PIECES OF OUR PAST - 2002

 

PIECES OF OUR PAST

Sketches of the History of Dublin and Laurens County, Georgia

and East Central Georgia Area

2000

Written by 

Scott B. Thompson, Sr.

Copyright 2008

The Emerald City History Company, Inc. and Courier Herald Publishing Company, Inc.

The Emerald City History Company

Scott B. Thompson, Sr.

P.O. Box 1586

Dublin, GA 31040

dublinhistory@yahoo.com

FOREWORD

Pieces of Our Past is a compilation of articles chronicling the history of Dublin and Laurens County, Georgia, as well as some of the history of Johnson, Treutlen, Wilkinson, Twiggs, Emanuel, Montgomery, and Washington Counties.  Your reception of these articles has been most gratifying.   The greatest compliment that I receive is that someone has thought enough of my article to cut it out of the paper and saved it.  That is why I have compiled these articles so that they may be referred to by students and history buffs.  I believe that you are never too young or too old to study your history and heritage.  No one’s is more important than another’s.  You can find history every where you look.  It is in your family, your neighborhood, your church, your school, your favorite sport, your business, your community, your state, and your nation.  Write it down so that generations to come may remember those who proceeded them. 

My thanks to Dubose Porter and Griffin Lovett of the Courier Herald Publishing Company, who have allowed me to tell my passion for our local history to the readers of the Courier Herald.  My thanks also to my editor and proofreader, Heather Evans McCutcheon, who found all of those late night mistakes in my columns and who has touched them up as if they never existed. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. JOHNSON COUNTY AT THE DAWN OF THE 20TH CENTURY

2. OLIN J. WIMBERLY, The Epitome of a True Southern Lawyer

3. MADGE  HILBURN METHVIN, An Editress Who Contributed Her Life to Her Community

4. THE OCONEE RIVER, The Lifeblood of Laurens County

5. WILLIE JONES, All American

6. HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR GEORGIA HISTORY?

7. THE WORLD’S FASTEST HUMAN AND THE BLACK BABE RUTH

8. THE TROUPES, The Story of a Laurens County Family

9. LEAP DAYS IN OUR PAST

10. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE WHIG PARTY IN LAURENS COUNTY

11. CAPTAIN RAYMOND TALBIRD, An Officer, a Gentleman, and  a Hero

12. THE DIXIE OVERLAND HIGHWAY, Historic U.S. Highway 80

13. APPOMATTOX, Where the Nation United

14. WITNESSES TO HISTORY, Laurens Countians Saw Great Moments of our History in April

15. THE DUBLIN IRISHMEN BASEBALL TEAM OF 1930

16. REMEMBERING DEWEY JOHNSON, The Little Boy Who Grew Up To Be a Hero

17. THE 180TH ANNIVERSARY OF KEA’S METHODIST CHURCH

The Little Church in the Wildwood

18. DUBLIN HOSTS THE 1920 GEORGIA CONFEDERATE REUNION

19. THIRD ANNUAL TRIVIA QUIZ

20. CAPTAIN BOBBIE BROWN, U.S.A.

21. CAPTAIN WILLIAM KELLEY, An Irishman Whose Luck Finally Ran Out

22. THE BIG GAMES AT LITTLE HILBURN PARK, The 1959 District 5 Little League Tournament

23. DEATH IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC, The Loss of H.M.S. Otranto

24. WHY DO WE WANT TO PRESERVE OUR PAST?

25. STRANGE BUT TRUE TALES FROM LAURENS COUNTY

26. DUBLIN AND LAURENS COUNTY IN 1950, The Metamorphosis Begins

27. WE DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO DO SO WE CLIMBED A TREE AND STAYED THERE

28. CAPTAIN WILLIAM C. THOMPSON, JR., Hero Beneath the Sea

29. JAMES LINDSEY SEWARD, Congressman from the Wiregrass

30. A HERO COMES TO MILLEDGEVILLE, The Victory Tour of the Marquis de Lafayette

31. A HOSPITAL FOR HORSES, The Horse Infirmary on the Parsons Place

32. THE GREER INCIDENT, Preview to War in the Atlantic

33. UNJUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE, The Murder of Dudley Policeman, John Jessie Webb

34. THE WINDS OF WAR, The National Guard Mobilizes

35. REV. WHITEFORD S. RAMSAY, A Truly Noble Man

36. A HURRICANE COMES TO LAURENS

37. TY COBB, JR., No Chip off the Old Block

38. STATE CHAMPIONS AGAIN, The 1960 Dublin Irish Football Team

39. SNIPPETS, PART ONE

40. SNIPPETS, PART TWO

41. THE INDIANS OF LAURENS COUNTY

42. KELSO HORNE, Hero From the Sky

43. STARVING ACTORS

44. LAURENS COUNTY IN 1850

00-01

JOHNSON COUNTY AT THE DAWN OF THE 20TH CENTURY

     When the 20th Century dawned a century ago, Johnson County had reached its pinnacle.  The population of the east-central Georgia county, named for antebellum Georgia governor, Herschel V. Johnson, had ballooned to nearly eleven and one-half thousand folks, nearly doubling the 1890 population of 6,129.  Taxable property doubled in the five-year period centered around 1900.  The  immense growth of the county was due mainly to the impact of three railroads, the Brewton and Pineora, the Wadley and Mt. Vernon, and the Wrightsville and Tennille, which was presided over by Alexander F. Daley, a Wrightsville attorney.

     Agriculture was the predominant industry in Johnson County.  Nearly every acre of land which could be cultivated or built upon was improved and each such acre was valued in the amount of $2.66.  Unimproved lands, which totaled fifty five-hundred acres out of one hundred and eighty thousand acres in the county, were valued at $1.21 per acre.  The county’s farmers produced slightly more than four million pounds or eighty three-hundred bales of cotton during the year 1900.  Sheep herding was still a viable agribusiness.  The  forty-two hundred wooly animals ran wild over the grasslands of the county, much to the chagrin of the cattle farmers who owned an equal number of cows.  Twenty four-thousand chickens produced a reported thirty-five thousand dozen eggs, which were delicious when served with the meat of seventy seven-hundred pigs and hogs.  As for the equine animals, there were five hundred ninety three horses, five hundred four mules, and only three donkeys.   Another large agribusiness was the manufacture of forest products. Shingles, rosin, and turpentine were the taken from the forests, which were estimated to be at fifty percent of their original state.

     In the year 1900,  electronic media was non-existent.  Communications were made via the railroads and the postal system.  While today there are only a few post offices, a dozen or so post offices were established in the county.  The largest of these were Wrightsville, Kite, and Adrian, which continue to function today.  Among the others, most of which were located along the railroads were Tom, Ethel, Hodo, Riner, Meeks, and Odomville along the Wadley & Mt. Vernon Railroad; Scott on the Brewton & Pineora Railroad; and Donovan and Spann/Meadows on the Wrightsville & Tennille Railroad.  Regnant was located northeast of Scott, and Kittrell was situated in the northwest corner of the county on the Old River Road.  Other post offices included Garnto, Ennis, Fortune, Rosa, and Shortpond.

     Businesses were booming in Wrightsville at the turn of the 20th Century.  The Bank of Wrightsville’s assets were approaching thirty thousand dollars.  The bank’s president, T.J. Arline, resigned to devote more time to his business interests. These interests included the purchase of W.H. Harrison’s gin and warehouse with his partners, J.M. Mason, J.E. Smith, Jr., S.A. Corker, and Frank G. Corker, all of whom formed the Wrightsville Gin Company.  Dr. Jeremiah W. Brinson, Sr. purchased the Beehive Grocery building on the northwest corner of Marcus and Elm Streets where he built his drug store, which served the community for six decades.  There appears to have been three drug stores. Along with Brinson’s, there were the City Drug Company and J.W. Flanders’ Drug Store. Mason and Arline moved their general merchandise store into a new building adjoining the Brinson building.   There were two newspapers in town, “The Headlight” published by J.M. Huff  and “The Record,” published by A.B. Pierce.  Unfortunately, all of the issues of these and other papers have  not survived.  The Lovett Brothers, Richard T., Ervin A., and William H. had their own businesses.  The former two were in the mercantile business, while the latter was engaged in the insurance business with O.L. Little.  

     Among the other merchants in the town of Wrightsville were H.C. Christian, barber; A.F. Daley, lawyer; S.L. Linder, barber; P. Weinberg, jeweler; J.L. Kent, lawyer; E.A. Outlaw, barber; H. Connellee, furniture; Rouss Racket Store, general merchandise; J.A. Cobb’s City Market Grocery; J.W.A. Crawford, wagons and buggies; Stewart and Dale Dry Goods, Cook and Morrell Grocery, Hayes Bros. Grocery; Farmers and Planters Hotel, Kennedy House, Lee Barnes Gin; Thompkins and Johnson Gin; and Walker and Simpson Warehouse.

Kite businesses included A.S. Sealey and M.A. Whitaker’s Blacksmith shops; W.W. Pearce, carpenter; I.I. Smith, druggist; G.M. Johnson, J.M. Johnson, W.N. Kight & Son, Neal & Wheeler, and L.A. Perkins General Merchandise stores; Mrs. C.T. Smith’s hotel; L. B. Lightfoot, Lawyer; C.T. Smith, Jr.’s livery; S.M. Norris and I.I. Smith’s doctor’s offices.  The town of Rosa had seven general merchandise stores owned by T.F. Brantley, T.C. Bray, G.A. Moye, G.T. Prescott, A.L. Pridgen, and J.E. Smith, along with five cotton gins operated by T.F. Brantley, T.C. Bray, E.V. Jenkins, G.A. Moye, and G.H. Tarbutton.  Businesses in the town of Scott included C.T. Thigpen, blacksmith; J.G. Carter’s cotton gin; G.W. Pullen’s Gen. Merchandise; and J.G. Carter, physician.  Spann was home to the blacksmith shop of E.A. Hall, C.F. Boatright’s carpentry business, the cotton gins of G.W. Bush and G.W. Wynn, the general merchandise stores of Edmondson & Stewart, G.W. Thomas’ Lovett Academy, and the Spann Hotel.  Other Johnson County hotels included Dora Williams’ hotel in Arrieville and the Wallace House in Riner.  Regnant, which was located northeast of Scott on the Adrian/Wrightsville Road, was improved with the blacksmith’s shops of John Calley and G.W. Spring, John D. Smith and Lott Foskey’s carpentry businesses, E.J. Sumner’s and J.E. Welch’s cotton gins, G.W. Pullen’s Store, W.H. Smith’s grist and saw mills, and  J.G. Carter’s saw mill.

J.A. Dent of Arrieville, L.D. Tison of Meeks, S.T. Ellis of Riner, and A.I. Haynes and Henry Hodges of Rosa were among the other turn of the century physicians of Johnson County. See the December 14th, 1999 issue of the Courier Herald for the businesses of Adrian,  which lies partly in Johnson County.  

Wrightsville was the home to Nannie Lou Warthen Institute, a college which was located on South Marcus Street and was supported by the Methodist Episcopal Church South.  Professor Homer C. Woodard was elected in 1900 to serve as President.  He was assisted by Prof. J.A. Mershon and Mrs. J.L. Rozar.  Ethel Fincher taught music in the school, which later became Warthen College.  The school began in a building which served as the courthouse prior to the construction of the new courthouse in 1895, moved to the site of the old elementary school site, where it burned in the mid 1930s.

     The biggest event of the year, besides the political elections and events, was the first annual Chautauqua which lasted from June 3rd to June 8th.   The headline speaker was Gen. John B. Gordon, a former Georgia governor, United States Senator, and Major General of the Army of Northern Virginia.  General Gordon, as he was always called by those who idolized him, spoke on “The Last Days of the Confederacy,” a topic which he was intimately familiar with as he was commander of one-half of Lee’s dwindling infantrymen at Appomattox. The remainder of the five-day session was filled with musical performances and lectures, which took place in the courthouse and the Chautauqua Hall.

     Among the other news-making events in 1900 was the return and burial of the body of Edward Burnett. Burnett, a young Wrightsville man,  was among the first American soldiers to die in the Spanish American War during the invasion of Cuba, where he contracted a fatal case of fever.  Even the killing of animals made the news.  William Snell picked up a sweet potato and threw it,  instantly killing a large  hawk on the Ransom Hall Place.  George Spivey, of Regnant, killed an eagle with a five-foot wing span.  One of the big events of the year was the coming of the Cooper and Company Railroad Circus on November 20th.

     Among those holding political office in the year 1900 were J.E. Page, Judge of the Court of Ordinary; J.W. Rowland, Sheriff; W.W. Anthony, Clerk of the Superior Court;  Joe H. Rowland, County School Superintendent; R.A. Bradshaw, Tax Receiver;   Beverly D. Evans, Judge of Superior Court; S.J. Moye, Tax Collector; C.T. Claxton, County Treasurer; E.A. Douglas, Surveyor; and  George Schwalls, Coroner.  Turn of the century Justices of the Peace included: Allen Meeks, J.T. Snell, B.B. Blount, A.S. Mayo, L. Foskey, W.C. Wiggins, S.P. Price, and E.J. Sumner.

00-02

  OLIN J. WIMBERLY

The Epitome of a True Southern Lawyer

Olin J. Wimberly, one of Macon’s finest attorneys at the turn of the 20th Century, was born on the Moses Guyton place in the Buckeye District of Laurens County on May 22, 1862.   Wimberly was born in Laurens County instead of in his parent’s family home county of Twiggs County because  the senior Wimberly was serving in the Confederate Army.  The Army was about to begin its first major series of battles on the Virginia Peninsula.   His father’s folks were one of the old and prominent families of Twiggs County.  His father, James Lowry Wimberly, was a son of an itinerant Methodist minister, Frederick D. Wimberly.  James L. Wimberly, who was educated as an attorney, served as Judge of the Ordinary Court of Stewart County, Georgia for several terms and as a judge of the Superior Court of the Chattahoochee Circuit.  Judge Wimberly served as a delegate to the Confederate Electoral College, voting for the country’s first and only president, Jefferson Davis.  When the war was over, Judge Wimberly was sent to Washington, D.C. as a delegate seeking acceptable peace terms. In 1877, Judge Wimberly was selected as a delegate to form Georgia’s new constitution.  

Olin Wimberly’s mother’s people were from two of Laurens County’s most prominent families, the Guytons and Loves. Wimberly’s mother, Helen Augusta Guyton was a daughter of  Moses Guyton. Moses and his brothers, John and Charles, were all sons of Moses and Tabitha Saxton Guyton, who were  among the largest plantation owners in the fertile Buckeye District of northeastern Laurens County.  Each of the Guyton brothers were prominent in the political and agricultural affairs of the county.  Olin’s mother, Mary Ann Love Guyton, was a daughter of Amos Love, Laurens County’s first Clerk of the Superior Court.  Her brother, the Hon. Peter Early Love, was a physician, judge, and a member of Georgia’s congressional delegation. The entire delegation resigned their seats in Congress when Georgia seceded from the Union in 1861.

Olin Wimberly was raised on his father’s place in Stewart County, Georgia.  His family was wealthy enough to weather the storm of reconstruction following the Civil War.  Wimberly graduated with first honors from the prestigious Vanderbilt University in 1882 at the age of twenty. His first love was mathematics, which led to his acceptance of a position as a professor of mathematics at Professor’s McNulty’s college in Dawson, Georgia.  While teaching in Dawson, Wimberly met the true love of his life.  Wimberly fell in love with Mattie McNulty, one of his students and a daughter of Prof. McNulty, the dean of the college.   Upon his reaching the age of majority, Wimberly decided to make a career change and began studying law in his father’s law office in 1883.  After his admission to the bar at Lumpkin in 1884, Wimberly moved to the city of Macon where he established a practice in 1885 in partnership with Clem P. Steed.  Wimberly combined his ability as a teacher with his skills as a lawyer and taught Equity at Mercer Law School for the last decade and a half of his life. 

Wimberly was idolized by his contemporaries as “having a boundless capacity for intricate details, prodigious energy and labor in the preparation of his causes coupled with an ability to work out the last analysis of the most abstruse problems of the law.” His capacity for work was simply marvelous,” said one lawyer, who also said of Wimberly, “that men must have that by nature, they cannot acquire it.”  Wimberly had  an amazing memory, rarely forgetting any details, even the most trivial.  His home library was one of the finest in Macon, if not in the entire state.  Wimberly was fluent in German as well as an expert in mathematics.  He observed photographs of Dr. Frederick Cook, who claimed to be the first man to reach the North Pole.  Wimberly calculated the angle of the shadow of a flag pole in the picture and determined that Cook was no where near the pole as he had claimed, a fact which was later determined to be true.

His personal character was impeccable. Wimberly, a true southern gentleman, was a devoted father to his seven children.  He cared little for money, except when it was needed for the comfort of his family.  His dress was simple - a simple long black coat with a high collar and black bow tie. Arthur H. Codington, in his report to the twenty-seventh convention of the Georgia Bar Association in 1910,  heaped one accolade after another on the virtues of this public spirted citizen.

Ninety years ago this week on January 16, 1910, Wimberly went to work in office as he had done for the last twenty five years.  Wimberly was having a conversation with E.R. Orr of Dublin in front of the fire place in his office.  Without any hint or warning, Wimberly collapsed just after noon.  Death was immediate and was determined to be caused by a cerebral hemorrhage.  Doctors concluded the hemorrhage was ironically super-induced by tremendous study and mental exertion, the qualities which led to Wimberly’s high regard by his peers and friends.  Wimberly was funeralized by Rev. W.N. Ainsworth, a former minister of the First Methodist Church of Dublin, and who within the decade would become Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.  His body was carried to his grave by his most valued and trusted friends and laid to rest in Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, where old Macon’s most prestigious and prominent families are buried.  In the days when lawyers were accorded the total respect of the community, Olin J. Wimberly was a lawyer’s lawyer and a friend of every client he ever represented.  The standards set by Wimberly in his professional and personal life are ones that everyone, not just the members of the legal profession, should strive to attain and maintain. 

00-03

MADGE HILBURN METHVIN

An Editress Who Contributed Her Life to Her Community

Madge Hilburn Methvin was born on January 23, 1900 in Dublin, Georgia.  Her father, Octavius Inman Hilburn, was a pioneering farmer of Laurens County, who was credited with planting the first pecan trees in the county.  Her mother, Eugenia Calledonia Jackson, was a member of the large Jackson family of the Brewton community.  In her adult life, Madge Methvin was revered by  her colleagues for her work as an editress of a small town newspaper.  She was an editor who saw her job as the chronicler of the events of her community. She never backed 

away from reporting the news, even when it wasn’t popular with many of her readers.

Madge Hilburn didn’t start out to work in the newspaper business.  After completing her education at Dublin High School, Madge enrolled in Shorter College in Rome, where she obtained a degree in music.  She began teaching music and other classes in Hiawasse, Dexter, Glenville, and Eastman.  One day she walked into the office of the Eastman Times Journal to have some recital programs printed.  Little did she know what fate was awaiting her inside the door.  As she entered, she noticed a young man who was the son of the editor of the paper.  Claude Methvin, Jr. and Madge Hilburn fell in love.  Madge’s music teaching career was over.  From that moment on, she was in the family newspaper business.

Claude Methvin, Sr. published “The Times-Journal”  for several decades before his death, when his son Edwin T. Methvin took over the operation of the paper.  Claude, Jr. and Madge moved to Vienna, Georgia where they had the opportunity to buy “The Vienna News.”  In 1933, during the height of the depression when money food was scarce and money was even more scarce, the Methvins gathered enough money to buy the business.  Claude served as editor. Madge did just about everything else.   When many people were lucky to find work at all, the Methvins were working seventy six hours a week.  Mrs. Methvin recalled, “The work week never mattered, I soon learned, for when you are the recorder for all that goes in a community, your work goes on around the clock anyway, just as life does.  Your mind becomes like a recording tape, receptive to story impressions everywhere you go, whether at work or at play, noting items that must or may become next week’s news.” 

Madge was singing in the choir when the head deacon of the church and minister got into a rhubarb over the matter of legalizing drinking in Vienna.  When the board of deacons sided with the minister, the deacon stormed out and kept the fight going, giving the Methvins stories for many years.  Madge was approached by a man with a gun threatening to kill her husband if he published a story in the paper.  The Methvins were also barraged with requests to publish stories about big animals that had been killed by glory seeking hunters.  As with any paper, mistakes can be made.  Madge never figured out how this line, “The shooting occurred in the woods on the Peavy farm,” about a group of cotton pickers being hit by shotgun shot, was printed at the end of a young couple’s engagement announcement.  Methvin was proud of one story which walked through her door.  It was a story about a movement to plant blue lupine as a cover crop.  The plan was successful and led to a special editions of the paper, a county festival, and national recognition for the county. Madge also took pride the paper’s role in the establishment of a hospital in Vienna.

