Councilman: 1851, 1854

The earliest record of Paschal House is his May 1825 marriage record to Clara Ann Pattillo, daughter of James Pattillo, in Henry County, Georgia. Other records indicate that he was 15 years old and she was 12 years old at the time. Both the 1830 and the 1840 U.S. federal censuses located Paschal still in Henry County with his wife but apparently without any children in the household. The 1840 census specifically enumerated him next to a Richard House, likely his father. Other circumstantial evidence indicates that he was a close relative of Betsy House, wife of Raleigh Hightower and early settler of Henry County (the city of Stockbridge burned their house down in 2012 as a training for firefighters).

Paschal was in Atlanta by 1850 when the census described him as a carpenter with $125 in real estate and the owner of two young slaves, a 21-year-old woman and a 6-year-old boy. He served as a councilman in 1851, deputy marshal in 1853, and councilman again in 1854.

Clara Ann died in 1854 and is buried in the cemetery at the Stockbridge United Methodist Church. He was next married to Mary Ann Bridges by Thomas L. Thomas, a local Methodist preacher and founding trustee of the Wesley Chapel (institutional ancestor of Atlanta’s First United Methodist Church). He resigned his position as councilman that April, and he removed to Alabama by the time of his first son’s birth in August 1855. His deceased wife’s father named Paschal in his 1858 will:

I desire and direct that Paschal House who was married to my oldest daughter Clara Ann, shall enjoy no more of my estate.

The 1860 U.S. federal census found Paschal and family in Walker County, Georgia. He may have been in Ringgold for the birth of his second son in 1862, and he may have returned to Atlanta for the birth of his third son in 1864.

He was in Lake City, Florida by 1870 when the census enumerated Paschal, an illiterate carpenter with $100 in real estate and $250 in personal estate, living with his wife and children. His wife died in Lake City in March 1880, and she is buried in Oak Lawn Cemetery.

Paschal died sometime after August 4, 1884, when he signed a deed with his “x” mark. His date and place of death are unknown. He and Mary Ann were the parents of three sons: John Coffee House (1855–1925), a carpenter in Lake City; Richard H. House (1862–1938), also a carpenter in Lake City; and James Donald House (1864–1919), a carpenter in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Select Bibliography

Cooper, Walter G. Official History of Fulton County. Atlanta, GA: Walter W. Brown Pub. Co., 1934.

Garrett, Franklin M. Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events, 1820s–1870s. Vol. 1 of Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events. Athens, GA: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1969.

———. Cemetery Record Atlanta and Vicinity. Vol. 5 of Cemetery Record Atlanta and Vicinity.

Reed, Wallace P. History of Atlanta, Georgia. Syracuse, NY: D. Mason & Co., 1889.