AUTHOR: Amy Elizabeth Loggins (edited and vetted by Cheri Todd Molter)
My Great-Great-Grandfather, Elbert Joshua Hartley, served in Company C of the 21st Virginia Cavalry. He enlisted on June 4, 1863 as a Private and served until Lee’s surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Sometime during the war, Elbert Joshua stopped for food and rest at the farm of Jacob Cook at Boone in Watauga County. While there, he met Jacob’s daughter, Nancy, and declared to her that, when the war was over, he would return and marry her. At the end of the war, he returned home to Watauga County from Virginia. Along the way, he stopped at the Cook farm once again and repeated his offer and commitment.
The couple married in 1866.
Nancy died on Dec. 22, 1898, and Elbert Joshua died on July 14, 1925. They were both buried in the Cool Springs Cemetery at Boone, North Carolina.