Claude Methvin, Jr. died from cancer in 1953.  All alone, Madge considered returning to her first love of teaching music.  With the unfailing support from her employees, Madge managed to keep the paper going without missing an issue. The Methvin’s oldest son, Claude III, was working with a paper in Seattle, while their youngest, Eugene Hilburn Methvin, was studying at the University of Georgia and planning a career in the Air Force.  Madge didn’t want to curtail her sons’ career plans by bringing them home to work in the family business.  Mrs. Methvin in her memoirs said that “she knew of no other work which could be so satisfying.”  Madge often balanced the sufferings, responsibilities, and tasks of being a country editor with the rewards of being so close to the people. Time after time, the latter outweighed the former.

The most famous citizen of Vienna during those days was Georgia senator, Walter F. George.  When Sen. George, an icon of Georgia politics,  announced his retirement from politics, “Time” magazine hired Madge to gather reactions from the local citizenry.  Methvin submitted two pages of material. “Time” used two sentences and paid her twenty-five dollars or $2.50 a word.  When a local couple complained about the subscription price of her paper, Madge answered that she got $2.50 per word from “Time” and charged annual subscribers only $4.00 for all of her words.  When the senator died, Methvin’s office and home became the nucleus of all outgoing information that was provided to state and national media.  Reporters scoured her files, and she willingly gave them all of the information they wanted - even to the detriment of her own business and her sleep time.  At Senator George’s funeral, Mrs. Methvin played the organ.  Madge Methvin played the organ and led the choir at the First Baptist Church in Vienna from 1946 to 1963.

The Methvins never shied away from reporting articles involving race relations in the county.  In 1935, after stern warnings from the “courthouse crowd,” they  published a report on the murder of a black prisoner by a gang of white men.  This incident and others led to  the establishment of another town newspaper in 1937.  The Methvins persevered and the rival paper went out of business in 1942. After World War II when the activities of the Klu Klux Klan began to accelerate in Dooly County, the Methvins took a public stand against the lack of due process, cross burnings, beatings, and shootings.  For two years, Madge took over the brave role of criticizing such activities in the community.  The public began to accept her words and through their ballots convinced Georgia governor Herman Talmadge to completely change his stand on the Klan. Talmadge actually ended up encouraging the passage of a  law, which led to the downfall of the Klan in Georgia. 

Madge won the Georgia Press Association’s Shope trophy in 1957 for a fearless editorial against the governor’s activities in a states rights rally in Americus. In 1966, Madge Methvin received a special GPA award for her organization of a letter writing campaign to Marines in Vietnam.  She was honored by the Georgia Association for the Mentally Handicapped in 1974 for her support of their worthy causes.  

Madge’s health began to fail .  In 1974, she retired and sold the newspaper where she had worked for over forty years.  Her successor, Carlton Lawson,  described Mrs. Methvin as “A lovely lady, a lively lady, with a twinkle in her eye and a charming style.... she has lent her style, her humor and her courage to just about every phase of newspaper work.  More than a witty writer, more than a courageous editor, she has used her talents and her opportunities to make life better for all members of her reading public.  She has made her life a contribution to her community.  Another of her lasting contributions to her country was her son, Eugene Hilburn Methvin.  Methvin, a senior editor with “Reader’s Digest” magazine has won national acclaim for his articles on crime and its effect on our county.  Perhaps a classmate of Eugene’s characterized her best when he  exclaimed that Mrs. Methvin, was “everybody’s mamma.”  Madge Hilburn Methvin died at her home on Valentine’s Day in 1982.  Twelve years later, she was posthumously inducted into the Georgia Newspaper Hall of Fame.

00-04

THE OCONEE RIVER

The Lifeblood of Laurens County

     It is our county's greatest natural resource.  When its waters are too voluminous, a disaster follows.  A disaster precedes when its waters are too gry.(no that’s the right word, look it up in the dictionary).   It derives its name from the people who once lived along its banks and subsisted on its bounty of fresh water and animal life.  The word "Oconee," according to the latest linguistic studies, is actually a two-word phrase - "O" meaning "of" and "Conee" meaning skunk, or "place of the skunk."  Earlier linguists attribute the name to the phrase "water eyes of the hills" -  a much more romantic-sounding name for this body of water which has been an integral part of our county's civilization for the last eon.  Which name came first, the Indian community Oconee Old Town, which was located in southern Baldwin County, or the Oconee River cannot be determined.  Other variations of the spelling of the name are Ocone, Oconi, Ocony, Ekwoni, and Ukwu'nu.  The middle part of the river has been referred to as "Ethoho," while the lower portion which passes through Laurens County has been called "Ithlobee" by Indians who lived in the area until the end of the 18th century.

     The Oconee River, Georgia's third longest single-stream river,  begins near the sleepy community of Lula in Hall County, Georgia. It flows for two hundred fifty miles in a southeasterly direction to a point between Lumber City and Hazlehurst, where it joins the Ocmulgee River to form the Altamaha.  Its basin covers fifty-four hundred square miles, which is a little larger than the size of the state of Connecticut.   For thousands of years, those who lived along the river depended on the  Oconee for food, water, and transportation.  It has been said that its waters were crystal clear - untainted by the runoff from the sandy clay farm lands, which were highly prized by the early settlers.

     Beginning in 1819, the waters of the Oconee gave merchants a way to ship goods into and out of the Central Georgia area.  When the railroads came, river transportation began to subside, except for a brief period immediately prior to the Civil War.  After the war, and before railroads criss-crossed the entire state, river transportation in the middle Oconee region was revived by Captain R.C. Henry, Captain W.W. Ward and financier, Col. John M. Stubbs.  

     In order to maintain adequate and reliable shipping lanes, financial aid, in the form of federal government money, was necessary.  Congressmen James H. Blount and Charles F. Crisp complied with the demands of their constituents and supplied the necessary federal monies to study the river and to aid in the clearing of rocks, snags, and the always dangerous sandbars.  A study was commissioned by Congress in 1888 directing the Army Corps of Engineers (under the direction of Lt. O.M. Carter) to prepare a report on the river, including the cost of clearing it and the cost of maintaining it as a commercial waterway.  The report estimated that $171,000 was necessary to maintain a navigable channel and that an annual appropriation of $5,000 was needed to maintain the river in a navigable condition.  The report only covered the 150-mile portion of the river below Milledgeville at the fall line, which was the terminus of any freight-carrying boat.  Actually, by the time of the survey, no boats could go beyond the Central of Georgia Railroad bridge near Oconee in Washington County.

     A.S. Cooper, in his meticulous survey, noted the course of the river, depths at standard intervals, and the volume and velocity of the water at selected sites.  Cooper's men measured the mean low water velocity of the river at Dublin to be 1.34 feet per second, which converts to 4824 feet per hour. At that rate it would take about two days for the water to flow from the northern end of the county at the mouth of Big Sandy Creek along its 42.7 mile long trek to Bonnie Clabber at the southern tip of Laurens County.  The engineers determined that, during the river's course through the county, its elevation above sea level fell 40.5 feet from its high point of 176.6 feet at Big Sandy to 136.1 feet at Bonnie Clabber.    The volume of water passing Dublin at low water was determined to be 1990.5 cubic feet per second, which would fill an average size house in six to eight seconds.  Of course, the volume in times of flood was much higher.  

     Cooper's report, made during the year 1889,  noted thirty-five places along the river, beginning at Big Sandy Creek and including White Bluff, Kittrell's Landing, Guyton's Bluff, Hobbs' Boat Yard, Blackshear's Ferry, Blackshear's Landing, Carr's Shoal, Dominey's Landing, Keene's Landing, Dublin Ferry, Rowe's Landing, Fuller's Landing, Burch's Landing, Little Buzzard Bar, Big Buzzard Bar, Drowning Cow Bight, Fish Trap Cut, Clark's Landing, Troup's Lake, Pritchett's Landing (Smith Lake), Wring Jaw Bight, Poor Robin's Bluff, Pine Lake, Walton's Landing, Green's Folly, Shady Field Cut, Shady Bluff, Cooper's Landing, Hall's Warehouse, Cooper's Bight, Branch's Landing, Upper Travers Bight, Berry Hill, Davis' Landing, and Bonnie Clabber. 

     

The river was at its widest point of four hundred and fifty feet just above Guyton's Bluff.  In the area between  Big Buzzard Bar, Fish Trap Cut, and Poor Robin's Bluff the river broadened to four hundred feet, a fact not unnoticed by the Indians who built settlements there. The river was deepest in the area near Riverview Park between Rowe's Landing and Dublin.  The water was shallowest just above Guyton's Bluff, the widest spot along the entire river, except for the last mile before the Oconee's confluence with the Ocmulgee. 

Most of the places along the river in Laurens County needed very little attention.  The major trouble areas ranged from Carr's Shoals, where a few cubic yards of rock needed to be removed, to the main danger areas of Big and Little Buzzard Bars, where the sandbars encroached about half way into the three hundred foot wide river.  The engineers recommended that two closing dams be built at the upper end of Fish Trap Cut in order to give more water at the lower end of the cut.

Over the years, the method of measuring the depth of the river has changed.  The original site of the measurement of the river's depth appears to have been from the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad Bridge.  The gauge was moved to the highway bridge in 1934.  The highest depth ever recorded was 33 feet at the railroad bridge in 1925.  As the river reached about 27 feet, many lots and houses were flooded in the Scottsville area.  The waters again rose over its flood stage on April  12, 1936. During that flood, known to have been the biggest in the last hundred years, the water at the at Blackshear's Ferry rose to 33.4 feet, while it reached 32.8 feet at Dublin.   Mrs.  Verdie Rowland remembered seeing water lapping against the bottom of the railroad bridge just below the passenger bridge.  Rawls A. Watson, a long time ferryman, reported that the river had not been that high since 1888.  Several strange sights were spotted by railroad workers.  The first was a pair of wash tubs floating down the river.  One contained a big clock and the other a big black cat.  One questionable informant  reported that he saw a log floating in the river with a wild cat on one end and a rabbit on the other.      

00-05

WILLIE JONES -

 All American

One former Dubliner took a keen interest in Florida State University’s victory in last month’s national college championship in the Sugar Bowl.  Willie Jones played for the Seminoles in the 1970s, when winning seasons were few and far between.  Willie Jones, born in Dublin on November 22, 1957, spent his first decade of life here, attending Susie Dasher School and playing football.  At the age of twenty one, he was one of the best defensive college players in the country.

Willie’s mother, Daisy Jones, worked long and hard hours at the Canady Restaurant and Motel in East Dublin.  Willie’s sister worked with their mother.  In the latter years of the 1960s, the Jones family left their home and went south - about as far south as one can go in the continental United States.  The Jones family established their home in Homestead, Florida, just south of Miami.  Willie attended South Dade High School, where he was a two-sport star in football and basketball.  Willie’s size and speed led to his being awarded a scholarship to play football at Florida State.

Willie started in his freshman year at Florida State in 1975.  At six feet four inches tall and two hundred and forty pounds, he was small as defensive lineman go.  His speed was one of his best assets.   In his first season, the last for head coach Darrell Mutra, the Seminoles had a dismal record of three wins and eight losses.  In that year and the two years before, the Seminoles won only four games out of thirty three.  The football program was in trouble.  The university had to find someone to turn the program around.

School officials hired a coach, who had coached winning teams at Samford and West Virginia.  Sportswriters called the period before his arrival in January of 1976 as “B.B.,” before Bowden.  In his first season at Florida State, Coach Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles won five games and lost six.  Jones again started at defensive end in 1976 and gained his first honor of being named to the All South Independent team.  In his junior year in 1977, Jones  was named to the All-South Independent Team and as an honorable mention on the Associated Press’s All-American team. The Seminoles had their best season in many years, going ten and two with impressive victories over bitter rivals, Auburn and Florida.  Jones played in his first and only bowl game, the Tangerine Bowl, following his team’s best season.  For his outstanding play in the 40-17 stomping of Texas Tech, Willie Jones was named the game’s most valuable defensive player.

A collage painting of Willie Jones graced the cover of the 1978 Florida State Press Guide.  School boosters and Coach Bowden touted Jones as one of the best defensive ends in the country.  Opposing quarterbacks and running backs feared the big number 88 on the garnet red jersey.  Offensive tackles did everything they could to keep him out of the backfield.   The 1978 Seminoles slipped to eight and three, though two of their losses to Houston and Pittsburgh were by a total of ten points.  Once again, the Seminoles dominated their bitter intrastate rivals, the Florida Gators.  Willie Jones was on everyone’s All-America list.  For the third straight year, Jones was named to the All South Independent Team.  He was named Southern Lineman of the Week for his outstanding performance against Southern Mississippi.  The United Press named Willie to its Second All American Team.  The Associated Press and the Sporting News gave Jones honorable mentions on their collegiate all star rosters.  

 

Following his successful career at Florida State, Jones was selected to play in college football’s top two All Star games.  In the Senior Bowl, the granddaddy of college football all-star games, Jones sacked the North quarterbacks six times and garnered the Most Valuable Player Award.  In doing so, Jones became the second Dubliner to win the coveted award.  Twenty years earlier, Theron Sapp, Dublin born, Brewton raised, and a Georgia Bulldog legend at running back, won the same award.  Jones was selected to play for the East team  in the Hula Bowl in the paradise of Hawaii. 

Professional scouts took notice of Willie Jones’s ability.  The Oakland Raiders selected Jones as their first pick, which came in the second round of the 1979 NFL draft. As a rookie, Jones played in all sixteen of the Raider games, nine of which were victories. They included a fifty to nineteen romp over the Falcons, who were only slightly better than they were last season.  In his sophomore season, Willie again played defensive end in all of the Raider’s sixteen games.  The Raiders improved their record in 1980 to eleven wins with only five regular season losses.  The Raiders breezed by Houston in the Wild Card game, squeaked by the Browns 14 to12 in the Divisional playoff, and defeated intrastate rival San Diego 34 to 27 to win the AFC Championship and a berth in Super Bowl XV in the New Orleans Super Dome on January 25, 1981. The Raiders were the first team in NFL history to play in the Super Bowl after beginning the playoffs as a wild-card team.      

The 1980 Raiders were a tough defensive team.  They led the league in interceptions, ranked sixth in fumbles caused, and stymied their opponents in the last half of the season.  Willie Jones scored his second and last career touchdown when he scooped up a fumble and ran it into the San Diego end zone in the second game of the season.  Wearing number 90, he played left defensive end behind legendary Oakland Raider, John Matuzak.  Also playing with Jones in that 1980 season were Hall of Famers, Art Shell, Gene Upshaw, Ray Guy, and Ted Hendricks.  Several other members of that team will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in the future.  

Oakland jumped out to a 14 to 0 lead over the Philadelphia Eagles after the first quarter.  This wasn’t the first NFL title game that a Dubliner had played in.  Once again, Theron Sapp beat Jones to that honor when he played for the Philadelphia Eagles in their defeat of Vince Lombardi’s powerful Green Bay Packers in the 1960 NFL Championship game.  The Eagles managed to put a field goal on the board in the second stanza, but fell behind to Oakland by the score of 24 to 3 after the end of the third quarter.  A fourth quarter field goal ended the scoring and when Willie Jones intense pass rush forced Eagle quarterback Jaworski into throwing an interception. That fatal mistake iced the 27 to 10 victory for the Raiders  in the first of only two victories by a wild card team in the Super Bowl game.

Willie Jones played in only eight games in his third and final season with the Oakland Raiders in 1981. The Raiders failed to defend their Super Bowl championship. They posted a seven and nine record and failed to make the playoffs.  In 1989, Willie Jones was elected to the Florida State Athletic Hall of Fame.    

00-06

HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR GEORGIA HISTORY?

      One of the greatest things about studying history is finding history that you did not know before you read it somewhere or heard it from someone.  One of my greatest passions is finding an old history book in a used book store, flea market, or a library.  One of my recent finds was a fascinating little book written by C.J. Holleran in 1951.  Holleran entitled his self-illustrated book “Know Your Georgia.”  This Saturday, February 12th is Georgia Day.  It is a day on which we should celebrate the rich and deep history of our state.  Here are some things you might not have known about Georgia’s history.

     Did you know that the first movie theater was in Georgia?  In 1895, Francis Jenkins brought his newest invention, the Jenkins Phantoscope, to the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta.  Jenkins rented a stand to display living pictures through one of the earliest motion picture projection machines.  Jenkins stuck a bed sheet on a wall and thrilled crowds with a double feature, “Annabelle the Dancer” and “Mischievous Johnny.” The show was said to have been the first  presentation of motion pictures to a paying audience.

     Did you know that the first Parent Teacher Association originated in Georgia?  Mrs. Theodore Birney, a Cobb County school teacher, had an idea - how wonderful it would be to organize the mothers of  school children throughout the country to work in close cooperation with the teachers in the schools.  She enlisted the financial aid of Mrs. Randolph Hearst.  On February 17, 1897, Mrs. Birney was elected as the first president of the National Congress of Mothers, which was headquartered in Washington, D.C..  The organization changed its name to the National Parent-Teacher Association.  In 1950, with six million members, it was the largest women’s organization in the world.

     Did you know that Georgia was the first state in the country to establish a Department of Agriculture?  In the 1870s, the Georgia Legislature authorized the department to analyze soils, seeds, fertilizer, and other aspects of farming, including the promotion of exports, dairy farming, wool culture, and agricultural education.  Dr. T.P. Janes of Greene County headed the department, which had an initial budget of ten thousand dollars.

     Did you know that a young Georgia girl created the Lone Star flag of the Republic of Texas?  Joanna Troutman, of Crawford County in western Middle Georgia, was deeply moved by the fight of the men and women of Texas for freedom. Troutman gave the flag to Lt. McLeod and his troop of 120 Georgia volunteers, who took it to Texas during the war with Mexico in 1836.  McLeod and all of his men were massacred.  The simple flag with its lone blue star and its motto “Liberty or Death” was adopted by the State of Texas when it was admitted to the Union.

     Did you know that the inventor of the submarine was a Georgia school teacher?  David Bush lived in Columbia and Warren Counties for forty years.  Before he came to Georgia just after the American Revolution, David Bush, or David Bushnell - as he is more commonly known - was hired by Gen. George Washington to built a type of boat to sink British naval vessels.  Bushnell invented the first submarine. Although it missed its first target, it did sink a nearby schooner, which was the first ship ever sunk by an underwater craft.  Bushnell then designed the first sea mine ever used in warfare. At the end of the war, he was the commander of Colonial forces at West Point.  When he thought he had become a failure as a designer of weapons of mass destruction, he left his family and came to Georgia to devote his life to the good of the public.

      Did you know that Georgia once considered herself a separate and independent republic? In the years following the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, the state did not send any representatives to the Congress.  Georgia was allotted six seats in 1784, but only sent two delegates.  The state’s leaders were interested in making sure that Georgia could function as an independent state if the union of states failed.  In 1785, the Georgia Legislature passed an act requiring a one year residence in Georgia before one could become a citizen of the state.  At the end of the probationary period, an applicant had to satisfy a Grand Jury that he was honest and a friend of the state.

     Did you know that America’s first naval victory took place off the coast of Tybee Island, Georgia in 1775? Savannah military forces were alerted that a British vessel carrying seven tons of gunpowder was in the waters near Tybee Island.  Commodore Bowen and Major Habersham commanded a schooner which set sail, attacked and captured the British ship. The schooner brought her back into the port of Savannah.  The precious powder was divided between local military units and George Washington’s army.  This small British vessel was taken over by the Colonial forces and was the first ever commissioned by the Continental Congress.  In 1779, John Paul Jones led the Colonial Navy in one of the greatest naval victories in the history of the world.  An integral part of that epic naval battle was the capture of the King’s warship “The Countess of Scarborough” by the American ship “The Pallas.”  The capture of the British warship led to Jones’s eventual victory.  Commanding the “Pallas” was Captain Denis Cottineau.  This French-born naval officer settled in Savannah after the Revolution. According to the records of Savannah City Hall, was buried on Broughton Street.

     Did you know that shining and killing deer first became illegal in Georgia in 1790?  After fifty seven years with a free license to kill deer, Georgia officials feared that the animals would be wiped out if hunting by firelight was allowed to continue.  Violaters could be fined $25 or thirty nine lashes.   I am not a game hunter. But when those little animals ate all of my daddy’s peas last summer, I wondered why the rules couldn’t be bent just a little bit. 

     Did you know that the first English settlement of Georgia wasn’t in Savannah in 1733?  In 1721, the English government established a fort, Fort King George, near the mouth of the Altamaha River and the town of Darien.  The fort was designed to facilitate trading with the Indians, but when the citizens of South Carolina demanded the garrison be removed to South Carolina, Fort King George was abandoned.  In 1951, when “Know Your Georgia was written, the site was not developed.  Today it is.  See it for yourself.

     Did you know that Jekyll Island was once a haven for foreign refugees?  In 1802, Poulain Du Bignon purchased the island and invited his fellow Frenchmen who had fled the revolution in their native France to join him on the Golden Isle.

     President Harry S. Truman once said, “The greatest thing in the world is the history we don’t know.”  Study Georgia’s history, know Georgia’s history and celebrate Georgia’s history this week and throughout the year. 

