At 03:37 PM 8/7/99 EDT, you wrote: >Hi, > >I am new to the list and have a question about three things. > >First I was wondering why my one Brinley family as far as I can tell were in >Orange County NC from 1780 to 1820? Then they moved to Carroll County >Tennessee. Did a lot of people move from NC to Tennessee.? > >Later this family moved around 1860 in Carroll County Tennessee to Hempstead >County Arkansas? In the 1900's they moved to McCurtain County OK. Did they >move for jobs or what? and how did they move was it by wagon train? > >Thanks > >tawsha Tawsha, what you mention is a very common movement from NC, to TN, AR, OK. Carroll and Benton Co TN ca 1830 or so was the place people from NC went. they seem to have mostly been small farmers, without slaves usually. 1820 they would have gone somewhere else in TN - and many did. I am not sure the exact date Carroll was open but think it was more in the 1830s. it also seems that many of them traveled from NC to TN in groups who had family connections, but also church connections. Or it least that seems to be so with my family. I think they moved because the land was very good for farming. also, many young single men in 1850s came into the area. Quite a few were new immigrants from Ireland. They were there to build the railroads. You can just follow them across TN. I think 1857 or so Carroll Co TN saw new towns, new merchants, etc. springing up because of the railroad. But 1830 it was NC people coming because of the good farm land. Maybe something had happened in NC to make them move, but not sure what it was. If you look at these names you will usually find them in 1704 NC tax list so they were in NC a long time, just always moving north/west from the coast. many of these people, in the area where Benton and Carroll Co TN meet, also ended up joining the Union army when the war began. As I said, they seem to have been families long in NC, made move 1830s to TN, and had farms but no slaves. They were not Quakers, but did form church groups. I am interested about the move 1860, that would say that perhaps your group was moving at that time because their neighbors were taking a different side from them in the war. This area of TN was very divided, as was eastern TN, NW Arkansas, KY, Maryland, parts of VA which would become West VA, MO, Kansas, etc. It was a time when people seemed to try to move where they felt safe with their neighbors chosing the same side in the war. Carroll and Benton co TN had a lot of Union people, but it is also where Nathan Bedford Forrest was located. So a very difficult area 1860-1865. Since he captured many of the local Union men and sent them to Andersonville, after 1865 it was still unsettled. My family group moved in 1870s from there in a wagon train of former Union people to NW Arkansas. 1865-1870 was time when Union army was in control of area, reconstruction, but after that, it was not a good place for former Union people to live. Also, with so many of them being survivors of Andersonville, Fort Pillow, etc. I guess it was best to move on. NW Arkansas - as most of the south - was a mess. No church, school, store, ferry, etc. left. (Bushwackers had run thru the area). Everything had to be rebuilt. But.....the land was good if lots of bluffs, etc. Also, there were sections where there had also been Union men, but others with CSA. For some reason, sections of NW AR seemed to just try to forget which side a man had fought on and get on with their lives. Heber Springs, Arkansas began what was called Old Soldiers Reunion. It was where men from both sides came together for speechs, food, and to share brotherhood. By the 1960s when I was a child and attended, it was more of a carnival, but a home coming for all the young families who had left the area after WWII to find work and lives elsewhere. They would come back to visit in August, and attend the Reunion as it was called then. 1900s move to OK....again, from 1880 to WWI every generation some of the newly married young people with their elder relatives in tow would take off for either Texas or Oklahoma to find land. There just was not enough available land for everyone, so some would leave. That is why in the grave yards in OK you will find so many who had been born in Arkansas. After WWII, most of the young men who came home did not stay long. They married, then left for Illinois, California, anywhere they could find employment. Only the elderly and a few young ones were left. They also often traveled in family groups. I love to hear the stories about my family's move to Illinois and Michigan, with my parents, my father's brother, his sister and their families. They traveled in a car caravan - so much like their ancestors who had traveled across the south in wagons. mary