Nancy Hart
&
The Skeletons of Six Tories

"To discover, after a lapse of a century and a half, the well-preserved skeletons of six men who were buried without coffins, during the revolution, only six feet below the earth, in a climate which possesses little of the art preservative, is to say the least, a modern miracle. In the absence of scientific verification, the following story, which appeared in the Atlanta Constitution of December 22, 1912, is subject to the usual newspaper discount, but it nevertheless constitutes an item of some interest in this connection. The Article reads:"

'Skeletons of the six Tories captured at her dinner table and afterwards hanged to trees near her home by Nancy Hart more than a century and a half ago were unearthed last week by a squad of hands at work grading the Elberton and Eastern railroad.

They were buried about three feet under the ground, in what is known as the Heard field, near the mouth of Wahatchie Creek, some half a mile from where is empties into Broad River.

The bones are all there, is a splendid state of preservation, but have become disjointed. The skulls, in fact, all the bones of the heads and under jaws, are especially well preserved, and the teeth are perfect. The place where the skeletons were unearthed, together with the fact that they were so close together, near the surface, with no sign or trace of anything like a coffin anywhere around, makes the evidence convincing that these are the bones of the Tories captured by the Revolutionary heroine.

The house in which Nancy Hart lived was located on Wahatchie Creek near a spring some half to three-fourths of a mile from where the skeletons were found.

The place is now owned by the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. This place is about thirteen miles from Elberton.'"

Source:
Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends Volume II By, Lucian Lamar Knight (A.B., Georgia; M. A., Princeton) COMPILER OF THE STATE RECORDS OF GEORGIA EDITION DE LUXE FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY THE BYRD PRINTING COMPANY STATE PRINTERS ATLANTA, GEORGIA 1914

Sleletons of Six Tories
Page 844-845

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