parks

Thomas Byrd Parks and his brother Welcome Parks arrived in Virginia during the great American experiment. They had sailed from England in search of a better life and found themselves in Spotsylvania County, Oglethorpe County, and eventually settled in Coweta County, Georgia in 1827. Thomas Byrd’s son, Thomas Harrison, purchased a plot of land just outside of Newnan, Georgia in 1847. Thomas Harrison built a home for him and his wife on new, rich land, ripe for the plucking. Generations of their children grew up at Parks Place. 

 

The story told within my archives omits the history of these lands before the Parks arrived. Lands which had been taken through treaties made behind closed doors. 

 

The story omits the history of the slaves that the Parks owned. The people who lay in unmarked gravestones at Cokes Chapel church. The labor and the sacrifices made to ensure the profitability of my family.

 

The story omits the history of Kitty Ann. Mahala. 84 people whose stories are reduced to a single name in Thomas Byrd and Thomas Harrison’s property valuations listed in appendix of slaves. 84 names in the Parks family property records. 84 people without voices.