Tenn., Aug 15, 1934

Mr. A. J. DeHart or Mrs. J. H. Coffey,
Bryson City, N. C.

My dear Cousins:

Yours of the 10th inst., reached me today, here where I always spend four months during the summer every year and balance of the year at the Central Y. M. C. A. Bulding at Knoxville, where I shall return about the 10th of next month. As you have been so kindly sending me invitations to your annual reunions for a number of years, none of which I have every answered, either by letter or by attendance, I now wish to state that I am heartily ashamed of myself for so long mistreating YOU and THE CLAN of DeHart’s in your section; and shall herein attempt to explain as be(st) as an old sick man can while confined most of the time to bed or an invalid chair, after having spent more than nine years of the last fifteen in three different hospitals. During the last 15 years and having lived through ten different operations, some of which carried me quite near the Border Land unable most of the time to use either pen or machine to write my friends and loved ones during all that time, up until my 80th birthday, last Jan 10th, since which time I have regained the use of my hands sufficiently well enough to manipulate my type-writer once more; and have spent all my time since whenever able to sit up, in answering more than one hundred letters, which had been accumulating for more than ten years during my illness. While I shall not be able to attend this year’s Annual Reunion, my heartfelt wishes and earnest prayers for your success is ever with you, for from what I can gather from my own family history, meager as it is I am fully persuaded that YOU ARE ALL MY VERY NEAR BLOOD KINS MEN; and I am not able to say just how near of kin we are, but will give you what little of my family history I have been able to gather.

My father Simon DeHart, was born somewhere over in your section the same day our great President Abraham Lincoln was born and when but eight years of age, was taken by his parents to Grant county, Ky., and soon afterward, his father lost his life, together with a number of his fellow workmen, in a quicksand cave-in , by being buried alive in the old Miami Canal bed, where Cincinnati now stands, where he was at the time working, with a company of Canal Excavators, Not long after his death, my grandmother moved to Swizerland county, Indiana, with her three sons and one daughter, named William, Simon, John and Sarah, where she lived until her children were grown, and is buried, together with her son, John who died just after reaching manhood; uncle William went overland in an ox wagon with a band of gold hunters about 1848-1849, and our family lost trace of him in a few years after they arrived at the Pacific coast. They started with teams of strong oxen, the Indians and Mormons having overpowered and taken all others, together with most all else they possessed.

Father married a Kentucky girl, or a least one who was born in that state, but came of Tar Heel stock. Her name was Mary A. Graham and her father, William Graham was a relative of your former Governor Graham for whom your people named, what I term, the poorest county in all your state; where I worked with the Aluminum Company of America in the erection of the Tallassee Power Co., dam just over the border of our state in Graham county, during the time of the World War, having been sent there by the War Department to take the place of two book-keepers who were of draft age, I was there that I contracted what was then termed, the Spanish Flu from which I have never yet recovered.

There was born to my parents, twelve children, one taken in infancy and one at eleven years of age; the others, eight boys and two girls all living to maturity, and two brothers still living, ages 79 and 86 respectfully. The names of our family, John Jay, Elmer E. William Graham, Woodford Childers, Merrill Pingree, Edwin Howe and twins, Warren Emmett and Wilson Evertt, while the sisters were Amanda and Margaret Luthera, The brothers still living are Woodford C. at the old home place, Rising Sun, Ind., age 86 and Warren E., age 79 who resides at Petoskey, Mich., during tthe summer months and at St. Petersburg, Fla., during the winter. John and wife died at 88 and 85 with no children, Elmer died from war wounds at 60, and now has living two sons, Harvey Graham, Pittsburg, Pa., and Clarence Burdsall at Patriot, Ind., who has a son and daughter and four grand children two of whom are namesakes of mine and writh me heart cheering letters quite often, Amanda left three daughters, and one sone two of whom are yet living; Simon DeHart Baxter of Chicago, who has a house full of girls and Nellie Baxter Woodard of Dayton, Ky., who has one married daughter. William G. DeHart died in 1872 from wounds received in battle of Antetam during our Civil War, and his widow has since died, leaving four stalwart sons, all of whom married and have children and grand children, living at Rising Sun, Ind., and Cincinnati, O. Woodford C living at the old home place , Rising Sun, Ind., has one son, still a single man, James E. DeHart, who lives with and cares fro him. Luthera married Ofeton D. Bryson, of Empora, Kan., and left one son George Bryson of Ft Smith, Ark., and who has a son and grand children, and a sister, Barentha Bryson, of Pittsburg, Ken., married and has a grown son. Aunt Sarah DeHart, father’s only sister, married Harman Childers of Williamstown, Ky., and had four sons and two daughters named Newton, Silas, Woodford and Warren and Eliza and Luthera. Luthera married a man Col. Natt McClure, and moved to California soon after the Civil War, Nute and Silas went to Missouri and married and fought in the Confederate army against Wood and Warren at battle of Antietam where Warren was killed and I have lost all trace of Wood since the death of uncle Harmon Childers which occurred soon after the Civil War, at which time all communications were cut off between our state and Kentucky. By the time things were fully adjusted after the war, so we could again visit with our people over the river, Uncle Harmon had passed away and the children were scattered and brother, John, corresponded with one of Uncle Williams’ daughters, who lost entirely s for as our family knowledge was concerned. Our oldest married a man by the name of Wagner, but lost all trace of them after the war. When I spent a summer at Los Angeles some 28 years ago, I failed to find any trace of the family in any city directroy either at Los Angeles or surrounding towns.

Thus you may see that I am very much at a loss to know just what KIN we are to any of you, whether 2nd , or 3rd , cousins; but I am fully assured that were we able to straighten out the line of connection, we would find that we all started from the same ancestors, and that from what I hear of the great number of the name in your part of the land, our first ANCESTOR MUST SURELY HAVE BEEN A GODLY MAN, as the promise in Holy Writ, is, “The seed of the righteous man shall become as numerous as the sands of the sea” has been verified and proven true in our case by the vast numbers that you are thus far able to gather at your annual reunions.

Now my dear cousins, if you would be pleased to do something to cheer and brighten the latter days of one of your kinsmen, who because infirmities, can be with you only in the spirit of best wishes and his most earnest prayers that Jehovah’s richest blessings may be on each and every one of our CLAN now and ever more, and that each one of you may ever strive to so live here below, that some bright day in Eternity, where separations never take place, we may each find that our GODLY ANCESTOR from whom we all secended, will have, with the divine guidance of our BIG Brother, JESUS CHRIST, have ready for us, a MANSION LARGE ENOUGH TO HOLD ALL THE WORTHY DeHart family that have been and are still to come after him through ALL TIME TO COME. Send me at Central Y. M. C. A. Bldg., Knoxville, Tenn, a full account of this happy reunion, and any and all other such family knowledge as you may have that will help clarify my case and let me know more fully as to just where I stand in kinship to you all, and I will know better how to salute and greet you all when I meet you at the gate where I surely shall be to help see that SAINT PETER opens wide the gate whenever any of THE CLAN OF DeHARTS arrive throughout all Eternity; and my earnest prayer is, and shall ever be, that NOT ONE OF ALL OUR SHALL BE FOUND UNWORTHY TO AN ABUNDANT ENTRANCE. EDWIN HOWE DeHART, Central Y.M.C.A. Knoxville, Tenn.

Contributed by John R. DeHart
Document Prepared by Gloria Lambert

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