THOMAS MITCHELL

The following bio was taken from page 309 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Claudia Schuster

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

My great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Ruff Mitchell, born August 10, 1812, in Morgan County, Georgia, daughter of William and Rebecca Martin Ruff, married Thomas Mitchell, who was born May 11, 1808 in Wilkes County, Georgia.  Elizabeth and Thomas married in Henry County, Georgia and settled in Morrow, Georgia, now a suburb of Atlanta, and reared fifteen children.  They lived in a sprawling southern style plantation home surrounded by several hundred acres of land.  This beautiful home is still standing in Morrow, Georgia.  They had two sons, William R.R. Mitchell and John Hinchey Mitchell, who were in the Civil War.

 My great-great-grandfather Mitchell did not believe in slavery, although he did not own some slaves.  General Sherman made his headquarters in the Mitchell home for a short time and due to Thomas’s beliefs, he did not burn the home.  They hid a cow and calf in a swampy cane break behind the house and would go after darkness to feed and water her.  They also hid their silver and other valuables and buried some syrup in barrels to keep the Yankee soldiers from finding them.  One day the Yankee soldiers were hunting with bayonets for things that might be buried and one soldier found a barrel of syrup and fell into it.  My great-grandmother was thirteen years old at the time, and she and her sister were standing in an upstairs window when the soldier fell in.  They gleefully chanted “Lick’ em, sop’em, sop’em.”

 Two of my great-great-grandparents’ daughters married and came to Texas.  Elmina Mitchell married J.J. Burks, December 24, 1871 in Clayton County, Georgia, and moved with her husband and children to Rusk County, Texas, Brachfield Community, in 1877.  The other daughter, Georgia Ann Mitchell, married William Cates, son of Isaac and Surena Cates, December 4, 1873 in Clayton County, Georgia and moved to Rusk County to join J.J. Burks and Elmina.

 My grandmother, Lydia Florence Burks, was the daughter of Elmina Mitchell and J.J. Burks.  My grandfather, Posey Cates, was a farmer and the son of Georgia Ann Mitchell and William Cates; therefore my grandparents were first cousins.  They married November 19, 1899, in Henderson, Rusk County, Texas.

 All her life, my grandmother, Lydia Florence, wore a pair of gold hoop earrings that her Grandmother Mitchell had given her when she was four years old and was leaving Georgia to come to Texas with her parents.  She lost one of the earrings about 1933, but wore the remaining one the rest of her life.

 Posey and Lydia Cates had eleven children, six of whom died.  The surviving children are all living at this time in Rusk County.

 My mother, Vada Cates Nix, is the daughter of Posey and Lydia Cates.  I am Lydia Bonita Crocker, only child of Vada Nix, born July 10, 1933 in Rusk County.  I married Bobby Joe Crocker, June 24, 1960.  We have three children – Terry Lee Crocker, Bobbie Jean Ward, and Carol Corrinne Crocker – and have one grandchild, Crystal Bonita Ward.

 Submitted by Liz Crocker