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YES - Nathan Kemp in Franklin County, Tennessee - this was some incongruent information that I kept coming across in my Internet research. A 'Nathan Camp' who moved his family to Western Tennessee around the same time or just before records indicate that our Nathan and his brood picked up stakes from Madison County, Alabama and settled on lands granted him in what would become McNairy and Hardin Counties, TN.

My curiosity became piqued when I found further information that this Franklin County Nathan was born in the 1775 in North Carolina and that his wife's name was probably Martha - which is not far from Margery [Brashiers], the name of our Nathan's second wife, whom he married in Madison County, Alabama in 1813.

I thought that these facts were too much of a coincidence not to check them out. So while visiting my uncle in Huntsville, AL, I decided to go the short distance over the state line up into Franklin County, TN and see what I could unearth. The questions I wanted answered were:


Nathaniel Camp (b.1745)
 
I was fairly sure that this 'Franklin County' Nathan was not Nathan's uncle, Nathaniel Camp (b.1745), who was the fourth son of Thomas Camp III of Rutherford, NC. I knew from Col. Mann's "Kemp-Camp History" that this Nathan had migrated along with his family from VA to NC to SC and then settled for good in GA, where he died in the home of his son, Rev. Hosea Camp in Gwinnett County, GA - not far from where I grew up. I also knew his wife's name and their children from numerous CAMP sources. But could this Nathan have owned land in TN also?

Anywho, I was off to Franklin County, TN to see what I could find....

[Click to enlarge the photos]
In downtown Winchester, the county seat, there was a nice granite courthouse and just off the square was a building where the Franklin County Archives had been relocated. Unfortunately, fire had burned the old wooden courthouse, destroying a lot of records, so there was a limited amount of information. There were, however, some original documents kept in boxes by family name and some deeds and legal documents in book form.
1 2
3
Among some of those original Kemp documents kept in a box, I found the names Thomas J. Camp and Saul Camp, two names which I would look up later among our known CAMP line and would find some surprising results. Some significant passages and my notes on these documents above are indicated below:

Document 1:

"State of Tennessee: I have on this day (the 10th of July) ...illegible... to the . . . of Thomas J. Camp, witness for Saul Camp about the age of twenty-six...."

The rest of the document is a largely illegible sworn deposition of Thomas J. Camp (given as Thomas Kemp further down) concerning money owed to Saul Camp from a W. H. Johnston for the period of Dec 25th, 1841 to July 28th, 1842.

Documents 2 and 3:

In these related pages, you can see the names of Saul Camp and Thomas J. (or T.J.) Camp several times within these pages and the signatures and the date 1842 on the last page.

1 2 3
1. Another page in the Saul & Thomas J. Camp/Kemp document signed by T. J. Camp. 2. Then, a Summons for William Kemp and others to appear in a Winchester court case slated for the 28th of December, 1849. 3. Finally, the deed for Nathan Camp's land on "the South Bank of the Elk River" in Franklin County, TN. It appears to be dated the 15th day of March 1815. More on these specifics when I can find my copies of those documents.

     After finding what documentation I could at the Franklin County Archives, I set out to find the 'Old Kemp burying ground' on Elk River, which was referred to by some folks in the Archives. I found the rain-soaked dirt road impassible, but talked with the neighbors of the Kemp land and found that remains of the old Kemp homestead and a grove of trees containing the old Kemp burial ground were extent. Mr. Parton took me for a ride on his tractor down to the area and offered what he knew about the last Kemps to live there and some local history. More on that when I find the rest of my materials. . . .

[Click to enlarge the photos]
Photos from the south bank of the Elk River. The Kemp house was said to be right on the river at one time, but it was then moved back several hundred yards to the location where I found the delapidated structure. Here, my uncle Barney Kemp examines the documents I brought back from Franklin County, TN.

Descendants of Nathan Camp:

After returning from my trip, I found a little more detailed information posted on the Internet by a probable descendant,
Alice Camp (chasec@meta3.net) about the family of this Nathan Camp and Martha McLendon of Franklin County, TN. Here follows excerpts and a synopsis of her offering:


1. Nathan Camp was born in NC.
  • Birth: 1775 -- North Carolina
  • Death: 1828 -- Franklin County, Tennessee
  • Spouse: Martha McLendon
  • Child: Benjamin H. L. Camp.
2. Benjamin H. L. Camp
  • Birth: December 15, 1818, TN
  • Death: January 14, 1893, buried at Driver's Flat, Calhoun Co., MS.
  • Spouse: Frances Gullick (Feb. 21, 1836 - June 22, 1898), m. May 4, 1851.

  • Child: Carroll B. Camp (d. infancy)
  • Child: Thomas Lafayette Camp (d. infancy)
  • Child: Benji Franklin Camp (d. infancy)
  • Child: James Lauderdale Henry Camp (June 11, 1860 - Aug. 27, 1928)
  • Child: Richmon Elisha Camp (b. June 26, 1863)
  • Child: Martha Carolyn Camp (Oct. 10, 1864), had 7 children.
  • Child: Mary Gullick Camp (b. July 14, 1868)
  • Child: Emily Jane Camp (Jan. 23, 1871 - Dec. 23, 1949)
3. James Lauderdale Henry Camp
  • Birth: June 11, 1860, Calhoun Co., MS
  • Death: Aug. 27, 1928, buried at Mt. Liberty, Calhoun/Yalobusa Co., MS.
  • Spouse: Laura Florence Stuckey (Feb. 4, 1860 - May 18, 1940), m. Sept. 24, 1881.

  • Child: William Henry Camp (Nov. 13, 1882 - Sept. 7, 1958)
  • Child: John Thomas Camp (Jan. 2, 1886 - June 24, 1962)
  • Child: Lee Roy Camp (Jan. 14, 1891 - July 20, 1957)
  • Child: Sudie Cordis Masouri Camp (Oct. 18, 1892 - Dec. 4, 1979)
And so on....



Some Conclusions:

From the material compiled by Alice Camp and what I gathered from the Franklin County Archives, I was satisfied enough to answer the first three questions.

What is extraordinary is that our Nathan was born in North Carolina in 1774 and the other in 1775. Our Nathan moved to the Mississippi Territory, later Southern Alabama, around 1810 and married Margery Brashiers in 1813, and the other settled in Franklin County, TN and married his wife Martha McLendon perhaps the same year. So all of this took place in the same time period and with only a long day's wagon ride separating the two Nathan Camps. That is until our Nathan moved just over the state border into West Tennessee in the 1820s where he was still within 100 miles of his possible Franklin County cousin. Therefore, Suffice it to say that I did find Thomas J. Camp and Saul Camp listed in the big Thomas Camp III family tree that I have somewhere in my records. The dates seem to match with the few documents I found in Winchester and so it appears that they were brethren of Nathan who had come with him to Franklin County, TN. When I locate it, I will publish more specific results....[JSK]




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