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I am looking for information on my Chestnut family line. My great grandmother was Maggie Jane Chestnut born June 14, 1885 to Joe and Carrie Pettie Chestnut. Maggie married Erastus Benton "Ras" Jones who was born January 24, 1882. I know that Ras and Maggie lived near Mize at the time of her death on July 7, 1922. Maggie and Ras are both buried in the Beazer Cemetery in Smith County. I have found who I believe is Maggies family on the 1900 Jasper County census living in Jasper County. It shows Maggie with her father W.J. Chestnut and her three brothers Joe born 1882, Grover born 1889 and Frank born 1893. I have been given the names Gabe and Alice as possible siblings of Maggie but I believe they may have been cousins instead.
I am also looking for any information on a Homer Chestnut who is possibly the son of Grover. The story told by the family is that Homer was working in a logging camp somewhere in the Laurel area, possibly around Moselle, when he was involved in a fight that resulted in the death of another man by the name of Hill. I don't know the mans first name. Homer was arrested and sent to prison for the death. He later escaped and was recaptured and escaped a second time this time leaving the state. He went to Nevada and changed his mname to James E. Carter. He was eventually retried in Nevada and aquited on the murder charge. The courts there ruled it a self defence death and set him free as long as he stayed in Nevada. He supposidly lived out the rest of his life in Los Vega where he married and had a family. It is also told that he may have owned a casino there. There was a two part magazine articlle written about this story and the magazine was sold in the Laurel area where many of our family purchased copies. None of those copies seem to still exsist in the family and I would very much like to find a copy of these. I don't know the name of the magazine or the dates of these articles or of the occurance of the logging camp death. All I know to try and pin point the date is that Homer was about 18 at the time of the death and he served a couple of years in prision before his escape and flight to Nevada. He was caught by the authorities in Nevada when he answered a WWII draft posting for a James E. Carter. I would sure appreciate any information anyone may have on this Chestnut family or the Chestnut/Hill death story.
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