Summerhill, James

Summerhill, James
Rutherford Co. NC, Franklin Co. GA, Cherokee & Cobb Co. GA

b abt 1790
d 1848 Cobb Co. GA
m abt 1815 probably NC
Demaris _____
b 1790 - 1800 NC
d 1884 Cobb Co. GA.

It's the belief of this researcher that James Summerhill is the son of the
Elizabeth Summerhill who is listed as head of household on the 1810 Rutherford
Co. NC Census. Elizabeth's husbands name is unknown but a male her age was
living in her home in 1810. The following are listed as residing in
the home; one male 26 - 45 (husband?), one male 16 - 26 (James?),
one female 26 - 45 (Elizabeth?), one female 16 - 26, one female 10 - 16.

This lineage begins with James Summerhill, possible son of Elizabeth.

James Summerhill Chronology

1810 Rutherford Co. NC Census - Shows male his age in
household of Elizabeth Summerhill (Mother?)

1815, July Court Rutherford Co. NC - Involved in a riot

1815 Rutherford Co. NC - Married Demaris
(her last name unknown)

1816, Apr 23 Rutherford Co. NC - Son Warren Summerhill
born (Was Demaris' maiden name Warren?)

1817, Apr 14 Rutherford Co. NC -
Gift to "my son Warren Summerhill"

1820 Rutherford Co. NC Census -
First time James found as head of household

1820 Rutherford Co. NC -
Purchased land from Thomas Lyles

1824 Rutherford Co. NC -
Purchased land from William Gilbert

1826 Rutherford Co. NC -
Living on Jechonias Waldrop, Sr. land

1826 - 1829 (Jan 5) - Migrated to Franklin Co. GA
where he purchased land from Charles W. Bond in Capt.
White's District - Wit: Samuel Mosely & Richard Smith

1830 - 1831 Franklin Co. GA -
Tax Digest Capt. White's Dist.

1832 Franklin Co. GA - Tax Digest Capt.
White's Dist. - Tom's Creek

1832 Franklin Co. GA - "James Summerhill
of White's Militia District, Franklin County,
Georgia, Drew Land Lot 484, 18th District,
3rd Section Cherokee County" (GA)

1833 Franklin Co. GA - Tax Digest Capt. White's Dist.

1834 Franklin Co. GA - Tax Digest Capt. Shurley's Dist.

1834 - 1835 - Migrated to Cherokee/Cobb Co. GA

1835 Cherokee Co. GA - Purchased 40 acres from
Stephen Smith Lot No. 1288.15.2

1840 Cobb Co. GA - Census - Warren Summerhill
is shown as head of household -
No male shown in James' age grouping

1848 Cobb Co. GA? - The following from Warren
Summerhill's obituary in the Southern Christian Advocate -

Sept. 6. 1867: "His father, Jas. Summerhill, was one of the
early settlers of Cobb Co. Ga.,and was mysteriously
murdered near his own residence."

1848, Sep 8 - Cobb Co. GA - Inventory of James
Summerhill Estate - (During the Civil War, the Yankees
destroyed the Cobb Co. Court House records and very few
survived. However, one small batch of papers were
preserved and do include several items in regard
to the administration of the estate.)

Note: According to the Inventory, James owned 37 acres
Lot No. 79, 16th Dist., 2nd Sec., 40 acres Lot No. 64, 16th Dist.
2nd Sec., 40 acres Lot No. 9, 16th Dist. 2nd Sec. , 40 acres
Lot No. 1288, 15th Dist. 2nd Sec., 40 acres Lot No. 66,
16th Dist. 2nd Sec.

1849, Nov 6 - Cobb Co. GA - J. W. Summerhill, administrator of James
Summerhill Deceased Estate, soldLot 1288-15-2 to John Durham for
$250.50. This acreage was shown as being in Cherokee Co. GA
(Cherokee joins Cobb Co. on the north) Recorded June 18, 1853. This was the
original acreage James purchased in 1835.

1850 Cobb Co. GA Census - California Dist. -
Demaris Summerhill with 5 children still at home

1860 Cobb Co. GA Census - Big Shanty Dist. -
Demaris Summerhill with 3 children still at home

1867, Mar 30 Cobb Co. GA - James & Demaris' daughter, Julia
Summerhill, admitted to Central State Hospital, Milledgeville, GA

1880 Cobb Co. GA Census - Big Shanty Dist. -
Demaris Summerhill with 2 children still at home

1884, May 5 Cobb Co. GA - Demaris Summerhill Estate administered
by grandson-in-law A. A. Griggs - She owned a 40 acre Lot No. 73, 16th
Dist. 2nd Sec. - In Oct. 1886 A. A. Griggs petitioned the court to grant
his dismission as Administrator of the Estate.

