Jack and Ben Were Neighbors

They were neighbors.

People who knew Jack Metts and Benjamin Buttrum thought they were brothers, but there was no relation I could find. Jack was born in 1833 in Clayton County, and Ben was born in April of 1864, meaning both were born into slavery, and had successful lives. Both preferred oxen to horses or mules and used two-wheeled carts rather than farm wagons. They were farmers, wore a mustache and lived near a stream.

Jack was thirty-two when emancipation came. He signed the required “Loyalty Oath” in June of 1867 in Jonesboro, Georgia. Shortly after that he moved to Douglas County alone.

He certainly had children and was listed as a widower in subsequent census reports. In the 1910 Census he and his nine-year-old granddaughter Henrietta Whitaker lived on a farm Jack rented from Mr. Sherman Boyd, where Flyblow Creek empties into Dog River.

Trace of his granddaughter ends there. January of 1920, eighty-two-year-old Jack Metts lived in the home of Robert and Daisy Miller on Central Church Road. He was a hired man working as a farm laborer.

He died the next month of “Old Age.” The Millers were not able to provide any information on Jack’s family for the death certificate.

Jack was remembered as a “helper” ready to assist his neighbors in any way.

Ben had four children and many grandchildren.

While it is difficult to flesh out Jack Metts, Ben Buttrum left an extended family.

Ben was a lifelong farmer in the Fairplay Community. A deeply religious man, he was one of the early bright lights of the Fairfield Methodist Church and lived next door.

He shows up in the 1880 Census as a sixteen-year-old employed by Joel B. Smith in Campbell County, just across the river from Douglas County.

Ben is found among employed Freedmen in Rivertown in Campbell County. At the time Rivertown was a town of about 300 people, but it a is a ghost town today.

Ben and Hattie Buttrum moved from Rivertown to a farm just up the hill from the Fairfield Methodist Church on Highway 5. Ben and his family worshiped there but also attended Pray’s Mill Baptist Church. He was a farmer and landowner.

In 1930 Ben and his wife were 65 years old and were able to read and write. Their daughter, Callie Elder, a widow, lived with them.

Two of Ben’s four children migrated to Cincinnatti, and their grandchildren remain there today.

Callie’s son William died on the USS Twiggs on June 16, 1945, after a Kamikaze attack.

In 1950 Hattie lived next to her son Castor and a house away from her grandson James in Ohio. I assume she died there.

Ben Buttrum and the Pleasant Beadles family always lived within shouting distance, were lifelong friends, farmed together, worshiped at Fairfield church.

I found references to Ben’s grave at Old Mountain Top Baptist Church but could not find his grave. Jack’s grave at Shady Grove Baptist Church on Fout’s Mill Road is not evident, but I’ll continue to search for both of them.

joenphillips@yahoo.com