Saye Family STories

Saye Family Stories
Perspectives on
Life in the South
1777–1899

Asbury Washington Saye 

Edited and Annotated by
Paul K. Graham

Monoceros Press 

San Diego, California

Copyright © 2026 Paul K. Graham 

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in  any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other  electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the  editor, except as permitted by copyright law. No claim is made on Asbury W.  Saye’s unedited manuscript or Edwin P. Aposhian’s transcription. 

ISBN: 978-1-947809-09-3 (casewrap) 

ISBN: 978-1-947809-06-2 (paper) 

ISBN: 978-1-947809-07-9 (ebook) 

Library of Congress Control Number: 2025924698 

Monoceros Press 

San Diego, California 

www.monocerospress.com  

Cover: 

Asbury Washington Saye (1829–1908), undated photograph.

One writer says that many books owe their success to two things,  the good memory of those who write them, and the poor memory  of those who read them; if I ever get my scribbling down to a book,  its success must depend on these two things just mentioned. I may  feel a little like the man who applied at the Clerks office at court for  license to marry. He was asked by the clerk the woman’s name, he  gave it, and that seemed to tickle some parties who were sitting  around. He told them they need not be winking and laughing at him, for it was the best he could do. 

—Asbury Washington Saye

CONTENTS

Editor’s Foreword
Transcriber’s Foreword

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE
Paternal Grandparents

CHAPTER TWO
Saye Aunts and Uncles

CHAPTER THREE
Barnes and Gardner

CHAPTER FOUR
Asbury and Siblings

CHAPTER FIVE
Phebe (Ricks) Saye Family

CHAPTER SIX
Causes of the Civil War

CHAPTER SEVEN
Presbyterianism

CHAPTER EIGHT
Changing Times

CHAPTER NINE
Abraham Lincoln

Family Charts
Notes
Bibliography
Index

EDITOR’S FOREWORD

On these pages, readers will encounter a remarkable document—the  personal recollections of Asbury Washington Saye (1829–1908), a  man whose life spanned one of the most transformative periods in  American history. These reminiscences offer an intimate window  into the experiences of an ordinary Southerner whose life intersected  with extraordinary historical events.

Saye’s narrative unfolds across nine chapters, beginning with the  Revolutionary War origins of his family, extending through the Civil  War and Reconstruction, and ending at the close of the nineteenth century. Though he describes himself modestly, Saye proves a keen observer of historical transformations and the intimate texture of everyday life in the nineteenth-century South.

The account provides a perspective from a man who was neither wealthy nor politically prominent. He was not an aristocrat or mili tary leader whose papers would typically find their way into ar chives. Rather, he represents the yeoman class of small farmers and tradesmen whose voices are less frequently preserved. Saye’s recollections touch on defining historical developments  of his era: frontier settlement in Georgia, conflicts with Native  Americans, the growing sectional divide over slavery, the trauma of  the Civil War, and the difficult adjustments of Reconstruction.

Throughout, he interweaves these broader historical currents with richly detailed accounts of family connections, religious life, educa tional experiences, technological changes, and evolving customs. His  narrative provides valuable perspective on the ways ordinary people responded to profound changes reshaping American society. Like any historical source, Saye’s memoir must be read critically.  His observations are shaped by the racial, sectional, and religious  perspectives of his time and social position. His accounts of the Civil War and Reconstruction reflect the Lost Cause narrative that dominated white Southern memory in the late nineteenth century. His  opinions about figures like Abraham Lincoln reveal much about the  bitter sectional divisions that persisted long after the war ended. Yet  even in these passages, we gain valuable insights into how ordinary Southerners processed and interpreted the traumatic changes they  had experienced.

The manuscript speaks to tensions within the Southern experience itself. As a deeply religious Presbyterian with Scotch-Irish roots,  Saye expresses moral qualms about the slave system while defending the Southern cause. His accounts of religious debates over slavery  highlight the contradictory moral universe that white Southerners in habited. Descriptions of technological changes—from handwoven  cloth to railroads and telegraph lines—capture the region’s uneven  transition to modernity.

Saye Family Stories sits within the rich tradition of Southern mem oir literature, from the perspective of a laborer, farmer, and Pres byterian minister. Saye’s recollections offer valuable evidence for  scholarly understanding of the nineteenth-century South.

The memoir provides not just historical information but an opportunity for empathetic engagement with the past. Through  Saye’s detailed observations and personal reflections, we encounter  the nineteenth-century South not as an abstract historical entity but  as a lived experience with all its complexity and contradiction.

In editing Saye’s manuscript, I have preserved his language, tone, and structure while adding annotations, source notes, and family charts to substantiate historical references and the family genealogy.  Minor errors have been corrected, while substantial errors remain to show Saye’s understanding but with explanatory notes and sources. The result is a manuscript that speaks authentically across time, allowing readers to engage directly with the experiences and beliefs  of a nineteenth-century white Southerner, while offering direction to other contemporary sources that informed Saye’s worldview. This book fulfills Asbury Washington Saye’s wish to see this his tory read beyond the immediate family. It is published in memory of  Edwin Paul “Ed” Aposhian (1937–2020), a great-grandson who transcribed the manuscript in 1993. 

—Paul K. Graham

TRANSCRIBER’S FOREWORD

The following document is one of two originally written by my  great-grandfather Asbury Washington Saye. I acquired a few copies  of the original document from different sources but they were all  poor quality copies and difficult to read. I decided to retype the document using a word processor with the intent to make it as exact as  possible to the original. So using the copies I had, I attempted to  make each line and each page duplicate the original, including all  spelling and punctuation errors as well as all crossed out text. There  were a few places in the copies that the exact characters were not  decipherable so I made a best guess in those situations. My intent in  duplicating the document in this way was to allow readers to experi ence the exact feeling and intent of the original writer and to see the  sometimes unusual spelling of many of the words.
Asbury W. Saye was the father of Amanda Emeline (Saye) Sellers  who was the mother of Auda Angline (Sellers) Aposhian who was my  mother. I am the sixth child of George Moses and Auda Aposhian.
I hope readers will enjoy reading this fascinating history as much  as I have enjoyed retyping it. 

—Edwin Paul Aposhian 

November 1, 1993

PREFACE

The thought of ever writing a book never occurred to my mind until  my son requested me to do so, just before I left here for Georgia, in  December 1896. I mentioned his request to my two brothers while out there. They seemed pleased with it and encouraged me to undertake the task. I went about getting up material as best I could for the  work, but much is now lost that a few years ago could have been  secured of the history of our fathers, if it had been commenced be fore they all passed away. John W. Saye, of Athens, Georgia, was  anxious that I do my best with the material that he assisted me in pro curing, said that if it was not attended to now that it would be lost and  our descendants would know nothing of their ancestry. I have never been in the habit of writing anything, only letters  to relatives and friends. So no one ever felt more unfit for writing a  history of their ancestry—and of things that have taken place since  my day—than I have felt and will leave the correcting of mistakes in  orthography and syntax with my publisher. 

My ancestry were generally humble people, never accumulated  much of this world’s goods. But what was better was found among  the moral and religious, and some of them were devotedly pious of  the land into which they were thrown by the rulings of a kind providence. The fathers were Presbyterian of the Scotch Irish covenanters from Scotland and Ireland, except Richard Saye who was an Englishman. But intermarriage with the covenanters gave us a heavy  percent of the Scotch Irish blood in our veins, of which I am thankful. Our name does not appear in the annals of fame. 

—Asbury Washington Saye