary and Nancy Hunt.