Should Be a Movie: John Coor’s Travels Through Indian Country to Mississippi Territory[1]

There was no big catastrophic event that happened in my family, but I can think of several smaller events that would be nice to be portrayed in a movie, primarily so I could see their adventures visually. We don’t have many photos and certainly not photos of their travels.

I would love to see a movie about the travels of my southern family as they traveled across the southern states, from North Carolina to Texas. Depending on the timeframe, the travel might have been accomplished using horses, oxen, or mules pulling a wagon of their goods while the family members walked alongside. Later, after the Civil War, once railroads were rebuilt, they may have journeyed by using trains.

I do know that John Core, his mother, four sisters and two small children, along with some enslaved people, traveled from Richmond County in North Carolina through Indian Nation to the Western Country (which was what would be Mississippi Territory). Also traveling with his family were Mr. John Keayhey (which is likely Kethley), his wife, seven children, and three enslaved people, and William and Henry Toler.[2]

They had to get permission from the governor of Georgia to pass through the lands held by several Native American tribes. These passports allowed them to travel through the territory. I wrote about their adventure in “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 42: Adventure: Traveling from North Carolina to Mississippi Territory in 1811.”

To get from North Carolina to Mississippi near present-day Jackson, they would have had to travel through Georgia and the area that would later become Alabama before arriving in Mississippi. There was a road called The Old Federal Road. This road started out being used by the military for troop movement during the Indian Wars. After the Louisiana Purchase, this road was the main way for settlers to get to southwest Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Before this road, people used a path through the Appalachian Mountains to the Natchez Trace, but this new road would cut off 500 miles. However, settlers had to obtain passports across the Creek Nation. This road was also used to deliver mail.[3] There was another Federal Road called the Georgia Road, that passed through Cherokee Nation lands.

Wouldn’t a movie be a wonderful way to view the trials and tribulations the families had to take to get from North Carolina all the way to the southwestern part of the Mississippi Territory? I wonder how long it took. They received the passport in December 1911. Did they travel through the winter or wait until spring to begin their journey through the Creek Nation? What was the terrain like? Forested? Swampy? Were there many rivers and creeks to cross? One account I read said the Creeks collected tolls to cross the creeks and rivers until bridges were built.

Yes, it would make a great movie.

#52Ancestors-Week 16: Should Be a Movie

This is my sixth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe. I write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

[1] John Coor is my 4x-great-grandfather. He married Ann Kethley, daughter of John Kethley, likely in Lawrence County, Mississippi Territory. This is one of only a few ancestors who lived in a state before statehood.

[2] Dorothy Williams Potter, Passports of Southeastern Pioneers 1770–1823, Indian, Spanish and other Land Passports for Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, North and South Carolina, (Genealogical Publishing Co, 1990), p. 294.

[3] “The Old Federal Road,” WikiTree (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:The_Old_Federal_Road#1810 : accessed 21 April 2023).


Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

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