Individual Details

John McConnell Jr was the first child of John and Nancy Montgomery McConnell. He was born in the Waxhaw settlement during the Revolutionary War in which his father was fighting. Only 11 days after his birth, his father was captured, imprisoned, and sentenced to be hanged. Then John Jr. contracted black smallpox and it was feared he would die.
However, his mother had survived smallpox years before, and through her nursing he survived. While he was still ill with the disease, his father escaped from the sentenced hanging and from prison and took his small family to the snow covered mountains of South Carolina to escape the British. They stayed in hiding in the mountains for over a year until his father could rejoin Col. William Bratton.
After the Revolutionary War, the John Sr. took his family to Georgia. finally settling in Elbert County, Georgia. It was there that John Jr met his wife, Anna Townsend. They married in Elberton in 1800 when John Jr. was 19 and Anna was 15.
John and Anna's parents and other relatives had moved on to Jackson County (later Hall County), Georgia in the late 1700's and John and Anna followed in 1806.
John and Anna had twelve children by 1827: Eli, James, John, Nancy, Henry, Sarah, Joseph L, William, Isaac, Samuel Milton, Joshua, and Mary Ann (called Polly).
When the War of 1812 began, John Jr. joined in beginning as lieutenant and last as Major of 54 Battalion, General Militia in August 1814.
After the war John Jr. began acquiring land until he owned a considerable amount. Both John Sr and Jr were known as millwrights and they built a prosperous mill on the Walnut River.
When Hall County was created in 1818, John Jr was elected deputy sheriff and next elected as sheriff. He also was elected as Justice of Inferior Court. He served until moving to Cherokee County in 1832 when that area was opened to settlement soon after finding gold in the area. After the new territory was divided into Counties, John Jr was elected as a Justice of the Inferior Court.
John Jr was part of the start of one of the first schools in Cherokee County, the Hickory Flat Academy, and the McConnells were founding members of the Hickory Flat Presbyterian Church as it was later known.
After Anna died, John Jr. married a widow, Mrs. Frances "Fannie" Gault.
The back of the large sign at the cemetery's entrance gives Major McConnell's history.
Relationship to submitter: 4th Great Grandfather

Birth	12 Dec 1780	Waxhaw Settlement, South Carolina
Marriage	7 Nov 1856	Cherokee County, Georgia - Frances Ballenger Machen
Census (family)	16 Jul 1860	Wood Stock District, Cherokee County, Georgia - Frances Ballenger Machen
Death	23 Jul 1865	Cherokee County, Georgia
Burial		Hickory Flat Cemetery, Cherokee County, Georgia

Spouse

Frances Ballenger Machen (1793 - 1878)

Notes