George Marshall Bird

This is my great-great-great-grandfather, George Marshall Bird. He was the first of my Bird ancestors to settle in the Big Cove Community. Now before I go on, I'll answer the question that some of you are already asking - "Why is his name spelled 'BIRD', and yours spelled 'BYRD'?" My family gets this question a lot. My grandfather, Walter Bird, was the last of my direct line to use the spelling 'BIRD'. Eight of his ten children, including my dad, was given the spelling 'BYRD'. In the early part of the 20th century, many of our ancestors could barely read and write - much less spell correctly. Some of the school teachers started telling the kids in Big Cove that "'BYRD' was a person, and 'BIRD' was an animal". Some were convinced, some weren't. My grandfather always preferred 'BIRD'; however, my grandmother, Lorene, preferred 'BYRD'. That being said, our name WAS originally 'BIRD' - all the way back to when we came here from England in the 18th century; however, there was also a distinctly separate family in the country at that time, who spelled their name 'BYRD'. I guess that's where the confusion began. Anyhow, back to my g-g-g-grandfather - he was born the son of a wealthy Georgian doctor, Dr. George Lee Bird, in the pre-Civil War era of Crawfordville, Georgia, in Taliaferro County (pronounced locally as Tolifer). His mother died when he was a baby; and his father died a few years later, when G.M. was still a young teenager. He left home and supposedly joined the Confederacy, relaying stories to his children and grandchildren of how he was wounded in the Battle of Chickamauga. Note that no actual evidence of his involvement in the war can be located. After the war, he settled in Walker County, Georgia, where he married and had several children. Around 1894, he and his family loaded up in wagons and ventured west in search for a better life; however, what they found was death and misfortune. After a few years of this, the Bird's decided to return home to their native Georgia, and was found themselves in the area of Huntsville, Alabama, in 1902. They had stopped for a season of farming, during which time G.M.'s son, my great-great-grandfather, John William Bird (I'll blog about him later), was shot and killed in a well dispute. Because of this incident and the subsequent trial of the men that killed him, George Marshall Bird and his family remained in Madison County longer than expected. In fact, they never returned to Georgia as planned, but instead settled in beautiful Big Cove, Alabama, in 1904. George Marshall Bird died there in 1906, and his wife, Martha Clark Bird, in 1907. They were buried in the Campground Cemetery, where their graves are marked by a simple limestone rock with the name "BIRD" chiseled into the top. The stone was said to have been carved by their son-in-law, Uncle Dick McPeters. A project is currently underway in which the Bird Family will be marking the graves of George & Martha Bird with a new modern headstone, which they plan to dedicate with a short ceremony later this year. I'm sure I'll post more about that later! So, that's pretty much how the Bird's came to Big Cove! Talk to you later! -BYRD