Youngblood-Armstrong & Allied Families
ton's Company of Georgia Volunteers Artillery and Alexander, who was a Sergeant in Captain Henry Crowell's Company of Georgia Volunteers. There were probably other brothers also in the War of 1812, but the military records of the three named were secured from the War Department and are accurate historical facts.
These three brothers, with two others, James and John, and a sister, Mrs. Hettie Cobb, moved to Alabama while it was still a Territory. Their father, James McDade, Sr. came on a visit to his sons and daughter and died while at Mt. Meigs, He was the first person to be buried in Manning Springs Cemetery.
According to Robertson's History, "Early Settlers of Montgomery County" published in 1892; "The Mc Dade brothers, four in number, moved to Alabama from Georgia and settled at Mt. Meigs, which was at that time the center of the social and political life of the county. The Mc Dades were regarded as among the best citizens of the county, in easy circumstances and William, the owner of the prettiest home in Mt. Meigs. The store, Mc Dade and Bynum, which was probably the first store in the settlement, was owned by one of the brothers."
Charles McDade amassed a large fortune in this new territory, owned thousands of acres of land and many slaves, but they were all swept away by the Civil War.
At the conclusion of the Memorial Exercises former slaves and their descendants gathered around the tomb and sang a group of spirituals as only Southern plantation negroes can sing. As one visitor remarked, "We stepped back an era in history today and the singing of the old plantation melodies was a fitting climax to the services."
Among those present were four grand-children; twenty six great grand-children; twenty one great great grand-children; one great great great grand child, many great grand neices and nephews and a host of other relatives and friends."
When the World's Fair was held in New York City in 1939, the Fair Association designated July second, the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, as a day to honor General Longstreet and invited the General's widow and the widow of Longstreet1 s Confidential Courier to be Honor Guests. Henry Ford, the imminent industralist and philanthropist, was host at a Luncheon in the spacious and elaborate penthouse apartment of the Ford Building on the Fair Grounds in honor of these two Southern women with members of the Longstreet Memorial Association, officials of the World's Fair and other distinguished personages as his guests.
Corsages of gardenias, a truly Southern flower, were presented to each of the ladies at the Luncheon by Mr. Ford.
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