Jack Metts

Where is she?

I don’t have a picture of little Henrietta Whitaker. Her appearance into the Bill Arp and Boyd Settlement was a mystery from the get- go.

My grandfather met Jack Metts walking down the road one morning. Jack had a burlap bag over his shoulder, and there was something squirming around in there.

My grandfather assumed Jack had bought, or more likely, traded something for a piglet and was hauling it home the easiest way.

“What’s in the bag, Jack?” my grandfather asked.

“A baby,” Jack replied, “and I’m gonna raise it.”

My grandfather thought Jack said he had come from Marietta, but that was a misunderstanding.

Jack Metts and his neighbor Ben Buttrum looked so much alike that even friends mistook one for the other.

Both men favored oxen over mules and horses. Ben used a four-wheeled wagon and Jack preferred a two-wheeled cart.

They are found in records of liberated “freedmen” after the war ended in 1865 but not in the same place and time.

Jack was born in Jonesboro in May of 1833 and spent his early years in Clayton County.

It was easy to follow Ben’s family line, but the best place to find Jack’s descendant would be through his son Luther, who fathered eight children and was an Atlanta fireman.

Jack lived in a small house on the hill above the confluence of Dog River and Flyblow Creek.

In the 1880 Census, forty-seven-yearold Jack was married to fifteen-year-old Martha and the father of four children, two boys and two girls; none could possibly be Martha’s natural children.

In 1900 Jack was a widowed sixtyseven year old farmer renting a place from Sherman Boyd.

But what about Henrietta? She appears only in the 1910 census report as Jack’s nine-year-old granddaughter. There is no record of a marriage in Georgia nor nearby states. It is possible Henrietta did not survive childhood.

In the 1920 Census Jack was living in the home of the Joe Miller family and working as a hired man, but he didn’t live past the year 1920.

Jack Metts died February 27, 1920, at eighty-seven. The cause of death was listed as “old age.”

He was buried in the church yard of Shady Grove Baptist Church. His grave is unmarked.

There are few records of the life of Jack Metts, but he left a deep mark on his community and was remembered as a helpful and caring neighbor.

There are likely great-great-grandchildren who wonder about their family line, and I hope someday to meet them.

joenphillips@yahoo.com