Person:James Adams (14)

FROM A BOOK BY JUDY KINGSLAND...2001 In the White County, Georgia 1860 Census, James was shown as a day laborer and living alone.

IN A LETTER FROM ANN PRUITT, DATED FEB 8, 2001: Jeptha Freeman Adams was born in the Pendleton district. his father, James W. Adams owned property on Brushy Creek of the Saldda river which he obtained from his brother Mathew. The property originally had been granted to or purchased by James Adams, Sr., who gave it to his son Mathew out of love and affection on 15 Sept 1815. He sold it to his brother James W. on 12 Feb 1817. James W. sold the same property on 2 Apr 1817 and then bought property on Doddy's Creek bounded by a road down towards Jeptha Freeman's who was his father-in- law.

James W, the youngest son of James Sr. and Anne (Nancy) Adams was a fascinating character if you follow the many records which bore his name. He was the only child mentioned in his father's will probated in Habersham County, Georgia in 1829. In 1836 he was tried and acquitted for being a common cheat and swindler which must be a fascinating story if all the truth were known. He married Bethena Linn Freeman about 1815 and according to early census records they had 6 sons and 1 daughter. His eldest son Andrew A. became a Missionary Baptist preacher and followed his uncle, Nathaniel and cousin James A., also a Missionary Baptist preacher into the Cherokee Nation to spread the Gospel in what is now Gordon county. Edith M. and her husband John J. Nix, along with brothers William L. Clayton and Edley J. followed Andrew into Gordon county . Where they all lived in the Sonorrville area. Jeptha F. went to Walker county, where he farmed near LaFayette and most likely died there. Francis Marion, the youngest (according to tradition) married a woman of Indian blood and moved to the Dakotas. (no one knows which came first, the marriage or the move). Bethenia died circa 1845 and in 1850 James W. and his two youngest sons were living in a household full of Freeman in-laws, with Ezekiel Catlett (married Bethenia's sister Elizabeth B.) as the head. After his youngest sons went west, James W's health began to deteriorate and he went to live with his sister Lucindadams Merritt, who became a widow about 1855. He was enumerated in her household in 1860 and 1870 in White county.

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