Biography of WILLIAM MARR (1812-188?) and Family For most of the 19th century Eastern Tennessee was home for my Marr ancestors. Records have been found that show my Marr ancestors of that period left the semi-civilized provinces of South Carolina and migrated to the Tenn territory around 1800 looking for a better life. They moved to what is now called the counties of Polk, Monroe and McMinn. They moved about the time TN became a state and was still home to many Cherokee Indians.

The Mars/Marr name can also be found on several geographical/historical sites in East TN the most noteable being Fort Marr. There is a "Granny Marr Mountain" shown on some maps as being about a 2600 ft peak on the Tn./GA line near Polk Co. TN. In McMinn Co. TN there is "Mars Hill Presbyterian Church" that was originally built about 1823. Whether these names came from my tree is unknown.

The Polk County connection for my family comes from William Marr b. abt 1812 and his family that were residences of Ducktown from about 1851 to early 1900s. To help understand their personal history, I have borrowed historical facts from the book "Ducktown Back in Raht's Time" written by R.E.Barclay which first printed in 1946 and combined them with the data found of the family records.

William was born about 1812 in Rhea Co. TN to Benjamin and Frances Marr. Benjamin and Frances later moved to McMinn Co and spent the rest of lives in an area called Williamsburg. William married a Monroe Co. woman about 1830 by the name of Angelina Wright and they first show up in the US Census of Monroe Co in 1840 as is shown in the census matrix below. The 1850 census shows William living next door to his brother Joseph or in separate houses on the same farm. A legal document found in the Monroe Co. Court House dated 1834 shows they borrowed money from a neighbor to set up a pig raising and whiskey making business. Some time between 1850 and 1860, William Marr must have tired of slopping pigs and he moved his growing family to Polk county where several copper mines had opened up and miners were needed.

The existence of rich veins of copper ore had been known for some time in this isolated section of Tennessee, but it couldn't be shipped to market profitably. In the early 1800's there were no railroads or even wagon roads to this mountainous area. All travel and commerce had to use trails only suitable for pack mules or oxen. Finally in 1853 a crude wagon road was completed between Hiwassee Town (today called Duck Town) and the city of Cleveland Tn, near Chattanooga, where there was a railhead. This rough wagon road allowed for a relatively large scale mining operations to began. The commercial activity picked up and immediately small villages sprung up near each of the several copper mines. The area expanded so fast that portions of Bradley and McMinn county were split off and the County of Polk created. The William Marr family shows up in the 1860 census as residents of the 8th district of Ducktown, Polk Co and all of his children are with him except for his oldest daughter Malinda who was now 22 and she most likely was married.

The significant child for my line is the one called Jonathan in 1850 and called Jasper in the next two census's. Angelina, William's wife probably named this child after her father Jonathan Wright. His will and probate are documented in Monroe Co and he left her a small sum of money (25 cents) when he died about 1850. Brother Joseph does not show up in the 1870 census because he married at the age of 19 and was shown in a separate household. The two new girls shown in 1870 could have been children of other relatives and William and Angelina were giving them shelter. The Civil War broke up many families and the many orphants were taken in by other family members. Angelina had a sister with the married name of Gray and Melinda Gray could be niece. No records other than the census were found to help document the 20 plus years William Marr lived in Ducktown. Many of the early records for Polk Co were destroyed in fires in the county court house in 1895 and in 1935.

The lives of the miners and the support workers in Polk county must have been primitive and austere. The Copper Miner's Museum in Ducktown at the old Hiwassee Mine depicted the dangerous and unhealthy working environment in the mines and several shaft mines were dug as far as 356 feet underground. To simplify the shipping of the ore, the mine engineers devised a copper purifying process that crushed the ore and then heated it in large open air vats to boil off the impurities. This required large quanity of wood and soon the heavily forested area around the mines were denuded of trees for fuel. The heating and boiling process created clouds of sulfuric acid which soon killed the rest of the nearby vegetation. By the late 1800's, the copper basin around Ducktown for about 50 square miles looked like the moon; completely bare of trees and brush. Also the sulfuric acid probably had an deleterious affect on the health of people living in the area.

There were 8 or 9 mines operating in the 1850-1860 time frame and the miners and their families lived in simple cabin shanties many provided by the mining companies. Some mine owners paid the workers in script which they could use only in the mining company stores. Large contingencies of Welch and German miners were brought in from overseas because of their experience in mining which made for a polyglot community. All mining operations stopped in 1863, in the middle of the civil war, when the Federal troops disrupted the rail traffic and a guerrilla type warfare enveloped the area for several years which killed many of the inhabitants. After the war the copper mines were slow to restart operations as all business in the south lacked leaders, organization and markets.

How the William Marr family survived without work and in a lawless country can only be imagined. However, by 1870 most mines were able to resume operations and the 1870 census shows Jonathan Jasper (JJ) as being a "mine hand" as was his younger brother William N. Young men frequently began working in the mines at age of 14. The only schools in the area were in session for 3-4 months and families were required to pay tuition. Apparently JJ never made it to school as he could neither read nor write at age 20 according to the 1870 census. He was too young to fight in the Civil War, however, his older brother Benjamin may have been a soldier because their are no further records of him after the1860 census.

The history of the Ducktown indicates that by 1878 a depression occurred in copper market and all mines were closed. Ducktown went into fast decline and many workers moved on. JJ must have married Rosanna Clementine Stuart by this time because we know that by 1880 he was working in the coal mines near Anniston, Alabama where his son William Monroe Marr was born Jan. 2, 1880. William Marr Senior apparently stayed on in Ducktown at least past 1880 because the census of that year listed him as 68 years old and classified him as a laborer. No record was found of his or Angelina's death or their place of burial.

As a side light, the 1900 census for Polk Co shows a Joseph Marr just the right age to be William Marr's son. Joseph had wife and five children and one of his boys was named Newt born in 1885. While looking at for graves in the Threewill Cemetery outside of Ducktown, a big tombstone was noted for a "Preacher Newton Marr", born Nov. 17, 1885, died Aug. 12, 1925 and his wife was Luna Morrow 1883-1925. They were the last known Marr's of this branch of the family tree in Polk Co although relatives of the Marr girls could still live there..

Submitted by W. J. Marr
Email: wjmarr@worldnet.att.net