     

00-07

THE WORLD'S FASTEST HUMAN AND 

THE BLACK BABE RUTH

The recent public appearance by Evander Holyfield at a D.A.R.E. graduation at Southwest Laurens Elementary  brings to mind a day, nearly sixty years ago. On that day two of the greatest athletes in the history of the world displayed their talents for thousands of admiring fans, who for the first time got to see their heroes up close and in person.  One man was one of the greatest track and field athletes of all time.  The other man, whose career was thwarted by baseball commissioner Kennesaw Landis’s refusal to allow black athletes in major league baseball, was one of the greatest players in the history of the Negro Leagues.

The friends of Washington Street School were raising money for athletic programs at the school.  On April 10, 1940, a special benefit was planned at the fairgrounds on Telfair Street. The fairgrounds had seen great athletes and spectacles before.  In 1918, the New York Yankees defeated the Boston Braves on the fairground diamond.  The St. Louis Cardinals stopped in town on their way back to St. Louis after spring training to play a game against the Oglethorpe University Petrels in 1933.  Two years later, the Cardinals returned to play the University of Georgia Bulldogs.  In all, eight members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Miller Huggins, Frank “Home Run” Baker,  Dizzy Dean, Rogers Hornsby, Leo Durocher, Frankie Frisch, Joe Medwick, and Jesse Haines played on the sandy field located at the northwest corner of Telfair and Troup Streets.  County fairs, circuses, and even a performance by cowboy legend Tom Mix had drawn thousands to the old 12th District fairgrounds.

The feature attraction of the day was billed as "the world's fastest human."  His name ranks among the greatest athletes in Olympic history.   In the 1935 Big Ten Track and Field Championships, he broke five world records and tied one  in a forty-five minute period.  In the 1936 Summer Olympics, he won four gold medals. At the time he held the world record for a long jump, 220-yard hurdles, and 220-yard dash.   He has tied the world record for the 100-yard dash.  He also had tied the world record with a time of 10.3 seconds in the 100-meter dash. A 20.7 second time in the 200-meter dash gave him another Olympic record.  He was put on the 400-meter relay team at the last minute.  The team set a world and Olympic record.   Interestingly, it was one of the German competitors who gave him a helpful hint which allowed him to beat the German in the long  jump.  The German jumper told the American track star to make a mark a few inches short of the foul line and to jump from that point.  It worked. He set an Olympic record that stood for twenty-five years.  He won the Gold medal - and the German, won the Silver.   He stated that all of the medals he won wouldn’t replace the friendship he had developed with Lutz Long, the German athlete.  Long was killed in the Battle of St. Pietro on July 14, 1943.  Adolph Hitler was so enraged that he stormed out of the stadium refusing to present the medals.  

The world champion American athlete’s name was, of course, Jesse Owens.  In Dublin, Owens was scheduled to compete in a dash around the baseball diamond, a one hundred yard dash against a race horse, a running broad jump, and a one hundred twenty-yard low hurdle race.  After his exhibition, Owens gave an interview over a loud speaker answering questions from his fans.   Owens never enjoyed the attention that should have been given to him.  In the mid 1930s, he was ignored when national amateur athletic awards were handed out.  He later fell from grace with some who disagreed with his comments and beliefs on social relationships in America.    

Preceding Owens' feats of human speed that day, there was an exhibition baseball game between the Toledo Crawfords and the Ethiopian Clowns.  Jesse Owens was the business manager of the Crawfords. The game was played before fans, both white and black.   The two teams traveled the country stopping nearly every day to play a baseball game - some times before a few hundred fans and other times, before tens of thousands.

The Crawfords began playing on a sand lot in Pittsburgh in the 1920s.  In those early days, legendary catcher Josh Gibson was on the team.  Their owner, Gus Greenlee, used the profits from his gambling and liquor activities to buy the best players in the Negro Leagues.   Greenlee built and equipped a lighted stadium, years before the Major Leagues began playing at night. The Crawfords joined the re-organized Negro National League in 1933. It was the first year of the Negro League All Star Game - the East-West Classic, which was created by Greenlee.  The Crawfords won the National League championship in 1935.  In 1937, their star players, led by Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, left the team in a salary dispute.  The team was never the same.  Greenlee sold the Crawfords, and the team moved to Toledo, Ohio.  One star remained with the team.  His name was Oscar Charleston, known by the press writers as “The Hoosier Comet.”

The Crawfords were led by Oscar Charleston, who was  playing in his last season for the team.  Charleston was a slick fielder with a lifetime average of .380.  Many regard him as the greatest Negro League player of all time.  John McGraw called him “the greatest player ever.”   In 1921, he batted .446 with 14 home runs for the St. Louis Giants.  In one nine-year span, Charleston batted over .350 in all nine seasons, twice hitting over .400.  Charleston joined the Crawfords in 1932 and consistently hit around .350.  Charleston was a fan and player favorite.  As a fielder, he was known as “The Black Tris Speaker”; as a runner, he was known as “The Black Ty Cobb;” and as a power hitter, he was known as “The Black Babe Ruth.”  Oscar Charleston, who ended his career with a .376 batting average,  was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1976. 

The Ethiopian Clowns were a true barnstorming team.  They  were the clown princes of Negro League Baseball, comparable to the Harlem Globetrotters’ basketball team.  While they had no great stars, the Clowns, who eventually moved to Indianapolis along with the Crawfords,  were fan favorites all over the nation.  One popular routine was called Shadow Ball.  In this routine, the players pantomimmed an imaginary game of baseball with outlandish movements and stunts.   Fans were thrilled when one player would pick up four baseballs and throw them at the same time to four different players.  The Clowns toured the country until the early fifties.  Their most famous alumnus was a young Mobile, Alabama outfielder by the name of Henry Aaron, who led the American National League with a .467 average - a miraculous feat considering he batted cross handed.

Dubliners had seen good Negro League players before.  The Dublin Athletics, members of an independent Negro League, played on a field on East Mary Street near the Dudley Cemetery.  They were a pretty fair team in their own right, but nothing could compare to that April day when two of the giants in the world of sports played on our field.

00-08

THE TROUPES

The Story of a Laurens County Family

They are one of Laurens County’s oldest and most prolific families.  In fact, they are several families.  They take their name from the man who once owned them - the powerful and legendary George M. Troup of Laurens County, who was a  former Georgia governor and United States senator.  In the years following the Civil War, former slaves had to choose a surname, until then they were simply known by their first name.  Many of these former slaves took the name of their former master.  This is a story of one of those families, the families of Obediah Troup and his son, Charles Troupe.   

The 1870 Census was the first census to enumerate black citizens.  In that year, fifty-one Laurens County families bore the surname of Troup or Trouppe. Just before the turn of the century some of the families changed  their last name to Edmond.  These families were not all related to each other by blood, but they were bound together by their common last name and heritage,  lived in the Dudley area, near or on the old Troup plantations at Valambrosa and Thomas Crossroads. They worked under the supervision of Dr. John Vigal, the governor’s son-in-law, and later Robert Wayne, husband of one of the governor’s granddaughters, Augusta Forman.  The senior members of the Troup family were Mariah, who was born in 1785; Richard, who was born in 1790; Isaac, who was born in 1794; and David, who was born in 1799.  When George Troup died in 1856, his estate included more than three hundred slaves, all of whom are listed in the inventory of his estate in Division of Estates Book, “B” in the Probate Court.

Obediah Troup was born in May of 1835.  When Gov. Troup died in 1856, Obediah was twenty-one years old, and accordingly, was the highest valued slave on the Valambrosa Plantation at twelve hundred dollars.   Around that time,  Obediah married Katie or Caty.  No record of their marriage was made under the record system in effect at the time.  It appears that Obediah and Katie Troup were living apart from the main group of families in 1870.  In 1880, the Troup household, then located in the Bailey District, consisted of Obediah, Katie and their children: Bennett, Wallace, Charles, Willis, Phillip, Lelia, Luselia, and Delia.  The Troups were a typical farming family of the day with a large number of children to help on the farm.  

Charles Troupe married Mary B. Williams on October 29, 1891 in Laurens County.  Charles, like his father, was a share cropping farmer. Charles and Mary lived on a farm not too far from his father’s farm in the Harvard District near Montrose.  Charles, also like his father, had a large family - ten children:  Eva, Donna, Phillip, George, Lee, Charles, Minnie, Albert, James, and Quincy.  One day, Albert got into a difficult predicament with a farm overseer.  Fearing, that his son would never be able to resolve the dispute with the man, Charles decided to accept the offer of a friend from St. Louis to go there for a better paying job and a better way of life.  Times were bad in Laurens County.  Cotton crops were being eaten by boll weevils, money was tight, and tempers and racial tolerances were short.  Charles and his sons, Albert and George, left Dublin in the early 1920s to establish the new family home.  Mary and the rest of the family, headed by the eldest son Phillip, an amputee victim of a childhood fever, moved to the Ed Darden farm.  The Darden farm was  near the Smitherman farm in southern Laurens County.  In 1922, Mary and the rest of the children moved to St. Louis to begin their new life.

Eva, the eldest child, married a Yopp and moved to New Britain, Connecticut. Donna, married a Hudson and moved to Baltimore, Maryland.  Lee lived in Newark, New Jersey.  The rest of the family remained in St. Louis.  All of them lived to ripe old ages.  Donna lived to be ninety six years old.  Phillip and Minnie lived to be more than ninety.  Quincy, the baby of the family, was the most well known of the children.  He developed a skill for boxing, which was eclipsed only by his talent for baseball.  He enjoyed a twenty-year career in professional baseball.  He was known to have been one of the best catchers in the history of the Negro Leagues. Quincy managed and played for the Cleveland Buckeyes, the 1945 Negro League Champions.  His collection of memorabilia was the foundation of the Negro League Hall of Fame Museum in St. Louis.

James “Pal” Troupe, the ninth child, took an ardent interest in improving his community.  Pal Troupe served as a Commissioner of the St. Louis Public Housing Authority from 1951 to 1954, when he was elected to the Missouri Legislature.  In his sixteen-year career in the Missouri house (1954-1960, 1962-1972), Troupe rose to the chairmanship of the black caucus and became an advocate for those in public housing.  During that time, Troupe served as a business representative for the United Steelworkers of America and supported the causes of labor in his state.  Although he lost two congressional races, Troupe was a well-respected member of the St. Louis community.  Like his father and grandfather before him, he had a large family.  When he died in 1994, Troupe had nine children, forty-five grandchildren, and fifty great grandchildren.

Two of Quincy’s children, Charles Quincy Troupe and Quincy Troupe, Jr. have followed different, although highly successful, career paths than their father.   Charles Quincy Troupe, following in the footsteps of his uncle “Pal,”  was elected to the Missouri legislature in 1978. For twenty-two years, Troupe has been an advocate for the rights of the disadvantaged, the powerless,  and the underprivileged.  Troupe lists among his most lasting contributions his landmark legislation to educate pregnant teenage girls, a support system for AIDS victims, and the implementation of electronic transfer of government program benefits.  In private life, he is an electrical contractor, developer, and union official.  While he is considered a liberal on social issues, Troupe is deeply disturbed by the amount of immorality and violence on television - an issue generally championed by conservatives.  Troupe, chairman of the House committee on Social Service and Corrections,  will be forced out of office in 2003 with the imposition of term limits, but he plans to continue his fight to battle to end privatization of state prisons.

Quincy Troupe, Jr., while possessing some of his father’s athletic ability, has become a nationally known poet, biographer, and novelist.  Troupe has a passionate interest in music, which led to his coauthoring of a book with jazz legend Miles Davis: “Miles: The Autobiography,” for which he won an American Book Award.  Troupe has also published a nationally distributed book, “Miles and Me,” based on his experiences with Davis.  The topics of his poems published in six volumes  range from the injustice he sees in America - a mission which seems to be inherent in the Troupe family to the  celebration of his love of jazz.   His book “Snake-back Solos” brought him a second American Book Award.  Troupe is also the winner of the prestigious Peabody Award for “Miles Davis Radio Project.”  Troupe was recently featured on the PBS program, “The Language of Life” with Bill Moyers.

      00-09

LEAP DAYS IN OUR PAST

Today, February 29, 2000, is a special day.  While leap days are not all that rare, coming every four years, this leap day is even more special.  Astronomers and other scientists who have studied the Earth’s revolution around the sun have determined that it actually takes 365 days six hours and eleven minutes or so for the earth to do so.  When our present calendar was established, it was determined that in the years ending in 00, there would be no leap days, except in years which were divisible by four hundred.  This was done to make up for the eleven extra minutes every year.   Hence, today is the first leap day in American History at the end or beginning of a century - depending on how you determine when they begin and end.  Enjoy this day.  There won’t be another one like it for four hundred years.  

During the lunch hour on Leap Day, 1940, many Dubliners were startled by what they saw in a local restaurant.  Robert Pershing Wardlow stopped to grab a bite to eat on his way through Dublin.  He wasn't your average man.  Robert Wardlow was twenty two years old, but he  was big for his age - eight feet eleven inches tall and growing.  He was the world's tallest man and weighed 439 pounds.  Shortly after his visit to Dublin,  Robert Wardlaw died on June 27, 1940.

The news of the wounding of Marine James W. Bedingfield in the South Pacific dominated the news on Leap Day, 1944.  Bedingfield would later win the Silver Star for gallantry in action.

Leap Day in 1948 was an unusual one for churchgoers - a fifth Sunday in February.  Dr. John Taylor, a leader of the Baptist Home Missionary movement, spoke to a large congregation at Jefferson Street Baptist Church.  Basketball fans of Toombs High and Wadley High were still reeling from the clock foul up in the final seconds of the championship game of the Class C, 6th District Tournament held at Condor Gym. 

On Leap Day 1952, the United States was again at war. This time it was in Korea.  The Cedar Grove girl’s basketball team suffered a one point loss to Hiram in the Class C playoffs.  Earl Braswell of the Rentz F.F.A. spoke to the Dublin Lions Club, while Cordie Joiner was chosen as one of five Georgia students in an international farm exchange.  The Red Hill Woodmen of the World Camp presented a stage curtain to Lowery High School.  Kidd Pierce and Will Gordon had their 809-gallon still seized and destroyed.  Mrs. Nina Fuller led the kickoff of the annual Red Cross Drive.

The Leap Day of 1956 was fairly quiet.  Churchwell’s Department Store was selling boys’ jeans for a dollar per pair.  Robert E. Clark, Jr., the new manager of the Dublin minor league baseball team, spoke to a baseball booster group headed by Bush Perry, at the Shamrock Hotel.  Winn Dixie was selling coffee for 69 cents a pound, while Table Supply was selling a six-pack of Cokes for 19 cents, ham for 39 cents a pound, and steak for 69 cents a pound.  Tommy Savage, Dick Edenfield, Charles Garrett, and James Hudson organized a six-team business sandlot baseball league.

The Dexter girl’s basketball team was preparing for the state championship on Leap Day, 1960 with a victory over Wheeler County.  The Dublin Mill of J.P. Stevens was awarded a safety award for 464,901 man hours without an accident.  Sen. Herman Talmadge and Cong. Carl Vinson announced the award of Federal funds for urban renewal projects in Dublin.  Livestock prices were strong at the Jepeway-Craig weekly livestock sale.  Kay Hogan of Dexter won the Betty Crocker Award for homemaking.

City workers were still repairing the streets of Dublin on Leap Day, 1964 after the devastating ice storm of New Year’s Eve.  Tommy Patterson, manager of Dublin Garment Co., announced a two hundred thousand-dollar plant expansion.  The Dexter girl’s basketball team celebrated their capture of the region 5-C title.  Tri County Gas, formerly known as Perkins Gas Co., celebrated its grand opening.   Colonial Grocery was selling whole fryers for 25 cents a pound, corn flakes for 15 cents a box, and lemons for 29 cents a dozen.

On Leap Day, 1968, the United States was again at war - this time in Vietnam.  Clearview Cable was offering cable service for a dollar a month.  Ceil Pierce and Donna Haskins led the Dudley girl’s basketball team to a one-point victory over Twiggs H.S..  The East Laurens Beta Club inducted its new members.  “The Bible” was showing at the Martin Theatre.  Mr. and Mrs. Waldo Pharis and Mr. and Mrs. Albert Passmore were beaming over the birth of their leap day babies.

Dublin and Laurens County joined together in announcing the establishment of a joint landfill authority on Leap Day, 1972.  Cattle prices hit new highs.  The St.  Patrick’s committee held an organizational meeting.  Ellen Weaver was awarded the 4H Club Key Award for her outstanding work in that organization.  At the Martin Theatre, many people watched the cult classic movie, “Billy Jack.” An x-rated movie was shown at the East Dublin Drive-In, and a not so classic western, “Boot Hill” was playing at the Village Theatre. 

The month of February 1976 once again had five Sundays.  Three hundred kids walked for ten cents a mile to raise funds for Bruce Howell, an East Dublin youth who was a victim of cancer, and Ricky Evans, a former resident of Laurens County who was injured in a car accident.  Milk had risen to $1.18/gallon at Winn Dixie.  Eggs were sixty six cents a dozen.   

The Leap Day 1980 issue of the “Courier Herald” ran a human interest story on Stephanie Tarpley, one of Dublin High School’s most loyal fans ever.  Six months CDs were yielding 13.629%.  The Laurens County Hospital Authority announced the purchase of the Claxton Hospital.  Pamela and Milton Mullis celebrated the birth of their baby girl.  Trinity High School hosted the Class B SEIAS Tournament, while the Dublin boys lost a heart-breaking one point loss in the AAA Tournament in Macon.

Nora Waldrep, a long time worker in the Northwest Laurens lunchroom, was celebrating her 17th birthday, actually her 68th birthday, on Leap Day, 1984. Robert Martin was awarded a football scholarship to Taft College.  Local Civil Defense officials were conducting drills in preparation for the upcoming tornado season.

The editorial of the “Courier Herald” called for the construction of the Highway 441 by pass on February 29, 1988. Twelve years later the state hasn’t even started the work.  On Leap Day, 1992 the Black History Festival gave out its annual awards to outstanding citizens.  On February 29, 1996, Dublin was added to the list of cities through which the Olympic torch would pass.  Actually the torch passed through Dublin three times - the final two coming along Industrial Blvd. and Highway 441 South.  The torch also passed through Laurens County three times - the final two coming when the torch was carried along Highway 46 between Eastman and Soperton.  Dublin and Laurens County may have been the only city and county through which the torch passed three times.

What will be the news for Leap Day 2000?  As they say in the newspaper business, read tomorrow’s paper and find out, or go out and make some “good” history today. 

00-10

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE WHIG PARTY

IN LAURENS COUNTY

Today, Georgians are participating in the election of delegates to the national nominating  conventions of the Democratic and Republican parties, which will choose their candidates for the general election this November.  In the middle third of the 19th century, when tensions in American politics were at an all time high, a party known as the Whigs came into the scene. The Whigs were an unusual, unlikely, and fragile partnership between the abolitionists of the North and the State’s Rights factions of the South. This coalition, while successful at times, led to the eventual dissolution of the party after sixteen years.

The rise of the Whig party in the South came was a direct result of dissatisfaction with President Andrew Jackson.  While General Andrew Jackson was one of the most revered men in the South during the War of 1812, President Andrew Jackson drew the ire of many southerners because of his policies on the issues of nullification, the national bank system, and the effort to strengthen the Federal government.  In the election of 1828, Jackson drew tremendous support from Laurens County voters.  Gen. David Blackshear, one of Laurens County’s premier statesmen of the 19th century and a fellow general in the war, served as a delegate committed to Jackson in  the Electoral College, which elected Jackson to the first of his two terms.

The State’s Rights movement had arisen in Georgia during the 1820s.  Governor George M. Troup, a resident of Laurens County, took issue with President John Quincy Adams’s directive.  Adams enjoined Georgia from acquiring land from Indian tribes and forcing the Creeks and Cherokees  from their native lands.  The two leaders issued a heated exchange of letters and threats.  Gov. Troup got the upper hand,  and Georgia annexed the remaining part of her present territory.     In the national elections of 1832 and 1834,  Gov. Troup moved to the forefront of the Whig party, whose policies eventually led to the secession of the southern states from the Union in 1861.

Jackson, a Democrat,  did not run for a third term in the election of 1836.  His party’s successor, Martin Van Buren, had never been popular in Georgia.  Those opposed to the nationalistic policies of Jackson and Van Buren sent delegates to the Anti Van Buren Convention, which was held in the capital of Milledgeville on May 2, 1836.  Representing Laurens County at that convention were Bryan Allen, Dr. James S. Moore, and George M. Troup, Jr., the latter being the only son of the venerable governor.    Dr.  Moore, who lived in Dublin for a short time, was a graduate of the United States Military Academy and a classmate of Robert E. Lee. 

