Cousins, Community, and SAR Reunited for the First Time November 20, 2019

Cousins, Community, and SAR Reunited for the First Time November 20, 2019

Cousins - Ed Anderson, Paul Anderson, Roy Smith, Barrett Hanson, and Wayne Dudley (l-r).

Reposted Article
Original Article 

  The NewsReporter

Barrett Hanson was the featured speaker of the November 12, 2017 meeting of the Washington-Wilkes Historical Foundation. Barrett is a very impressive man in many regards, successful, articulate, and extremely civic-minded. He has been the prime mover, assisted by Mrs. Nancy Cohen Gunby, in preserving the memory of Cohentown and Cherry Grove School as seminal in the historic achievements of an important and, indeed, unique African-American community which thrived in Wilkes County from the Reconstruction era through the first decades of the Twentieth Century. At that time the post-World War I diaspora saw numerous citizens, both black and white, seek economic opportunity in burgeoning northern manufacturing centers such as Detroit. As a result, Cohentown and its school faded in inexorable decline as did other thriving rural communities in Wilkes County.

That evening Barrett delivered a masterful presentation of all aspects of Cohentown’s history, including parenthetically his family’s origins in Wilkes County. He began with the poignant story of his fifth-generation grandparents, John Maddox Hanson and his wife Margaret Sophia Hanson who were half-double first cousins of a highly distinguished old Maryland family. They arrived in Wilkes a bit before 1820 bringing with them several enslaved African-Americans.

Barrett recounted that one of the Hanson sons, John, Jr., maintained a relationship with Edy, bound in servitude to the Hansons. The union was impossible to sanctify by marriage in the 1840’s, but the white and black relatives made peace with the situation. Three children were born of this union. The eldest, Tom Hanson born in 1844, was Barrett’s twice-great grandfather whose photograph he displayed.

Seated at the table directly in front of Barrett at the Woman’s Club was Roy Smith recently returned to the county of his birth and of his entire ancestry. Roy immediately recognized an undoubted shared family history and after the meeting introduced himself to Barrett as a great-great grandson of the Hanson couple from Maryland. He had no prior knowledge of the African-American branch from his own ancestry but realized the strong family resemblance between Tom Hanson’s photograph and a youthful photograph of this own great grandmother, Margaret Anne Hanson Smith, Tom’s aunt. The cousins were locked in embrace and acceptance immediately.

Roy’s father had been a member of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) by right of descent from Capt. Walter Hanson of the Charles County, Maryland Militia. Walter Hanson was father of John Maddox Hanson, and Walter’s younger half-brother, Lt. Henry Massey Hanson was father of Mrs. Margaret Sophia Hanson, the Wilkes County ancestors of Roy and Barrett alike.

Tom Hanson, Barrett’s ancestor, had a younger brother, Levi, who was known to be the ancestor of the Reverend Ed Anderson, a prominent Wilkes Countian and retired Army Lt. Colonel. All their Wilkes County genealogy had been thoroughly documented by Barrett and Ed, as had Roy’s lineage going back to the 1600’s in Maryland.

Roy immediately passed on the shared Maryland lineage and presented Barrett a copy of the book documenting it. He also told Barrett that he, as a proud descendant of Capt. Walter Hanson, was as entitled as Roy, or his father to become a member of the SAR. The Washington-Wilkes Chapter leadership enthusiastically agreed. But, as Barrett resides in suburban Atlanta, he joined the Atlanta Chapter, Georgia Society, Sons of the American Revolution.

Later Roy accompanied Rev. and Mrs. Anderson to Atlanta for Barrett’s formal induction. Also present from Washington were W-W SAR President and Mrs. Lou Harris.

Rev. Ed soon submitted his own ancestral line to the Atlanta Chapter at their request, but he will hold dual membership in the Washington-Wilkes chapter where he resides. Present at Ed’s induction was Julius Wayne Dudley, PhD of Boston, also inducted into the SAR as a Walter Hanson descendant. Both Ed and Wayne expressed their feelings upon the occasion in memorably moving speeches. Also, in attendance was the Rev. Paul Anderson of Raleigh, NC, Ed’s brother soon to complete his own SAR membership. Present as well from Washington with Roy were Mr. and Mrs. David Chesnut.

Roy Smith has been a member of the SAR for sixty years, an achievement rarely equaled throughout the nation. Had not he recognized Barrett and subsequently Ed, not only as cousins, but as eligible and desirable members of the SAR, Wilkes County would have missed a grand opportunity to demonstrate acceptance and inclusion wherein both races proudly clasp hands.