Putman Family History

And The John Thomas Putman Family

At some point, during the two-century religious struggle between 1000 and 1200 A.D. known as the Crusades, the exact time is far from certain, Simon de Puttingham, the Putman Family's first recorded ancestor, merged quietly, historically unobtrusively, into English History.

A poverty-riddled life had scantily improved during the successive three centuries in Buckingham Shire, England for William Putnam. That was 1590, the year his son Thomas was born. Better times were here because Simon de Puttingham's Dark Ages had receded and had been replaced by a more progressive Middle Age; which, itself, now felt the death grip of the new enlightened modern world.

Thomas gave into an adventurism slowly and reluctantly. He crossed the Atlantic with his family when he was 57 years old. He made his last will and testament aboard ship. "I make my wife Dorothy Putnam, my executrix. To my son Thomas (Jr.) Twenty pounds out of forty-three pounds, nine shillings, due me by my father's will, William Putnam, Buckingham Chessam parish, England. Remainder of said money to Dorothy."

Thomas, Jr.'s younger son Zachariah was a Virginian by birth. He settled in Culpeper near the Blue Ridge Mountains. Zachariah changed the family name from Putnam to Putman. His oldest son Thomas moved southwestward. So did his two sons, John and Benjamin who moved into the Carolina's, Benjamin to North Carolina and John into Union County South Carolina. Wilson Putman, son of Benjamin's son Wilson married Susan Hullett, daughter of William Hullett, Sr., a Rutherfordtown, N.C. neighbor. Both were farmers. Life in 1700-1800 was simple and uncomplicated. A family survived with a few acres of land which they used to produce food, clothing and shelter. The family rose before daybreak, worked the fields until dark and spent the night recouping. Fall of the year and winters were used for preserving food, making quilts, at times weaving cotton into cloth and hand sewing bought or woven materials into clothes.

Wilson and Susan came by a wagon and mule train to Alabama. John Putman likely a cousin of Wilson's from South Carolina, later joined him in Blount County. These are progenitors of the Oneonta and Blountsville lines of Putman.

A small Straight Mountain stream meanders southeast until it forms first Sugarland Land and then Highland Lake. It was along the branch in Township 13 where Wilson and Susan Putman chose to farm after their arrival in 1848. Their children were Charlotte, John, Benjamin, Sarah, Mary, George and Andrew. Only Andrew remained in the area. Putmans on Straight Mountain today trace their ancestry to Andrew through his sons John, Benjamin, Ulyes, William, or Clifton, or daughters Lou Cressy and her husband Henry Gulledge and Lonie who married Charles Roma. Two sons, Columbus and James, were bachelors.

To say only that Andrew, Clementine and the children were hard-working, early- American Pioneers is a much too casual description of the time. Procrastination could be fatal. It took time for man and ax to fell trees used in heating and cooking. Log cutting and splitting were tedious and slow. Considerable amounts of wood had to be in store by the first frost in October. Delaying soil preparation in the spring tangled with the erratic schedule of spring rains. Crops maturing during the heat of summer gave a faint harvest. Soil preparation required daylight to dark vigil. With minuscule amounts of fertilizer available for supplemental nourishment, new ground had to be cleared repeatedly. Sore muscles were the norm not an exception. By dawn, livestock had to be fed and cows stripped of excess milk. Butter-making had to be slipped into a rare vacant moment.

The thin window between sugar cane maturity and natural juice evaporation demanded immediate conversion to syrup for consumption and sweetening. Vegetables had to be picked, prepared and preserved. There was little hesitancy in slipping into bed at sun down. It all started again before dawn. Chickens often chose their own nesting site. Gathering eggs demanded keen eyes and ears. While shoes had to be bought, clothes were made at home. Time was precious. It could never be wasted. To do so could be disastrous.

