Nathaniel Hunt Greer

Nathaniel's father acquired land near the county seat of Monticello — and here the young Nathaniel grew to manhood.  He was still living in Jasper County's 365th Militia District when he participated in the Georgia Land Lottery of 1821.  He drew Land Lot 236, Section 9, in the area devised as Houston County — roughly where the modern counties of Macon, Peach, and Houston converge.  The next year Nathaniel's elder brother Gilbert Dunlap got lucky in the Georgia Land Lottery of 1821 when he drew Lot 55, District 11, in the newly created Henry County.  Soon Gilbert settled on this land and it appears that eventually Nathaniel preferred to join his brother Gilbert instead of developing his own land in Houston County.

Nathaniel wed before he was 20, but we do not know exactly when or where. It is thought he married in October of 1821, but no record has been found by which the precise date and site can be identified.  His bride was Nancy Ann Terry Roberts, said to have been the daughter of Thomas Roberts and Susan Elizabeth Lacy, both from southern Virginia.  It is claimed that Nancy was born on August 4, 1805, on the northern side of Virginia, in Fairfax County, making her about 16 when she wed — but there is no explanation of why she was born so far from the home area of her alleged parents.

On October 11, 1822, two weeks before his 20th birthday, Nathaniel became a father when Nancy gave birth to their first child Gilbert Dunlap while they were living in Bedford County, Tennessee.*  How or why they came to be in Bedford County is unclear, but it is thought that Nathaniel or Nancy or both had relatives there.  It has been claimed that the young family soon returned to Jasper County to till the soil and raise race horses, but no evidence exists to support this assertion.  Whether or not the young couple did return to Jasper is unclear, but on October 7, 1823, Nathaniel did have a letter awaiting his collection at the post office back in Monticello.

In 1822, the county of Henry was subdivided and Gilbert Dunlap Greer found himself living in the new county of DeKalb.  Sometime before 1825, Nathaniel and Nancy were living near or with Gilbert in DeKalb County because there, on January 30, 1825, Nathaniel was elected Justice of the Peace.  Luckily this record survived a courthouse fire of 1842, or we might never have known of this first incidence of Nathaniel's considerable history of public duty.  Just two months before, Nancy had given birth to their second child Willmirth Margaret on November 18, 1824.  Thus, it is reasonable to assume that she was born in DeKalb County.

In the fall of 1825, Nathaniel and two others became agents in a real estate venture — selling lots for a proposed town in northern DeKalb.  The trio placed the following ad in the September 20 issue of the "Georgia Journal," published in Milledgeville, which was then the state capitol:

"To all such as would wish to live in Town near the Head of Navigation on the Chattahoochee. [sic] Will be sold ... in the town of Mount Vernon, on Friday the 14th day of October next, a number of Lots. The town of Mount Vernon lies on the South East side of the Chattahoochee, [sic] in DeKalb County, one mile from or below the Standing Peach tree, and one half mile from the river ... it lies from 30 to 40 miles above McIntosh's late residence, and from 75 to 100 miles above the Great Coweta falls ... from which place Steam Boats can go to New Orleans, and from the Falls to Mount Vernon Pole Boat navigation will be good. Persons wishing to purchase can even purchase at private sale from the subscribers. (Signed) M.D. Watkins, E. Lynch, Nathaniel Greer, Agents for the Proprietors."

Nathaniel and Nancy's third child Thomas Lacy was also born in DeKalb County.  The date was September 2, 1826.  The family of five dwelt in DeKalb a good while longer, and as late as the summer of 1828, Nathaniel was at the county seat of Decatur where he was involved in a legal dispute.

