Finding Your Folks: The fruitful families of the Line Creek area

Once again we're transitioning out of one family into connecting lines, going from the Herndons into the Kempsons, Hutchinsons, Thompsons and Gables. As you remember, two Herndon brothers married two Kempson sisters and both sisters just happen to belong to one of the families we will study in more detail later.

For lack of a specific location, I'm calling the area where these families lived the "Line Creek" area since it is in that area of southeastern Coweta and northeastern Meriwether where Line Creek separates the counties. The closest towns involved would be Alvaton in Meriwether and Haralson and Senoia in Coweta. That should give you a pretty good picture of where these families were located.

Now, how this topic all came about involved a newspaper article from a winter, 1907, issue of the Newnan News which was picked up by the Pike County Times-Journal on Feb. 8, 1907. It was discovered and transcribed by Lynn Cunningham, one of the Rootsweb e-mail list administrators and posted on one of the lists earlier this year. It read:
"One of the most remarkable families in Coweta County is that of J.W.

Hutchinson, a member of the board of Commissioners for Coweta County living in Haralson District.
"Mr. Hutchinson was married just 20 years ago, to Miss Gray, a daughter of
Uncle Hosea Gray whom everyone in the county knew.

"Before Mr. Hutchinson and his wife had been married nineteen years they were the parents of twelve children. There were neither twins nor triplets born to them and the first was a girl, now a beautiful young lady. The next was a boy and then a girl, alternating a girl and boy until the twelfth one a boy which was born some time last year.

"All are at home with their parents healthy, active and industrious. It is a striking coincidence to note that Mr. Jack Thompson who lives a neighbor to Mr. Hutchinson has twelve children also and just over the line in Meriwether
County lives Mr. Ben Kempson who is also the father of twelve children.

"These three families live on adjoining plantations and are in sight of each
other. Within sight of these three mentioned is the family of our late worthy
County Treasurer George W. Gable, deceased, which is composed of ten children and the widowed mother. All of the children are at home with the mother. Thus the four families are 46 children all living within a mile of each other.

"What community in Georgia or in the south can equal this record? ... "

When this article appeared on the Internet, it was only a few minutes before I heard from Valerie Freeman of California whose husband had many ancestors in this area. Valerie suggested that these families would make a good column topic and offered to lend some of her family knowledge.
And so ... here we go. I will go into detail on each family in future columns but would like to just give a general overview and set the scene in this one, explaining just who all these heads of families were, where they came from (if known) and some general information.

The first family mentioned, that of J.W. Hutchinson, was John Welbon Hutchinson, b. 1861 (son of Benjamin and Camilla Kelley Hutchinson and grandson of John and Fairby Holland Hutchinson) whose grandparents moved to Coweta County from Newberry, S.C., in 1828 and settled in the Haralson area. Some information on this family was found in "The History of Coweta County, Georgia," compiled and published by the Newnan-Coweta Historical Society. John married Mollie Gray, as stated above, daughter of Hosea Gray and his second wife, Susan Kempson, and did, indeed, have 12 children, all of whom are named in the history book. Family details will come later.

The second family was that of Jack (James Jackson) Thompson and Sarah Margaret Swygert who also had 12 children living at the time the story was written. The Thompsons lost two sons, one who died as an infant in 1883 and another who died at age 10 in 1900.

The third family was that of Benjamin Kempson who was mentioned in the Herndon stories as being the father of Elizabeth and Anna Kempson who married Herndon brothers. Benjamin married first Elizabeth Long and had nine children, then married Nancy Bell and had three more, for his total of 12 children. Incidentally, Nancy Bell was the daughter of Thomas Bell and Nancy Boyd and the granddaughter of John (Wagonner Jack) Boyd and Nancy Chambers Boyd of Newberry, S.C. Nancy (Bell) was a close cousin of McDuffie Boyd who married Amanda Herndon. McDuffie Boyd's grandfather, Hugh Boyd, and Wagonner Jack's father, John (Johnny Buckles) Boyd, were brothers.

The fourth "fruitful" family mentioned was that of (the late) George W. Gable and his family of 10. George Washington Gable, b. 1850, was the son of David Gable and Nancy Lightner. He married Mary Elizabeth Addy, daughter of William Wesley Addy and Isabella Bernard. Names of their 10 children are given in the previously mentioned history book.

It still amazes me at the circuitous relationships of all these families. Most of these I can tie into my own family tree through marriages as well as related lines.

Over the next few weeks we will go into greater detail on these four families. If any of you are related, have personal family stories to share, or would like to submit a story on your related family line, please let me know. Submissions from readers are always encouraged.

Stories and family histories about your ancestors who lived on Atlanta's south side are always welcome. Send them to jkilgore@thecitizen.com or JodieK444@aol.com. Mail to The Citizen, P.O. Drawer 1719, Fayetteville, GA 30214. All letters and e-mails I receive are subject to being used in the column.