Corn had to be harvested and stored. Kernels were rolled out of the cob to grind into meal. Cucumbers had to be salted down for pickles. Apples and peaches were harvested, sliced and dried. By November Andrew slaughtered enough pork for the year. Hot water was poured over the carcass to loosen the hair stripped from the body. It took a full day to section the hog into hams, shoulders and side meat. When it had cooled, it was placed in a box and covered with salt for preservation. A large supply of wood ashes were preserved during the already chilly weather. These were covered with water which leached below into pans to provide the caustic ingredient for soap making. Melted fat from the pork trimming were mixed with the brown colored fluid. The mass hardened and a single hard chunk was cut into bars for baths and washing clothes.

Entertainment was centered around the home and Church. Sunday was set aside to rest and worship. Andrew, Clementine and the family were charter-members of Mountain Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church. They enjoyed church dinners. Games were the centers of entertainment. Physical activities demanded each gender entertain themselves. Dinners were the exception. Here, families reunited, inviting friends and neighbors to dine with them beneath stately oak or towering pine trees. Most dating was done in this religious atmosphere. Voices blended together in the sanctuary. It made little difference if no instruments were available. Voices rang out in close harmony and all, from the youngest to the oldest, sang the musical part their range permitted. The beautiful tones drifted across an otherwise quiet countryside. The soft strains of the singing could be heard for a half-mile or more. Homemade hand-fans stirred the hot summer air. They cooled little, but the moving air made the heat less disturbing.

Sunday mornings started as early as work days for Andrew and Clementine's son John and his wife Louella Gulledge Putman. John and Louella's children were Cholie Ellen, Ulys Evert, Alton, Jewell, Alice Ovell, Revis Andrew, and Houston Lee, and Lucille.

She began the day cooking breakfast. John brought mules from the barn and hooked them to the wagon. "We all loaded into the wagon and drove the mile or two to the church," Alton recalls. Their farm life differed little from that of his father. Days were long and arduous in the mountain fields.

On May 6, 1919, both John and Louella knew the birth of their eighth child was close. She had felt a quick, but passing pain shortly after breakfast. Before the day ended, Lucille was the newest member of the John Putman Family. She was small, even frail. The delivery had been hard on Louella. Dr. N. C. Denton reassured John everything seemed well, but conceded difficulties and felt recovery would take somewhat longer than usual.

The sun broke over the ridge of Blount Mountain on June 6, 1919, exposing a clear blue sky. Apprehension was heavy, concerns intense. Chloe held Lucille tightly for her mother to see. Louella made a feeble attempt to take and hold her young child. Her strength had vanished. Her family, including her brother Johnny, sat quietly, each with prayerful thoughts, on the large front porch of John and Louella's home. The doctor gave little hope of survival through the night.

A short time later, Johnny Gulledge walked almost unnoticed across the porch, down the steps and to his wagon. He drove the mile to his home and workshop to begin a heart-wrenching chore -- making a casket for his sister. He had nailed together many pine caskets in his adult life. It was a job neighbor, friend and relative had come to expect of him. It was never easy.

John Putman was an entrepreneur. His home along the ridge of Streight Mountain was a suitable location for a grist mill. Water force was lacking, but not mechanical power. He constructed a mechanism that ground corn meal for farm homes in the southeast corner of Blount County. The milling stones still exist at the home of the late Joe Huie not far from their original location. Pay was either a portion of the corn or post grinding meal.

John had another financially profitable venture, a wood shingle mill. As the fall harvest ended, the family cut oak and hickory trees and sawed each into shorter lengths. Two-foot sections, placed vertically in the cylinder mill, were sliced into half-inch shingles. Putman shingles lay between precipitation and the interior of most community homes for decades.

John Putman met and married Mary Battles. After the ceremony the children ran down the roadway behind the carriage carrying the newlyweds. Since John and Mary were en route to their honeymoon, they stopped the buggy, turned the children around and sent them home. For a moment they feared they might have the entire family along for the occasion.

They had three sons, John Thomas, Jr., Howard and Milford Putman.