Children of James & Demaris

Name	Born	Died	Married	Spouse	Born	Died
Warren (See Summerhill Civil War Site)	23 Apr 1816 Rutherford Co. NC	25 Feb 1867 Paulding Co. GA	abt 1839-1840 GA	Harriet Jane Gober	14 Feb 1817 GA	4 Sep 1896 Paulding Co. GA
Eliza?	abt 1817 - 1820 Rutherford Co. NC	-	aft 1848?	John A. Buffington?	-	-
James Washington (See Summerhill Civil War Site)	16 Jun 1824 Rutherford Co. NC	abt May 1885 Attala Co. MS	(1) 29 Oct 1846 Marietta, GA (2) 1860's	(1) Frances Chappell (2) Nancy Moore Mims (wd)	(1) 25 Jan 1830 (2) abt 1845	(1) 20 Mar 1900 bur Cass Co. TX (2) aft 1880 Attala Co. MS
Louisa	abt 1825 Rutherford Co. NC	-	-	-	-	-
Elmira	abt 1827 NC or GA	-	-	-	-	-
Penelope*	Dec 1828 NC or GA	aft 1900	25 Aug 1884 Cobb Co. GA	Benjamin Chadwick	-	-
Jackson (See Summerhill Civil War Site)	abt 1829 - 1830 GA	abt 1863 Newnan, GA Civil War	abt 1850	Martha** _____	abt 1835	d bef 1897 Cherokee Co. GA
Rufus	abt 1834 Franklin Co. or Cherokee Co. GA	Feb 1899 Cobb Co. GA***	Never Married	-	-	-
Julia	abt 1838 Cherokee or Cobb Co. GA	21 May 1878 Milledgeville, GA	Never Married	-	-	-

* According to the 1900 Cobb Co. GA Census, Penelope had no children.
** Martha remarried bef 1870 to James D. Page - They lived in Cherokee Co. GA.
*** Marietta Daily Journal, Marietta, Cobb Co. GA, Feb. 14, 1899

Click Here To View Family Bible Pages of William A. & Sarah Angeline Athey Summerhill William, the youngest son of Warren & Harriet Gober Summerhill

A portion of a Civil War map showing residences, churches, etc., in Cobb Co. GA|
during the Atlanta Campaign.
~shows SUMMERHILL homeplace~

Civil War Map

~Map from book: "The First Hundred Years (Cobb Co. GA)" by Sarah Blackwell Gober Temple
Cherokee Publishing Co. Atlanta. 1980
This is a War Department Map.

The Summerhill dwelling shown on this Cobb Co. GA map was that of
Demaris Summerhill. She lived in Big Shanty District, close to
Noonday Church. It is believed she is buried in the Noonday
Church Cemetery. I've searched the small cemetery and
found relatively few markers.

Note: The road they lived on is now Highway 5 and runs from the Alabama State Line, through
Powder Springs, Marietta, Woodstock & Canton, GA and on to the Tennessee State Line.

Frances Chappell Summerhill
Frances Chappell
Summerhill
1st Wife of
James Washington Summerhill
Picture Courtesy: Ruth Hollomon
Palmer

Charles Samuel Summerhill
Son of
James Washington & (1) Frances Chappell Summerhill