Nathaniel was party to a suit with Eaton Lynch (evidently Nathaniel's real estate partner) and John G. Roberts, Administrator.  The nature of the civil action remains unexplained because the pertinent records did not survive the subsequent courthouse fire.  (The Inferior Court minutes did survive, otherwise we would know nothing of the proceedings.)  Nor is it clear which party was the plaintiff and which the defendant.  On July 14, 1828, the jury found "for the plaintiff for the sum of fifty eight dollars 26 1/4 cents with cost of suit."  But difficulties persisted, possibly including a breach of promise, and less than a week later a further action occurred when opposing attorney, David Young, and another man, Reuben Cono, bound themselves "unto the said Nathaniel H. Greer for the payment."

John George Roberts had been granted letters of Administration for John B. Nelson by the DeKalb Inferior Court.  Until his murder by John W. Davis in 1825, Nelson had operated a ferry across the Chattahoochee — connecting the future DeKalb county with Cherokee lands at the point where Sandy Creek entered the river.  (This location is now situated at the up-river edge of the Fulton County Airport which serves Atlanta.)  It therefore appears Nathaniel was somehow involved with the Nelson estate — possibly as an interested party in the ferry operation.  It is quite interesting to note a curious geographical connection between Allison Nelson, the murdered man's son, and Nathaniel's family. Allison Nelson (who would become Atlanta's ninth mayor and later a famous Confederate general) settled at Meridian, Texas, the seat of Bosque County — the very same county where Nathaniel's widow and four of their sons would eventually dwell.

Immediately after the litigation in Decatur, Nathaniel moved his family further west in search of more hopeful circumstances.  By November 28, 1828, when William Reddick was born, the family was living in the new Georgia county of Troup which had been opened for settlement in 1827.  The 1830 census listed Nathaniel as the head of a Troup County farming family of 6 males and 2 females.  Nancy had just given birth on June 26, 1830, to their 4th son named Stephen Decatur, but the identity of the 6th male in the census is unknown to us.  Some indication of the family's material prosperity was reflected in the census which recorded their 4 slaves: 1 male and 3 females.

Soon the family moved across the Chattahoochee into the portion of Alabama occupied by the Creek Indians.  Apparently Nathaniel's experience with Nelson's Ferry bore fruit because Nathaniel was likely the operator of Greer's Ferry.  The exact location of the ferry is unknown but likely spanned the Chattahoochee at some point between West Point and the famous Philpot's Ferry at the border of Troup and Heard counties.   Family tradition suggests Nathaniel also operated a trading post at this time, but the location of that enterprise is also a mystery.

The exact sites of Nathaniel's home and dealings in Chambers County are unknown, but they were likely on or near Chapman's Trail.  The trail left Troup County at West Point — passing some three miles north of where the town of Lafayette would one day be built — before ending near Fort Williams on the Coosa River.  Nathaniel and his family surely cultivated land as well, but to what extent is not known.

On March 4, 1832, Nancy gave birth to twins Christopher Columbus and Americus Vespucius.  Many years later A. V. Greer would record in his memoirs that he and his twin were born in Chambers County, Alabama, but, in fact, the site was Indian land until ceded by the Treaty of Cusseta on March 20, 1832 — and the county was not created until later that year on December 18.  The first election of county officers was held on the twins' first birthday March 4, 1833 at the home of James Taylor which was situated on Chapman's Trail about seven miles northeast of present Lafayette.  Seemingly as a present for the occasion, the voters chose Nathaniel as their first sheriff.  On April 20, 1833, the first circuit court was held at the home of Captain Baxter Taylor; it was on Chapman's Trail and roughly three miles northeast of present Lafayette.  Nathaniel had summoned a grand jury and court convened in the shade of a large oak in the yard.

In May of 1833 a crude courthouse was built — probably with Nathaniel's help — in the new county seat which was originally called Chambersville.  The structure was made from split pine logs, had a dirt floor, and was only twenty feet square.  The first court met there on June 3.  For the next two years it also served as a temporary site of the First Presbyterian Church.  Since Nathaniel was chosen as one of the church's two original elders, he used the building frequently — for both secular and religious purposes.

