Hello, everyone, and welcome back to then again, the podcast of the northeast georgia history center. I am Marie Bartlett, the Director of the ADMA Ivester Education Center here. And today I have with me my fabulous research interns who have been working on research, our educational programs and historic interpretation this summer. So could you please introduce yourselves to our listeners?

My name is Malia Gray. I've been doing mainly research on the White Path cabin and White Path himself. I am a recent graduate of Kennesaw State University, and I studied anthropology while I was there, and I'm going to get my master's in criminal justice in January.

Wonderful. All right, and Sarah, can you introduce yourself to our listeners? Yeah.

Hi, I'm Sarah Bishop. I go to Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm a history major with an art history minor, and I'm going into my senior year this fall. I've been also doing research on White Path. Oh, yes. And I plan on going back to school to get my master's in public history after I graduate and look for a job in that career field.

Wonderful. So as they've been saying, they have been working on researching Whitepath, his cabin, and the Pinson family who lived there after White Path because we have so much wonderful information about Whitepath and the Pinson family. But we really wanted to go and research even more and get even more wonderful details and facts and documents to back up oral histories, because the White Path cabin is indeed our largest artifact here at the History Center. It is so central to what we do in all of our educational programming that we want to make sure that we have as much information as we can possibly get our hands on to talk about the White Path cabin. Because the story of the White Path cabin and the Pinson family, it is not just about this one site. I mean, of course it is about this one site, but it's also more than that. It's very much a story of Northeast Georgia and who was living here. So can you give us a little bit of an overview of what you all found while researching? Malia, we'll start with you.

Okay, so starting with Chief Whitepath himself, he was born in the 1760s in LJ, Georgia, which is Gilmer County. He was a chief in a small town that was actually located about 6 miles outside of LJ called Turnip Town. That's what it translates to. At least the first major battle Wipath was recorded to fought in is the Creek War of 1814 alongside General Andrew Jackson. There's little doubt that he joined in other battles for the Cherokees during the Revolution. However, he was named an American patriot for his efforts that led to the defeat of the Creek Indians, a tribe that the Cherokees had a constant feud with. Whitepath and Chief John Ross swam across the Tallapusa River, and they got in behind the fortified well of the Creeks and surprised them by taking their canoes. On March 27, 1814, general Edinburgh Jackson decorated and commemorated Whitepath for this with a medal. And then in 1824 and 18 to 1828, Whitepath led both religious and political rebellions, encouraging his people to return to traditional Cherokee ways rather than conforming to the new European lifestyle. However, those efforts eventually ceased in order to unify the Cherokee Nation in hopes to oppose the removal efforts. And then after these efforts, Whitepath went on to be a member of the Cherokee Council and a delegate to Washington, DC. And then in 1834, Whitepath and John Ross went to Washington for business and found an opportunity to reacquaint with General Andrew Jackson. And then Whitepath received a gift of a silver watch and a pledge that he shall remain in his ancient land as, quote unquote, long as grass grows and water runs. And then, based on this pledge, it is reasonable that Whitepath expected to be that pledge to be honored. But unfortunately, in the end, it was not. And he was forcibly removed from his home, and he set out on the Trail of Tears in 1838 with his people.

Yes. And you even found more just about the man White Path. You found a wonderful article and research about his gravesite, where he was buried. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yes.

So Chief Whitepath, he was kind of made a leader while he was on the Trail of Tears. Him and his group left about the first week of October. And from several accounts, it was from Elijah Hicks. Elijah Hicks. And from an account from him on October 16, we know that on October 16, white Path was already sick, but he was still alive. However, we do know that he had died sometime after that. From a different account, we know that he died sometime in late October. But the historic registration form that I did find on his burial site is in Latham County in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. It is in the Latham cemetery. He was buried alongside another Cherokee Indian chief called his name was Flysmith. They were buried in this cemetery that is now part of the Trail of Tears Park in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. We do know from a later account that their graves were kind of spoke over by two Indian ministers. And then there are now two marble markers that label their graves, and there are two life size statues outside of that cemetery as well.

All right. And then, Sarah, can you give us a little bit of an overview of your research that you conducted and what some of your finds were?