Charles Samuel Summerhill

Picture Courtesy: Ruth Hollomon Palmer

b 11 Jun 1859 MS
d 28 Mar 1886
bur Queen City Cem, Cass Co. TX

Charles Shot By Brother-In-Law
The events surrounding the tragic death of Charles Samuel Summerhill, a school teacher
in Cass County Texas, are described in the following article written by Will Wadley. The
Wadley family settled in Queen City around 1884 - 1885 and became prominent in
the Texarkana, Texas area. A hospital in Texarkana is named for Will's brother, J. K. Wadley.
The following story, written by Will, was sent to me in 1981 by John D. Hanes
of Queen City. Mr. Hanes book in regard to the history of Cass County Texas contains the story.
<><><><><><>
"You refer to bullet holes in the front door of your building. It was at the hands of Mike
Clements (a son of the Clements living south of town), a notorious character who had married
a Miss Summerhill, a sister to a school teacher who taught
a rural school only a few miles out.
As I remember, Summerhill had some words or altercation with Clements
about mistreating his (Clements) wife, and was afterward waylaid and killed by
Clements. A Mr. Lee Smith had something to do with following or arresting Clements
and they became bitter enemies, both carrying guns for each other.
While Clements was free on bond, he was walking west on Houston Street (in the center
of the street) and when opposite the A. G. Smith Store, saw Smith standing in front
and took a shot at him, the entire load going into the closed door to the left of the entrance.
Smith returned the shot from his single barrelled shotgun, the shell having
only one buck shot in it with small shot. The one buck shot struck Clements in the
center of the forehead, inflicting only a flesh wound without breaking into the skull.
I was working in the mill commissary across the street to the side of the Smith store
and saw Clements a few minutes after he was shot - lying on the floor of a building
in the block in which Hutchinsons Drug Store was located. He thought he was mortally
wounded and was going to die, judging from the pleading he was making for his life to be
spared. Clements broke out of jail at Linden (TX) before his trial.
Lee Smith and others followed him with blood hounds for several days
through the Red River swamps, but he escaped and as I remember it, was never
apprehended and brought to trial, but was said to have returned a few years later and
waylaid Smith on the road to Bright Star, almost killing him, but eluded
arrest again, nothing heard from him afterwards
until he was recognized in Lake Charles, La., by Mr. Jim Woods.
He asked Jim Woods not to report his whereabouts to the Cass County
authorities, saying he had reformed, married again and had a nice family.
Woods told me about seeing him and said he was not going to report him.
The Lee Smith raised a son of Clements by his Summerhill wife and he is now
living here in Alexander (Alexandria, LA) where he has been for over 30 years.
He is a night watchman in the yards at the freight depot of
the KCS Railroad. He is a splendid citizen and a good man - did not take after his father."

This researcher toured Queen City, Texas in 1981 and visited the graves of Charles,
his mother Frances, and sisters Alice Summerhill Smith & Cora Lee Summerhill Clements.*
I was shown the bullet holes in the door of the still standing abandoned store.
Alice was the first female public school teacher in Cass County and married the above
mentioned Lee Cunningham "Dandy" Smith.
*Family Search I.G.I. (AFN:1DC0-590) gives Mike's name as Robert Michael Clements. Mike & Cora
Lee's descendants give his name as Samuel "Mike" Clements.

Lee & Alice Summerhill Smith
Lee Cunningham
"Dandy" Smith
&
1st wife
Alice Izora Adaline Julia
Dora Summerhill Smith
(Yes, this IS her name!)
Picture Courtesy: Ruth Hollomon
Palmer

Sources for James & Demaris:

Census: 1810 Rutherford Co. NC
County Court Minutes 1813 - 1817 - Rutherford Co. NC
Census: 1820 Rutherford Co. NC
Deeds: Rutherford Co. NC Deed Bk. 32-33 p. 295, Bk. 34 p. 240, Bk. 36 p. 72
Tombstone: Paulding Co. GA - Warren Summerhill
Wills: Rutherford Co. NC - Jechonias Waldrop, Sr. May 20, 1826
Sixth Cherokee Land Lottery of 1832 (Georgia)
Deeds: Cherokee Co. GA Bk. I-J p. 354
Census: 1840 Cobb Co. GA - Warren Summerhill
Obituary - Rev. Warren Summerhill from the Southern Christian Advocate Sep. 6, 1867 - p. 144, top of C.4
Census: 1850 Cobb Co. GA - California Dist.
Census: 1860 Cobb Co. GA - Big Shanty Dist.
Central State Hospital Records - Milledgeville, GA - Vol. 3, p. 200
Census: 1880 Cobb Co. GA - Big Shanty Dist.
Cobb Co. GA Estate Papers for Demaris Summerhill

In Memoriam
Ruth Hollomon Palmer
b 10 Jan 1907 Cass Co. TX
d 18 Jul 1997 Kitty Hawk, Dare Co. NC
m 30 Jul 1930
Edwin James Palmer
b 7 Mar 1910 Natchitoches, LA
d 8 Mar 1985 Norfolk VA

When I began my ancestral quest in 1981, Ruth Palmer was the second researcher I found.
She immediately began sharing her 40 years of family accumulated papers, sending me
reams of letters, etc., on her lineage.
Her husband, Dr. Edwin Palmer, was in private practice in neurology and psychiatry in
Roanoke, VA., consulting physician to the V.A. Hospital in Salem, VA., and was
consulting physician at the Lewis Gale and Community Hospitals in Roanoke. He retired
in 1976 and he and Ruth moved to Kitty Hawk, NC where they built their retirement home.
Ruth was a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, National Genealogical
Society and a charter member of the Albermarle (VA) Genealogical Society.
Dr. Edwin and Ruth didn't have any children.
When I published my book, "Our Summerhill Family" in 1991, I asked Ruth to write
something on her lineage that I could include. I put it here for your enjoyment.

