Original George

I recently joined an aging band of kinfolk in a tombstone hunt for the Hallmark Holy Grail, the burial site of Original George – the first George Hallmark in the new world.

Before I go into the assorted sordid details of our quest in a separate blog post, I want to own up to the fact that I, who has gone through life as Michael, am also a George Hallmark. Something about Puddin’ Pie and crying girls caused me to gravitate toward my middle name. Or maybe I just didn’t look like a George.

I was always told I was named after my grandfather, George Lee Hallmark, and that’s likely true. He was a carpenter who had taught my brother Jim the art but I never met him as he died about three months after I was born. I was always told he had planned a trip to see his namesake. There was always a void growing up late in the family as both grandfathers were gone by my time. I never have been much of a carpenter either.

George was a family name my grandpa and I shared though I doubt my parents knew why. The Hallmarks’ legacy was a mystery to me for most of my life. Lawrence, my father, wasn’t the inquisitive type. I knew Daddy had had an aunt “Bamer” which hinted at Alabama roots before my branch of the family branched out to Texas sometime after losing the war of Northern Aggression.

In the misty past of rural North Texas, DNA didn’t exist and neither did online research. Original George’s legacy was hidden from my parents’ when choosing a name for an accidental boy born 16 years after his closest sister.

Somehow almost a year has gotten away since my last blog entry. I’ve tended to set down significant thoughts and experiences in this space and it’s not for lack of either that I’ve backslid. Maybe I’ve been busy living life rather than chronicling it.

I have a fellow blogger cousin, James Davis, who has always been James Allen to the Hallmarks to distinguish from brother Jimmy Hallmark. Of course, James has always gone by the formal version of the name while my brother went by the more familiar. But this is a family that on the maternal side has Grandpa Sid, Little Sid and Red Headed Sidney. Maybe they called me Mike to distinguish me from Grandpa George even though he had died. We are a family easily confused.

The shroud of the Hallmark history had lifted sometime in the 1990s when online Ancestry research was made possible by the internet. My sister, Nancy Hallmark Teague, and James Allen had stumbled onto a treasure trove of information and discovered Hallmarks were their own cottage industry with no need of the greeting card company that stole our name to provide legitimacy.

There was a Hallmark Weekly published by a genealogy buff cousin I never met named Bill Hallmark from Gonzales, Tx and Original George’s story was laid out in the pages. There were bloodlines dating back to George’s birth in England that were a match to any race horse or show dog. I couldn’t locate any outlaws or horse thieves though I still cling to hope. I did find a couple of Methodist circuit rider preachers so that’s the next best thing I guess.

Original George was believed to have been born around Marbury, England about 1742. He was the illegitimate son of Mary Hallmark and the actual paternal name was likely Candiland. I think I prefer the maternal name we ended up with though I doubt a greeting card company would steal the paternal name. Maybe a board game company, but at least our good name wouldn’t be trotted out every birthday, Valentines, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas…etc.

He was baptized in 1742 at St. Oswald’s Church in Malpas, Cheshire County, east of Wales.

Original George came to America much less auspiciously than Eddie Murphy. He was convicted of stealing a small sum of money in a handkerchief and given the choice of jail or the colonies. Like Huck Finn, he lit out, but not to the freedom of the territories but indentured servitude in Virginia. He worked out his debt in the kitchen at the plantation owned by Robert E. Lee’s grandfather.

Maybe George should have stolen a horse and then he could have been my scalawag horse thief. Instead, he later supplied horses to the Revolutionary Army but had trouble getting paid. Thankfully, the good guys won and he ended up paid in a grant for 350 acres in the Western Lands, what is now Greene County, TN.

Original George toed the straight and narrow in America, being a founding member of several Baptist churches in Tennessee as he moved ever westward. He is documented as serving as clerk and deacon at Flat Creek Church in Knox County, which may be the oldest congregation in that county still in existence.

George had married or “taken up with” Leannah Mynatt around 1773 as there is no documentation of marriage. The legitimacy of our entire Hallmark clan is problematic it seems. Marriages were performed by the Episcopal (Anglican) church and were very expensive and out of the reach of ordinary folk like Original George and Original Leannah. She bore him one daughter and 10 sons, and her role cannot be overlooked in populating America with Hallmarks. She died just after the turn of the century, possibly just before George abandoned the Tennessee Volunteers for the Alabama Crimson Tide around 1806.

I had done some research and realized the largest grouping of Hallmarks in the United States was around Decatur, AL. I had assumed Original George was buried there after going forth and multiplying the countryside with farmers and Methodist preachers. In my vague bucket list I thought it would be fun to go and see if I could find the grave of Original George someday.

Someday didn’t come on its own. Someday was triggered not by myself or a friend of a friend, but rather by a cousin of a cousin.

The Great Tombstone Hunt was afoot!