The Cherokee Nation was organized in this area and provided a government that took care of its people. They had been relocated to this area from northern Virginia when the people and European customs settled in their homeland, and since the Cherokee were of a different culture, they were forced to relocate to Georgia.

Sanford Slaton is buried with his family in the older section of Belew cemetery. He spent most of his adult life in this community. Robert Goin is buried in Monclova, Mexico, where he died in 1848 while serving in the United States Military during the Mexican War. Twelve years after Robert Goin was killed in the fight in Mexico, Sanford Slaton, George Williams, and George W. Goin were in the Civil War together, fighting for a different cause.

Sanford Slaton was married to Nancy J. Williams sometime before the Civil War. Nancy Williams’ parents were John and Eliza Wood Williams. Eliza Wood Williams was a school teacher in a Miledgeville, Georgia prison that was in operation at the time the Federal government was seizing all of the Cherokee’s properties and forcing them to move west of the Mississippi River.

The older mother Eliza Wood Williams died in Texas and is buried in the Masonic cemetery in Arlington, Texas along with Noah Goin, the youngest child of George Washington and Eliza Wood Goin.

Nancy (Williams) Slaton was born in the Cherokee nation and was the daughter of Eliza Wood Williams and George Williams. Her siblings were Eliza Wood Williams and Sophia Williams.

Robert Goin was married at the age of sixteen; he and his wife had three sons. George Washington Goin was born on February 22, 1843, (ironically George Washington’s birthday); he was the oldest. Young George W. Goin and his brothers did not see much of their father; he was enlisted to fight in the Mexican War. Little is known of the fate of this orphaned family or how they made their way to Texas.

George W. Goin married Eliza Wood Williams on September 20, 1866. To them was born Wood Mize (1870), Sally (1868), Robert T. (1873), George Albert (1876), John W. (1878), Eliza W. (1880), and Noah (1883). George W. and Eliza Wood Goin, and daughter Eliza W. were buried within one year of each other at their ranch in Tin Top, Texas.

William James (W.J.) Slaton was born on June 2, 1860, while his father, Sanford, and uncles, George Williams and George Goin were serving in the Civil War (according to an old letter written in Vicksburg).

William James served as County Treasurer of Denton County at about the time that the courthouse in Denton burned to the ground in the 1800's. The new courthouse was built in 1896.

It is from his son James B. Slaton who was born in 1907, and died in 1992, who left his collection of Civil War letters from different family members to my Dad, Jim Goin, when he arranged for me to receive and keep this family record of important events.

Sanford Slaton owned what later became the family’s Merry Land Farm. The farm was deeded from the Coblers, a daughter, Cousin Ann Slaton (Wood Goin’s cousin). The Coblers had engineered an electric plant for their farm during the 1920's. The old crude steam engine was the original source of energy that powered the pumps that produced the water for the farm.

In the late 1920's, the farm was deeded to H.D. McKinney, and the farm was in this family’s name until the late 1930's. Just to the west of the Merry Land Farm, was a couple of acres that became the Black Jack School. On top of the hill and to the north was where my Dad was born to Wood and Laura Goin, on June 1, 1897. Other children born to Wood and Laura Goin were George Carlton (1894), an infant son(1892), Lillian (1900), Archie (1903), and Joe B. (1907).

The only Slaton that I have known was James B. Slaton. I have met him on several occasions at decoration day at Belew Cemetery. He was a very intelligent and interesting man. He gave me a book "Boyds Tank Junction of Alabama." Boyds Tank Junction was a small town in Alabama where the removal of Indians took place. Some of the local residents of Boyds Tank Junction, were the Boyds, Ratchfords, Powledges and Slatons who made their way to Aubrey (Onega). These people changed their identity and denied their Indian background so that they were more accepted in the Onega settlement.