Andrew P Morrison – T1cg

Andrew Morrison was born in Rutherford County, North Carolina, on May 10, 1813. He was the tenth child and seventh son of John and Mary Morrison. He inherited 100 acres from his father, to be his after his mother’s death. Nothing is known of his activities until after 1830, when he began to be active in community affairs, such as laying out and building roads and serving as a juror.

On either the 23rd or 24th of September in 1835, Andrew married Elizabeth Adaline Wilson, aged 18, daughter of a neighbor on Cane Creek, Samuel P. Wilson and his wife Sarah (Watson) Wilson. They continued to live in Rutherford County until after 1838, when they left with an infant daughter for Georgia. In 1840 they were in Habersham County, Georgia; the census of that year shows their small family contained two daughters. Not long after 1840 they were again on the move, finally settling in Gilmer (later Pickens) County, Georgia, where an older brother, James, was living. They lived there the rest of Andrew’s life, on a farm near the Old Federal Road (now Georgia 5) and the town of Talking Rock.

To Elizabeth and Andrew were born nine children, as follows:

• Mary Elizabeth, who married James Anderson Stephens
• Sarah C., who married, first, William Gordon, and second, Abraham W. Huffman
• Adolfus L., unmarried
• Francis James, unmarried
• John Poston, died in infancy
• Robert Andrew, died at the age of three
• Jerome Decatur, died in infancy
• Zelotes Columbus, who married Martha Jane Boyd
• Florence Arrillia, who married Thomas B. Griffith

The Civil War came to this family in 1861, when Adolfus joined a Georgia regiment shortly after the first battle of Bull Run. He served with the Army of Northern Virginia until he was killed at Petersburg, Virginia, in the summer of 1864. In the early months of 1862, Frank volunteered with many other Georgians; he was a member of the 43rd Georgia Infantry, and fought with the Army of Tennessee until he was killed at Jonesboro, Georgia, in September of 1864. Six sons had been born to Andrew and Elizabeth. Only one lived to have a family.

Andrew served as a Judge of the Inferior Court of Pickens County for about a year after the Civil War ended. He resigned without any reason given in the minutes. He and Elizabeth reared their grandsons Joe and Will Gordon after the death of their parents. Later on they helped with Joe and Will’s half-brother, Frank Huffman. Andrew farmed his land until the early 1880’s, when he turned the responsibility to his son and executor, Columbus. Andrew died on December 9, 1885. Columbus managed the family land and other property and settled the estate; only three of the nine children were still living upon Andrew’s death: Columbus, Mary, and Florence. Andrew is buried in Jasper, Georgia, across the state highway from the First Methodist Church.

In 1896, Columbus left Georgia for Texas, taking his elderly mother with him. She lived almost ten years there, dying in Hood County, Texas, on June 24, 1906. She is buried at the Rock Church Cemetery in Hood County.