RANDALL BLACKSHEAR - HENRY COUNTY, ALA
The following message is posted in behalf of Steve Elliot who is undertaking a genealogy restoration project in Alabama.He is seeking to make contacts with descendants of this Randall Blackshear and/or his daughter Mary.Individuals wishing to make contact with him as:
[email protected]
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As a historian of the Camp Springs, Henry County, Alabama area, I am very interested in the renovation, upgrading, and restoration of the grave sites of James W. Dees and his wife Mary Blackshear. The graves are now marked with three foot tall pine markers about 18" wide and rounded at the top. They have become fat lightwood (fat lightered) due to their age. I would like to preserve these and add "grave sheds" or a single "grave shed" to cover both graves instead of two sheds, one for each of the graves. Grave sheds are a cemetery "decoration" that is very common in the history of the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley in Alabam and the Southeastern corner called "The Wiregrass Area" of Alabama. They are sheds built over graves 100 year+ ago that were approximately 8 feet long and 4 feet wide with 4" x 4" posts on the four corners; a 12" base board all around; a picket fence sometime with a gate, usually no gate; and a gabled, cedar shake shingle roof set on 12 on 12 rafters with the gables being clapboard on the head and foot ends of the graves. I am looking for members of Mary Blackshear Dees family, that of her father Randolph "Randal" Blackshear born in Jones County, North Carolina December 25, 1789 and died in the present Haleburg, Henry County, Alabama are January 20, 1864. Mary's mother was Kathrin/Catherine Anglin born in Putnam County, Georgia and died in Henry County Alabama before 1850. This couple settled on what is now Whetstone Drive, Haleburg, Alabama in 1823 coming from Twiggs County, Georgia with children and slaves to work the 240 acre plantation of Randolph Blackshear, a prominent yeoman planter in the area and a member of the Yatta Abba Missionary Baptist Church north of Haleburg. I would like to have written permission from descentants of Randolph Blackshear, Mary Blackshear Dees, or James W. Dees to do this work. I intend to apply for a grant from the Alabama Historic Commission to cover the costs of materials and employee the "Brotherhood" organization of the Camp Springs Baptist Church, with Braxton Comer Elliott as foreman. I hope this "news" article will deliver this sought after permission. The markers will be preserved with the grave sheds as a historical revision to be added. --Steve Elliott, Camp Springs/Haleburg, Henry County, Alabama Historian. [email protected] (205) 752-5192 (until December 31st)