Yeah. So I also focused on White Path, as I mentioned earlier. But most of my research had to do with the land that he lived on. So in 1832, the US. Government took it upon themselves to survey the land that was occupied by the Cherokee Nation, and they wanted to auction it off in the land lottery. So district ten, section two, lot 272 of the Georgia Land Lottery was awarded to a man named John Lovett from Butts County. And this lot contains what we believe to have been the cabin that Whitepath lived in while the land was surveyed and divided up in 1832 and earlier. The Cherokee removal did not begin until closer to 1837 38, like Malia was saying. And unfortunately, Whitepath died in 1838 in Kentucky on the Trail of Tears. So to start out that research, the first place I looked was the 1835 Cherokee census. It's the only known census listing the entire Cherokee Nation east of the Mississippi River before their forced removal. At this time, I was looking through a physical copy of the census that was at the history center, and White Path was mentioned as number 322 on page 42 of the census. He was listed with two full blooded Cherokee peoples on the property one male over 18 and one female over 16. They had one farm, two houses and twelve acres. And they had one reader of Cherokee, one weaver and one spinster. A bit later, as I was continuing my research, I looked at a digitized copy of the census and I was able to use a search and find tool to make sure that I was finding all of the information that I needed. And in doing so, I found something that I had actually missed the first time when I was looking through the physical copy. White Path was actually mentioned twice in the census. The first mention of White Path was a repeat of the information I found previously stating that there were two people living on twelve acres with two houses. But one difference I did found in that entry was that this copy of the census listed that the property was located on or near the Elej River, which would corroborate, I guess, the story that he did live in Ellaj. And then the second new mention of White Path was listed with ten full blood Cherokee peoples living on the property with two men under 18, four men over 18, two women under 16 and two women over 16. One reader of Cherokee, one farmer, one weaver and two spinsters. They had one farm, seven acres and two houses. And this land was recorded to have been located on or near Petites Creek, which is roughly 25 miles south of where the other mention of White Path is said to be located. Both of these records were written by different men, both esquirers, but I was unable to find any information about them or any concrete proof that the two mentions of White Path were or were not the same person.

So it is very possible that these two different people who were both set out with the same task of surveying the Cherokee, both talked to the same person?

Yes, it is entirely possible.

All right. There was also a catch that you made at the History Center involving a land map. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

So, yeah, when I was researching the land lottery and the surveyors and the winners of the properties, I was looking at all of the maps of the districts and sections, and I realized that the sign inside of the History Center was not showing the right map. The sign inside the History Center, the map that it displayed showed district Nine, section Two, lot 272, instead of District Ten, section two, lot 272. So I pointed that out to Marie, and they're going to get that fixed.

Absolutely. That's why we want to make sure that we have multiple people looking at all of our things. And also why we're doing a lot of this research, while we have a lot of research about Whitepath, is because we want to make sure we live in a digital age where we're having more and more resources available to us. More things are getting digitized, more things are being put online, and we want to make sure that we don't miss anything. Because while research might have been done, a lot of really great research was done 20 years ago or even before that, is that we want to make sure we don't miss any new tidbits, new, just juicy details that can add to our story and can add to our interpretation of the White Path cabin. Because, as I said, white Path is such a central role here at the History Center. And we want to make sure that that role remains incredibly prominent and that we are making sure we have the full story of his life and also the full story of the cabin. Because while Whitepath, or possibly his parents, built the cabin, Right. Malia, I think you did a little bit of information about that. We can't for sure say if White Path or Whitepath's parents built the cabin, but we believe it to date from about 1780. The cabin itself has even more of a story as well, because not just White Pass and his parents possibly lived there, but also after removal, the cabin truly changes form. And Malia, you did a little bit more research about that, the structure of the cabin, the addition to the cabin. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your research into the physical structure and building of the cabin?

Yes. So I got this information from a Fox fire book. They did a historical assessment of the entire cabin.

And that is the White Path cabin itself, correct?

Yes, ma'am. The white path cabin. So, as you mentioned, the cabin was originally built in LJ, Georgia, by either White Path or his parents. It remained there until Don Cooley brought it to Hall County in the 1980s. When he brought it down, he did a lot of renovations to it. But before that, when the Pence family lived there, they added a whole second half of the cabin.

And what Fox Fire book was that in? Just so I can also go look at it.

The title of it is Hog Dressing log Cabin Building, Mountain Crafts and Foods. And it's like a bunch of different stuff, but it's the one that starts with Hog Dressing and Log Cabin Building.

