Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot

One Family. Sacred Paths. Connected Through Generations.

The Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot is a descendant collective, informally active since 2016 and formally organized and branded in 2019, dedicated to preserving and honoring the legacy of Hardy and Mary Bearden Shelton, collaborating with family nonprofit organizations, and bringing together members of an extended network of interconnected families whose shared history traces back to slavery.

Photo Credit: Deidra Roberson, Descendant, 2022 Shelton Family Reunion & Historical Marker Unveiling

Photo Credit: Deidra Roberson, Descendant, 2022 Shelton Family Reunion & Historical Marker Unveiling

Interconnected Families & Communities

The descendants of Hardy and Mary Bearden Shelton are part of a deeply interconnected network of families whose histories are rooted in Floyd County, Georgia, and extend beyond into other regions. Over generations, the children of Hardy and Mary and their descendants formed bonds through marriage, kinship, and community with families including the Spruce, Cathey, Montgomery, Shropshire, Hudgins, Adams, Freeman, Finley, Franklin, Drew, Echols, Key, Towers, Hill, and others.

These connections also extend into neighboring and related communities, including Chattooga County, Georgia and Walton County, Georgia, reflecting a broader shared history shaped by movement, resilience, and continuity across generations.

Together, these families represent a living legacy—one that continues to be preserved, honored, and carried forward through collective memory, research, and reunion.

Historical Marker Unveiling & Family Reunion Photo Credit: Deidra Roberson, Descendant

History & Formation

Pre-2015

Early descendant engagement and remembrance

Efforts to honor the family’s history at Possum Trot began years earlier through the work of members of the Samuel and Josephine Shelton Burrell family, descendants connected through their granddaughter of Aaron Hardy and Fannie Key Shelton. These family members engaged Berry College and regularly brought descendants to Possum Trot Homecomings, helping to preserve and honor the family’s heritage across generations.

2015

Initial on-site research in Rome, Georgia

In December 2015, Karen Stewart-Ross, a fourth great-granddaughter of Hardy and Mary Bearden Shelton, conducted a research visit to Rome. During this visit, she visited the Berry College campus and carried out archival deed and land research at the Floyd County Courthouse, marking the beginning of her sustained research into the history of the Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot.

During this time, she also established connections within the Freemantown descendant community and traveled to Atlanta to visit the family of Pleas and Bertha Freeman Jones, descendants of Susie Cathey Freeman, her third great-grandfather’s sister.

2016

The collective emerged through informal collaboration when descendants from three primary family lines—including those of Aaron Hardy, Lucy, and Fannie—came together to engage with Berry College staff, including Sherre Harrington, in preserving the history of Hardy and Mary Bearden Shelton. This work marked the early formation of what is now known as the Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot Preservation Team.

The collective emerged through informal collaboration when descendants from three primary family lines—including those of Aaron Hardy, Lucy, and Fannie—came together to engage with Berry College in preserving the history of Hardy and Mary Bearden Shelton. This work marked the early formation of what is now known as the Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot Preservation Team.

Oral history shared by a member of the Aaron Hardy line, together with descendant-led research conducted by Stewart-Ross, established a foundational understanding of the settlement’s history and informed early preservation priorities and site engagement. Beginning in 2019, research efforts were further expanded through work conducted by Sherre Harrington, director emerita of the Memorial Library at Berry College, contributing additional context and depth to the historical record.

Photo: Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History. Descendant’s Innovation Lab

Photo Credit: SFSPT, March 2023 - Shelton Family Reunion & Historical Marker Unveiling.

2017

Building on her initial work, descendant-led research conducted by Karen Stewart-Ross continued over the years, including sustained archival investigation, deed analysis, and documentation of the Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot. Stewart-Ross submitted historical information to the college, with additional historical narratives provided in later years, including but not limited to 2019.

Photo: Mayoral Proclamation - August 6, 2023 - Honorable Mayor Sundai Stevenson

Photo Credit: SFSPT, Shelton Family Reunion & Historical Marker Unveiling.

2018

A visit to Possum Trot was organized with a small group of descendants while attending the Freemantown reunion commemorating a historic African American community nearby. The Shelton family as well as many of their extended family lines are connected to the Freeman family in several ways. It was at this time the group became more intentional in their efforts with a commitment from the college to honor the family’s history.

2019

The collective was formally organized and branded as the Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot, and an updated historical narrative was submitted to Berry College by Stewart-Ross.

Descendant-led research conducted by Stewart-Ross continued, building upon earlier findings and expanding the historical record. During this period, she also had an unexpected connection with a Berry College historic preservationist who had been working on the site, meeting at an author event at Georgetown University featuring a descendant of the GU272.

Beginning in 2018–2019, research efforts were further expanded through work conducted by Sherre Harrington, director emerita of the Memorial Library at Berry College, whom the collective had met and had been collaborating with since 2016, contributing additional context and depth to the historical record.

2020s - Ongoing

Key documentary and genealogical discoveries

Stewart-Ross discovered and analyzed a 1901–1902 plat map depicting land owned by Peter Powell and Irvin Spruce within and adjacent to Lot 49, providing visual confirmation of descendant landholdings in the Possum Trot area. In 2022, she also discovered the full Guion Miller Roll application filed by Mary Bearden Shelton, which documented Mary’s Cherokee lineage, including the names of her grandparents, details regarding her mother and her death, and connections to the Spurlock/Spullock and the Elder W.C. Bryant family.