Van Buren easily won the election with support from all areas of the nation.  The Whig party put up three candidates: William Henry Harrison, Daniel Webster, and Hugh White.  The people of Georgia and Tennessee, Jackson’s home state, chose another Tennessean Hugh White, who finished third in the four-man race.  Naturally, being the home of Governor Troup and therefore the birthplace of the State’s Rights movement, Laurens County overwhelmingly supported White over Van Buren or any other of the Whig candidates.  The total vote for White was nearly unanimous - two Hundred and eighty-eight  votes for White and only one for the scoundrel Van Buren.  It is interesting to note, that of the counties which surround Laurens County, only Montgomery County, Gov. Troup’s second home county, supported the Whig candidate White.  Pulaski, Twiggs, Washington, and Wilkinson county voters supported Van Buren with fifty-five to sixty percent of their votes.  Emanuel Countians were much more supportive of Van Buren and voted for him by a margin of eleven to one.  On a statewide basis, White barely carried Georgia with fifty-two percent of the vote.

In the Spring of 1837, the State’s Rights Party held a convention in Milledgeville.  Wingfield Wright, Robert Robinson, and Cullen O’Neal represented Laurens County at the convention, which was held to strengthen the party  in Georgia and to prepare for the off-year elections of 1838.  Wright joined C.S. Guyton and Robert Robinson as delegates to the convention held in April of 1839.  During this period, the Whig factions realized that in order to win the Presidency, they must cooperate to  prevent the tyrannical acts of the President by electing a majority of their candidates to Congress.  While Laurens Countians were not in favor of the United States Bank, internal improvements, and a protective tariff, they realized that compromise and cooperation was a necessary evil.   The new political giants of Georgia, Robert Toombs, Alexander Stephens, Charles Jenkins, and John Berrien, headed the Whigs in Georgia. Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, William Henry Harrison, and John C. Calhoun led the party on the national level.

The coalition began to dissolve in 1840, when Gov. Troup hinted that the State’s Rights party should remain neutral in the presidential race.  Stephens encouraged Troup to offer himself as a candidate, but the Whigs finally settled upon William Henry Harrison, who was the leading Whig candidate in the 1836 election.  Van Buren had grown in disfavor among voters, who had supported him in his first term.  Harrison, on the other hand, was a hero for his victory over an Indian force at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.  Van Buren lost in a landslide to Harrison and  failed to carry his own state.  Harrison carried Georgia by a margin of eight thousand votes out of eighty thousand votes cast.  Van Buren increased his vote total in Laurens County by four hundred percent, but Harrison increased the Whig vote by nearly two hundred percent from the last election. He  and easily defeated Van Buren by a margin of five hundred fifty-six to four.  A majority of voters from Twiggs, and Washington counties left the Democrats and supported the Whigs.  Montgomery County voters staunchly supported the Whigs twenty-one to one.  Even the Emanuel voters, who were among the Democratic party’s most loyal supporters, voted in larger numbers for the heroic Whig, William Henry Harrison.  Unfortunately Harrison became ill while giving his inaugural address and died several weeks later.  Six weeks after the election, The Harrison and State’s Rights Party held their convention in Milledgeville, where Wingfield Wright, A. Ashley, and Robert Robinson represented Laurens County.

The Whigs lost power in Georgia during the gubernatorial and congressional elections of 1841 and 1842.  Democrats captured all of the seats in Congress in the last election under the general ticket system of electing congressmen.  The Georgia Whigs held their first convention in Milledgeville on June 19, 1843.  Laurens County was represented by Wingfield Wright, Robert Robinson, and W.W. O’Neal.   Wright was appointed to the prestigious Committee of Twenty One.  Serving with Wright were future Confederate Vice President, Alexander H. Stephens and  future Confederate General Robert Toombs, who was almost chosen President of the Confederacy ahead of Jefferson Davis.   The committee recommended candidates for state and national tickets.  The convention nominated  George Crawford for governor.  Crawford won the election, which led to a Whig resurgence in the state. However,  the Whigs were losing their strength in the South because of the deportment of John Tyler, who succeeded Harrison in office.  The State’s Rights supporters in Laurens County were drawn between siding with their avowed enemies, the northern Whigs and their treacherous Democratic friends in the South.   They chose to remain with the Whigs, who at least would not stab them in their backs.

Conciliation was still the key word in the attempts of the Georgia Whig leaders who were trying to hold the tenuous alliance with the Northern Whigs in the 1844 elections.  Georgia leaders, although opposed to tariffs, appeased their northern party members by speaking in favor of them.  The national Whig party held its convention in May 1844 in Baltimore, Maryland.  Lott Warren, a former resident of Laurens County, served as a delegate.  The convention was unanimous.  Their choice was Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky.  Clay, an early favorite in the race, lost support in the South because of his opposition to the annexation of Texas.  Many Laurens Countians felt betrayed by Clay’s position because of their close ties to those who had gone and who would later go to Texas to fight for independence and statehood.  James Birney, a northern abolitionist, took Whig votes away from Clay in the northern states.  Dr. Nathan Tucker, John M. Hampton, and Robert Robinson served as delegates to the state Whig convention, which was held on June 24, 1844.  C.B. Strong, who had served as Judge of Laurens Superior Court, and Charles Jenkins, who tried cases here, were delegates to the national convention.  

Despite his stand on Texas, Clay easily carried Laurens County in the 1844 election.  While James Knox Polk had posted the highest democratic vote total in twelve years with fifteen votes, Clay tallied six hundred and eighty-six votes for a total of ninety eight percent of the vote.  While Twiggs and Pulaski counties and most of west Central Georgia sided with the Democrats, Washington and Wilkinson county voters shifted their support to the Whig candidate.  Emanuel County, which had been a steadfastly loyal democratic county, dropped their support down to the seventy percent range. James Polk garnered fifty one percent of the vote in Georgia narrowly defeating Clay by a margin of two thousand votes. The outcome  could have been undoubtedly changed by Clay’s reversal of his stand on Texas.

The Whigs of Laurens County invited their fellow Whigs in the adjoining counties to a mass meeting in Dublin on the 25th of October 1844.  The Invitation Committee, composed of Robert Robinson, Allen Ashley, Charles P. Creech, Hugh McCall Moore, and Charles B. Guyton advertised the event in “Southern Recorder” and promised a free barbecue for all those attending the event.   Another meeting was held on the 9th of June 1845 to form an alliance with Wilkinson County Whigs for the Georgia Senate election.  Attending that meeting were Freeman H. Rowe, E.J. Blackshear, T.N. Guyton, Dr. Nathan Tucker, Ira Stanley, Robert Robinson, Russell Kellam, T.C. Spicer, Cullen O’Neal, R.A. Love, David Blackshear, John McLendon, Hugh M. Moore, Charles B. Guyton, Jeremiah H. Yopp, Edward Perry, Byrd Allen, D.F. Scarborough, David Harvard, Wiley J. Bender, Andrew Y. Hampton, Sugar Forrest, L.M. Hudson, Winfield Wright, J.T. Linder, Hardy Smith, and William McLendon.  Meanwhile, those few Democrats who lived in Laurens County elected William Godfrey to represent the county at the party convention in Milledgeville on June 16, 1845.

The Whigs of Laurens County met with the Whigs of Wilkinson County in July of 1845.  The meeting was held at Centerville Academy, which was located north of Dublin on the Mt. Olive/Claxton Dairy Road near the current location of Centerville Baptist Church.  Attending that meeting were Jeremiah Yopp, Winfield Wright, J.T. Linder, Allen Ashley, D.F. Scarborough, J. Wilkinson, Hardy Smith, Charles B. Guyton, David Harvard, William McLendon, Bird Allen, Wiley J. Bender, William Adams, Cullen O’Neal, Dr. Nathan Tucker, Robert Robinson, Edward Perry, L.M.  and L.M. Hudson.   The two counties chose Wesley King, of Wilkinson County,  to represent the party in the Senate race. Dr. Nathan Tucker was chosen to represent the county on the State Executive Committee.  Eli Warren, a former resident of Laurens County, represented Houston County on the committee.  

During this period, many of these men represented Laurens County in the state legislature.  The Whigs who served in the Georgia House from 1836 to 1852 were Bryan Allen, Andrew Y. Hampton, Robert Robinson, J. W. Yopp, Allen Ashley, and Charles B. Guyton.  Robinson served in the House  for thirteen consecutive years - a county record which stood  for one hundred fifty four years until broken by Dubose Porter in 1996.  The Whigs serving in the Georgia Senate during the period were Winfield Wright and Nathan Tucker.

A meeting was held in Dublin on June 1, 1847 for the purpose of electing delegates to the gubernatorial convention.  Attending that meeting were F.H. Rowe, J.H. Yopp, Robert Robinson, John Love, D. Harvard, W. Wright, J.T. Linder, JohnYopp, L.E. Smith, A.R. Kellam, D.R. Maddox, Henry C. Fuqua, Hardy Smith, C.B. Guyton, W.W. O’Neal, R. Robinson, Wm. McLendon, Dr. Nathan Tucker, W.D. Coney, Ira Stanley, L.N. Hudson, D. Roberts, J.N. Hampton, and John Thompson. (the first three of these were chosen as delegates.)

Party members came together again in Dublin on March 10, 1848.  Cullen O’Neal, C.B. Guyton, Ira Stanley, Iverson L. Harris, A.R. Kellam, W.H. Connelly, James L. Seward, Dr. Nathan Tucker, J.W. Yopp, Edward Sheftall, and L.M. Hudson chose John Lowther and Robert Robinson as delegates to the State Convention which was held in Milledgeville on 8th of May.  The principal issue of the election of 1848 was slavery.  The Whig candidate and hero of the Mexican War, Zachary Taylor, was non-committal on the issue.  Democrat Lewis Cass would leave the issue up to the individual states.  Van Buren attempted to resurrect his Presidency and entered the race as a “Free Soil” candidate.  The Democrats continued to gain strength in the county with twenty five votes, but once again couldn’t overcome the five hundred and sixty seven Whig votes.  Montgomery and Washington counties remained in the Whig column, but all other counties surrounding Laurens voted for Cass. Despite his heroic status, Taylor barely carried Georgia - winning with only fifty one percent of the vote.

Edward J. Blackshear, who was selected at a convention of Laurens and Wilkinson county Whigs at Centerville Academy on July 7, 1849, was elected to the Georgia Senate.  The beginning of the end of the Whig party in Laurens County came in 1850. Following the Clay Compromise of 1850,  an election was held on the issue of slavery.  The Constitutional Union Party of Georgia was led by Howell Cobb.  Locally, E.J. Blackshear and Charles Guyton led the Union Party.  When Laurens County's votes were tabulated, two hundred seventy two men voted for the Union while no one voted for the Resistance. The Union party was committed to seeking a workable solution with the North over the  issue of slavery.  T.M. Yopp, R.A. Love, and John W. Yopp represented the county at the Constitutional Union Convention at Milledgeville on June 2, 1851.  Attorney John R. Cochran was chosen to represent the county in the Democratic State Convention in May of 1852.  E.J. Blackshear, Cullen O’Neal, F.H. Rowe, J.R. Coombs, J.W. Yopp, C.B. Guyton, E.H. Blackshear, Hardy Smith, and T.N. Guyton, all former Whigs, met at the Union Meeting in Dublin on August 2, 1852.  Franklin Pierce won the presidency in a nationwide landslide over another Mexican War hero, Winfield Scott, who failed to carry his home state of Virginia.  In Laurens County, Scott got sixty seven votes, while Pierce got sixty three.  Former Whig and then Georgia Governor, Howell Cobb, carried the county with five hundred seventy nine votes.   Former Governor, Charles McDonald managed to get seventy-six votes. Cobb had supported Daniel Webster, but Webster died nine days before the election - a fact which didn’t seem to matter to the one hundred and sixty eight Laurens Countians who voted for the dead Yankee statesman.  The Whig Party in Laurens County died.  Laurens Countians supported the American party in 1856, which included the remnants of the Whigs  and the Union Party, which was opposed to secession  in 1860.

00-11

CAPTAIN RAYMOND TALBIRD

An Officer, a Gentleman, and a Hero 

I first met Captain Raymond Talbird at his pool side apartment in his son’s backyard.  Captain Talbird, a native of Macon, lived most of his life in Florida before moving to Dublin.  He was a hero.  He is still a hero.  The evidence of his heroism hangs on his bedroom wall - not one, but two Silver Stars for gallantry in action, a Bronze Star for heroism, as well a plethora of service and campaign ribbons.  He, like many of his generation, saw their mission in World War II as a job to do . Do it, do it well, and hope like heck that you would make it back home.  His sometimes atypical leadership style led to the saving of many of the lives of his men.

Captain Talbird was placed in Command of Co. A, 395th Infantry Reg., 99th Infantry Division.  The company’s first combat was just before the Battle of the Bulge.   Talbird remembered, “There were three rifle companies in our battalion.  The company commander of Company B was real “gung ho.”  The Colonel asked the company commanders what they thought about going into battle for the first time. The Captain of Company B was ready to go.  The Captain of Company C said  about the same.  When the Colonel asked Talbird what he thought, Talbird said, “ I told him that I had never been in combat before.  I didn’t know if I would run or not, but I would have to wait and see. B Company took the point.  They made a cardinal sin when they moved through an open field. The company commander was shot and killed.  C Company took the town, but their company commander was dressed highly and walked with a swagger.  When one of his men saluted him, he was shot and killed.  After that, A Company took the lead most of the time,” Capt. Talbird said.

Capt. Talbird relates the following story: “After the Battle of the Bulge, we got orders to pull back from the position we were holding.  Col. Hendricks told me that we were trying to dodge the Germans.  At the time we had no contact with the Germans.  The company commanders talked with the Colonel to figure out where was safe.  We finally found out that it was the Germans who told us to pull back and that it was a false report. Things got rough after that.  We got separated.  I was on a road leading back to the area where we were supposed to congregate.   A jeep driver found me and asked me if I wanted to ride back.  I told him that there were things I needed to do and that I would walk back.  I think it was about fifteen miles.  My wife always said that I stretched it to twenty five miles.  I saw many men with their feet frozen.  While I was walking back my feet began to hurt terribly.  I kept walking then had to sit down beside the road.  I cut my boots off and my feet were badly swollen.  I put on a pair of fleece lined shoes and started walking again.  By the time I got back to battalion, my feet had stopped hurting.  I had a doctor look at them and told myself that if they were too bad,  that I might get to go home.  I couldn’t feel the pain any more and thought it must be really bad if I couldn’t feel the pain.  The doctor took one look at them and told me that they were fine - that I had done the right thing and the reason that they didn’t hurt anymore was that they had circulation in them.”

The Captain’s own words tell his story best. “ One time we had to dig in opposite some German pillboxes.  We had to occupy that position because we were being stymied by those pillboxes.  You couldn’t move during the day because they would take pot shots at you.  We had to move at night.  They brought our food in at night.  We had two men in a foxhole.  One would stay while the other went back to eat.  One time one of the men went to sleep in the foxhole.  When his buddy returned, he was startled and fired his rifle killing him. I didn’t know what to do.  I didn’t want his family to learn how he was killed.  I reported that he was killed in action.”

“I was ordered to take one of those pillboxes.  We attacked at night.  I instructed one platoon to take the pillbox.  They came back and said that they could not find it.  It was hidden in the snow and very hard to find at night.  I sent another platoon and they came back with the same story.  You couldn’t use your compass, because you would have to light it to see it. I called battalion and told them I was going to take the whole company to find it.  I had no compass, so I just started walking like I would walk around the block at my house.  I told my men to go around the knoll and when daylight came to shoot toward any movement.  It sounded like a war going on.  The Colonel called on the radio, I told him that I was trying to take a pillbox and that I would get back with him as soon as I could. We found the pillbox and took it out.  I always walked up front with my company.  I learned that the Germans would shell us with their mortars at the rear of the company, where the company commanders were usually positioned.  I can’t remember, but I think that was when I won my first Silver Star.”

“We were following General Patton who was moving lickety split after Normandy.  We were to move in behind him and to mop up the towns. Normally we had two tanks and the infantry walked in behind them.  But as we went along we would find vehicles beside the road.  We were way behind Patton, so I used every vehicle we could find so that my men could ride instead of walking.  Sometimes we had to get out the vehicles and walk into town.  Patton had sent out orders that the infantry should walk like it was supposed to do.  So I continued to let my men ride on the tanks and put the others in trucks. We were told that we would be sitting ducks.  I told them to put a machine gun on my jeep and that I would lead them in.  We entered one town and I saw a German officer at the end of town waving a white flag.  He told my interpreter that he wanted to surrender to the highest ranking officer. My interpreter told him that I was the highest ranking officer.  He told my interpreter that I looked like a private.  I showed him my captain’s bars to show him I was an officer.” 

On March 25, 1945, fifty five years ago this week, Capt. Talbird personally led a squad of riflemen and three bazooka teams in an attack.  During the action, he continuously exposed himself to heavy enemy fire in supervising the movements of his men.  Capt. Talbird was directly responsible for knocking out two of the deadly German 88 guns.  He was also responsible for the destruction of a personnel carrier and an anti aircraft gun, in addition to the capture of twenty-two prisoners.  For his gallantry in action, Capt. Talbird was awarded his second Silver Star, a truly remarkable feat.

“We were supposed to cross the Danube River on April 27th.  At 1100 hours, I went to the bank to oversee the loading of the boats and to get the boats across the river.  I had no inkling there were Germans across the river.  I saw no activity over there.  The engineers were ending their preparations and the first elements were preparing to cross. I was the S-3 of the first battalion.  Suddenly, I had an awful feeling that we should cross further down with no problems. I tried to get the regimental commander to delay, but he responded that this would be just a routine crossing. I was on the phone to the 2nd Battalion commander.  He said that I was fooling regiment, but I wasn’t fooling him.  I informed him that the first battalion was lost and not prepared to cross.  I thought to myself that it would be suicide.  The 2nd battalion went down to the bank, loaded the boats, and moved out into the war.  Then all Hell broke loose.  They were shot all up out in the water.  There was nothing I could do.  I waited and crossed the river five to six hours later about five to ten miles away with no problems,” the Captain remembered.   For his meritorious service in deploying his troops in a manner which saved their lives, Captain Talbird was awarded a Bronze Star.

Captain Talbird will tell you right up front that he had done things that he didn’t want to do and didn’t think he could do.  His primary mission was to do what was best for his men - an attribute which naturally led to the accolades of his heroism.  The next time you pass by Pineridge Subdivision, remember that the gray-haired man who lives out by the Al Talbird’s pool is and will always be an officer, a gentleman, and most of all, a hero.

00-12

THE DIXIE OVERLAND HIGHWAY

Historic U.S. Highway 80

We call it the Old Macon Road or the Old Savannah Road, depending on which way you are traveling.   It was once the way to Macon for Christmas shopping.  It was once the way to Savannah, Tybee Island and fresh seafood dinners.  It was once the primary coast to coast route across the southern half of the United States.  It brought travelers, some  rich and famous and some just regular folks, through our community, ranging from Dr. Martin Luther King to Henry Ford to Elvis Presley.  It was known by those living west of El Paso, Texas as the “Broadway of America.”  Texans called it “The Main Street of Texas.”  Those east of Texas called it  the “Dixie Overland Highway”.  It was Highway 80, “America’s first All Weather Coast to Coast Highway.”  Some say that portions of the highway followed an old Spanish Trail from St. Augustine to San Diego.

The planning stages for the Dixie Overland Highway began in 1915.  By the summer of 1916, Dublin was chosen to be located on the route.  The highway was formally opened in the fall of 1917. In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge designated the highway as U.S. Highway 80. Much of the credit for the highway’s location through Dublin belongs to the Chamber of Commerce and Congressman W.W. Larsen for their unceasing efforts in the project.  The highway began on the Atlantic Coast at Tybee Island, a premier summer resort. After running along the palm-lined Victory Drive near the heart of Georgia’s ancient city of Savannah, the highway passes through the east-central Georgia cities of Statesboro, Swainsboro, and Adrian.  In the early 1930s, legendary gangster John Dillinger traveled along the highway between the latter two cities.

Highway 80 wasn’t paved throughout Laurens County until the 1930s.  The portion between Scott and Dublin was paved first in 1931.  The benefits of the national highway, although substantial, were heavily outweighed by the burden of the economic depression of the 20s and 30s.  Automobile magnate Henry Ford was a regular visitor to Dublin on his trips to his home near Savannah.  From Dublin the highway ran to Macon in the heart of Central Georgia.  From Macon, it followed the fall line to the west Georgia city of Columbus.  During World War II, Highway 80 was an important link between Fort Benning at Columbus, Camp Wheeler in Macon, and Savannah.

As the highway entered the state of Alabama, it passed through Phoenix City, one of the most notorious hives of immoral activities in the 1930s and 1940s.  Next the highway passed through the town of Tuskegee, where George Washington Carver established a college for Negroes and where the legendary Tuskegee Airmen trained for aerial service in World War II.  The capital of Montgomery is the next stop on the highway, where it runs by the Alabama State House, where the Confederate States of America organized in 1861.  Highway 80 between Montgomery and Selma is one of the most famous stretches along this 2700 mile highway.  Dr. Martin Luther King led his famous march along the highway.  The march, which included unfortunate deadly acts of violence, led directly to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In the state of Mississippi, the highway passes through the state capital of Jackson.  West of Jackson, Highway 80 comes near the site of the Battle of Baker’s Creek, which was fought on May 16, 1863 and caused deaths and severe injuries to more than a dozen young Laurens County men serving in the 57th Ga. Infantry.  After the defeat at Baker’s Creek, the battered Confederate Army retreated along the approximate route of the highway to the bastion of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River.  The Union Army laid siege to the embattled Confederates for six weeks until the city was surrendered on July 4, 1863.  After crossing the Mighty Mississippi River and before entering Texas, the highway passes through the Louisiana cities of Monroe and Shreveport.