Kitty Hawk, NC
"September 7, 1990
My relationship to the Summerhill Family of Georgia and Mississippi begins with the marriage of
Frances Chappell to James Washington Summerhill in 1848 in Cobb County, Georgia. They
lived together until the early 1860's. As the War Between the States appeared to be getting near, they
with the children, 'refugeed' to Attala County, Mississippi. Refugeed was the word my grandmother used to
explain the reason for their moving to Mississippi.
Frances Chappel Summerhill's mother and father remained in Cobb County. They were William Wilson
Chappell and Sarah Ann Buffington (Chappell). Wilson Chappell was son of Abram (Abraham) Chappell
and grandson of Robert Chappell of Morgan County, originally from Virginia; Lunenburg County, in 1777.
Sarah Ann Buffington was the daughter of John Buffington (Jonathan) who, it is believed, died in Coweta
County, Georgia. Frances had brothers and sisters. Sometime before the war became inevitable, Wilson and
Sarah Ann Chappell had moved to the Coweta area.
During the War, Frances (living in Mississippi), felt she had to go home to Cobb County to take care of her
mother and father. She took all of the children with her except the eldest boy whose name was James W.
Nebraska Summerhill, called Ned. He stayed with his father. Saran Ann Chappell had become an invalid,
from what cause I have no idea.
After the war was over, Frances did not go back to Mississippi. She had gotten a divorce in Cobb County.
When I was in Marietta (GA) in 1948, I found in the Cobb County records, that there was a division of
property which, as I recall, consisted of a bed and some other small items. Meanwhile, J. W. Summerhill
had married again to Nancy Moore Mimms or Nancy Mimms Moore.
Frances C. Summerhill and the other four children continued to live in Cobb County with her parents for
some time. The other children were: Ellen Frances (my grandmother), Kate, who died single in the 1960's,
Charles Samuel (who lived to go to Texas with my grandmother), Alice Dora, who married Lee C. Smith in
Texas, and Cora Lee, who married Mike Clements.
Wilson Chappell, Grandmother Ellen F. Summerhill, and Charles Samuel Summerhill, went to Mississippi,
having stopped in Alabama. The stops in Alabama and Mississippi were for rest and to visit other family kin
who had preceded them westward; Buffington's in the first instance and Mitchell's in the second.
After stopping in Mississippi for a time, all three developed typhoid fever. Wilson Chappell died there.
Grandmother Ellen Frances and Charles Samuel recovered and went on to Texas.
They went as far as Denison - one year searching for work for Sam in sawmill. They went back to Cass
County where Sam found work teaching school and grandmother ran a boarding house until she married
my grandfather, George Fielding McKnight.
When Grandmother and Samuel had enough money they sent to Georgia for their mother and the girls.
They came to Cass County and together all continued the boarding house. These young people, except my
grandmother, had attended a school in Cobb County. Alice became the first teacher in Cass County, or
perhaps the first female teacher. Samuel later also taught school until he was killed by his brother-in-law.
Grandmother Ellen and George F. McKnight had two children: F. W. "Frank" McKnight and Marvin Velma.
Marvin Velma married Erasmus Oliver Holderman and they had one child Ruth (me).
Charles Samuel Summerhill never married.
Alice Dora married Lee C. Smith and had four children: Ellen, Kate, Samuel and Ruth Smith. Samuel
died young. All three girls graduated from the college at Ruston, LA (Louisiana Tech).
Cora Lee, called Leila, married Mike Clements and had three children; Frederick William,
Samuel and Alice Clements. There were some family difficulties. While Alice Dora was teaching school,
Mike Clements went to her schoolhouse or to one where Charles Samuel was teaching. It must have been
Alice Dora's school where Lee Smith was present. Clements shot Charles Samuel dead, it is said, 'on the
school house steps' and later, on the streets in Atlanta, Texas, shot Lee C. Smith in the chest. He lived on
with the bullet in his chest to a natural old age.
Frederick William Clements, son of Mike and Cora Lee, married Stella and they had four children:
Valentine, Fred W. Jr., Ansley K. and Mary Alice Clements. Valentine married J. R. Sexton and lived in
central Louisiana. I know nothing of Valentine's family except one daughter married a Williams - Charles
H. R. Williams, whose family, parents, lived in Botetout Co. VA or suburban Roanoke. It is my belief that
Mary Alice Williams, on network TV as an announcer, is a granddaughter of Valentine Clements Sexton."

Thanks and much appreciation to the following family researchers of the
James & Demaris Summerhill lineage:
Ruth Holloman Palmer - NC
(Deceased 1997)
Harvey Carroll Summerhill - TX
(Deceased 1985)
Billy Ellis Summerhill - GA
Margaret Carter Summerhill - GA
(Deceased 1990)
Scott Dingler

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