MARTAINS, SAULPAWS IN EARLY HISTORY
By C.L. McAlister
Transcribed by: Bill
Bigham
Return to McMinn Genealogy Web Project
"The accompanying picture of the Zack Martin family
was made in 1908
at the Martin homestead one mile east of Calhoun and up Eastanallee
Creek from Saulpaw's Mill.
Front row L to R, the father Zack Martin, the mother,
Nellie Saulpaw
Martin; a daughter, Emelyn Martin, Nellie Martin's mother, Emeline
Davis
Saulpaw. Back row: A daughter, Ethel Martin; a son, Caryle Martin;
a son
Bernie Martin, now a resident of Atlanta.
The Martin and Saulpaw families are closely associated
with the early
history of Calhoun. They have long been prominently identified
with
business, civic social, religious, faternal and political activities
of
the area.
Zac Martin's father, Benjamin Franklin Martin, popularly
known as
Major Martin, was born in Newport, Tenn. in 1814 and died in Calhoun
in
1903. (Buried in Saulpaw-Martin area of Calhoun Me. Ch. Cem.) He
was
married to Ruth Dill in 1833. He operated a store in Calhoun from
1854
until 1863. Again from 1866-1884. He is reputed to have sold $60,000
worth of merchandise annually and was said to have lost $80,000
during
the Civil war.
He was elected Representative to the General Assembly of
Tennessee in
1861 and was appointed major in the state militia in 1863. He served
as
a member of the McMinn Quarterly Court from 1878 to 1890. A charter
mem-
ber ofg Hiwassee Lodge No. 188, F&AM, which was chartered in
1850, he
was also a Royal Arch Mason. He was a member of the Calhoun Me.
Epis.
Ch. South.
He was appointed postmaster of Calhoun in 1885 by Prisident
Grover
Cleveland. Miss Hattie Saulpaw, a great niece of Nellie Saulpaw
Martin,
is currently serving as postmistress of Calhoun (1971.)
Emeline Davis Saulpaw was born in Windham Co. Vt. in
1829 and died
in Calhoun in 1912. Her husband, George W. Saulpaw, sometimes
spelled
Saulpaugh, a direct descendant of Dutch immigrants, was born in
Otsego
Co. N.Y. in 1819 and died in Vanderbilt Hospital in 1896. An expert
stone mason and builder, his handiwork can still be observed in
the
Calhoun area after more than a century."