Catron's father was Hardy Pace, played a significant role in Georgia history. A native of Rowan County or Anson County, NC, Hardy Pace settled first in Putnam County, Georgia, before he moved to the original DeKalb County about 1830 and settled on Nancy Creek in the vicinity of present day Northside Drive and West Paces Ferry Road. He built his first home on the north side of what is now West Paces Ferry where the Rembert Marshall family lived in the late 1900’s. This was near a good spring.

According to Cobb County Georgia Cemeteries, Vol 1 - Hardy Pace drew a 40 acre gold lot in the 1832 Gold Lottery, which now includes the “Pace Family Cemetery”. In 1839, he moved his family across the Chattahoochee River and built a 17 room plantation house at the foot of Vinings Mountain.

Records show a grand juror named John Pace who served after the Superior Court of Cobb County was established in 1833. John might have been related.

Franklin Garrett in his “Atlanta and Environs” wrote: “Road building, after a two year hiatus, again came to the fore in the summer of 1832. On July 9th, the inferior court ordered that “Hardy Pace, Archibald Holland, Henry Wolfe, Benjamin Plaster and Charles Martin be appointed commissioners to view and mark out a route for a road from the settlement of Hardy Pace on Nance’s Creek to John A. D. Childress on Sand Town Road, and if you think said road to be a public utility report the same to the court”.¹⁾

Hardy operated the well known Paces Ferry at a point on the Chattahoochee River about 50-100 feet upstream from the present bridge. Here he was postmaster of the Paces Ferry Post Office until April 16, 1839, when he moved across the Chattahoochee River into Cobb County to the present site of Vinings on the route of the Western and Atlantic Railroad which was being built. A post office run by him there was called Crossroad, renamed Vinings Station, Oct 2, 1868, when his son-in-law Tillman G. McAfee became postmaster. Hardy steadily acquired land. John W. Hill deeded to Hardy Pace Land Lot 235, and 177 acres of Land Lot 216, 17th District of DeKalb, August 21, 1843, giving Pace control of the Dekalb side of the river, now Fulton County. When gold was discovered near Dahlonega, gold fever gripped the region and deeds frequently reserved mineral rights. Cobb County was formed in 1832, and its land was divided into 40 acre gold lots in a land lottery of the time. By 1839, Pace built a large home at present day Vinings on a hilltop in Cobb County. . Pace enlarged his home to 17 rooms as so many travelers stopped overnight.Many drovers of livestock between Marietta and Atlanta used his tavern at Vinings. He eventually owned 10,000 acres and farmed the rich bottom lands. He had a mill on Rottenwood Creek, which ran into the Chattahoochee near Vinings. The ruins of this mill, later called Akers Mill, could be seen in the 1970’s south of Akers Mill Road.

The Western and Atlantic Railroad was built through the area with a few houses for the section hands. A depot was built across from the church and a one room school house. The railroad was a fascinating engineering feat, connecting Atlanta with Chattanooga within a few years and opening many new business opportunities.

Hardy sold property in old DeKalb, then Fulton, to his son-in-law Pinkney Randall, April 20, 1850, 607 ½ acres, for $700, with reservation of mines and minerals to him. Eighty years later, a portion of this tract was sold for $50,000, located on Mount Paran Road.

His son Solomon K. Pace was made a justice of the new Inferior Court of Fulton County, Jan. 12, 1857. serving with justices Cornelius R. Hanleiter, Zachariah H. Rice, Jethro W. Manning and William A. Wilson.

When Gen. Sherman’s federal army approached Atlanta, Pace and his family had already taken refuge in Milledgeville. After the fierce fighting at Kennesaw Mountain, much skirmishing occurred around Vinings as Gen. Johnson struggled to get his Confederate forces across the Chattahoochee on a pontoon bridge. Sherman had spent time at Marietta and around Vinings in 1844 as a military engineer. He took the Hardy Pace home as an army headquarters where Gen. Howard busied himself a supply base for the assault on Atlanta. Many artillery emplacements were dug on the southern slope of Vinings Mountain, still visible in the 1970’s before residential expansion took over the area. Gen. Sherman climbed Vinings Mountain, July 5,1864, to view Atlanta 8 miles away, with several officers. As the fighting surged across the river, the Pace home became a military hospital with tents sprawling over the grounds.

After Atlanta fell and Sherman marched south, the Pace family returned to find the house and barns burned. Only two of the slaves remained, Fannie and Albert. Food was hard to find. Two slave cabins were pulled together as a rough home and enlarged later. Hardy Pace died soon, Dec. 5th, 1864, and was buried in the family cemetery on the top of Vinings Mountain, now surrounded by tall office buildings. His box tomb reads: “Sacred to the memory of Hardy Pace born 1785 died December 5, 1864 a friend of the poor….”

Pace had been a widower for 22 years when he died. He had several children:

1. Solomon K. Pace who married Penelope Glass of Covington. He was a judge of Fulton Inferior Court and a resident of Buckhead, called by many “Uncle Solomon”. He died in 1897.
2. Bushrod Pace who married Georgia Kirksey.
3. Catron G. Pace who married Pinckney H. Randall, a neighbor who owned much land. Randall (1814-1887) owned Randall’s mill on Nancy Creek.
4. Parthenia Pace who married T.M. Kirkpatrick.
5. Keren Pace who married Tillman McAfee.

Paces Ferry continued to operate until 1904.

Vinings became a recreation village in later years. Some of the Pace family lived on in the community, among them Mrs. Earle Carter Smith, a great-great-grand-daughter of Hardy Pace, and daughter of Charles L. and Edna Kirkpatrick Carter. She lived in a house on Paces Mill Road next door to the old Pace house built after the War and died in 1973. A large distillery was built on Stillhouse Road in the 1880’s. A racetrack once operated nearby. Many antiques shops, restaurants and other businesses drew visitors to the village until development of expensive residences and office parks took over the area in the late 1900’s as Atlanta expanded northward. ²⁾