“The Main Street of Texas” runs into Dallas,  where it becomes Commerce Street.  On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Elm Street, a short distance from Commerce Street.  From Dallas the highway goes to Fort Worth, the livestock capital of Texas.  It passes along the old trail from Fort Worth to Abilene and runs southwest to the western tip of Texas at El Paso. 

After leaving El Paso, Highway 80 passes within a short distance of Mexico before heading up the Rio Grande River to Las Cruces, New Mexico.  At Las Cruces, it joins with Highway 70 for a short distance along a route where the two highways cross the Continental Divide.  The highway then turns south toward the New Mexico/Mexico border.  The route turns north near the border and heads into the infamous Old West town of Tombstone.  

On October 26, 1881, Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp, along with their compatriot, “Doc” Holiday, walked down Fremont Street, which later became part of Highway 80, to C.S. Fly’s Boarding house.  There they met the Clantons and the McLaurys in the famous “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.   Just outside of town, overlooking old Highway 80,  is the equally famous burial ground, dubbed “Boot Hill” by the locals.   

The highway passes northwest toward the cities of Tuscon and Phoenix through miles and miles of desert.  At Phoenix, Arizona, Highway 80 passes by the Arizona state capitol, the third and final capital along the route.   From Phoenix, the highway passes through the famous Gila Bend area of Arizona.  After passing through Yuma, Arizona, Highway 80 enters the California Desert.  In the early days of Highway 80 auto passengers had to drive over 12' x 8' sections of cross ties, bound together with steel bands.   In the lower edge of California, Highway 80 passed by the legendary Petrified Forest.  The highway nears its end as it enters the city of San Diego, where it passes by Balboa Park,  home to the world famous San Diego Zoo.  Highway 80 originally ended at its intersection with Hwy. 101.  The highway was unofficially extended to the San Diego Bay during World War II to accommodate military operations in the area.  Finally, at Cabrillo National Monument at Point Loma, Highway 80 comes to an end at the Point Loma Lighthouse, which was built in 1854.

Today, Highway 80 no longer officially exists west of Dallas, Texas.  What remains of that original route has been blown away by desert winds or replaced with interstate highways and new state roads.  Fortunately, for those of us east of Dallas, Highway 80 is still with us -  a reminder of when travel was at a much easier pace and the coast to coast route was lined with of good eating places, gas and comfort stations, and plenty of good folks.

00-13

APPOMATTOX

Where the Nation United

One hundred and thirty five years ago this week, the killing stopped.  The dead, estimated to be around six hundred twenty thousand, if laid end to end would span a distance of more than six hundred and sixty miles.  For four years, the young men of the United States and the Confederate States battled each other, often in hand to hand combat, from Pennsylvania to Texas.  The majority of the people in Laurens County did everything they could to avoid the bloodshed.   The people of eastern Middle Georgia favored remaining in the Union. However, when the time came, they left their homes and families to fight for Georgia.

The Battle of Gettysburg was so bloody - fifty thousand men were killed and wounded in three days - that the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee and the Army of the Potomac under George Meade had to rest for ten months.  A new Union General, Ulysses S. Grant took command during the winter of 1863-4.  Grant launched one assault after another on Lee’s Army.  The number of dead, especially Grant’s people as they were called by General Lee, soared.  During the summer of 1864, when Atlanta fell, Grant laid siege to the Confederate capital of Richmond and its sister city, to the south at Petersburg.  Lee allowed many of his men to come home on leave during the last winter of the war.  Fighting in winter was simply not an option.  Many of the men never came back. As the sun crossed the equator and headed north, both armies knew the end was near.  

Grant’s final thrust at Fort Steadman broke the Confederate lines.  Lee’s only hope was to move west and then south in hopes of joining Gen. Johnston’s Army of the Tennessee. Johnston’s army was moving away from General Sherman’s army, who was pursuing them from the south.  Petersburg fell on April 2, 1865.   Company G of the 49th Georgia Infantry, “The Laurens Volunteers,”  was occupying the last line of the Confederates.  When the Union army broke through, John W. Barnett, Jesse A. Bracewell, Thomas D. Dixon, Henry Hollingsworth, James B. Jones, James L. Kinchen, William H. Kinchen, Samuel Y. Lee, William H. Mullis, Thomas B. Towson, Byron Whitehead, and William H. Wright were captured.  Each of the men were taken to prison camps where they remained for nearly three months.  Samuel Y. Lee was the exception.  He died before he could be released.  The “Blackshear Guards,” known as Company H, 14th Georgia Infantry, were along the side of  the “Guards.”  Both of the companies were assigned to Gen. E.L. Thomas’s Brigade.  William G. B. Faulk, Henry Gay, John McCant, Josiah Padgett, T.S. Register, and Benjamin Shepard were taken to the coast for imprisonment, primarily at Point Lookout, Maryland.

Lee’s Army pulled away from the trenches around Petersburg - a place they had called home for more than eight months.  Leroy J. Collins, a future resident of Laurens County, was taken prisoner at the High Bridge over the Appomattox River on April 6th.   James N. McLeod, a native of Telfair County who subsequently moved to Laurens County, was the last Laurens Countian in the Army of Northern Virginia to suffer a battlefield wound.  He was wounded on the 8th of April as Lee’s Army was cut off near the tiny county courthouse village of Appomattox, Virginia.   Lee’s Army had no where to go - Yankees in their front, Yankees in their rear.  Their food was almost gone.  Their uniforms and their shoes, if they still had them, were shredded.

April 9th, 1865, was a Sunday, Palm Sunday.  Gen. John B. Gordon, a future U.S. Senator from Georgia, a Georgia governor, and an extremely popular politician with the voters of Laurens County, led one last gallant attempt to break the Union lines in Lee’s front.  Gordon broke through only to realize that a sea of blue was approaching his men from three sides.  There was nowhere to go.  When he reported back to Lee, the gray-haired general remarked, “There is nothing left for me to do but go to see Gen. Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.”

Robert E. Lee, who had brought the southern army to within sight of a complete victory over the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg, decided that it was over.  He sent messages announcing his  intentions across the lines to General Grant.  The two antagonists arranged a meeting in the home of Wilbur McLean near the courthouse.  McLean had only lived in the house for a little less than four years.  He moved there to get away from the battlefields of Eastern Virginia.  His previous home was at Manassas, Virginia, where the first battle of the Civil War was fought in July, 1861.   The original home no longer stands.  It was dismantled in the 1890s with the idea of reconstructing it on the mall in Washington, D.C. as a monument to the end of the war.  The financiers of the project ran out of the money and the parts of the house were left on the site, for every souvenir hunter and do-it-yourself home builder to come by and spirit away.  Thankfully, detailed plans of the house were made during the dismantling phase, and a duplicate house was constructed by the National Park Service.

Lee arrived first in his best and cleanest dress uniform.  Grant sauntered in a half hour later in a uniform spattered with mud and dirt.  The two men reminisced with each other about their days in the Mexican War.  Grant was uncharacteristically generous in his surrender terms.  After all, he had viciously attacked the Rebel army for more than three years every time he could.  Grant allowed the Confederate officers to keep their side arms and personal possessions.  Those men who had horses could keep them for the long journey home.  Each man was paroled with a promise of not being detained on their way back home.  Lee and Grant shook hands, and Lee rode away on his horse “Traveler.” These men worshiped General Lee.  They would follow him to their deaths without any question. Tears trickled down Lee’s cheeks into his white beard. “Cheers changed to choking sobs as with streaming eyes and many cries of affection they waived their hats. Each group began in the same way with cheers and ended in the same way with sobs, all the way to his quarters.  Grim-hearted men threw themselves on the ground, covered their faces with their hands and wept like children.  Officers of all ranks made no attempt to hide their feelings, but sat on their horses and cried,” said a witness to the event.

In July of 1861, the Blackshear Guards and the Laurens Volunteers began preparations to go to Virginia to begin the war.  Each company contained between one hundred and one hundred and twenty men.  They were proud.  They were strong.  The process of disarming the Confederate Army and issuing paroles took several days.  The Guards counted only sixteen members.  L.C. Perry was in command.  His men, about 1/8 of their original strength were Benjamin Atkinson, O.J. Beall, Lewis Coleman, Henry Currell, T.R. Dixon, John Dominy, John Hutchinson, John Jones, Thomas  Jones, Thomas  Register, William Robinson, Jethro Scarborough, Wm. Scarborough, Wm. Smith, H.M. Stanley, W.A. Williams, and Bill Yopp, a former slave who was the company drummer.  The Volunteers counted William H. Ashley, J. Barnett, Elijah Curl, Thomas Daniel, Valentine Fulford, Jefferson  Fuller, Ben Fuqua, James Hester, Warren Johnson, Daniel Lee, Kinchen Massey, William B. Spivey, and Joshua Studstill.  John B. Roberts was the company captain.    Among the other Laurens Countians in other units were: Miles Brack, Allen Cowart, Wm. Tillery, Meredith Graham, Cicero Marchman, Henry Watson, John Dixon, John Ussery, Jackson Saturday, Henry Beacham, G.W. Belcher, Noel Camp, Ellis Johnson, Ervin Lovett, Thomas Pritchett, W.J. Stafford, Wade Wright, James Jones, John F. Nelson, John C. Parker, Drew E. Williams, John D. Sanders, Roland Tidwell, and James B. Duggan.  It was a long walk back to Laurens County.  Their strength was gone, but they remained proud, like one of their neighbors from Washington County, who said,  "You may leave the South if you want to, but I am going to Sandersville, kiss my wife, and raise a crop, and if the Yankees fool with me anymore, I'll whip 'em again."

00-14

WITNESSES TO HISTORY 

 Laurens Countians Saw Great Moments of our History in April

The month of April has provided Laurens Countians with the opportunity to witness many historic and exciting  events.  While some of those events happened here, others took place in other cities.  Some of these events were a critical part of our nation’s history, such as the three score or so men that were lucky enough to be alive when the Confederate Armies surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia and Greensboro, North Carolina on April 9th and April 26th of 1865.  Others were parts of a series of events which is an important aspect of our country’s history.

Louise Kohn Baum, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte Baum, moved with her husband to Dublin around the year 1890.  Mr. Baum operated the largest department store in the area.  Mr. Baum bought the Martin Jones house on the corner of North Franklin Street and East Jackson Street, which came to be known as the Baum Corner.  Louise Baum was a daughter of Phillip Kohn, a well renowned artist, whose carvings and paintings were displayed between the President's Chamber and the House of Representatives in the Capitol of the United States.  Kohn also did the art work on the exterior doors of the House of Representatives.  As a young lady, Louise liked to attend the theater in Washington.  On an early spring Friday evening, Louise was invited to join Washington society for a benefit play starring Laura Keene.  The play was to start shortly after nine o'clock when the distinguished guests arrived.  The audience was celebrating the end of a long and terrible ordeal.  The honorable guest was given a thunderous ovation.  The curtain rose and the performance of "Our American Cousin" began.  About 9:30 a shot was fired.  Screams rang out!   A cry of “Sic semper tryannis - thus be it ever to tyrants,” the Virginia state motto, was heard from a slender young actor who came flying out of box seats.  Louise and the audience looked up in horror to see President Abraham Lincoln slumped in his chair at Ford's Theatre.  On the next morning of April 15, 1865 President Lincoln died.  The history of our county and our nation would be changed forever. 

     On April 17, 1944 the Colored Elks Clubs of Georgia held their state convention at First A.B. Church in Dublin.  The event was hosted by the Norman G. McCall Elks Lodge of Dublin.  The Georgia Elks clubs each sponsored a high school student in a statewide oratory contest.  The winner of the contest was from Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta.  In his  speech, the fifteen-year-old student, who would enter Morehouse College in the fall, spoke on the topic of “The Negro and the Constitution.”  The young man called for the better health and education of his people.  He spoke of Christianity and the Golden Rule.  He urged fair play and free opportunities at home, the same as we were fighting for in Europe and Asia.  He suggested that if Negroes were given the franchise, “they will be vigilant and defend, even with their arms, the ark of federal liberty from treason and destruction by her enemies.”  Little did the audience realize what they were witnessing.   In a compiled autobiography, the young man recalls that the reading of this essay was his first public political speech.  The young man spent the next twenty four years of his life fighting for the constitutional rights of the people of his race.  By now, I know you have guessed who he was.  The young man, who came to Dublin fifty six years ago, was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For the last seven decades, Laurens Countians, or I should say, those Laurens Countians lucky enough to get tickets, have made the two-hour trip up Highways 319 and 1 to Augusta National Golf Course.  The thrilling shots and the great rounds from the best golfers in the world -  Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Tom Kite, Greg Norman, and Tiger Woods -  have been witnessed by golf fans of Laurens County during the month of April.  Few people know our county’s connections to the Masters Golf Tournament.  When the City of Dublin began to develop Stubbs’ Park, they looked to a friend and fellow horticulturalist of Col. J.M. Stubbs, the name sake of the park.  They chose P.J. Berckmans, well renowned landscape architect and a former President of the Georgia Horticultural Society.  Berckmans' beautiful home gardens became a part of the Augusta National Golf Course.   In 1978, Don Johnston of J.P. Stevens began the process of making material for a new customer.  The green fabric was made into large bolts and delivered to the customer.  The material was especially tailored to be given annually out to one man.  This man, of course, was the winner of the Masters Tournament, and the material made in East Dublin was fashioned into the coveted “Green Jacket.”

On April 4, 1974, my friend Bill McLees asked myself, Bo-J Claxton, Whitey Price, and Ricky Anderson to go to a baseball game in Atlanta.  Bill had been studying the Braves’  situation and decided that this would be the night.  Fortunately, I had parents who trusted us enough to let a group of 17 year-old kids go to Atlanta at night - a school night at that.  Fifty thousand other people had the same thoughts as Bill that night.  The Atlanta Fulton County stadium was packed - not a normal sight in the stadium during the 1970s.  We and the other fifty thousand plus folks were there to see if he could do it.  He had done it seven hundred and fourteen times before - only Babe Ruth had done it as many times.   Many people don’t remember that he was a member of the Braves when he did it.   He didn’t do it on his first try.  On the fourth day of the fourth month and in the fourth inning of the game, he came to bat.  With one almighty flick of his wrists he struck an Al Downing pitch that sailed just over the left field wall.  He did it!  He hit number 715!  He was of course, Henry Aaron, the all-time home run king in baseball, and we saw it, one of the greatest moments in American sports history.  Today if you go to the Braves game, go a few minutes early and stroll over the site of the old Fulton County stadium, the baselines, infield, and warning track are all marked with bricks in the middle of the asphalt parking lot.  Walk over to the where that left field fence was.  That’s where it hit!

     On the local scene, a  three remarkable events took place in Laurens County within three days in the month of April, 1949.  On Monday night, April 18th, the Dublin Green Sox played their first regular season game at Lovett Stadium.  They defeated the Sparta Saints in a Georgia State League game by the score of 14 to 3.  On March 31st, the Green Sox lost the first minor game ever played here to the Macon Peaches in an exhibition game.  On April 20th, the Dublin Drive-In opened with the motion picture "Good News", starring June Allyson and Peter Lawford.  The next morning on April 21st,  J.C. Penney, founder of the Penney's store chain, came to Dublin to visit the local store.  A luncheon was held at the brand new Country Club dining room to welcome Mr. Penney. 

00-15

THE DUBLIN IRISHMEN BASEBALL TEAM OF 1930

The Boosters, Dublin’s 1929 entry in the semi-pro Southeast Baseball League, came back to win the second half of the season and nearly swept first half champion, Douglas, to win the League Championship.  The 1930 Irishmen were a whole new team.  W. H. Lovett was elected President of the club.    Most of the players in the league were free agents.  They could be hired or fired at the whim of an owner.  Lovett and his manager, R. H. Hightower, Sr. began the process of putting a team together in May.  Most of the players in the league were former minor league players, college coaches, and current college players, who played after the school season ended.  The players all shared a common bond - a love for the game.  But they had to eat, and they followed the money wherever they played.

The Southeast League was composed of six teams: Dublin, Helena-McRae, Douglas, Waycross, Fitzgerald, and Vidalia.  Dublin’s season opener was a less than satisfactory 17-1 loss to Douglas.  In the opening lineup were Bob Hill, Frix, Scarborough, Scott, Craven, Asa Waters, Lefty Dixon, Linder, Fielder, Caldara, and Godfrey - in those days players were more commonly known only by their last names.  In one of the early games of the season, the Irishmen played Vidalia, who had a Moses in right field and at first base.  That Moses may have been the major league star, Wally Moses, who was from Uvalda, Georgia, or his brother, Harry, who according to the old timers was better than Wally.  After the first nine games, Dublin had three wins with six losses.

Then around the middle of June, the Irishmen’s  fortunes began to turn around.  The return of Jack Johannsen at shortstop and the addition of Claude Herrin of Oglethorpe University; Amos Martin at second base; McDaniel, who coached at Bryson College and who set a Piedmont League record with 40 assists in 45 games in right field at catcher; Tiny Obsorne, a power pitcher, of whom it was said that he weighed slightly less than a five hundred bale of cotton; Dick Davenport; power pitcher, Cromer, whom Lovett picked up from the Vidalia team after Cromer had defeated the Irishmen; Willie “Sweet Daddy” Whaley; and the power hitting outfielder, George Nobel catapulted Dublin to a run of eight wins and one loss. The Irishmen had a ten and four record to move into third place in the first half of the League with a very respectable record of eighteen wins and ten losses.  At one point in the first half of the season, Cromer was the ace of the league with five wins and no losses.  Dublin’s other ace, “Lefty” Dixon, had five wins with only one loss.  At one point, George Nebel was smacking the ball at an outstanding pace with a batting average of .615.  Despite the better play of the Irishmen, attendance began to slack off.  Lovett kept supplying the money to keep the team going.  The editor of the Courier Herald, which was owned by Lovett, criticized those fans who were sitting outside the fence on the hill where the Bobbin Mill was located, and not paying for a ticket.  Soon,  the crowd on the hill diminished, and those fans began coming to the game. They paid one dollar for a reserved ticket and fifty cents for a general admission ticket - not a small amount of money in the depth of the depression.

Dublin started the second season with two wins, but when ace pitcher Cromer broke the rules and drew a suspension, the Irishmen fell off.  The team turned it around and jumped into sole possession of first place by the seventh game.  The players and the team’s owners agreed that from that point forward, the players would play for the gate receipts.  Lovett invested more money to keep the team, which looked like it had a chance to capture the second half pennant, from suffering a similar fate as the Vidalia team. Vidalia dropped out of the league, but was quickly replaced by Louisville.  Cromer had so impressed the scouts, that he was offered and then signed a contract with the minor league Columbus team of the South Atlantic  or “Sally” League.

In the first dozen games of the second half, the Irishmen turned it up, winning nine and only losing three.  One of the victories was a twenty-eight run, thirty-two hit, drubbing of Louisville, 28 to 6.  Johnny Coker, Dublin’s outstanding shortstop, was picked up by the Columbia, S.C. team of the Sally League.  Hut Parks was brought into to play shortstop.  Asa Waters, who began the season in the field, but had come on to be a fine pitcher, signed a contract with Charlotte of the Sally League.  Lefty Wilson, Grant Thomas, Cecil Rhodes, Jodie Matt, and Lowe were brought in to try to fill the void.  R.T. Peacock, Sr. took over the management of the club.  Fan enthusiasm and the increased take at the gate kept the team going.  Douglas left the league with financial problems.  Waycross got into financial troubles and let their players play for the gate.  Fitzgerald rallied late in the season to tie the Irishmen with only several games to go.  It took a ninth inning rally in the last regular season game with Fitzgerald  to keep  the Irishmen in first place.  The Irishmen eventually won the second half of the season, following a 14 to 5 victory over Louisville.

Dublin entered the league playoffs with a distinct disadvantage.  Their catcher, Holbrook,  had a broken hand.  Their ace pitcher had a bad arm.  Fitzgerald easily won the first game of the playoffs,  11 to 8.  The Fitzgerald team took the second game, also.  Lefty Wilson and Jake Morris ( who once played minor league ball with Knoxville and was the current baseball coach at Cochran A. & M. College)  were brought in to shore up the ailing lineup.  The Irishmen did manage to win the third game, 6 to 5.   However, they lost the fourth game because of too many walks by the score of 8 to 5.  Then, right in the middle of the league championship, the teams played an non-counting exhibition game.  Neither team put up too much of a fight, but the Fitzgerald nine came out on top.    The game apparently was made an exhibition game because the team owners wanted to extend the series so that a sixth game could be played in Eastman, Georgia.  It just so happened that the Georgia Woodmen of the World, all three thousand of them, were in town.  It was hoped that the game would draw a big crowd.    Dublin was simply outclassed by Fitzgerald, losing the final game 13 to 0.  On a happier note, Holbrook signed a contract with Columbus, Whaley  joined the  Sally League, and Lowe was offered a contract with the Detroit Tigers.