During Nathaniel's tenure as sheriff, there was no jail.  When he arrested someone, he would have remanded the prisoner into the custody of a trustworthy citizen or (for dangerous persons) hired a guard until a trial could be held.  The first trial in the temporary court house was that of an Indian charged with murdering another Indian.  Before the accused was tried, convicted, and hanged, he was guarded by men who were paid two dollars a day for their time.

On July 24, 1833, a post office was established in the court house.  Presumably until that time, Nathaniel would have had to return to Troup County to receive or post mail.  From Chambersville the mail was carried by horseback to various local communities and also to Troup County.  On October 23, 1833, a public auction of town lots was held and Nathaniel apparently made a purchase.  The promise of a free dinner and free whiskey drew a considerable crowd which was induced by the meal and alcohol to make the event a raging success.  Proceeds of the sale proved sufficient to eventually build a brick court house and jail in 1835 at a cost of $30,000.

When on April 16, 1834, Nancy gave birth to another son — Dixon Hamlin — she was probably concerned for his health because an outbreak of measles was in progress.  A young local woman had died from the disease just shortly before the birth.

In May, 1834, Nathaniel was in a fracas with county officials which resulted in a fine of $50 and his resignation.  The nature of the disagreement is unknown, but it probably did not keep Nathaniel and his family from attending the big celebration that was held on July 4th of that year.  Fiddlers entertained the crowd which enjoyed barbecued meats in a grove of trees near the town square.  The Declaration of Independence was read and toasts to the Union were imbibed.

Despite Nathaniel's resignation as sheriff, his continuing popularity with the voters was aptly demonstrated a few months later when he was elected the first representative of Chambers County to the Alabama legislature.  On November 17, 1834, he and his fellow representatives of the 16th Session met in the State House in Tuscaloosa, a considerable distance from Nathaniel's home.  Before the session concluded on January 10, the legislature honored the celebrated hero of the American Revolution by renaming Nathaniel's home town of Chambersville to Lafayette and incorporating it as the official county seat on January 7, 1835.

As he departed Tuscaloosa, Nathaniel was asked to assist the federal government in its dilemma of land fraud.  By the Treaty of Cusseta, the Creek Indians ceded a vast area of east Alabama to the United States.  The terms of the treaty — which was initially negotiated some ten miles south of the area where Nathaniel's trading post was likely situated — stipulated that the head of each Indian family was to receive 320 acres of land and the chiefs 640 acres.  Most of the Indians sold their lands to white land speculators.  On December 18, 1832, the Alabama Legislature created ten counties — including Chambers, where Nathaniel was soon elected sheriff.  As the sale of Creek lands progressed, it soon became evident that massive fraud was occurring — perhaps the greatest in U.S. history — with many Creeks being unwittingly and unfairly dispossessed of their property. In response we find ...

At the office of George D. Hooper, a justice of the peace in and for the said county, on the 24th January, 1835, appeared Nathaniel H. Greer, Esq., a commissioner appointed by a Committee of Public Lands of the Senate of the United States, to take depositions concerning frauds in the sales of the public lands, and the conduct of the officers authorized by law to superintend these sales; and also concerning the matters referred to in a resolution of the Senate of June 30th, 1834, instructing said committee; who proceeded (in pursuance of said commission) to propound interrogatories and take depositions in an alleged case of fraud in the location of public lands within the county of Chambers.

Understandably, much of Nathaniel's report makes for tedious reading, but it includes something quite interesting to us.  At least two of the witnesses were Nathaniel's kin: 1) William D. Greer, his next eldest brother; and 2) Willis Johnson, husband of his youngest sister Nancy Reddick Greer.  Because the witnesses were compensated for travel from their homes, we know that William D. Greer lived 10 miles from the county seat of Lafayette, and Willis Johnson resided at a distance of 22 miles.  Unfortunately, we do not know — from Nathaniel's report — exactly where William and Willis lived, nor do we know where Nathaniel's home was situated.

