Alfred B. Roberds of Buncombe and Gilmer

1835 Map showing Gilmer county

Alfred B. Roberds was born about 1808 in Buncombe County, North Carolina.  He was the son of Robert and Nancy Robards.  He, like his brothers, moved from North Carolina to Gilmer County, Georgia some time after the 1850 federal census. In 1835 the United States Government forcibly  removed the Cherokee Nation from Georgia and other southern states, thus freeing up the land for new white settlers.  This resettlement is known as the "Trail of Tears", a not so bright spot in American History.
Today the travel time from Ashville, NC to Elijay, GA is a little over 3 hours, a distance of about 160 miles.  In 1850, traveling in a Conestoga wagon and with all your livestock and family it took about 30 days.  There were no roads so they followed Indian and animal trails, crossed mountains and rivers with no bridges.  It was an arduous journey, but many families from Buncombe made the move, often in large groups.
Alfred, whose middle name was either Burton or Burgess,  married Nancy Deweese in Buncombe and they had at least 10 children. According to a book called "Annuals of Upper Georgia", Alfred B. was a pioneering Baptist and a slave owner, I guess it made sense at the time. Alfred died in 1858 in Ellijay, Georgia and Nancy sometime after 1860. Their children, like many others in the extended Roberds family, left Georgia for Texas and beyond. Because most of them left before the beginning of the Civil War they did not participate as did their male cousins who remained in Georgia.

The children of Alfred B. Roberds are as follows:

Garrett Alexander Roberds was born in Buncombe County about 1830. He married Elizabeth Kezzia Greer in Ellijay, Gilmer, Georgia.  They left Georgia after the 1870 census and were in Colorado by the 1880 census and in Phoeniz, AZ in 1900.  He died in 1907 and Kezzia died in 1912.  They had at least 11 children including Oscar Burton Roberts who was  deputy sheriff in Phoenix.

Elizabeth L. Roberds was born in Buncombe County about 1831 and married before the 1850 census John W. Pearcy.  They lived with her father in 1850 and moved to Gilmer Georgia when the family migrated.  In 1870 they lived "on Paloty Creek in Erath County, Texas".  She died in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 1916.

Gideon Overall Roberds was born about 1933 in Buncombe. In 1859 he married Jane Ester Weaver, step daughter of his uncle Pierce Roberds.  They were among the first to leave for Texas.  I cannot find them in the 1860 census and in 1870 they are Bosque, Texas. Their youngest child Martha was born in Texas in 1861. Gideon and family left Texas by the 1880 census and were in Las Animas Colorado. He died there in 1902.

Creed Fulton Roberds was born in Sept. 1834 in Buncombe, NC.  He married in Elijay, Georgia, Harriet E. Weaver, his uncle Pierce's step daughter and sister to his brother Gideon's wife Jane. They were in Texas in the early 1860's living on Paloty Creek in Erath in 1870. By 1880 he and his family were in Colorado, living in Delta County.  He died there sometime after 1900.

Nancy Carolina Roberds was born in Buncombe County.  She married William Peeples Milton in 1858 in Elijay.  He was a 1st Lt. in the Confederate Army.  After the war he was involved in politics in Elijay.  He was murdered in his home in 1870. After his death Nancy traveled to Erath Texas to join up with her brothers and sister.  She never remarried and died in Phoenix in 1924.

Louisa E. Roberds was born in Buncombe and married Jacob Wilton Piercy in Elijay Georgia in 1858.  They moved to Erath County Texas with her brothers in 1860.  She died there in 1920.

Laura Roberds was born in 1843 in Buncombe, she married Hiram Lafayette Ray in 1860 in Gilmer.  She died in 1864 in Erath, Texas.  She left behind two children, one an infant.  Their father Hiram died in 1877. The now orphaned children left Texas for Colorado to live with their uncle.

Alfred Burton Roberds my husbands ancestor will be on a separate page

Robert Henry Roberds was born in 1846 in Buncombe, NC.  He too moved with his brothers to Texas and Colorado.  Robert never married and died in Phoenix in 1924 the day after his sister Nancy.

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