Now you know the story of the 1930 Dublin Irishmen.  Here is the rest of the story.  At the beginning of the season, the Irishmen hired a short and stocky college teacher from Georgia Military College in Milledgeville to play second base.  In his first and only at bat, he got a hit.  In the third inning, he dislocated his knee - never playing another game of baseball for the Irishmen.  Old timers would remember him.  Any true Georgia Bulldog fan would certainly remember him.  The “Little Round Man”  came to the University of Georgia as an assistant football coach in 1938.  Within four years, he took the Bulldogs to the top of the Southeastern Conference.  In 1942, he coached the Heisman trophy winner, Frank Sinkwich, and the Bulldogs to a championship and a victory in the Rose Bowl.  In 1946, he led the Bulldogs to the first of only two undefeated seasons.   The Bulldogs, led that year by all-time great, Charley Trippi, defeated North Carolina in the Sugar Bowl.  In 1959, his Bulldogs won a fourth S.E.C. championship under the leadership of Fran Tarkenton.  He finished his 22nd year of coaching in 1960 as one of college football's greatest coaches.  His name was, of course, Wally Butts. 

00-16

REMEMBERING DEWEY JOHNSON,

The Little Boy Who Grew Up To Be A Hero

The morning of April 25, 1980 was a typically beautiful Spring day in Laurens County.  Ardelia Dixon decided to go fishing that morning.  She had seen her brother briefly in the last few months and only knew that he was working on some secret military mission.  Just a few hours later, she got the news - the news she had feared, but hoped would be true.  That night the evening news carried the story of the ill-fated attempt to rescue fifty-two Americans being held hostage by the Iranian government.   School children and thousands of others displayed American flags printed by the Courier Herald and tied yellow ribbons around their trees as symbols of  hope for a quick and safe return of the hostages.   As the story began to unfold and night began to fall, a pall was cast over the county.  We began to realize just how close we were to the death and destruction that we were seeing on our television sets.

Staff Sergeant Dewey Johnson was born and raised in Laurens County.  Dewey, the son of Elmer and Lucille Johnson, attended the East Laurens schools.  He, like most boys of my generation, probably played army. “ The most important thing I remember about Dewey was that he truly loved the military,” his sister Ardelia remembered.   At the age of seventeen he entered into the military service of his country.   Dewey married Dianne Gaillard.  They had two fine children, Lee Ann, 8, and Wesley, 2.   Sgt. Johnson was stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station near New River, N.C. as a quality assurance specialist in the maintenance of helicopters.    When the Pentagon began planning a super secret mission to rescue the hostages, Dewey Johnson was among the one hundred and eighty  men who volunteered to serve in Operation Blue Light.  Dewey didn’t know any of the hostages.  He knew that they were not his friends, but he knew that they were Americans.  He knew that they must be brought home.   After twenty practice missions, the men were ready to go.  It would be a dangerous mission. The refueling stop had to be done at night.  The commandos would have to transfer to helicopters, which would fly them to a secret mountain hideout.  From the mountains, the assault on the compound two hundred miles away, where the hostages were being held, would have to be swift.

Six C-30 transport planes, half of them carrying men and equipment and the other half carrying fuel, rendezvoused with helicopters in an Iranian desert.  The nearly moonless night sky hampered the refueling operation.  The hydraulic systems of the Sigorsky RH53 helicopters began to fail.  When the number of effective helicopters was down to four or five and their ability to bring all of the hostages out safely was in serious jeopardy, the ground commander scrubbed the mission.  As one of the helicopters began to lift off and move above one of the C-130s to top off its fuel tanks, one of the copter’s rotors clipped the cargo plane. Both aircraft burst into flames.  Ammunition inside the aircraft was ignited. Eight Americans were killed.  One of them was Dewey Johnson.  Another was Capt. Lyn McIntosh of Valdosta, who was piloting one of the two aircraft. McIntosh’s father managed the Sears-Roebuck store here in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

As the news of the maelstrom came into the news office of the Courier Herald, so did Buddy Kight, father of Marine Corporal Kenneth Kight.  The elder Kight had received a call from his son earlier in the week telling him of a secret mission.  Kight was relieved to find that the name of his son, who had also volunteered for the mission, was not on the casualty list.

A special memorial service was held for the men in the Amphitheater of Arlington National Cemetery on May 9, 1980.  President Jimmy Carter personally consoled the families of Johnson, and McIntosh, and the other fallen heroes.  A granite monument was placed just west of the amphitheater in honor of the eight men.  It lies in a section dedicated to  heroes - just to the side of the monument honoring the astronauts of the space shuttle Challenger and within a few yards of the grave of  another Laurens County hero, Congressional Medal of Honor winner Capt. Bobbie E. Brown. Another memorial service was held in North Carolina, where Johnson and two of the other men were stationed.  All of the members of Johnson’s squadron and Johnson’s family came to the Johnson home to show their support and give comfort to Dianne. 

The body of Dewey Johnson was escorted home for his burial in the military section of Dublin Memorial Gardens.  Lt. Col. Ed Seifert, Johnson’s commanding officer, presented a Marine Defense Meritorious Service Medal and an American flag to Diane Johnson, along with six other flags to family members.   Lt. Col. Seifort once flew missions in Vietnam with Lt. Tee Holmes of Laurens County.  A Marine squad honored Johnson with a twenty-one-gun salute.  Almost immediately, members of community began a fund-raising drive to honor Dewey Johnson.  Led by Bo Whaley and Doug Hall of the Courier Herald, Leon Green, Dahlia Wren, Cecil Passmore, and Wendell Zeigler, the generous and grateful citizens of Laurens County raised the funds and secured the presence of Veteran’s Administrator, Max Cleland, himself a victim of war, for the dedication of the monument on the courthouse square.  Rev. James Frost recited a verse from John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  The Strickland family displayed a collection of Marine memorabilia, which included a model of Johnson’s helicopter,  in the window of their storefront across from the site of the monument

Nine months after his death, Dianne Johnson traveled to Washington to meet the hostages following their release on Inauguration Day.  She appeared on the Today Show and shared a special time with President and Mrs. Reagan along with the widows of the other men, which brought a sense of closure.  The women talked with each other until the middle of the night, sharing their deep pains with each other.

Two years after his death, a second monument to Johnson and his fellow comrades was dedicated on the grounds of the Dublin-Laurens Museum.   Ron and Vicki Miller of Florida decided to honor the eight men with a plaque to be placed in their hometowns.  Doyle Dominy donated a flag pole.  Charlie Garbutt put it up.  Wilkinson & Son and Georgia Power Company lent a hand.   Dublin Burial Vault donated a block of granite. The ladies of the John Laurens Chapter, N.S.D.A.R. donated an American flag that had been flown over the U.S. Capitol.  State Representative and soon to be Congressman, J. Roy Rowland,  dedicated the monument.  Rowland, a decorated hero in World War II, dedicated the monument as a symbol of the men’s courage and self sacrifice.

Monuments are reminders.  They remind us of our accomplishments.   They remind us of our heroes.  They remind of us of little boys, like Dewey Johnson, who grow up to be heroes and lay down their lives for their friends.

00-17

The 180th Anniversary of Kea’s Methodist Church

The Little Church in the Wildwood

Nine Score years ago, a young Methodist minister and his wife gathered their family together and moved away  from the only world they had known in Darlington County, South Carolina.  They were bound for Georgia.  They settled near the eastern banks of the Great Ohoopee River in western Emanuel County, a few miles east of the present day community of Adrian, Georgia.  They came with other families, the Beasleys, the Barwicks, and others.  They had a goal:  To build a legacy for their children and to serve the Lord in every way.  This week, the descendants of Warren and Polly Beasley Key gather on the hallowed grounds where Rev. Warren Key established a little country church in the wilderness -to celebrate their heritage, t0 reaffirm their faith in God, and to preserve their little white church in the wildwood.

In 1820, the piney woods along the banks of the Ohoopee River were a wilderness.  Distances between homesteads were measured in miles, instead of feet.  Warren Key, a Methodist minister whose birth coincided with the coming of Methodism to America in 1784, established a church, probably a brush arbor type structure, within the view of his home on the Adrian to Norristown Road.  In those days, Methodist Churches were few and far between.  The congregation in the early days was composed of family members and neighbors.  Warren and Polly Key had over a dozen children and with their families alone in attendance there was a pretty good crowd.   Ministers rode on horseback over large areas - making it impossible to minister to all of the churches in their districts.

Very little is known about the early decades of the church.  Rev. A.D. Russell of the Macon District was assigned to the church in 1843 following the death of Rev. Key.  Rev. John Flanders, a member of the nearby Flanders family, succeeded Rev. Russell. In 1854, Rev. John McGehee, who was assigned to the Dublin Mission of the Macon District, served Key’s Church.  Rev. McGehee served as a minister or presiding elder for nearly sixty five years, making him the longest serving Methodist minister in that capacity in the history of Georgia Methodism.  Rev. McGehee’s record is rapidly becoming in jeopardy.  Reverends Jack and Bill Key have been preaching the Gospel for nearly sixty three years. Another well-known minister of the late 1800s was the Rev. Charles A. Moore, who served many Methodist Churches in this area.

Following the death of Rev. Key, Burrell Key, his eldest son became the patriarch of the Key family.  According to family legend, Burrell saw the name “Kea” on the bottom of English-made chair and assumed that the name should be spelled “Kea.”    Most of the family members kept the original spelling, but the name of the church was changed to Burrell Kea’s preferred spelling.  The years of the Civil War were trying for the Key family and members of the community.  Many of the young men walked to Savannah in the winter of 1862 to join the Confederate Army.  A few made it back. Many did not.   Five of Burrell Kea’s sons served.  Warren Key, Jr. was killed on September 17, 1862- the single bloodiest day of the Civil War - at Antietam, Maryland.  John Nelson Key, Warren’s youngest son, died of a disease a month earlier in Savannah.

The church continued to be blessed with the finest Methodist ministers in the South Georgia Conference.  Among those ministers were,  A.M. Williams, E.M. Whiting, H.A. Hodges, F.W. Flanders, Daniel G. Pope, T.D. Strong, W.F. Smith, O.B. Chester, W.C. Glenn, and George C. Thompson - the latter was known far and wide for his skills as an architect in addition to his ministry in the Methodist Church.

In the last sixty years, twenty ministers have served the Church at Kea’s, which is now a part of the Adrian Circuit of four churches.  They are the Reverends, J.H. Allen, T.H. Tinsley, A.C. Prickette, Hoke Hatcher, Samuel Mayo, H.G. McCrary, Tasker Johnson, L.A. Lemons, Fred L. Maddox, Carlton Reid, W.L. Tipton, W.W. Jackson, Cecil Ruffin, Griffin Thompson, Frank L. Perry, Joe Coody, David Phillips, Johnny Watts, Johnny Walker, and Tommy Veal, the current pastor.

When Warren Key died in 1843, his body was buried in a small cemetery at the rear of the church property.  His wife, several of their sons and daughters and their families were buried near his side.  The old cemetery has been preserved, although the vast majority of the old wooden grave markers have not survived.  A new cemetery, directly behind the church, was established in the years following the Civil War.  Wiley Kea, one of Warren and Polly’s sons, is buried in the oldest known grave.  About the year 1895, the members of the church decided to build a new church building.  John A. Braswell, whose wife Elmina was one of the church’s most ardent supporters, sawed and milled the wood for the church building, which is the present church building.  The original church building was a simple wooden frame building, that has been modified over the last century. 

In the early 1960s when membership in rural churches began declining, a group of concerned church members and descendants of Warren and Polly Key were faced with losing the church they had grown to love.  The group was led by Rev. George Reid Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Early Braswell,  Thetas Braswell, Mr. and Mrs. J.L. Hutchinson, Dawson Kea, Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Spearman, Ted Spivey, Elmo Sumner, Homer Sumner and H. Dale Thompson.  The group organized as the Warren Key Memorial Foundation with the mission to preserve the church, the cemeteries, and the grounds. They wanted to educate and follow the principles taught by Warren Key and to promote and preserve the heritage of the Key/Kea family.  

The first annual homecoming day was held on April 29, 1962.   Presiding over the services were Rev. Fred Maddox, Rev. Leland Moore, and Rev. G. Reid Smith, the guest speaker.  The first song was “Faith of Our Fathers,” in keeping with the Key family motto, “Faithful and More Faithful.” Jo Ann Kea, accompanied by Annie Moore on the piano, presented the first in a long line of special music performances which highlight the annual reunions.  The founders decided from the beginning that the focus of the homecoming would be the morning and afternoon worship services - but anyone who has ever attended a homecoming at Kea’s would have to admit that the mid-day dinner on the grounds finishes in an extremely close second place.  Most of the speakers in the morning services are ministers who have family or community ties to Kea’s Church or the Key family.  Among the other notable speakers were: Ronnie Thompson, a Key descendant and former mayor of Macon; Cecil Day, founder of Day’s Inns of America and husband of an Adrian girl and Key descendant; Deen Day Smith; Rev. Jimmy Waters; and  Bishop Richard Looney.   One of the traditional songs which is sung during the service is “The Star-Spangled Banner,” written by an honorary member of the Warren Key family, Francis Scott Key.

Kea’s Church was designated as a historical site of the United Methodist Church in 1983.  The “Little White Church in the Wildwood” stands today because of the faith, love, and determination of the extended Key/Kea family.  It is a part of my heritage.  In a way Kea’s church, or one like it, is a part of your heritage too.  When it comes to historic preservation, the little country church, beyond any shadow of a doubt, stands at the top of the list.

00-18

Dublin Hosts the 1920 Georgia Confederate Reunion

When the hair of the “boys in gray” began to turn gray, the old soldiers of the Confederate Army gathered together each year to reminisce about the good old days and the bad old days they spent together on the battlefields of Virginia and the trenches around Vicksburg.    Former Confederate soldiers organized the United Confederate Veterans in the 1890s.  Each southern state held a reunion every year, usually in the early spring.  The national reunion followed a few months later. The site of the annual Georgia reunion rotated among the larger cities of the state.  In 1920,  Georgia’s aging veterans, now approaching an average age of eighty years, gathered in Dublin.

May 12, 1920: It was Dublin’s big day.   The reunion in Dublin was made possible through the efforts of Dublin lawyer J.A. Thomas.  Thomas, a native of Dublin,  had been elected by his peers as State Commander of the Georgia Division of the United Confederate Veterans.   The men in gray kept pouring out of the trains on Tuesday afternoon.    At the office of the Chamber of Commerce, over sixty hundred and fifty veterans  registered by mid-morning.  Officials estimated that more than seven hundred veterans were in attendance.  Those in attendance stated that it was the largest reunion in five years, a remarkable occurrence in that many of the survivors had died during that period.

For over a month the people of Dublin had been preparing for the big event.  R.E. Braddy volunteered to barbeque all the pigs and sheep that could be donated.  Serving on the barbeque committee were B.A. Hooks, T.V. Sanders, H.A. Knight, E.B. Freeman, and C.F. Ludwig.  Izzie Bashinski and N.G. Bartlett headed the Finance Committee which sought out and received the necessary monetary support.  

Any event of this sort needed a lady’s touch to pull it off.  Mrs. B.A. Hooks was named as chairwoman of the Open Air Reception Committee.  Every lady in the city and the county was asked to contribute a basket of food to feed the soldiers and their guests.  The women of the county greeted the men and their families as they arrived in the city.  Among those women were Mrs. B.A. Hooks, Mrs. M.V. Mahoney, Mrs. Franklin Harold, Mrs. J.D. Prince, Mrs. T.J. Pritchett, Mrs. D.W. Shewmake, Miss Mamie Ramsay, Miss Clemmie Patton, and Miss Adeline Baum.  Over thirty ladies served punch at four stations. 

The opening session began on Wednesday morning, May 12th, at the courthouse.  Dr. Asby Jones of Atlanta opened the meeting with a prayer, following remarks by the presiding officer, Brigadier General A. J. Twiggs.  Mayor L.Q. Stubbs, who served as entertainment chairman of the event, welcomed everyone to the city and thanked the veterans for  honoring the city by making it their choice for the annual reunion.  Stubbs praised the men, stating that “no braver or greater band of men had ever been organized.”

Dr. J.G. Patton, minister of Henry Memorial Presbyterian Church, gave the  welcome speech on behalf of the churches of the city.  Mrs. T.J. Pritchett gave a welcome speech on behalf of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.  Mrs. Pritchett spoke of the debt the South owed its heroes for their bravery in the Sixites.  Miss Adeline Baum read an address on behalf the Adeline Baum Chapter of the United Children of the Confederacy.  

Following an eloquent speech by Carl Hinton, Adjutant General of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, General Thomas stood up to respond to all of the addresses.  Thomas turned the program over to Gen. Twiggs, commander of the Eastern Division of Georgia.  The meeting was adjourned and everyone walked or rode over to Stubbs Park for a barbeque dinner.  A.L. Merritt of Forsyth stated that his only complaint of the reunion was the fact that he ate too much of the good food and got sick.   The old soldiers reconvened back at the courthouse a 2:30.  The Dublin Band, which had provided music at four national Confederate reunions in the last decade, provided the music.  Lady officials, including Margaret Pritchett, the Matron of Honor, were saluted.  Maj. General Thomas spoke first followed by all four of the regional brigade commanders: Gen. B. B. Morgan, Southern; Gen. B.N. Barrow, Western; George Hillyer, Northern; and A.J. Twiggs, Eastern.  Remarks by Gen. E.E. Gilmore, commanding the Calvary, and Col. H. W. Powell, commanding the Engineers, completed the program. 

At five o’clock the veterans were treated to a car ride to the see the sites of Dublin.  A large number of the veterans declined the invitation and chose instead to watch the horse races.   Four hundred veterans came to the open air reception held on the lawn of the courthouse.   The ladies of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, including many state officials, decorated the courthouse with flags, strung lights in the color and shape of the Confederate flag, and illuminated the trees with brilliant lights.  The Dublin Band played patriotic tunes all during the event.  Many veterans failed to resist the temptation to dance in public.  Again there was a legion of ladies and young girls manning the punch bowls.

At nine o’clock that night, Mr. and Mrs. A.W. Garrett opened their Bellevue Avenue home for a reception sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.  The last event of the night was the sponsor’s and maid’s ball at the Shamrock Club rooms.  Chaperons for the event were Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Finn, Mr. and Mrs. J.S. Simons, Dr. and Mrs. J.L. Weddington, Mr. and Mrs. C.T. Watkins, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Lawson, Mr. and Mrs. Hill G. Thomas, Mr. and Mrs. John S. Adams, Mr. and Mrs. R.T. Peacock, and Mr. and Mrs. E.G. Simmons.

The next morning, the men returned to the courthouse for a business session.  Musical presentations were intermingled with the election of officers and the plans for next year’s reunion.  The meeting ended with the song, “God Be With You ‘Til We Meet Again.”  The men returned to Stubbs Park for a picnic. 

The pinnacle of the two-day celebration was the Grand Parade through the streets of Dublin.  Thousands of people lined the streets to see Georgia’s grand old veterans march or ride through the city.  Brig. Gen. Twiggs served as Grand Marshal of the Parade.  He was aided by his Chief of Staff, Capt. Cleveland Pope, the commander of the local company of the Georgia National Guard.  The grand events came to a close on Wednesday night at nine o’clock with a street dance.

The next morning the hundreds of visitors retreated.  Everything was back to normal.  The veterans had a grand time, thanking the people of Dublin for the food, the hospitality, and the opening of many homes to the veterans.

 

00-19

THIRD ANNUAL TRIVIA QUIZ

This year’s trivia quiz is on the subject of sports in Laurens County.  See how many of these questions you can answer.  The answers will appear in next week’s column.

1. Which Laurens County school was the first to win a state championship?

A) Dublin 

B) Dudley

C) West Laurens 

D) Cedar Grove

2. In the 1959 South Georgia Championship, what remarkable feat did Dublin High center Buddy Adams accomplish?

A) He picked up a fumble and scored a touchdown.

B) He recovered his own kickoff.

C) He threw a touchdown pass.

D) He blocked a field goal attempt with his foot.

3. What remarkable feat did Jasha Balcolm of the Dublin Irish baseball team accomplish on March 11, 2000 against the Washington Co. Hawks?

A) He hit two grand slams.

B) He had nine hits.

C) He led off the game with a home run and ended the game with a home run.

D) He pitched a perfect game.

4. What did MLB umpires Harry Wendlestadt, John Kibler, Rich Goetz have in common?

A) They all flunked their eye tests at umpire school.

B) They played football in Dublin.

C) They umpired in the World Series.

