Uncle Jordan McGahee

"Uncle Jordan"  McGahee, A former slave who held the respect and affection of both white and Negroes in Jefferson County, born to a slave family on October 9, 1854.  He celebrated his 98th birthday of 1952.  He died the following year  from an illness of one week in 1953. Uncle Jordan remembered when Sherman's Army made its devastating March from Atlanta to the Sea.   A warning came from neighboring farmers that foragers were roaming the countryside seeking, livestock, corn and other food for the Yankee column which passed nearby, burning and pillaging the land.  He took the cows, mules and horses or anything they could possibly carry to savage from the Yankees to the Swamp.  The land was saved but other farms were stripped and the farmhouses and barns were burned.  After Michael McGahee returned from the war he gave his three men and two female slaves their liberty.  Uncle Jordan stayed with his boss, Michael McGahee, the others left.  His boss showed his appreciation to Uncle Jordan, who had adopted his name of his boss as was the custom of the freed slaves.  When he was 27 years old he purchased his on land from his former owner, a 43 acre tract of land.  He begin to farm on his own.  According to Jordan's family he was still dependent on his boss, Michael McGahee, that he could hardly do anything without consulting him first.  At age 98, he lived with his son, Samuel McGahee the only one surviving 15 children.  He has four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.  He could not read nor write, but he would scan through his bible which gave him great comfort and was an important part of his life.  He never believed in voting nor ever intended to do so.  He quit farming 30 years before his death.  Since that time he had endeared himself to the white people of this community through his church work.  Although he had been a member of Ways Grove Baptist Church for 70 years, he had been a janitor for the churches of Wrens and of the Wrens school for many years until his age prevented his working.  For  35 years he had been a caretaker for the Wrens cemetery, Wrens, Georgia.  To the day of his death he still had the kitchen equipment that he used with his family in slavery days.