Yes, Paces Ferry Rd. still exist: Pace's Ferry belonged to Hardy Pace, one of Atlanta's founders. Paces Ferry Road is one of Atlanta's most well-known streets, and is the address for the Georgia Governer's Mansion as well as many of Atlanta's other wealthy and well-to-do in the Buckhead area. East Paces Ferry Road runs as far east as Dunwoody, passing along the southeastern edge of Lenox Square Mall. West Paces Ferry Road runs as far west as Vinings (formerly Paces), just across the Chattahoochee River. Paces Mill Road is a small spur route off of the much busier Paces Ferry Road there. The east/west division is at Roswell Road in Buckhead (Atlanta). There was also a Battle of Paces Ferry during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War. PACE ACADEMY, ATLANTA http://www.paceacademy.org/who/history/ Becky Mosely

Bruce Howard, in the preface to his book, says that the complete history of an individual family line “should be left to those who descend from that particular line.” I descend from William Pace (d. Clarke Co, AL, 1826) by way of his daughter Elizabeth who married Wiley Etheridge, and I have been working on this line using information that can be found on the internet along with my knowledge of the area and of its inhabitants which is based on my youth in Clarke county where my family’s roots go back to William Pace’s arrival there in 1822. I bought Mr. Howard’s book in the hope that it would allow me to connect my William Pace back to one of the better known Pace lines, which is exactly what he purports to do in his book. However, the more I examine the evidence that is available to me, the more convinced I am that Bruce has it wrong. To understand the initial reasons for my skepticism, go to the last paragraph on p. 227 where Bruce concludes that William died in late August or early September of 1826. He arrives at this conclusion by noting that his corn had been harvested but his cotton and potatoes had not. He incorporates several false assumptions in his reasoning here, one of which is that corn was harvested in July. This is true today with our modern early hybrids, but it was probably not true with the much later landraces that William would have been growing in 1826. If you next turn to the William Pace estate records, which Mr. Howard provides starting on p. 462, you will see that Wiley Ethridge was appointed administrator of the estate on 10 July 1826 and the estate appraisal was conducted on 21 July. Bruce could have saved himself the exercise in logical deduction if he had just looked at the date on the top of the page while he was contemplating William’s cotton and potatoes. The definitive month of William’s death can be found in the Minutes of the Ulcanush Baptist Church where the entry for June 1826 states “No meeting because of death of William Pace.” But that is a rather trivial difference of only a month or two and it does not alter the outlines of the broader story, even though it does make one examine other speculative conclusions by the author with a more critical eye. The larger flaw that I have noted in Mr. Howard’s tale is when he states that Dempsey Pace (b. 1778, the early immigrant to Clarke County) is the son of William Pace (d. 1826). William did have a son named Dempsey, but he was born in 1810 rather than 35 years earlier (more on that in another post). The elder Dempsey probably was the brother of John Pace (d. 1820, Clarke Co) and perhaps the brother of my William (I’m not sure about that). I think that Ball’s history of Clarke Co (1879) and Aunt Patsy Pace had it right and Bruce Howard has it wrong. Hmmm . . . , maybe there was something to that old story about Frederick Pace of Wales after all. Joe Anderson