
George
A. ADAMS, who has lived on his present farm of two hundred and
twenty-eight acres in Goreville Township, Johnson County, for the past
forty-five years, was born in North Carolina on the River Admin,
January 9, 1801. His father, Moses Adams, who was born in the
same county, Surry, seven miles from Rockford, was a son of William
Adams, who came from England, and whose wife was a Miss Martin Ireland.
They had eight children, five sons and three daughters, the father of
George A. Adams being either the second or third child in order of
birth. The grandmother of our subject died in old age, and the
grandfather lived to be about seventy-five years old. Moses Adams
married Elizabeth Horn, of North Carolina, and by her had eight
children, four sons and four daughters, the sons being John, William.
Jonathan and George A.
Moses Adams and his wife both died in North Carolina and were buried at
the Quaker meeting house, where had been buried William Adams and his
wife. Moses died some fifteen years before his wife, who at her death
was very nearly a hundred years old. Both grandparents and parents were
well-to-do and well-informed people, and George A. had excellent
educational advantages in a good select school, but he did not
appreciate and improve them. However, he learned to read and has been a
great student of the Bible. At twenty-one years of age he left home and
began farming for himself, and was married in his twenty-second year to
Miss Lorey Cannon. In 1831, he and his wife removed to East Tennessee
with their four children, where he purchased a farm of two hundred and
forty acres, well timbered with yellow pine. He sold his farm and
removed to Illinois in 1849, with horses a portion of the way and with
oxen the rest. They were four weeks on the way and arrived January 1,
1849, in Johnson County, where he at first took up eighty acres of
land, and later was enabled to enter one hundred and sixty acres more
of Government land. His wife died in March, 1887, aged nearly eighty
years, leaving her husband and eleven children, six sons and five
daughters. Columbus N. died in the prime of life leaving a family, and
since the mother's death John, a farmer of Williamson County, died
November 7, 1892,in his sixty-fifth year, leaving a family. Those
living are as follows: William C., a farmer on the home farm, whose
wife was Melissa Crawford, of East Tennessee, where they were married;
they have nine children living; Mary Ann, wife of Jesse Stroud, a
farmer of Tunnel Hill Township, who has five children living;
Elizabeth, widow of the late Harvey C. Craig, who has no children
living; George W., a farmer of Tunnel Hill Township, and a practicing
physician, who lias seven children; Martha C., wife of Thomas Hart, who
has five children; James M., a farmer of Tunnel Hill Township, who has
a wife and four children; and William F., who has a wife and six
children. George A. Adams was reared a Quaker, but is not now a member
of any church.
Politically, our subject was formerly a Democrat, but is now a
Republican. He is now nearly ninety-three years of age and is a wonder,
still looking after his farm and working in the field every day of his
life. His only weakness is that of deafness, but he is bright and
intelligent, and is an entertaining conversationalist considering the
opportunities he has had. For his age he is yet young, and has good
prospects of reaching his one hundredth year.
transcribed by Nan Starjak
Source:
The Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope and Hardin
Counties
Chicago
Biographical Publishing Co., 1893
page 406-407
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