D) They umpired minor league baseball games in Dublin.

5. Who scored the winning touchdown in the Dublin-Americus game in Dublin in 1960?

A) Dan Reeves

B) Steve Spurrier

C) Ben Crain

D) The Dublin High Coach

6. Which of the following legendary S.E.C. Coaches have never spoken at the annual Dublin High Football Banquet?

A) Ray Graves, Florida

B) Shug Jordan, Auburn

C) Wally Butts, Georgia

D) Bear Bryant, Alabama

7. What remarkable feat did Howard and Clayton Cordell accomplish on May 19, 1960?

A) They finished first and second at 441 Speedway.

B) They scored hole-in-ones at the Country Club on the same day.

C) They had interception returns of over eighty yards in the same game.

D) They pitched no-hitters against each other in the same little league game.

8. What remarkable feat did little league pitcher Mark Trollinger accomplish in 1973?

A) He hit a home run in three straight innings.

B) He pitched a perfect game, striking out every batter.

C) He walked fifteen batters in a row.

D) He bunted a home run.

9. What was the nickname of the Dudley High School teams?

A) The Dudes

B) The Cardinals

C) The Reds

D) The Indians

10. What was the nickname of the Cadwell High School teams?

A) The Lions

B) The Tigers

C) The Bears

D) The Bulldogs

11. What was the nickname of the Rentz High School teams?

A) The Hornets

B) The Bees

C) The Yellow Jackets

D) The Wasps

12. What was the nickname of the B.D. Perry High School teams?

A) The B.D.P.s

B) The Eagles

C) The Blasters

D) The Lions

13. What was the nickname of the Oconee High School teams?

A) The Trojans

B) The Braves

C) The Warriors

D) The Rams

14. What was the nickname of the Dexter High School teams?

A) The Golden Hawks

B) The Warriors

C) The Hornets

D) The Bruins

15. What was the first nickname of the East Laurens High School teams?

A) The Falcons

B) The Rams

C) The Colts

D) The Buckeyes

16. What was the nickname of the Laurens High School teams?

A) The Lions

B) The Tigers

C) The Bears

D) The Wizards

17. What nickname does Laurens County native Theron Sapp have?

A) The Baron of Brewton

B) The Duke of Dudley

C) The Montrose Mauler

D) The Drought Breaker

18. What profession did former Dublin Jr. High School teacher Melvin Lattany have before coming to Dublin?

A) An NBA player.

B) An NFL player.

C) An Olympic track star

D) A PGA golfer.

19. What was the most famous basketball team to play in Laurens County?

A) The Atlanta Braves

B) The New York Celtics

C) The Atlanta Hawks

D) The Georgia Tech Yellowjackets

20. Of which of the following nicknames, which have not been used by the Dublin High School Football team?

A) The Irishmen

B) The Green Hurricanes

C) The Banshees

D) The Shamrocks

21. Who was the first Laurens Countian to be named to an All-American team?

A) Herman Wynn

B) Dallas Allen

C) Tom Perry

D) Azzie Kellam

22. What is former Dublin High basketball player Sally Smalley most known for?

A) A professional tennis player.

B) A women’s basketball referee.

C) A professional women’s golfer.

D) A professional softball player.

23. For whom was “Battle Field” at the old Dublin High School named?

A) A player who died during the season.

B) The man who gave the most money for the field.

C) The school superintendent.

D) Those killed there during the Civil War.

24. Who ate at Tindol’s Motel Restaurant on May 6, 1960?

A) Stan “The Man” Musial

B) “Joltin” Joe DiMaggio

C) Jerome “Dizzy” Dean

D) “Marvelous” Marv Throneberry

25. In which sport has a Laurens County team not won a GHSA state championship?

A) Baseball

B) Basketball

C) Golf

D) Football

ANSWERS:

1. D.  The Cedar Grove Girls won the State Class C Basketball Championship in 1951. Dublin High School won the first championship for boys in football in 1959.

2. B.   Dublin Center Buddy Adams kicked off and recovered his own kickoff in the SouthGeorgia Championship game in 1959.

3. C.  Jasha Balcom led of the game hitting a home run.  In the bottom of the ninth inning of an extra inning game, Balcom hit a second towering drive over the right center field fence to end the game.

4. C or D.  All three of these umpires called minor league games in Dublin as well as World Series game.

5. A.   Dan Reeves scored the winning touchdown for Americus against Dublin in 1960.

6. D.   Alabama coaching legend, Paul “Bear” Bryant, is the only one of these legendary SEC

coaches who have not spoken at the Dublin High School Touchdown Club Banquet.

7. B.  Brothers Howard and Clayton Cordell each shot holes in one at the Dublin Country Club on May 19, 1960.

8. B.  Mark Trollinger, pitching in the Dublin Recreation Department Junior League struck out every one of the fifteen batters he faced for a perfect game.  He only allowed two foul balls.

9. B.  The Dudley High School teams were known as the Cardinals.

10. D.  The Cadwell High School teams were known as the Bulldogs.

11. C.  The Rentz High School teams were known as the Yellowjackets.

12. B.  The B.D. Perry High School teams were known as the Eagles.

13. A.  The Oconee High School teams were known as the Trojans.

14. C.  The Dexter High School teams were known as the Hornets.  The girl’s basketball teams were known as the Hornettes.

15. B.  The first nickname of the East Laurens High School teams was the Rams.

16. B.  The Laurens High School teams were known as the Tigers.

17. D.  Theron Sapp, of Brewton, was a star running back for the University of Georgia in the late 1950s.  His touchdown against Georgia Tech in 1957 broke a long drought of wins by the Bulldogs over Tech. That feat earned him the nickname of “The Drought Breaker” and idolic status as one of only four Bulldogs to have his jersey, #40, retired by the University.

18. C.  Melvin Lattany was a world-class sprinter for the University of Georgia track team in the early 1980s.  At one time he was the fastest man in the world.

19. A. or D.  The Atlanta Braves traveling basketball team headed by Ron Reed, Clete Boyer, Sonny Jackson, Bob Didier, and yes, Bob Uecker defeated a team of recreation department and former high school players 95 to 78 at an exhibition game at the Dublin Jr. High Gym on January 2, 1971.  In the 1930s, the New York Celtics, known as the white equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters defeated the team from Georgia Teacher’s College in Statesboro by the score of 60-56 at the Hargrove Gym in Stubbs Park.  The Celtics were owned by singer Kate Smith, whose “God Bless America” has become our second national anthem.

20.      D.  The Dublin High School football teams have never been known as the Shamrocks.

21. A. Herman “Breezy” Wynn, running back for the Tennessee Volunteers in the early 1930s, was an All-American player, but missed most of his senior season due to injury. In 1959, Wynn was named to Sports Illustrated’s Silver Anniversary All-American team.  Tom Perry was a high school All-American basketball player for DHS in 1964. Robbie Hahn was an All-American receiver for Furman in 1966.  Azzie Kellam was a Women’s Junior College All-American basketball player in 1976.  Dallas Allen was an All-American track star in 1979.

22. A.  Sally Smalley Bell, who played basketball for Dublin High, is one of the foremost female basketball referees in the country.  She has officiated in championships in the Olympics, the WNBA, and most recently the NCAA women’s championship game.

23. C.  Battle Field was named for Dublin City School Superintendent L.H. Battle who served the city in the 1940s when the field was first established.  The first night football game was played there on Halloween Night, 1941 and was officially opened by Gov. Eugene Talmadge.

24. B. On May 6, 1960, at the Tindol Motel Restaurant in the building now occupied by Air Controlled at 822 Telfair Street, “Joltin” Joe DiMaggio and his entourage stopped for lunch on their way to the Stuckey Candy Company in Eastman.  DiMaggio was a representative of a company which sold food products to the U.S. military.

25. A.  No Laurens County team has ever won a GHSA State Baseball championship.

00-20

CAPTAIN BOBBIE BROWN, U.S.A.

The story of Captain Brown is an heroic tragedy.  Robert Evan "Bobbie" Brown, Jr. was born in Dublin in 1907.  He was the son of Dr. Robert Evan Brown, Sr. and Minnie C. Brown. His father died when he was only two years old.   Like most boys his age, Bobbie detested school.   He left home at the age of fifteen.  He convinced a recruiter in Columbus that he was old enough to join the army.  Brown entered an artillery unit at Fort Benning.  Brown, a natural soldier, excelled in all areas of weaponry.  Bobbie excelled in sports as an All-Army football player and with 39 victories in the boxing ring.  He was offered three college scholarships until the schools found that he had not graduated from high school.  Brown remained at Fort Benning until the beginning of World II.

When World War II began, Brown was the First Sergeant of the Headquarters Company of General George Patton's 2nd Armored Division.  Master Sergeant Brown commanded a platoon that landed in Morroco.  After training,  the division pushed across North Africa, engaging the top elements under the command of German General Erwin Rommel.  At Oran, Sgt. Brown won a battlefield commission to First Lieutenant.   He was transferred to the 1st Infantry Division, "The Big Red One."  The First Infantry moved to Sicily, where Lt. Brown won a Silver Star at Mt. Pelligrene, near Torino.  After that campaign, Brown moved to England and Scotland for nine months of  intensive training.  Lt. Brown led his platoon of Company C on to Omaha Beach on " D-Day."  The company commander was killed in the fighting following the invasion.  Bobbie, now Capt. Brown, took command of the company.  Brown listed as his toughest battles the landing at Normandy; Castilogne, Italy, where his company was cut off for three days;  and the struggle for Hill 609 in North Africa against Rommell.

The Big Red One drove across France toward the Belgium border.  Brown's unit fought at the breakthrough at St. Lo.  In the early morning hours of October 8, 1944, Capt. Brown received orders to attack Crucifix Hill in Aachen, Germany.  The Emperor Napoleon had erected a crucifix at the top of the hill over a century before.  Aachen was the source of 12 percent of Germany's coal and 70 percent of its steel output.  All types of armor and artillery were being manufactured there.  Capt. Brown headed off toward the first German pillbox, with two flamethrowers and some satchel charges.  While preparing to throw a charge, Brown encountered a young German  soldier.  Brown threw a roundhouse punch, decking the boy.   After throwing the charge, Bobbie dove for cover in a bomb crater.  He returned to the platoon for more charges.  Under intense machine gun and mortar fire, Capt. Brown moved for the second pill box.  After destroying the pillbox, he realized that he had been wounded.  The third pillbox was the most fortified.  Six foot thick concrete walls, six machine guns, an 88 millimeter gun, and 45 men were an objective for a company, not a single man.  Brown encountered still another soldier in the door of Pillbox 20.  Once again, Capt. Brown threw two charges.  Diving for cover, he landed on his face at the instant of the explosion. 

A few days later, Captain Brown was severely wounded by an artillery shell that fell within a few feet of his position.  After several months in a Belgium hospital, Capt. Brown returned home for 30 days.  He returned to his unit and fought in Czechoslovakia.

Aachen was the first German city to be taken by the American army.  For his bravery and heroism beyond the call of duty, Captain Brown was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  President Harry Truman presented the award to him on August 23, 1945.  At the end of the war, Captain Brown was the oldest company commander in the United States Army and the leader in the number of years served.  He is one of only fourteen Georgians to be accorded such an honor.  After the war, Captain Brown stood guard at the Nurenberg Trials.  He attended officer school back at Fort Benning in 1946 and 1947.  Captain Brown completed thirty years of service in 1952 with thirteen war wounds.  Brown was wounded in the stomach, both legs, a knee, and both ears.  He suffered from a loss of hearing and eyesight.

Captain Brown's life after the Army was a tragic one.  He was in and out of hospitals to correct the damage to his body.  Frequent mental and physical pain plagued Capt. Brown.  He was never offered a decent civilian job and finally took a job at West Point Military Academy, as foreman of the mess hall.    Captain Brown died on November 12, 1971.  A year and one half before his death, Capt. Brown was honored by the City of Dublin for his heroism.  Mayor Lester Porter, a war hero himself, presented Captain Brown with the Order of the Golden Shamrock at the City Hall.  The local post of the V.F.W. honored Capt. Brown with a banquet at Brown's Restaurant.

Captain Brown’s body was laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery.  In the place where our national heroes lie, Captain Brown’s grave occupies a special place just west of the National Amphitheater. The grave is beside the graves of other Medal of Honor winners and near the monuments to the Challenger astronauts, the men of the U.S.S. Maine, and the eight men who lost their lives during the Iranian hostage rescue attempt of 1980.

Captain Bobbie Brown is and will always be a hero.  He was an ordinary man who loved his country.  When the time came, he exhibited extraordinary courage and heroism. Captain Bobbie Brown was the first Georgian ever to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, eight Purple Hearts, and two Silver Stars.   The recent recognition of Captain Brown has been long overdue, for he is a true American hero.  

The Georgia Legislature has honored Captain Brown with a highway named in his honor. The Captain Bobbie Brown Memorial Highway begins at the Wheeler County line and follows Georgia Highway 26 north through the community where Captain Brown grew up. It ends at the courthouse in Dublin.

When you pass along the highway and someone asks who was Bobbie Brown?  Tell them he  was one of the tens of millions of Americans who answered their country’s call during World War II and when the time came for him to do his duty, he acted with courage, skill, and gallantry.   Tell them he was a Laurens Countian.  Tell them he was a hero.

00-21

CAPTAIN WILLIAM A. KELLEY

An Irishman Whose Luck Finally Ran Out

He was called a hero.  He was a hero.  He was supposed to be Irish. After all, his name was Kelley.  He was supposed to be lucky.  His luck finally ran out. This is the story of Captain William Arlington Kelley, United States Army Air Force.  Kelley was a Dublin High School coach and teacher, the son of a Methodist minister, and a B-29 pilot in the 20th Air Force.  His story was one of a pillar of good luck. However, in one dark, ironic, and uncharacteristically errant moment, he was snatched into a watery grave in the depths of the Pacific Ocean by the tentacles of fate, which didn’t want him and most of his crew to come home.

The story of Captain William A. Kelley is one of the most intriguing  I have found in the history of our county.  It could have been made into a movie.  It should be made into a movie.  I wish that I could sit down with Capt. Kelley and have him tell me his full story.  If not for that one fateful moment on a dark moonless night on Kwajalein Atoll, Kelley and his crew of the Lucky Irish would have been national heroes.  Whoever said “all’s fair in love and war” was wrong. 

Coach Kelley was an outstanding athlete in his day.  He was great coach, Curtis Beall remembered.  “He once managed to get me a pair of shoes for a basketball game when I didn’t have any,” Beall said.  “They were too big and came off during the game,” Beall fondly remembered.  Kelley’s last year of coaching was in 1939.   He  lived in Dublin where his father was the District Superintendent of the Methodist Church.

When the war broke out, Kelly joined the Army Air Corps.  He began his training in January of 1942 at Maxwell Air Force Base, where he spent five months before moving to Napier Field, Alabama. Kelley spent sixteen months at Walnut Ridge, Arkansas before his final training at Smyrna,  Tennessee.   Captain Kelley was given command of a B-29 bomber.  The B-29 was a long range bomber designed especially for the thousand mile plus bombing runs from the American held Pacific Islands to the mainland of Japan.  The bomber’s captain was given the honor of naming his plane.  Kelley chose the name “Lucky Irish.”  A popular feature of the B-29 was the nose art.  Each plane carried an image, usually of a beautiful woman.  The crew of the Lucky Irish chose a design of a well endowed woman wearing a bonnet and a towel across her lap posed kneeling in front of a four leaf clover.  Near the end of the war, these images were replaced with more military-like symbols, mainly at the behest of the wives of some of the commanding officers.

Kelley was assigned to the 497th Bomb Group of the 73rd Bomb Wing, which was attached to the 20th Air Force.  By the end of October, 1944,  the stage was set at Saipan for the first B-29 bombing runs over Japan.  The first raids began in November over Iwo Jima.  On November 24, 1944, Brig. Gen. Rosey O’Donnell led the first B-29 strike over Tokyo aboard the flag ship of the 20th Air Force, “The Dauntless Dotty.”  Flying the “Dotty” was a former B-17 pilot whose crew had been the first in the European Theater to complete twenty five  missions and earn a ticket home.  That man was Col. Robert Morgan, who was the pilot of the famed, “Memphis Belle.”  Kelley and his crew flew on the second mission three days later.

  

Nearly every other day or so, the bombers of the 20th Air Force pounded military targets in Japan.  By the end of March, 1945, the bombers were dropping bombs that ignited rapidly spreading fires and incinerated large residential areas.  The Lucky Irish was right in the middle of the more famous of these attacks on April 7, 1945.    It was the first mission in which the B-29s were escorted by fighters.  On their run to the Mushashino plant, the Irish’s gunner shot down seven Japanese fighters.  John Neville, the co-pilot, commented simply, “Yeah, that was a bad one.”

The bombing runs continued.  One by one the crew of the Lucky Irish was getting closer to getting their thirtieth mission and returning home.  Kelley and his crew flew twenty three missions on the Lucky Irish.  The remaining seven were flown on other planes.  The last flight of the “Lucky Irish” took place on May 24, 1945.  Captain Kelley had already flown his thirtieth and took the night off.  Lt. Neville and most of the crew flew toward Japan.  

Lt. Neville remembered, “Bill (Kelley) sat this one out since he had already completed his thirtieth mission flying one with another crew.  Our plane had never had any bullet or flak holes.  We were hit pretty bad.  Our two right engines were shot out.  I was the pilot on this mission.  I had to fly several hundred miles back on the return trip with my foot on the right rudder to keep the plane flying.  Every twenty minutes, one of the crew would have to come up to the cockpit to keep their foot or hands on the rudder while I rested my right foot because it was start to tremble and ache after every twenty minutes.  We crashed landed at Iwo Jima.  Some of the men made an inspection and found seventy six flak holes in the plane.”

They made it.  The men of the Lucky Irish were coming home, but their plane wasn’t.  It was shot up too badly to ever fly again.  Captain Kelley got an order to ferry home the plane that started it all, “The Dauntless Dotty.”  They were the first crew, or second depending on how you score it, to complete their tour of duty in the South Pacific.  Kelley and the crew, who were extremely close friends, were chosen to headline the Seventh War Bond Drive in the last summer of the war.

On the afternoon of June 5th, 1945,  Kelley and crew took off from the cliff side airport at Saipan. Their first destination was the atoll island of Kwajalein.  The weary crew arrived just after midnight.  Capt. Kelley reported to the operations office an hour later.  Kelley told the officer in charge that he and the crew would rest for a few hours and take off for Hawaii.  Capt. Leon Jacobson noticed how tired Kelley looked, but Kelley assured him that he had a relief crew aboard and that an overnight stay was not necessary.  

A little after 3:00 a.m.,  Kelley began his run down the runway.  A witness noticed that he had taken up all of the available space, more than usual.  During his thirty missions from Saipan, Kelley had been used to taking off from a cliff.  Kwajalein was an atoll, only five or six feet above sea level.  Kelley was used to dropping the plane down to allow the engines to cool.  In an instant just a few hundred yards off the shore the “Dotty” struck the ocean, bounced once and struck the ocean hard as it broke apart.  Kelley, seven of his crew, and two passengers were killed instantly.  Lt. Neville was thrown forward two hundred yards out the nose of the plane and managed to survive despite severe injuries to his back.  Two rear gunners managed to get out of the plane alive.

Here is where the ironies begin.  Just a week before the accident, Jane Kelley gave birth to a daughter, the couple’s only child.  Kelley never knew that his daughter had been born.  About a month later,  a new B-29 pilot attached to the 497th Bomb Group arrived in Saipan in command of the “Lucky Lynn.”  When asked where he was from by the man in charge of parking assignments, he was told that he could park his plane where Captain Kelley’s plane’s was stationed.  That man was McGrath Keen, Sr., who graduated from Dublin High School the year Captain Kelley taught school and coached in Dublin.  Now tell me it is not a small world.  

00-22

THE BIG GAMES AT LITTLE HILBURN PARK

The 1959 District 5 Little League Tournament

There is something special about little league baseball.  It’s not the heat. It’s not the bugs. It’s not the mothers exercising their inalienable rights to chastise the umpires, even when they are right.  No, what makes little league baseball so special is that it is a part of America.  The bonds of friendship formed in these years last a lifetime.  There is something special about seeing a kid get his first hit after striking out twenty times in a row; something special about watching a kid strike out the side in his first pitching appearance; and  something special about seeing your child driving in the winning run.  The late A. Bartlett Giamatti, a former Commissioner of Baseball, probably said it best: “  It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.   The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and blossoms in  summer, filling  the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then,  just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

The summer of 1959 was a special one for Dublin’s baseball fans.  There was no minor league team in town that year.  Little Hilburn Park was selected as the site of the District 5 Little League Championship.  Four teams from Macon, two from Warner Robins, one from Wrens, and the Dublin team played against each other in late July.  Playing for Dublin and shown pictured in the photo herein were: Jimmy Forte, Edward Jones, Edward Hall, Reggie Belote, Danny Camp, Joel Smith, John Cooke, and Roy Bedingfield, kneeling. Coach Don Vaughn, Joseph Rogers, Lindsey Swida,  Kirk Reed, Glenn Register, Robert Swinson, Tom Perry, and Manager Minton Williams are standing.

