Tamar Tyner is my 4th great grand aunt.

Tamar Tyner (b.1767-d.1840) lived on Boyd’s Creek in Elbert County, Georgia as a girl.

While her father Richard and her brother Samuel were away from home fighting at the battle of “Kettle Creek,” the Creek Indians attacked her home. They killed her mother and dashed her baby sister’s head against a tree and kidnapped her and her sister. Mother and sister were scalped. Some of the older children ran to safety, and young Noah hid in a big hollow tree later known throughout the countryside as “Noah’s Ark.”

About three years later, Jack Monack, a French Indian trader found Mary and Tamar. The Indians sold Mary to John and they returned to Elbert County where they married. The Inidans would not sell Tamar because she was quick to obey, of good disposition, tireless in her work, and hence a real value to them.

After John and Mary left, the Indians became very suspicious of Tamar. An old squaw that Tamar had befriended told Tamar that the head men of the tribe thought that troops would be coming to free her, and rather than give her up they were going to burn her alive at the stake on the next ceremonial day. The old Indian woman helped her escape.

She gave Tamar a canoe and provisions. She floated alone at night down the Chattahoochee River and hid on its banks by day. Tamar reached Apalachicola Bay, where she was sighted by a passing merchantman and given transportation to Savannah. The people of Savannah received her as a heroine and outfitted her for the trip home to Elbert County.

The news of her coming preceded her, and she was welcomed in Petersburg with great rejoicing. (Taken from “Chronicles of Wilkes County, GA” and from”Washington’s Newspapers 1889-1898.” provided by Rebecca Miller and”Dart/Reed/Hibbs/Tyner and affiliated families” published by Gen Connect by J. Ikemura, History of Elbert County, GA.