So after the Penz and family was awarded the land and we'll get into a little bit about how the Pins and family ended up with the land and how we're really looking into exactly how that happened because they didn't win it in the land lottery. But that's a whole story. We'll get into it in just a second. So the Pins and family, of course, we do know that they live there, and we believe they added on a second room to the White Path cabin and then also added a hallway in the middle, making it a dog trot style cabin. The two rooms are of unequal size. One is smaller, one is larger, making it one would assume that therefore it is an audition because otherwise you would probably make them about the same size or the exact same size just for ease of building. But what I was really interested in, Malia, is that you also found out some more information about the roof and how the roof line has changed over the years. Can you tell us a little bit about the roof of the cabin?

So, the roof has a truss system that is currently more uniform in nature and has more of an attic design. The exterior cladding of the roof is attached to a rough cut pine decking, which are cut at varying lengths and widths. And then the edges of the roof lawn exhibit box cornices. And the roof pitch is too steep to align with traditional Cherokee design. And it indicates more of a late 19th and early or early 20th century design instead. Because since it's too steep now, that means that it's more in line with a 19th or early 20th century design. Traditional Cherokee design is a low slope, and a low slope would reduce the height of the sleeping loft that's at the top of the cabin. And an average human would not have been able to fit in it comfortably. And this would have helped with keeping heat in the cabin as well. But now, since it's too so with it being too steep now, that means that the roof was kind of lifted. So the loft is much more bigger now and it can actually be used as more of a living space rather than just sleeping or storage like the original purpose would have been.

Yes, I find that fascinating, just how the cabin has changed and evolved with time, but you can still see some of its original structure, those handhun beams, which are just so cool. Sarah, you also did research into the land lottery because you are really focusing on the land itself, once White Path was forcibly removed from his house and his land. It was then taken by the United States government, divvied up into land lotteries. And we then learned who it was awarded to, correct?

Yes, it was awarded to a man named John Lovett from Butts County.

And then we have been researching, but cannot find a land of sale deed between John Lovett and Aaron Pinson. But then Malia found a deed of sale, correct?

Yes, a deed of sale.

Yes. So you found a deed of sale, and that man's name was Joseph Slate. Joseph Slate. So we now believe that perhaps, but we have not found it yet. But that's just because we figured this out about 24 hours ago, folks, that we believe that John Lovet won the land and the land lottery, then sold it to a man named Joseph Slate, and then Joseph Slate sold it to the Pinson family, all within a matter of a very short span of time, we believe. And this cooperates with our just general understanding and history of the land lotteries. A lot of people who won the land lotteries did not end up living on that land themselves. They did end up selling it to other people to make money. So since they did sell it to make money, we assume change hands a couple of times, make some money on each transaction, but we do not believe that John Levitt or Joseph Slate lived there for any long period of time or even lived there at all. We do know that the Pinson family did live there for most of the second half of the 18 hundreds. And, Malia, you did more research into the Pinson family themselves as well, because that's also a very large part of the story of the cabin. Is their time in residence there. Can you tell us a little bit more about the Pinson family and what you learned about them?

Okay, so, yes, Aaron Pinson, who's believed to be the first person from the Pence family to live there, so he was born in 1784 and died presumably at the White Path cabin in 1845. He was married to a woman named Mary Penson. And then they had three children margaret Penson, Joseph Penson, and then Bartley. And then it kind of goes from Bartley Penson and the family tree. He lived in the cabin next with his wife Susan and their children after that. And then after Bartley after Bartley Penson, arthur Penson lived in the cabin, and then Andrew Pinson also lived in the cabin. There's not a whole lot of the record from then until when it was kind of abandoned, when the Penson family started renting it out, because they did eventually rent it out, and then the renters left, and then it was abandoned before Don Pooley found it. There's not a whole lot of record who lived there, but I think from some different research I did, it was gladys Penson. I forgot his wife her husband's name, but it was Gladys Penson. The last one that lived there, I believe, before it was moved to Hall County.

All right. Yeah, I think that's good. So that's the Pinson line that lived in the house until about the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds before they started renting it out. And I believe that you named the family the Leatherwood family. Correct. Is who you found was the renters there for a time?

That might have been me.

Oh, that might have been you. All right. Well, Sarah, that's a great transition to your research.

