Sarah Elizabeth Powell Gann & husband, Swimmer Gann

 Front row Walter Landrum Fox,  Minnie Hostin (Swimmer's neice), Elias Swimmer Gann
Back row Mae Russell Fox (wife of Walter), Sallie Powell Gann (2nd wife of Swimmer),  and Nancy Silk (mother of Mae Fox)
Taken 1895 at farm called "Nancy Jack farm"
Sarah Elizabeth Powell was the daughter of Cyrus Powell, granddaughter of Henry Powell
Swimmer Gann was a Cherokee Indian.  Ganns OK is named for his family

Sarah Elizabeth Powell and our Great Grandfather, Richard Powell, were first cousins.  We match Cyrus Powell's DNA.  Sarah's husband Swimmer Gann was married before he married Sallie.  He and Sallie had several children.  The boys all had Indian names.  Rabbit and Black Fox were two of her sons.  As time passes, they use the names Pete and Dock and sometimes Dock is Jack.  I guess they got a lot of teasing being Rabbit and Fox.  Swimmer died in 1920, but Sallie lived until 1959.  Jack and Pete both married.  They lived in Sebastian County, AR.  One daughter Mintie E. married George Patterson and then Lem Cousins.   I wondered how Swimmer was Cherokee and it was easy to follow his Cherokee line.

Elias Swimmer Gann was the son of George Gann and Mary Ann McCoy (both Cherokee by blood)
George was the son of Thomas Gann and Catherine Hicks.

Contemporary records of the Moravian missionaries at Spring Place, GA show that Charles Renatus Hicks and William Hicks were sons of a white man [probably Nathan Hicks] and a 1/2 blood Cherokee woman [possibly named Nancy Wolf]. Nathan's wife's brother was a 1/2 blood named Gunrod (his father was a Swiss named Jacob Conrad). Gunrod was employed for a time by Charles R. Hicks.

The siblings of Charles R. Hicks were William Hicks, Sr, Sarah Hicks, and maybe Elizabeth Hicks and Polly Hicks.William Hicks, Sr had a son by Qualyuka or Lydia Halfbreed. Lydia also had children by James Chisholm (white), Capt. James Foster (Cherokee), and perhaps had other husbands. Lydia also had a daughter by a white trader Daniel McCoy who was named Catherine. Catherine married a white man named Andrew Taylor, Thomas Fields (a Cherokee)and Thomas Gann (a white employee of the Vann estate).

(Note by Betty:  These two genealogies seem to conflict.  I would say the Moravian Diarys would be more correct.)

Catherine "Hicks" was a daughter of Qualyuka (a.k.a. Lydia Halfbreed) and William Hicks, a white trader who had children by both Creek and Cherokee women. Lydia Halfbreed was a daughter of Chief Big Halfbreed and Qualyuka (a.k.a. Hannah Crittenden). Hannah was a daughter of Jennie Dougherty (daughter of Indian trader Cornelius Dougherty) and a man named Crittenden. This information is taken from a new translation from German of daily journals maintained by Moravian missionaties at Spring Place, GA.

It is difficult to exactly determine the degree of Indian blood from all of these mixed-blood connections, but Catherine was indeed a Cherokee. Her first husband, Andrew Taylor obtained a "reservation" or tract of 640 acres in 1817, in right of his Cherokee wife.

Swimmer's mother Mary Ann McCoy was also Cherokee --here is her line!
1 Sarah Elizabeth Hicks
.+Alexander McCoy 1785 -
..........2 Elvina McCoy
..............+George Washington Fields
..........2 Mary Ann McCoy
..............+Washington Starr
..........*2nd Husband of Mary Ann McCoy:
..............+George Gann
..........2 Richard Martin McCoy1827 - 1884
..............+Ellen Adair1835 -
..........2 Arminita McCoy
..............+Blueford West Rider
..........*2nd Husband of Arminita McCoy:
..............+James Starr
..........*3rd Husband of Arminita McCoy:
..............+Andrew Sawders/Sanders
..........*4th Husband of Arminita McCoy:
..............+Joseph Tapp
..........2 Edward Hicks McCoy
..............+Sallie Swimmer Nee Haley
..........2 Charles R. McCoy
..............+Nannie Watts
..........*2nd Wife of Charles R. McCoy:
..............+Arie Ann Massey
..........2 Elizabeth McCoy
..............+Ellis Sanders
..........2 Nancy Caroline McCoy
..............+James Lafayette Bigby

I guess Sallie Powell and Swimmer Gann were proud of their Cherokee heritage to give their sons names like Rabbitt and Fox.  The girls were Lizzy and Mintie!  I guess Mintie was named for Swimmer's aunt, Arminita McCoy.

Thomas Gann was the overseer on the Spring Place Plantation of Chief Vann in Georgia.  He married Catherine Hicks Miller (widow of Andrew Miller).  Catherine was baptized at the Moravian Misson and they gave her the Christian name of Catherine Maria.  The missionaries spoke highly of Thomas Gann.  He and Catherine were married at Spring Place in 1819.  Thomas died in 1833.  Catherine is reported to have passed away in 1839.  Thomas Gann's father was Ignatius Nathan Gann.

I have not found any DNA matches through the Ganns but I have through Cyrus Powell's family.  Patsy, Fleta and I attended a reunion they had in Gans, OK in the 1990s.  It was a great day!