In April of 1836 there occurred a Creek uprising — due in part to the fraud that had been perpetrated against them.  A panic soon developed among the white citizenry as reports of arson, theft, scalping, and murder filtered in from points south.  Women and children from all over the county gathered for protection at the brick court house — the most defensible structure available in Chambers County.  Among those seeking refuge would have been Nancy and her children which now included Sarah Hunt who had entered this world on February 26, 1836.  Many families who lived near the border with Georgia fled Chambers County — relocating across the Chattahoochee until the Indian threat abated.

Nathaniel and about 150 others were mustered into the militia for a three-month stint.  Soon they were drilled — day and night — by General Elias Beall, a local merchant and fellow ex-Georgian.  Nathaniel was a private in William H. House's Company, Webb's 1st Battalion, 76th Regiment, 8th Division of the Alabama Mounted Militia.

Early in May, a message was received from the Creeks of the village of Locha Poga, home to one of the most hostile elements of the uprising. It challenged the whites to come fight the Creeks at their home base.  The militia promptly complied and on May 14 the force arrived at the southern border of the county, but the next morning found the Indian village deserted. As an alternative, the whites began looting and burning Locha Poga.  This action was assisted by some 75-100 friendly Indians and by roughly 100 volunteers that had arrived later in the day from Troup County.

During the next week, the mounted portions of the militia pursued and attempted to engage the enemy, but the Creeks refused to fight — retreating into swamplands while receiving occasional fire from the whites, but at too great a distance to have effect.  Meanwhile the hostiles attacked the Harper farm in the southwestern part of the county, murdering the mother and children.  Nathaniel's party rescued Mr. Harper and buried his family. On May 22 the rescue party brought the dying Mr. Harper into camp on a litter; his body was later sent to Lafayette for burial.  The next night, the expedition encamped at Camp Ross on the southern border of the county. On May 24, having accomplished all that was possible, the militia dispersed to their respective homes or duty stations.

On September 8, 1836, cessation of hostilities was declared.  Creeks soon assembled in Lafayette to embark on the infamous Trail of Tears.  Many of the evicted were known to Nathaniel and probably several had been his friends for years.

By the time Nathaniel was discharged, word had come of historic events in Texas including the fall of the Alamo and the cold-blooded murder of a considerable party of Alabama volunteers following their surrender at the Battle of Goliad.  It is possible that the Goliad martyrs included some of Nathaniel's acquaintance.

The new republic now offered free land to those who would help settle its territory.  Interest in Texas grew throughout the South and the Greers were not immune to the lure of a more promising future.  In Alabama, times were hard due to a national depression.  And in Chambers County, an area heavily dependent on a slave economy, conditions became grave as a raging yellow fever epidemic killed one third of the slave population.  Nathaniel's family began making plans to emigrate.  The last record we have of the family's presence in Chambers County was on January 27, 1837, when Nathaniel was in Lafayette to attest the sale of his town property.  Five weeks later they were in Texas.

Nathaniel and his family headed for Mobile, but their means of getting there is unknown.  A look at T. C. Bradford's 1838 map of Alabama shows some 80 miles of Rail Road connecting West Point, Georgia, with Montgomery, Alabama — suggesting an easy means of travel was available in 1837.  The Montgomery and West Point Railroad (M&WP) had been chartered on January 20, 1832, for the ambitious task of laying track eastward from Montgomery to Columbus, Georgia.  In 1834, it was rechartered so that the eastern terminus would be West Point instead of Columbus.  However, no track was built until 1840 when only twelve miles of rail were laid east from Montgomery.  Therefore, Nathaniel and his group either went by river boat down the Alabama or by wagon along the Old Federal Road.

Departing Mobile by steamer, the family spent several days in New Orleans until sailing for Texas aboard the Fannin.  After calling at Galveston, the Fannin anchored at Velasco at the mouth of the Brazos River.  It was March 4, 1837, the twins' 5th birthday.  From Velasco they went up river, searching for rich land that could be bought or rented.  They found such land in Washington County and soon were farming.