This discovery further highlighted relationships between the Spurlock/Spullock family and Elder Bryant, identified in historical records as a trustee and associated with the Primitive Baptist tradition—later linked through research to Pleasant Hill Church.

Concurrently, extensive deed research conducted by Sherre Harrington, director emerita of the Memorial Library at Berry College, provided additional context regarding land ownership, boundary descriptions, and the historical treatment of the church and school property.

2021

The collective strengthened its engagement with Berry College and continued to raise awareness about its ancestral family and homeland, resulting in the installation of a historic marker and the completion of a ground-penetrating radar study at the site. The Texas branch of the Cathey-Shelton family - descendants of Lee and Fannie Shelton Cathey - held a virtual reunion after many years. The last known reunion had been held in 1979. In the fall of 2021, two members of the SFSPT team presented on the family’s history for the Slave Dwelling Conference. Partnerships were forged with Honorary Mayor, the late great Tanya Debose of the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance (HBTSA). The team would learn of HBTSA’s connection to Hobson City, Alabama, a historic African American town, and the late, iconic Mayor J.R. Striplin, who married Julia Spruce, daughter of D.C. and Josephine Finley Spruce, and the granddaughter of Harper and Kittie Cathey Spruce. Harper was the brother of Irvin Spruce who married Lucy Shelton.

Photo: Portion of a panel - Representatives and community leaders connected to descendant engagement, historic preservation, and historic Black towns initiatives during the 2022 Shelton Family Reunion & Historical Marker Unveiling. Pictured are an Clemmie Whatley, Chubbtown representative (left), Michelle Robinson of the Spelman College (second from the left), Tonya DeBose of the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance (HBTSA) and Houston community activist (third from left), Mayor Alberta McCrory of Hobson City, Alabama; Freddie Striplin, Hobson City City Council, and Rome Third Ward Commissioner, and former Rome Mayor Bill Collins.

Photo Credit: Deidra Roberson, 2022 Shelton Family Reunion & Historical Marker Unveiling.

2022-2023

A reunion, marker unveiling, and expanded planning efforts

A Shelton Family Reunion and Historical Marker Unveiling was held August 5–6, 2022, in Rome on the campus of Berry College. This gathering marked a significant moment of remembrance, reconnection, and increased visibility for the family’s history and the preservation of the Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot. SFSPT also engaged members of the Chubbtown Initiative, along with local community leaders, activists, and public officials from Rome, Georgia, for panel discussions during the event. The former mayor of Rome, the honorable Sundai Stevenson, presented the family with a mayoral proclamation.

Following the gathering, descendants continued meeting and collaborating through the SFSPT preservation and nonprofit planning initiative into early 2023. During this period, outreach and relationship-building efforts expanded through engagement with preservationists, cemetery experts, community organizations, and institutional partners. Stewart-Ross also initiated engagement with an architectural preservation firm in late 2022, sharing descendant research materials and continuing collaborative discussions into 2023 related to the Shelton family’s land.

During this same period, SFSPT expanded its community engagement and preservation outreach through collaborations and relationship-building with organizations including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which invited participants to engage in its Smithsonian-based Descendant Innovation Lab; StoryCorps, where descendants recorded and preserved family stories through oral history interviews; and the Berry College Office of Belonging and the African-American Alumni Chapter of Berry College. The family’s preservation journey was also featured through coverage in Berry College’s student newspaper.

During this transitional period, the formation of a family nonprofit organization was followed by the formation of another in late 2023 with collaborative engagement with Berry College continuing through SFSPT’s preservation team.

2026

In addition to other ongoing efforts of engagement and preservation by each descendant nonprofit as well as other initiatives discussed by the preservation team in its conversations with the college, a second ground-penetrating radar (GPR) study was conducted, continuing the work of preservation and documentation. Collaborative partnerships were also established with organizations such as the Georgia Black History Trail Initiative.

GPR survey work was further extended to Owensville Cemetery in Robertson County, Texas, including the Cathey–Shelton family plot—associated with descendants of Lee and Fannie Shelton Cathey, as well as members of the Hill family who migrated with them from Walton County, Georgia.

Today - 10 Years Later

This year, 2026, marks the 10th anniversary of a life-changing meeting in Rome, Georgia between three descendants from the Aaron Hardy, Lucy, and Fannie lines who had no idea where this journey would lead. Today, the Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot continues to operate through a preservation team composed of descendants from multiple family lines, including members affiliated with two family nonprofit organizations, the Shelton Descendants Historical Society and the Shelton Heritage Society of Georgia & Historic Possum Trot, that emerged from the collective’s work.

This preservation team remains actively engaged with Berry College in ongoing efforts to honor and preserve the family’s history.

SFSPT primarily serves as a research and archival platform, conducting independent research and sharing findings with the broader family community. It is also connected to the Cathey-Shelton family descendant social media network, helping to keep descendants informed, engaged, and connected.

Descendants of Irvin and Lucy Shelton Spruce Photo Credit: SHS