Shake Rag & Duluth
The community along the Chattahoochee, first called Sheltonville, where the Bell and Rogers families settled.
- verified Shake Rag was settled in the early 1800s around McGinnis Ferry Rd at Rogers Bridge and Bell roads, with stores, churches, gins and taverns. [source: 1962 Sheltonville-Shakerag Community Club booklet]
- verified The area straddled the Gwinnett, Forsyth, Milton and Fulton county lines and is now northeast Johns Creek, beside Duluth. It was renamed from Sheltonville, after the pioneer Vardy Shelton family, to Shakerag in the 1880s. [source: Appen Media]
- verified A descendant of the “Taylor, Bells, and Rogers” settler families supplied the 1962 community booklet. [source: 1962 Sheltonville-Shakerag Community Club booklet]
- verified Mt. Zion Methodist was founded in 1828 on what is now Bell Rd, then Cherokee land, and moved to Rogers Bridge Rd in 1892. [source: Mt. Zion UMC 150th-anniversary history]
- testimony Folk explanation of the name: a rag was shaken to start dog races. [source: old-new-orleans.com – Cain and Garmon]
Rogers-Bell Cemetery
- verified Rogers-Bell Cemetery is in Johns Creek, Fulton Co., near Rogers Circle and Nellie Brook Court. The published listing is alphabetical, not in plot order. [source: USGenWeb Archives]
- likely John and Sarah (Cordery) Rogers lie in the fenced old section. [source: Adventures in Cemetery Hopping]
- verified Other families buried there include Jones, Anglin, Gilstrap, Nunn, Hackett, Lowe, Loftis, Douglas and Taylor (Frances Taylor Martin, 1915–2005). [source: USGenWeb Archives]
- testimony Who lies beside Thomas Randall Bell is open; family members recall Helen or Nell. [source: Testimony from family members]
The enslaved people of the Rogers plantation
The family's land and wealth in this period included people held in slavery. Their lives are part of this place's history, and their own records and descendants deserve to be traced in their own right.
- verified When John Rogers died in 1851, his estate included more than 600 acres and 15 enslaved people. Their names are not given in the source used here. [source: Chronicles of Oklahoma 50]
- likely The nearby Rogers Cemetery on Bell Rd — distinct from Rogers-Bell — holds the people enslaved on the Rogers plantation and their descendants. [source: Find a Grave]