Marshall McClung
A recent visit by Robert and Deborah Oliver Felix concluded a 10-year search for their Hare family ancestors.
Their decade-long search for information on the Hare family included a trip to the Cherokee County courthouse in Murphy. They were not able to find any information there -- most likely due to the fact that the Union Army burned the courthouse, under the pretense that there were Confederate soldiers hiding in the attic.
Graham County was Cherokee County then and a lot of old records on what is now Graham County were destroyed.
A more recent search by Robert and Deborah led them to discover that there was actually a community named Hares Creek in Graham County. Upon arriving to Hares Creek from Kansas, they spoke to a neighbor up the creek from our home. They were directed to us for more information. Felix had learned from research that he is the grandson of Mildred Hare and a great, great-grandson of Thomas Hare, Sr.
The Hare family settled on what is now Hares Creek in the Tallulah section of Graham County around 1840. It is thought that the creek was named for Thomas Hare.
William Henry “Tobe” Hare lived in the Sweetgum area of Tallulah in the 1930s.
James Hare was born around 1847 and married Elizabeth Ann Rogers, the daughter of George Newton Rogers and Elizabeth Cabe. They are listed in the 1860, 1870 and 1880 censuses in what is now Graham County. They had three children; Andrew, Martha E., and William Hare. James’s parents are listed as Thomas and Liner Hare. Emaline Hare doesn’t show up in the census until 1860 and is listed as a widow.
“Tobe” was married to Callie Crisp. They had no children. He later moved to Copperhill, Tenn., and married Isabelle Allen Cheatham, a widow with four children. They had two children of their own, Quentin and Ray Hare. Quentin visited the Melvin and Gladys Wiggins family of Hares Creek from time to time, and spoke of the area being named for the Hare family.
Roy Farr -- a lifelong resident of Hares Creek -- said that his father and grandfather told him that the Hare family lived in a cove near where the present-day Hares Creek Road crosses Hares Creek.
The Farr family has owned what was the Hare property for many years.
Marshall McClung is the historical columnist for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, mcclungs@email.com.