Recollections - Legends of Yesterday: Green Berry Joseph Yawn

This is a reprint of original articles by Hugh Woolley, a longtime resident and community leader of Graceville. Woolley published these articles in The Graceville News more than 20 years ago.

Originally published in the January 9, 2003 edition of The Graceville News.

Submitted by

Gerald Cecil Yawn

San Antonio, TX 78251

Before telling the story about the portrait of my great-grandfather Green Berry Joseph Yawn, I would like to provide some background information about my immediate family.

On October 21, 1933, I, Gerald Cecil Yawn, was born just east of Marianna in the very small town of Cypress to Cecil Parker Yawn (1910–1967) and Madeline Morris Yawn (1912–1978). At that time, 23-year-old Cecil was employed by the Jackson County Board of Public Instruction as a school teacher at Cypress School earning $67.50 per month. Cecil graduated from the University of Florida in 1929 at the age of 19 and began teaching in public schools. The teaching career lasted until 1941 when he went to work for the U.S. Post Office.

I have two younger brothers. Kenneth Morris Yawn was born in Graceville in 1935 and Edward Robert Yawn joined the family in Jacksonville in 1945. Following our father’s career as a teacher and with the post office, we lived as youngsters in Graceville, Perry and Jacksonville. All three of us graduated from Graceville High School.

In 1951 I graduated from Graceville High School and in 1953 I married my hometown sweetheart Tommie Faye Riley, joined the Air Force and made it a career.

Because of his long-time job with the post office, my father Cecil and my mother Madeline had to move from Graceville to Lynn Haven in about 1966. Sadly, Cecil passed away suddenly at age 57 on Christmas Day 1967. The following month my great-uncle Harmon Isaac Yawn (1886–1968) died.

Having retired from the Air Force in 1975 after 23 years of active duty, Tommie and I settled in San Antonio. During the next three years, we often made the long drive to Florida to visit my mother Madeline in Lynn Haven.

During these trips from San Antonio to Northwest Florida, I suddenly realized that I was in my early forties and I knew practically nothing about the history of the Yawn Family in Graceville. I took an active interest in my family history and began a research and investigation, which continues to the present day.

During our visits to my mother’s house in Lynn Haven, I remember seeing a large, probably at least two feet high, elegantly carved, wooden picture frame hanging on the living room wall. Mother, who was born and raised in Jacksonville, told us that the old frame had belonged to Uncle Harmon, who died in 1968, and that it held a portrait of a very stern man who she believed to be a Yawn ancestor, but she didn’t know who he was. She also said that she didn’t want this angry looking man staring at her from the wall of her living room, so she turned the portrait backwards in the frame and replaced it with a mirror.

In pursuit of my family history, Tommie and I went to the Florida State Archives in Tallahassee and pulled the Civil War records for my great-grandfather Green Berry Joseph Yawn (1845–1909).

Green Berry was born in Decatur County, GA in 1845 to Henry Austin Yawn and Sarah A. Hawthorn Yawn. Henry, a blacksmith, and Sarah moved with Green Berry, age 4, his older brother Henry G.D. and three sisters, Sephrona, Sevina and Sarah to the area now known as Graceville in the Spring of 1850.

On October 12, 1863, at age 18, following in the footsteps of his older brother Henry G.D., who had signed up with the Confederate army in April of that year, Green Berry enlisted at Campbellton in Company “E”, 4th Fla Battalion, Finnegan’s Brigade. Due to chronic illness, he was granted an honorable discharge in Richmond on August 3, 1864.

After the Civil War, Green Berry returned to the Graceville area, married Mary C. White (1851–1893). They had 11 children. Green Berry was a miller and he operated Collins Mill on Holmes Creek just west of Graceville. He was also the Graceville postmaster for twenty years beginning in 1879 and for most of that period ran the Graceville Post Office from the Collins Mill. Green Berry joined Damascus Baptist Church in 1886 and along with eight other Yawns, became a charter member of the First Baptist Church of Graceville, founded in 1896.

In August of 1903, Green Berry filed an application with the State of Florida for a pension based on his military service. At that time, the Federal government paid pensions and disabilities to veterans of the Union Army, but did not recognize any claims from Confederate veterans, who turned to their respective state governments. On the pension application, he stated that he had served at the battles of Malvern Hill, Cold Harbor and Petersburg. He also described a cancer, which had grown on his left cheek for the past 10 to 12 years, caused his considerable grief and left him unable to support his children. To substantiate his claim, he submitted a black and white photograph measuring about 2 1/2 inches square of his distorted face with the cancer scar on his left cheek.

The State of Florida approved Green Berry’s application and granted his pension of $96.00 per year. In May of 1907, this pension was increased to $120.00 annually.

Much to my surprise, the small picture in the State Archives file folder with the pension application showing the huge scar on his left cheek was obviously from the same photograph as the large portrait of the stern man in the wooden frame at my mother’s house. It was Green Berry. Of course, a skillful artist had touched up the picture in the wooden frame and it became the portrait of a handsome man at the turn of the twentieth century.

The small picture with the pension application is still at the Florida State Archives and can be seen on the internet at the Florida Confederate Application Files (http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/barm/PensionFiles.html). Application Number A11378, Green B.J. Yawn, Page 18).

My nephew Robert Blair Yawn now has it hanging on his wall, the large portrait in the wooden frame of his great-great-grandfather Green Berry Joseph Yawn.

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