Yeah. So the Leatherwood family lived in the cabin from the late 1930s through World War II, at least at the History Center. We actually have, like, an over the phone interview with a woman named Maybelline Weaver, whose full name is Cora Maybelline Leatherwood Weaver, who was born on August 5, 1930, and she lived there with her family through World War II. And she actually, in her interview, has an anecdote about the loft that you guys were just talking about how no one in her family slept in the loft, but they only used it when it was time to thresh peas. The dried peas were put in a mattress cover, and she and her sister would jump on the mattress cover and beat the peas out of their pods. The only other use for the loft was to store her father's moonshine supplies and her father's canned foods. Their mother died in 1946, and the family moved out of the cabin to Chattahoochee, Georgia.

And that's when the cabin was essentially abandoned. And that makes sense that around the 1940s is when we have the explosion of suburbs. People are starting to get things very averagely, like running water, electricity, things that this cabin does not have or would not have had at that time. So it makes sense that at that time, they probably went to go seek their fortune elsewhere. And then that cabin was abandoned until a descendant of White Pass, Don Cooley, was able to find it and restore it, which is wonderful that he was able to restore it and to truly save it, to preserve this. Wonderful piece of history and then donating it to the History Center, to where we can do wonderful research and things like we're doing right now, today. So about 1830 to 1850 is the time period that we have interpreted on the left side of the cabin. And then on the right side of the cabin, if you're facing the cabin from the steps of the History Center where you enter into this cabin, the right side we have as almost like a bonus room. But we have been having conversations about maybe interpreting that side of the cabin as a one room schoolhouse. So some of the other research that you did was about what would a one room schoolhouse have been like in the mid to late 18 hundreds. So can you tell us a little bit more about your research about one room school houses, the teachers, the students and the general facts that we need to use for interpreting this? Because we are also I'll give a plug for one of our upcoming events, but we have our first Homestead Day of the year coming up on September 16 from 10:00 A.m to 01:00 p.m.. And the theme of that is going to be the one room schoolhouse where our listeners, anybody in the community, you all can come out and experience what a one room schoolhouse would have been like, how it would have functioned. The textbooks, the chalk and the slate, the math lessons you'll all get to learn about that experience. That we also have a cursive writing activity and also a dip pen. So you can dip your pen into ink and then try writing your name. It'll be a lot of fun. That is on September 16 from ten to 01:00 P.m.. So of course, any event that we have, we need to have our historical facts to back that up to inform our interpretation. So, Malia, let's start with you and what did you learn about one room schoolhouses?

I actually was only able to find a couple of pictures. I think Sarah found most of the information regarding the actual schoolroom itself. So I don't have a lot of information, but from the pictures it looks like it's very small and close knit in there. That's all that the pictures really told me. I'm sorry, I didn't really have a lot of information on the schoolhouses. I didn't have as much luck with that.

So a lot of the information I found came from a book called A Second Home missouri's early Schools by Sue Thomas. And while I don't know if you would consider Missouri necessarily the south or the Midwest, but I'm sure that a lot of the rural areas were pretty much the same in community. So from Thomas's book, I learned that most of the earliest log schools were built without using any iron nails or metal hardware of any kind. They used wooden pins, as nails, hinges and door latches. There was usually always a fireplace in the room and that provided heat for the students and a place to cook them food. Most of the cabins were built close to the ground and they were supported with stone pillars. The openings for windows were often covered with animal skins, gunny sacks, blankets, paper, or sometimes just a plank with leather straps that could be raised and lowered or opened and closed. The floors were typically left as dirt or straw covering dirt. There was typically only one shared writing shelf that was the only desk in the school, and the benches were made out of punch and logs. And as for wall decorations, there would occasionally be a colorful picture or two hanging on the wall. In earlier days, it'd be a tasteful portrait of George Washington. And following the civil war, some schools would also add a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. And as for the conduct in the classroom, a popular system was the Lancaster system, which was where students would teach other students that had less knowledge than they did. Within this system, the older students would typically teach younger students. And this was most popular in rural schools due to the fact that all ages and all abilities were all taught by one teacher. And most of the time, the teachers were former students of the schoolhouses in which they now teach, keeping on the same, like older students, having responsibilities, train of thought. Older students would also usually bring in water and fetch coal or wood for the stove. And then for the younger students, it'd be according to their size and gender, but they would be given responsibilities such as sweeping, cleaning the blackboard, or taking the erasers outside for dusting. After that, I moved on to my research of kind of what the community was like for the teachers, what the environment was like for them. And while there was not a majority of male teachers, sometimes they would live in a teacherage which was located near the school or often attached to it, and they were usually the ones to help care for and maintain the building as well. As for the female teachers of the time, being a teacher gave women the opportunity to enter a quote unquote wider world of ideas, politics, and public usefulness. Many of these women welcomed the independence and sense of purpose that teaching gave them. Most popularly, they would only teach for a few years until they would settle down to get married. As during this time, female teachers were not allowed to be married, and if they were married, they would be fired. And then working in such close quarters with other women led to formed associations. They would go to summer training experiences. They would gain friendships, exchange ideas, and that ultimately led to the transformation of their community. And the feminization of teaching changed not only how women were perceived by society, but how women perceived themselves.

