Youngblood-Armstrong & Allied Families
were expected and the women and children were put in the Court House at night while the men stood guard. My mother has often told me that she sat on the floor two nights and held me in her arms with my older sister asleep by her side. After that, for some time, wagons were loaded with the inhabitants most valuable possessions, the women and children, one man with each wagon, going into the most dense forest they could find, having no fire or light and afraid to speak above a whisper. My mother went out one night and the grass was nearly as tall as a man. She said she was more afraid of snakes than of Indians'."
Frances (Clarke) Johns died of injuries received in a fall from her horse in 1836, about a year after reaching Alabama. She was buried in the family grave yard which is located about three hundred yards in front of the home place at Cusseta. But her husband, Robert Johns, who married twice after her death, lived to see the start of the War Between the States. He died in 1861 and was buried in the family grave yard at Cusseta beside his first wife. His Will is recorded in the Court House at La Fayette, Chambers County, as probated in December 1862.
The names of his children, all by his first wife, as given in his Will were Eliza who married John Hart; Lavinia who married Lodewick Lewis; Nancy who married John Cogburn; Frances who married John Waters Youngblood; Jane who married Seaborn Gray; John who married Docie Shaw; William and Thomas J. who never married. (Will Book, LaFayette, Chambers County, Alabama.)
Frances (Johns) Youngblood's brother, William Johns, was a noted educator of that era and established the first school for boys in La Grange, Georgia. He amassed a fortune of considerable size and being a bachelor, left his entire estate to his brothers and sisters. William Johns was a soldier in the Confederate Army, serving with Georgia troops. Gen. John A. Gordon who knew of his sterling qualities and his educational background asked that he be placed in his Headquarters. William Johns' military records have been written in Georgia histories. He died of wounds received in the war near the close of that terrible conflict. He left Wills in La Grange, Ga. and in La Fayette, Ala. to dispose of his property in both states. A letter from him written to his niece( Jane (Youngblood) Fielder, upon learning of the death of her husband, Thomas L. Fielder, who died in the Confederate service, was published in the United Daughters of the Confederacy Magazine in March 1957. This letter reveals a deep sense of spiritual conviction.
Thomas J. Johns was also a teacher, having a school at Tuskeegee, Ala. to which several of his nephews, including William
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