BUD MULLINS –
THE BEGINNINGS
Bud MULLINS lived almost 100 years, which is quite
a lengthy time considering there were no vaccinations, prescription drugs, or
even clean living environments for the major part of his life.
He survived without electricity or running water, as did all people
living in rural America during that time, but he did it for about 98 years.
Whether it was intentional on
his part or not, Bud did not make himself very well known in the public records.
Perhaps the fact that he could not read or write had some influence on
his public life. There is no record
of his birth, marriage, or death. His
wife’s name was never recorded. There
is no gravestone in Paulding County, Georgia.
The only documentations found concerning his life have been:
his will dated in 1846; his Revolutionary War Pension Application (RWPA) written
in 1854; an inventory taken of his estate after his death in 1856; and an
occasional tax assessment. In
addition, he seemed to be living in areas, not his fault, where the Federal
censuses were lost or destroyed. He
lived in Georgia, in Wilkes County, in 1790 and in Jackson County, Georgia, in
1810 where the censuses are missing. In
addition, whenever his census record was taken, his age was often wrong.
Besides that, he never owned land, so there are no deed records to help
in research. He was seldom taxed,
but when he was, it was only a single poll tax.
On the other hand, his children,
other relatives, and friends seemed to stay with him as moved from location to
location. His oldest son, Thomas,
was always living with him even when Bud died.
Clement, another son, did not leave the area where his father lived until
after Bud’s death. Bud had friends for years and some of those vouched for his
veracity, so he must have been an honorable and well-liked man.
With this lack of information, Bud’s life will be reconstructed from the records of the time deducting and inferring where, in some cases, no proof exists. Strong conjecture and supposition have been used until future facts surface that prove or disprove statements made here. Writing a history of a man who died almost 150 years ago, and left few “tracks in the sand,” requires the use of some of the above techniques. So let us delve into a man who whose life left few records other than his children.
Bud was born 1758-1759, in Bute County, North Carolina, to Thomas and Anne Mullins. This was during the American Colonial Period when the British controlled the (then named) American Colonies.
This colonial period of American history ended with the completion of the American Revolution in 1783, which had previously ushered in the independence and formation of our United States in 1776. As shown above, the British Colonies consisted of some 400,000 settlers clinging to the eastern coast from Nova Scotia, south to Georgia.
After the American Revolution, this time is generally referred to as the Republic Period. During those years, a number of important events took place, among them:1
 | August 8, 1786 - Congress adopts a monetary system based on the Spanish dollar, with a gold piece valued at $10, silver pieces at $1, one-tenth of $1 also in silver, and copper pennies. |
| September 17, 1787 - thirty-nine delegates vote to approve and then sign the final draft of the new Constitution. |
| April 6, 1789 - In the Senate, with nine of 22 senators present, the presidential ballots cast on Feb. 4 are counted. George Washington is the unanimous choice for President with 69 votes. John Adams is elected Vice President with 34 votes. Messengers are then sent to inform Washington and Adams. |
| March 1, 1790 - A Census Act is passed by Congress. The first census, finished on Aug. 1, indicates a total population of nearly 4 million persons in the U.S. and western territories. African Americans make up 19 percent of the population, with 90 percent living in the South. Native Americans were not counted, although there were likely over 80 tribes with 150,000 persons. For white Americans, the average age is under 16. Most white families are large, with an average of eight children born. The white population would double every 22 years. The largest American city is Philadelphia, with 42,000 persons, followed by New York (33,000) Boston (18,000) Charleston (16,000) and Baltimore (13,000). The majority of Americans are involved in agricultural pursuits, with little industrial activity occurring at this time. (By 1850, the four largest cities were New York (696,115), Baltimore (169,054), Boston (136,881) and Philadelphia (121,376). Savannah, the largest city in Georgia, was the 32nd most populated with 15,312.)2 |
Other major conflicts, which took place during Bud’s life, were:
| War of 1812 (1812-14) - The war was fought for the conquest of Canada and its elimination as an ally of the Indians. The war was a stalemate, but it confirmed the boundary line between the United States and Canada. |
| Mexican War (1846-48) - War between the United States and Mexico stemming from Mexican anger at the United States' annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (U.S. claim). The war - in which U.S. forces were consistently victorious - resulted in the United States' acquisition of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km) of Mexican territory extending westward from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean. |
Since Bud lived in the South all of his life, he also experienced the Antebellum Period, so formidable in Georgia that it survived up to the beginnings of the Civil War. This war was also known in the south as the War of Northern Aggression, with its official beginning: the attack on Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1861. This antebellum period, prior to the Civil War, was dramatically brought to life in Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind” (1936) and its subsequent release in 1939 as a blockbuster movie. Bud lived in this antebellum period, though not in the splendor that was depicted in the novel and movie. Moreover, he lived not far away, on the Cobb/Paulding County border, not more than 25 miles from the present Atlanta city center. Fortunately, he did not live to see the horrors wreaked on Atlanta by General Sherman during the Civil War.
-
Data provided by web site The History Place™, American Revolution, A New Nation 1784-1790
-
1850 Federal Census summary provided by Slippery Rock University of
Pennsylvania, www.sru.edu.http