Gilliam Creek, Marion County, Tennessee

    This sign was photographed close to the community of Battle Creek, Tennessee, a few miles from the Sweeten's Cove Primitive Baptist Church in Marion County.  The family of William Gilliam, born 1825, who married Sarah (Mary) Beene, born about 1831, lived near here.  Family tradition has it that our ancestor, William Gilliam, was arrested during the Civil War by Union Soldiers who were commandeering chickens and other livestock from the family farm. 
    It seems that "the tall red-headed Gilliam girl," one of his daughters, hit a Union soldier over the head with a rock when he tried to make off with some chickens. The father, William Gilliam, was arrested by the Union soldiers and never seen by his family again.  Sarah was left a widow with six children.  
    At one point she was reduced to personally appearing before the local Union Army Commander to beg just to have one of her horses back, so that she would be able to put in a crop.  Sarah could not keep up the farm and had to sell the land "on the waters of Battle Creek," there in Marion County, Tennessee shortly after the war because she could not pay her taxes.  
    She moved her family to Freestone County, Texas where other relatives were already living, about 1870.  She died not long after.  Her 21 year old daughter, Mary Ann Gilliam, was listed as head of household on the 1870 census.   

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