Transcript:Cook, Anna Maria Green. History of Baldwin County, Georgia

HARPER - p. 354-356

Charles Rhodes Harper, one of Baldwin County's oldest citizens, was born in Putnam County, Georgia, April 22, 1841. He was the oldest son of Robert Hutchins and Eliza Carter Harper. When eight years old, he moved with his parents to a plantation in Baldwin County, but spent several years afterwards with his grandparents in Putnam County, where he attended school. In early life he joined the Methodist church, and has been a faithful member and official of his church. In the War Between the States, he served four years as a Confederate soldier, and was in the seige of Vicksburg and the battles around Atlanta. Shortly after the war, Jan. 16, 1866, he married Elizabeth Anna Tatum. They made their first home in Baldwin County, and have spent their fifty-eight years of married life in their several homes in this county. Mr. Harper owns a large plantation and has been actively engaged in farming until a short time ago. His father, Robert H. Harper, was also a farmer. He was born in Hancock Co., in 1817. When twenty-one years of age, he moved to Putnam Co., where he lived until 1849, when he moved to Baldwin. He died at his home, near Milledgeville, in 1884. His wife, Eliza Carter Harper, was born in Putnam County in 1821, and died in Baldwin County, in 1881.

Elizabeth Anna Tatum Harper, wife of Charles Rhodes Harper, was the second daughter of Dudley Herbert Tatum and Frances Kirby Green Tatum. She was born June 1, 1843. During childhood, she attended the day and boarding school of her father, at his home. When a young woman she was a student at the Baptist Female College, at Madison, Georgia, but the war prevented her graduation. Her father, Dudley H. Tatum, was born in Gilford County, North Carolina, in 1805. He came from his native State on horseback in 1834, to Jones County, Georgia, where he spent two years teaching. While there in the home of Capt. Miles Greene, he met and later married in 1835, a relative of Capt. Green's, Frances Kirby Greene. In 1836, they established their home in Baldwin County, on a farm five miles west of Milledgeville, where Mr. Tatum lived for sixty-two years, dying at the age of ninety-three. His wife, Frances Greene Tatum, was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, in 1814. Her father died when she was quite young and in 1832, she and her mother, Mrs. Judith Mabry Greene, moved to Milledgeville, where they lived until the marriage of the daughter. She died in 1887, at her home near Milledgeville.

The descendants of Charles Rhodes and Anna Tatum Harper are as follows: Children—John Benjamin (deceased); Frances Eleanor (Mrs. George Wesley Griner, of Oklahoma); Robert Dudley (deceased); Charles Tatum; Annie Eliza, and Julia Mabry, Milledgeville, Ga. Grandchildren, descendants of John B. and Mamie Dinkins Harper,—Charles Edwin, Macon, Ga.; Mary Ellen (Mrs. Felton William Coleman), Macon; and Anna Pauline (Mrs. Robert Frank Ensslin), Washington, D. C. Grandchildren, descendants of Rev. George Wesley and Frances Harper Griner,:—Paul Haygood, New Orleans, La.; Charles Benjamin, Jacksonville, Fla.; George Wesley, Jr. (Capt U. S. Army) Bryan, Texas; and Heidt Harper, Oklahoma.

Great-grand child,—Olive Mabry Griner, daughter of Capt. George Wesley and Olive Self Griner.