The family had brought five slaves to Texas and evidence suggests the slaves were well treated.  When a family owned relatively few slaves, it was typical for the whites to work in the fields along side the blacks. In such circumstances the slaves would often be considered virtually as family, and in the Greer household that seemed to be the case.  But for some reason unclear to us, perhaps for economic necessity, Nathaniel sold their slave Louisa for $800 just six months after reaching Texas.

After 16 years of rearing a family of nine robust children, remarkable considering the childhood mortality of that age, the first of several tragedies befell the Greers in their new home.  During 1838, Nancy gave birth to Nathaniel Hunt, Jr.  But the infant namesake of his father did not survive, and the exact dates of his birth and death were not recorded.

On September 6, 1838 Nathaniel's petition as head of an immigrant family was recognized when he was awarded a Second Class Conditional Certificate for 1280 acres of land.  It was second class, not first, because his family immigrated only after Texas independence, and it would remain conditional for many years until he at last located and claimed some unoccupied land which he found to his liking.

Nathaniel, who had become a Justice of the Peace for Washington County, would occasionally perform marriages.  On October 3, 1839 he presided over a ceremony of special significance as he wed his eldest daughter Willmirth, not quite 15 years of age, to Edwin W. East, who had immigrated from Tennessee in 1836 and enlisted as a Texas Ranger on April 25, 1837.

Nathaniel was not content to serve his neighbors simply as a J. P.  He decided to run for the House of Representatives and in the summer of 1839, was one of four candidates seeking the two seats allotted to Washington County.  That the candidates were evenly matched was demonstrated as returns came in from the eight precincts.  When the votes were tallied on September 13, the two winners were Gant with 273, and Nathaniel with 247 — the losing candidates, Williamson and Butler, got 215 and 164 respectively.  On November 11, the Fourth Congress of the Republic of Texas convened.  Nathaniel performed his elected duty in the newly constructed capitol building in Austin, which in its infancy offered virtually no accommodations.  As late as 1845, the frontiersman Buck Barry observed that many of the congressmen slept "under the stars" on bedrolls near the capitol building.

In response to his neighbors' complaints about poor mail delivery along Route Number 21 from San Felipe to La Grange, Nathaniel gave up his congressional seat and set about delivering the mail himself.  His career as a postal contractor, and his standard farming chores, left little time for political office and he decided not to run in the next election.

The year 1840 brought both joy and tragedy.  On June 14 "Mammy," as Nancy had come to be known, gave birth to another son Ira Abney — named for a local doctor.   Meanwhile Nathaniel's brother James Alexander led his wife and children from Georgia to obtain a suitable situation in Texas.   But disaster struck on October 11 when, according to family tradition, the emigrants were attacked by Indians and James was killed.  (Several of his children are currently unaccounted for, and it is possible that some of them were also slain.) The tragedy occurred in Texas somewhere in Montgomery County — roughly 60 miles east of where Nathaniel and Nancy had made their home.  There the burial took place, and his distraught wife Sarah and her remaining children returned to Georgia.

In May 1842, a man named Greer was wounded by gunfire in the vicinity of San Felipe, one terminus of Nathaniel's mail route.  Could Nathaniel or one of his older boys have been the victim? The circumstances were recounted in a Houston newspaper article.

Over the next several years, the Greers bought and sold various pieces of property, speculating on land and migrating up river as the frontier was pushed back.  As the frontier expanded, so did the family, with the births of Parley Riley on February 17, 1842, and John Irvin on June 14, 1844, and the last child Matthew Simeon on April 15, 1845.  Each of these births occurred in Washington County.

In the mid-1840s, Nathaniel gave more thought to a permanent Texas home.  He ventured northward in search of land to claim as his headright, which he had been granted back in 1838.  His travels led him into the heavily contested area from which Navarro County was created out of Robertson County on April 25, 1846.

