Elijah Bly  --  the oldest of Charles Jefferson and Sarah Hamrick's eight children  --  was born in 1858.

When Elijah Bly along with his father and his brother-in-law, Solon Green, opened their store C. J. Hamrick and Sons, he and "Grandpa Charles" and Elijah Bly managed the store while "Uncle Solon" ran the family's ancillary businesses such as the cotton gin and the farm.

Elijah Bly  --  who seems to have been as enterprising as his father  --  became a sizeable and successful investor in real estate, banking, and cotton mills.

However, even though he was a man of some means, the economic hard times of the "Great Depression," took their toll on him as it did on many others.

I've heard it told that Elijah Bly's falling out with his oldest son, Thomas Carl  --  Edie's father  --  was because he would not follow T. Carl's advice to divest of some of his many holdings. 

T. Carl believed that a recession would inevitably follow the wild prosperity of "The Roaring Twenties."

In Elijah Bly's defense, few people back then had the prescience of mind to see that hard times were coming.  Furthermore, in spite of any economic reverses he may have suffered, Elijah Bly and his family did weather the storm and the family store, C.J. Hamrick and Sons, still thrives, though now as a farm equipment dealership run in partnership with a similar business in Shelby.

The current store is in a new building next to the original masonry structure and the old gin, though no longer operational, still stands despite several fires.

Elijah Bly and his wife, Galena Green, built a stately Victorian across the road from the store and just down from his father's house.

One of the carpenters on this house was a John Franklin Moore

John Moore was of Scotch-Irish descent, and work on the Hamrick home had brought him to Boiling Springs from his home place in neighboring Rutherford County.

These two men would be Edie's maternal and paternal grandfathers for  --  in the fullness of time  --  John Moore's daughter, Marietta, would marry Elijah Bly's oldest son, Thomas Carl.

The Hamrick House is now home to Elijah Bly and Galena Green's granddaughter, Galena Ann Hamrick, and her husband, Bill Elliott.  She is the daughter of Edie's late uncle, Clifford  Hamrick.

Edie once had a copy of an article from The State Magazine describing the career of Elijah Bly Hamrick in detail.

The article was written by another of Edie's uncles, Otis Moore, not only the editor of the Laurinburg, North Carolina newspaper but also the oldest child of her grandfather, John Franklin Moore

Like those that came before, the Elijah Bly Hamrick and the John Franklin Moore households would both have numerous progeny ensuring that the next generation's chronicles would prove as convoluted as their forbearers.

Next chapter    Chapter 10, Thomas Carl and Marietta (Moore) Hamrick

Previous chapter    Chapter 8, Charles Jefferson and Sarah (Hamrick) Hamrick

Back to Edie's Family index