Wonderful. So you'll get to see all of that in action at our one room school house, homestead day. Now, I wanted to ask y'all about your experiences being interns here at the northeast Georgia history center. Y'all were, of course, educational research interns, and y'all were both virtual. So our internships we offer both in person and virtual. So I wanted to know about how did having a virtual internship impact your experience? And just can you tell us a little bit about your experience overall? Malia, we'll start with you.

I personally really liked being a virtual intern. It made it a lot easier to get my work done as I could kind of thing, because I had such a busy schedule all summer. So it was very positive experience. I did enjoy that a lot being the virtual aspect of it. And then overall, I had a very great experience being an intern here. It was a little bit challenging at first because it was research I wasn't usually used to doing. I was usually used to doing, like, anthropology based things, but now I have such a versatile research scope, so it was a great learning experience for me.

Wonderful. All right.

And Sarah, I second Malia's sentiment that it was really easy to be able to work at my own pace. It was really fun because obviously we did go in person for some events and stuff.

We have to get you into the History Center at some point. You got to see it in action.

Right? Exactly. But yeah, getting more experience with virtual deadlines, organizing my research for other people to read was another really big thing that I think I gained a lot of experience with.

How do you feel this internship helped you with experience in researching? Did it stretch your experience with trying to find historical documents or scholarly sources? I would like to just hear a little bit about that. So, Malia, we'll start with you.

Yes. It definitely stretched my experience because I had never had to go into archives or go down like a little rabbit hole or go to genealogist section in a library. So it definitely taught me how to do those things, and it has strengthened my research abilities. So that was a very big positive for this internship.

Yeah, same with me. I have a lot of experience with research being a history major, but most of the classes I've taken up to now have been more modern history classes and then the ones that have been ancient history. All of the information I've looked at was digitized, so it was really easy to just go to the sources that my professors would send me or anything like that. So getting to do this essentially by myself, but obviously with the help of you and Leslie Marie, it was really great to learn what resources worked for my research preferences and all that kind of stuff.

Wonderful. And what would you say to close is your favorite part of your internship experience here at the Northeast Georgia History Center? Mila Leo will start with you.

My favorite part was doing research about Whitepath himself. I had originally thought that my favorite part would be the cabin, but Chief Whitepath himself was the most interesting part, and I was very excited when I found the historic registration document about his gravesite. He, in general is just very interesting.

My all time favorite thing that I did this summer was looking at the district maps from the land lottery surveys and then comparing them to modern day maps. Specifically, when I was figuring out where Patitz Creek was in relation to Ella J, I had to look at the creek on the map from 1835 or 1832, and then I'd go look. At a modern day map and I'm like, where is this? So like doing the little compare and contrast to find that was really fun.

Y'all were great historical detectives trying to piece together this story. That of mean we have a pretty good picture of what the white pass story in the cabinet is, but trying to piece together those smaller details, maybe an overlooked map or something of that nature. It has been wonderful to have you all as interns this summer. Don't be strangers. Come back. Let us know what you're doing here at the History Center. I'm sure our listeners will also be interested to know where you go and how you spread your wings and soar as you depart from the History Center. So thank you so much for all of your wonderful work this summer and take care.

Thank you.

Thank you so much had such a great time.

Then again is a production of the Northeast Georgia History Center in Gainesville, Georgia. Our podcast is edited by media producer Juada Rodriguez. Our digital and on site programs are made possible by the Ada May Ivester Education center. Please join us next week for another episode of Then again.