By May 12, 1847, he had surveyed 1280 acres which he hoped to make his headright.  On February 18, 1850, after a mandatory three-year wait to demonstrate his persistence of Texas residence, he was awarded his unconditional certificate for the land.  Finally, on December 12, 1850, his claim to the land was patented with the Texas General Land Office.  But the headright was along Aquilla Creek, roughly 45 miles west of Corsicana, in what was then Navarro County, but later Hill County, and was subject to frequent Indian raids. The family chose to dwell in less dangerous areas until the Indian threat was reduced.  About this time Nathaniel, Nancy and those of their children who still lived at home, resided in DeWitt County, three miles from Yorktown along the road that ran from San Antonio to Corpus Christi.  It was during this sojourn that on October 14, 1851, death claimed another child, Parley Riley, for reasons unknown.

The bereaved family soon moved to Milam County, to where the eldest son Gilbert had been farming near the booming Brazos River town of Port Sullivan.  "Colonel" Greer, as Nathaniel was by then often called, built a sawmill on the Little River and prosperity ensued.  As A.V. Greer wrote, a "good house" was built (no longer the crude cabins they had known) and "the Company did considerable business".  But tragedy struck again on February 8, 1854 when A.V.'s twin Christopher Columbus died of pneumonia contracted while deer hunting a week earlier.  He was buried near the river, above the sawmill, but on a high elevation.

By the summer of 1852, Mormon missionaries had arrived in Port Sullivan and before long the Greers were converted to the new faith.  Eventually, another urge to migrate arose, but this time the objective was less material and more spiritual.  The land was the Mormon "Zion" and the port was the "City of the Saints" beside the Great Salt Lake.  Nathaniel's poignant affection for his the new religion was aptly demonstrated in two poems which survive.  Plans to emigrate took shape in 1854, and the last record we have of the family in Texas was that of February 28, 1855 when Nathaniel attested in Milam County to his recent sale of Washington County land.  Other sales had already occurred as the family liquidated assets and purchased a huge amount of gear and oxen for the journey to Utah.  By mid-March, they were on their way.

On June 2 the company of almost 50, under the leadership of Nathaniel's business partner Seth M. Blair, arrived at Mormon Grove on the west bank of the Missouri River about 40 miles upstream from what was then known as the City of Kansas.  This staging area soon hosted over 2000 Saints who, like the Greer party, rested their animals and awaited the decision to begin the trek to Zion.  On June 7 Seth Blair was retained as president of what was dubbed the 3rd Emigrating Company and more emigrants were assigned to the group.

On June 15 the doomed company set out along the Mormon Trail, ignorant that they carried in their midst the seeds of destruction.  Within four days, an epidemic of Asiatic cholera had erupted, with its first victims perishing on June 18.  Of this great tragedy, Seth Blair was to record,

In the first 36 hours so many died of cholera that we buried one person every three hrs.  The cries of the dying and shrieks of the living presented horrors unimaginable.  Grave diggers were busy night and day.

Before long, the disease struck the Greers and their kin.  On June 22 Nathaniel's son-in-law Ed East, as company clerk, recorded the death of John Greer.  The record is silent on his kinship, but it is speculated that he was Nathaniel's son John Irvin whose fate is unremembered in family history.  Ed East, who lost several children to cholera, confessed that the rigors of the trip prevented his recording all the events which transpired. His omissions included the death of Nathaniel's son Ira Abner who, according to A.V. Greer, fainted on some unknown date and succumbed to the pestilence.

During the evening of June 23, Nathaniel showed symptoms of the disease. On the morning of the 24th, the life that had begun far away in the lush hills of Georgia departed this realm of the living while in the midst of the great American prairie.  According to family tradition, a coffin was made from a wagon bed and his mortal remains were laid to rest on a hill about a half a mile east of Grasshopper Creek, a tributary of the Nemaha River, in what would one day be Nemaha County, Kansas.

The grief-stricken family drove on and finally arrived in Salt Lake City on September 11, 1855.  Destiny had many adventures in store for them.

* For several years the site was mistakenly given in this biography as Bedford County, Virginia, but subsequent research conclusively identifies Tennessee as the state.

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