The Sarah Huff Traditions About John Farr

The Atlanta History Center houses an extensive collection of the writings of Sarah Huff which mostly recount her memories of the Huff family and the city of Atlanta from the Civil War to the 1930’s. In her brief writings about the Farrs, she states that my ancestor, John Farr (who would have been her great-grandfather) descended from a family of Scottish Highlanders that came to Georgia with General James Edward Oglethorpe in 1733 on the ship Ann. According to Sarah Huff, John Farr originated in Darien and operated flat-bottom boats on the Altamaha River for some time. Then, she writes that John Farr was a Revolutionary War Soldier who fought in battles in Georgia. After the Revolution, she wrote, John Farr married Polly Brooks and purchased a large plantation in Warren County where they raised their family. Sarah Huff wrote that John Farr was a faithful follower of the Methodist tradition.

While this information about John Farr was undoubtedly handed down to her by oral family tradition, no documents have been found to substantiate many of these traditions, and some are contradicted by documentary evidence. No Farr was on the original voyage of the ship Ann, but the ship did make other trips between the continents. While John Farr owned land in Warren County, it would not be accurate to suggest that his holdings included “a large plantation.” In fact, extant tax and land records in Wilkes, Warren, Columbia and Newton Counties suggest that John Farr was a land speculator or timber farmer and that he likely did not settle down on any one piece of land until his move to Newton County in the 1820’s. Since John and Polly married at such an early age, it seems unlikely that John navigated the coastal Altamaha River as an occupation as suggested by Sarah Huff. Sarah Huff’s suggestion that John Farr came to America on the Ann with Oglethorpe cannot possibly be accurate. John Farr was born in 1771, almost forty years after the Ann’s initial voyage to Savannah with the Oglethorpe colony.

The oral family traditions concerning the Farr family passed down through Sarah Huff do not agree with documented historical evidence, and are probably a result of exaggerated or faulty memory or ancestral confusion. While it is possible that John Farr’s father was a Revolutionary War Soldier, John himself would only have been eight years old at the time the War came to Georgia. The Huff traditions are enlightening and entertaining, but they cannot be accepted as factual regarding Farr family history.