The Arm of Buel Stanley

Most of Adolphus Buel Stanley is buried with his wife, Froney, at Macedonia Church of Christ. His good arm, however, met a premature end after he tried using dynamite to catch fish en masse in the Toccoa River. The deceased appendage finds eternal rest a few miles down the road from Buel himself.

Nestled in the mountains of rural northern Georgia, the Stanley Settlement cemetery holds a treasure trove of Fannin County history. It spills down the hill from Stanley Church of Christ, a white wooden structure in the style ubiquitous to Appalachia. The building, which also served as a schoolhouse, began its life as a Primitive Baptist church. After a Church of Christ minister beat a Baptist minister in a battle to spout more scripture, the church switched denominations, taking the whole valley with it.

The ill-fated arm is far from the only interesting thing interred there. Buel’s father, Elisha Stanely, shares the site’s first grave with Elv Evan Hughes. The brothers-in-law were murdered for resisting conscription into the Confederate army and buried in one hole because there were no menfolk left to help the women dig. Elsewhere is a marker for Mose Johnson, who was found and taken in by the Stanleys as a child and went on to become the first Black person to be educated in Fannin County.

Though not all are as outlandish as a dynamite-induced amputation, each grave in the cemetery tells stories— stories of the people who called the valley home and helped shape the Stanley Settlement into what it is today.