Spec Hall groomed the field into one of the finest Little League fields in Georgia.  Elmer Mackey and Clyde Felker served as the tournament directors.  Ed Bateman handled the public address system and the official scoring.  The crowds were big - about twelve hundred (yes, I said twelve hundred) people in attendance every day.

The Dublin All Stars went through two a day practices in preparation for the tournament.  They defeated the Mike Belote Crackers in a practice game just before the tournament began.  Dublin’s first game was against the Warner Robins Americans.  Tom Perry, who paced the Pirates during the regular season with an 8-0 record, held the youngsters from Warner Robins to two hits and one earned run in the six inning game.  Edward Hall led Dublin with two hits and Robert Swinson drove in two runs when he stroked a home run,  which gave Dublin the victory, 4 to 1.   

In the other opening game, Ralph Walters of the Warner Robins Nationals mastered the hitters from Wrens, striking out thirteen out of eighteen batters.  Walters hurled a perfect game.  He had to.  The opposing pitcher, Tony Holley, allowed only one hit, but that one hit was a long home run over the left field wall by Ralph Perkins to give the Nationals a 1-0 victory.   In the other games of the opening round, Macon squeaked by cross-town rival, Ocmulgee, 4 to 3.  Two other Macon teams, South Macon and Vine-Ingle battled each other.  Vine-Ingle came out on top, 3 to 2.

Dublin’s semifinal opponent was the Warner Robins Nationals.  Reggie Belote went the distance for the Dublin team, striking out five and allowing no bases on balls. Belote forced his opponents to hit the ball right at his fielders with only three balls getting  by them for hits.  Warner Robins scored first in the top of the fifth inning.  Ed Hall managed to score the Irish’s first run through a trio of National errors.  The Nationals took the lead again in the top of the sixth and final inning.  The boys from Dublin wouldn’t quit.  With one out, Reggie Belote doubled down the left field line and moved to third on a passed ball.  Jimmy Forte walked and stole second base.  Danny Camp walked to load the bases.  Roy Bedingfield, Jr. stepped up and sent a bullet through the gap to plate Belote and Forte and give the Irish a ticket to the finals.  In the other semifinal game, Richard Jordan hit a 230-foot home run to lead his Macon team over Vine-Ingle by the score of 7 to 5.

Fifteen hundred people turned out to see the final game between Dublin and Macon.  Some of them stayed for the game after the Nationals’ victory over Vine-Ingle in the consolation game.  Dublin broke out on top in the first inning when Kirk Reed singled and came around to score on a combined three base throwing and fielding error by the left and right fielders from Macon.  Macon came back to tie it up in the bottom of the first.  Two scoreless innings followed.  Kirk Reed led off the fourth inning with his second hit of the day.  Tom Perry and Reggie Belote reached base on walks to load the bases.  Roy Bedingfield drew a walk, driving in the go-ahead run.   It was Robert “Rabbit” Swinson’s turn to bat.  Not wanting to be out done by his opponent Jordan of Macon, Swinson swatted a monster two hundred and thirty-foot grand slam blast over the left field fence, which is about 190 feet from home plate.    Macon attempted a comeback in the final inning of the game, but only managed to score once.  Tom Perry, who hurled twelve strike outs in the game,  held on to strike out two batters for the first two outs and get the final batter to ground into a fielder’s choice.  The crowd, especially the mommas and daddies, went wild.  Manager Minton Williams hoisted Tom Perry on his shoulders.  The was no hollering at the umpires that day.  Larry Schenk brought along three other “blues” to make sure that they were on top of every call.  

The Dublin Irish had made it.  They were going to Marietta for the state tournament.  Tournament officials held a banquet for the teams the night before the tournament began on August 6th.  Dublin was joined by teams from Albany, Buckhead, Winder, Columbus, Cascade Heights, Rome and Marietta.  Dublin’s first opponents were the all-stars from Buckhead, a suburban team from Atlanta.  The Buckhead boys were loaded.  It was the big city boys against the little city boys.  The Irish got their first hit in the fifth inning and managed their only other hit in the sixth inning.  Ten Dublin boys went down on strikes.  Despite the best efforts of three Dublin pitchers, the boys from Buckhead plated ten runs  to send Dublin home empty handed.  There was no joy in the Emerald City that night, but there was no shame either.

All of Dublin was proud of its little leaguers.  They had risen to become one of the best teams in Georgia.  That was enough, there were no losers on this team.   Don Lamb, of the Dublin Rotary Club,  organized a fete at the Dublin Country Club for the all-star team and the Dublin Pirates. The Pirates had been under the sponsorship of the Rotary Club for five years and who established a record of eighty four wins and only eight  losses.  Playing for the Pirates were Perry, Swinson, Reed, R. Belote, and Smith of the all-stars along with Pat Reed, John Strickland, Vic Belote, Johnny Grier, Bobby Wanner, Tommy Wanner, Harry Graham, Billy Bracewell, Billy Beam, Rickey Eberhardt, and Buddy Jones.

Take in a little league game, even if you don’t have a child playing, even if you don’t particularly like baseball, and even though you don’t like hot weather.  You will never regret it.  It is baseball where the players play for free.  It is baseball where anyone can be a hero.  It is simply, baseball at its best.  

00-23

DEATH IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC

The Loss of H.M.S. Otranto

The war would be over in five weeks.  It was supposed to be the war to end all wars.  It wasn’t.  Despite the fact that the end of the war was near, the United States government was still shipping men and material to the European front in the early Fall of 1918.  One transport ship, His Majesty’s Ship Otranto, never made it to her destination.  Her final destination was the ocean floor off the coast of Scotland.  Resting at the bottom of the ocean with her were the bodies of a dozen Emanuel County men, who lost their lives when she went down in a terrible storm.

The Otranto first saw service as a mail ship on a route between Liverpool, England and Australia.  The British government refitted the ship into an armored cruiser.  She saw her first action off the coast of Chili against a German squadron, which sunk two of the four British cruisers.  The Otranto, under the command of Captain Davidson, was the flagship of a group of transport ships assigned to ferry American soldiers from Hoboken, New Jersey to the war in Europe.

On board the Otranto were seven hundred American soldiers.   A majority of the men had just completed their training in coastal artillery tactics at Fort Screven on Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia.   Most of the men engaged in the coastal artillery training were Georgians.  Shortly after the Otranto departed for Europe on September 25, 1918, a French transport, the La France, left the convoy.  About a week later on the night of October 1st, the Otranto crashed into the French ship, “The Croisine.”  The Otranto survived the collision and proceeded on her easterly course.

On October 6th, as the convoy was approaching the straight between Ireland and Scotland, a command was issued to form the ships in a single file - a difficult maneuver considering the raging storm which was tossing the ships about.  The Otranto took the eleventh place in line, just ahead of “The Kashmir,” which was formerly a luxury liner.   The Otranto’s commander ordered the commander of “The Kashmir” to swing ahead of the Otranto, which would anchor the rear of the column to take advantage of her armament.  The Kashmir’s commander moved his ship around, but lost control of her when a high wave forced the ship out of control.  The bow of the Kashmir struck the side of the Otranto just below the water line.  Many of the upper structures of the Otranto were smashed.  Captain Davidson ordered the men to their stations to await further orders.  The high seas made the use of lifeboats impractical.  The Kashmir, operating under standard operational procedures, continued along her course.  Navy policy makers feared that a ship trying to rescue another damaged ship was a “sitting duck” for German submarines, which had sunk another American ship in the same area earlier in the year.

The men of the Otranto remained calm.  They knew their imminent fate.  The ship was flooding.  There were no life rafts.  The seas were too high.  The engine rooms flooded first, knocking out any hope of radio calls for help.   The midmorning skies were dark.  The rain was relentless.  Hopes for survival were failing by the minute.  Two hours after the collision, the British destroyer, the Mounsey, which was supposed to have met the convoy earlier but had also been delayed by the rough waters, reached the Otranto.  Lt. Craven, the commander of the Mounsey, soon realized that the conventional rescue methods were hopeless.  Lt. Craven ordered his semaphore man to signal the Otranto to lower her lifeboats half way with the ends pointing down.  Craven believed that he could bring his ship along the side of the sinking Otranto and the lifeboats would act as cushions.  The Mounsey made four runs along the side of the Otranto.  Those who could, leaped from the deck of the Ontranto onto the deck of the Mounsey.  The Mounsey suffered serious damage on each rescue attempt.  The radio, the bridge, and the all-important compass was destroyed.  Three hundred and ten Americans, two hundred thirty-seven of the British crew of the Otranto, and  thirty French sailors, a total of five hundred and seventy-seven men, made it safely to the Mounsey, which was designed to hold only seventy men.  Lt. Craven decided that any further attempts to rescue men on the ship would be perilous. In fear of any further damage to his ship, he ordered the helmsman to turn the ship toward Belfast, Ireland, where it arrived fourteen hours later.

Shortly after the Mounsey departed, the Otranto sunk.  A few lucky men who were left behind made it to the coast of the Isle of Islay, Scotland.  One hundred and seventy five dead bodies were washed ashore in the first few hours.  The bodies were buried in temporary graves on the island along the side of the victims of the Tuscania.  Nearly all of the bodies were re-interred in the United States or in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, England.  The sinking of the Otranto was one of the largest maritime disasters of World War II.   Four hundred thirty-one lives were lost. Three hundred sixty-nine of them were Americans.  Of those, one hundred forty were native or adopted Georgians who trained at Fort Screven.

Most of the men who lost their lives were from eastern Georgia counties of Emanuel, Screven, Bulloch, Chatam, Richmond, Ware, and Burke, along with Berrien County of southwest Georgia.  The people of Emanuel County suffered the heart breaking loss of a dozen men.  They were Private Henry Allen, Private Ellie Broom, Private Mandle Collins, Private Hicks Durden, Private Carlton M. Hooks, Private Lester Hutchinson, Private James E. McNeely, Private Elisha T. Moseley, Private Neil Phillips, Private Will Roberts, Private Clifton Stewart, and Private Joe Williams.  Privates John F. Roach of Wilkinson County and Lonnie Steptoe of Johnson County were also listed among the dead.

It took ten days for the news to reach Swainsboro.  At first, only Carlton Hooks was reported lost at sea.  Then the dreaded news came.  One by one names were added to the list.  There were other Emanuel County men aboard.  Their parents and families worried about their fate.  Sons of D.J. Edingfield and James M. Brown were reported to have been among those on board the Otranto, but thankfully did not appear on the casualty list.

A letter arrived at the home of James Albert Bishop of Summertown just as the war ended on November 11th, 1918.  Bishop’s letter to his mother gave clues to the horror of what was described by some as the worst shipwreck of the war.  Bishop reported that there were movie cameras filming the rescue scenes.  He saw men being crushed by lifeboats and wreckage on the ship.  Bishop told his mother that he just lashed himself to the ship and prayed.  “I was ready to die, but the good Lord saved me,” Bishop said.

The end of the “War to end all wars” was never enjoyed as much as it should have been in Emanuel County.  Death is never a joy.

00-24

WHY DO WE WANT TO PRESERVE OUR PAST?

What drives us to keep and preserve our past?  Why do we want to preserve old buildings when we can build new modern buildings?  These are questions which have been discussed not only in recent years, but for decades.  One thing is for certain.  We can’t maintain every old house, building, church, and school.  Things change and change is good.  What we must do is to look to what old buildings we had and choose the ones that can be preserved and can be used to benefit the community.

During the 1950s and 1960s, old buildings and houses were seen as just that, old buildings.  It was the modern age.  New was better.  Flashy and eye-catching buildings and signs were in.  Quaint and charming ones were out.  The first victims of this change in thinking were the homes along Bellevue Avenue and North Jefferson Street.  You might not believe that before the 1950s nearly all of North Jefferson Street above Gaines Street was lined with homes.  Magnificent homes were the trademarks of Bellevue Avenue from the City Hall and the First Baptist Church westward.   Dublin was growing and it needed room to grow.  The lots along Bellevue were the prime locations for businesses.   The grand old houses were no longer the status symbol they once were.  The baby boomers were moving to the suburbs of West Bellevue, Pine Forest, and Green Acres subdivisions along the western limits of the city.  The demolition of the houses seemed to be the natural and practical thing to do at the time.  The commercial center of Dublin and Laurens County was still downtown Dublin.  There was no mall or no interstate interchange.  There were still nearly a dozen service stations in the downtown area.

One by one the old houses were razed.  There was a new post office, a new phone company office, a new library, and so on.  Then an amazing and ironic change happened to Bellevue Avenue. Just as one developer was planning to build a McDonald’s Restaurant beside the oldest house on Bellevue Avenue, the construction of the Dublin Mall began.  All of sudden the prime location for businesses shifted one to two miles away from town, thereby saving the old Bellevue homes.  Since that time only one home has been torn down or moved in the name of progress.  The people then realized that the old homes could be used, not for high traffic retail and service businesses, but for low traffic service and professional businesses.  One by one these old houses were converted into lawoffices, optometry offices, and insurance offices.  While half of the old homes in the main stretch of old Bellevue are now gone, those that remain are a bridge to our past when the city and the county were in their first Golden age.

Two major defeats for lovers of old buildings came in the early 1960s when the City of Dublin and Laurens County demolished their former  houses of government in favor of a parking lot and a characterless modern courthouse respectively.  To their credit, the city council made minor modifications to the old school for the new city hall.  Eventually, however, the city fathers decided that the old auditorium, which had been the site of public gatherings for six decades, should be engulfed to accommodate the rapidly expanding city government.

The first effort to save an old building was successful.  Following the destruction of the old courthouse, a group of citizens was determined not to allow government officials to tear down the empty Carnegie Library in favor of a open plaza in front of city hall.  It took twelve years, but the founders and members of the Historical Society succeeded.

The next effort to preserve major old building came when Bill Lovett proposed the renovation of the abandoned Martin Theatre into a public auditorium. The project was defeated by the lack of any cooperation between city and county officials.  During the mid 1980s many old buildings were restored through the benefits tax-free low- interest loans from the Dublin Downtown Development Authority.    The dream  to restore the old W&T Railroad depot came close to reality, only to go up in flames three days after the railroad reluctantly gave its permission for interested citizens to lease the property for a railroad museum.

As the 1990s began, more and more people began to realize that there are some buildings that needed to be kept.  The City of Dublin established a Main Street Program which was committed to preservation of the city’s old buildings.  Through the unified efforts of city, county, and state officials, a grant was obtained to restore the first floor of the old Fred Roberts Hotel into a Senior Citizens Center.   

The idea of restoring the Martin Theatre was revived.  After three years of unceasing dedication by a small group of dedicated individuals and the generous donations of many appreciative citizens, the new Dublin Theatre was opened in May of 1995.  Since that time it was been used for a wide variety of events on a weekly basis.  It was one of the truly remarkable success stories of a public effort to keep an old building from being torn down for another parking lot.

Four years ago a small group of individuals gathered together.  They had a dream.  It was only appropriate that those men and women who served their country in military service should be honored.  The group leased the Hardy Smith house on Gaines Street and began the process of acquiring donations for its restoration into a memorial for military veterans.  While donations have not come in as they should, the group has not given up on the project.  The work continues, only a slower pace.

This past March there was an opportunity to have one of our most historical buildings restored.  Dan and Chandelle Sumner,  husband and wife law partners, bought the building with the intention of restoring its to its past splendor.  They had done it before in Gainesville and they know they can do it again.  A project of this type takes money, but it also takes public support.  And public support often means money.  Money is a necessary element of any project of this kind.  There is an old saying, “You have to spend money to make money.”

When it was completed in 1913, the First National Bank building gave an enormous boost to local economy.  There were fifty offices above the first floor and mezzanine of the bank.  Professionals and businessmen moved in and stayed for six decades until the building became economically obsolete.  Now the Summers have a plan to restore the building and seek new tenants - tenants who need more room, tenants who need space at a lower cost than the high traffic commercial areas, and tenants who are seeking a unique place for their business.

They have a worthy goal which is worthy of our support.  Those who come into our county looking for a home or a location of an industry look to the heart of the community in making their decision.  While the quiet and peaceful farms and communities are of equal importance to our county, the heart of the county lies within a thirty-block area in downtown Dublin.   The downtown area  is a link to our important past, but it can also be  bridge to our more important future.  

00-25

STRANGE BUT TRUE TALES FROM LAURENS COUNTY

This week’s column recounts some of the interesting, strange, but absolutely true tales from our county’s past. 

J.P. Ellington took good care of his clothes.  He was most proud of an old pair of pants.  The pants, by newspaper accounts, were 215 years old.  They were the first pants  Mr. Ellington's grandfather had owned.  The grandfather had many sons and each took turns wearing the pants.  Mr. Ellington still wore them occasionally along with a 36 year old pair of knitted socks, which he acquired in 1901.

Teddy's friend was a fixture on the streets of Dublin for fifteen years.  The friend had  walked the streets delivering ice for the Atlantic Coal and Ice Company since 1924.  On a hot day, Teddy would like nothing more than an ice cold beer.  Teddy's friend, a teenager, was kind of slow - so slow that folks called her "Lightning."  Once in awhile, Teddy would reach back into the ice wagon and pull out a cold one for his friend.  There was no law banning this teenager from drinking beer.  You see, Teddy's teen-aged friend was, of course, a mule.   

A crime wave was spreading over Laurens County in 1939.  Mrs. C.M. Sykes and L.B. Linder had their smokehouses stripped of their tasty hams and beef.  W.R. Kent, who lived near Dublin, was a prime target for the thieves.   Kent, a well known and productive farmer, surely had a good supply of meat in his smokehouse.  One summer night in 1938, the thieves tunneled under the smokehouse in search of some prime meat.  They only found one piece of shoulder meat.  What they did not know was that Mr. Kent kept all of his meat in cold storage in Dublin.  What they found instead was a den of skunks.  While investigating the crime, Kent found a distinct recollection of the skunk's anti-crime defenses.  After searching in vain for the skunks, Mr. Kent thanked the crooks for the help in locating the varmints.

Revenue agents were not normally superstitious, but they were tempted to believe in ghosts one spring day in 1942.  Laurens County was well known throughout the middle decades of the 20th century for its illegal whiskey traffic.  Acting on a tip, the "feds" joined the state revenuers on what they thought was going to be a big raid.  As they approached the secluded site, the sounds of workmen echoed through the woods.  Upon reaching the site, the only sign of a still was a lone boiler lying on its side. Suddenly the boiler began to move.  As the puzzled agents came closer, the still rocked back and forth.  Finally, after gathering enough courage, an agent peered into the copper boiler. To their relief, the ghost turned out to be a forty-pound pig.  The hungry pig went in after sour mash and was not able to extricate himself after finishing his meal. 

Leon Ross Moore did not believe in superstitions.  He thought nothing of

 them the day he was hurt while working as a linotypist with "The Courier Herald."  It didn't occur to Moore that he was injured at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, or the thirteenth hour in the day.  It didn't seem strange to him that he spent thirteen months and thirteen days in the hospital.  Mr. Moore even had thirteen letters in his name.  Oh, the day he was injured was, of course, Friday the 13th, 1938.  Moore remained cheerful after the accident, and was never seen trying to avoid any black cats.   

Dublin doctor Tyrus Cobb, Jr., son of the famous baseball player Ty Cobb, was out on the Oconee River hunting for game birds in the Fall of 1945.  When he hit his first wild goose, he found a band on the bird's leg.  Cobb stated,  "I nearly fell out of the boat."  The bird came from a wildlife refuge and the home of his friend, the famous Jack Miner.  The Ontario refuge, which Cobb had visited many times,  was home to thousands of birds under the protection of the Canadian government. 

Jean Coney worked for Mrs. E.C. Hightower.  One day in December of 1915, Jean was working especially hard chopping wood.  Mrs. Hightower decided to reward Jean with a fine piece of cooked beef.  Mrs. Hightower gave Jean the beef along with another piece of beef which had been laced with "Rough on Rats" rat poison.  She told him to eat his piece and set the other out in the barn to kill the rats.  Well, Jean ate his beef and then got to talking with a friend.  Jean forgot about the poison beef and ate it, too.  All of sudden he remembered what he had done.  Coney heard Mrs. Hightower talking about pumping his stomach.  Jean didn't care for that and ran home.  Once he got home, Coney took a bath and put on his Sunday clothes.  Coney went back to Mrs. Hightower's house and told her that he was prepared to meet his maker. Then he realized that it had been a good while since he had eaten the poisoned beef,  and he wasn't dead yet.  He figured that he had a cast iron stomach,  or maybe the "Rough on Rats" just wasn't so rough on him. 

A child has a one in three hundred and sixty five and one quarter chance of being born on Christmas Day.  For most kids that isn't so great when it comes to presents and birthday parties.  Christmas was a landmark day in the life of James Erwin Loyd of Laurens County.  Loyd was born on Christmas day in 1866.  He died on his 82nd birthday on Christmas day of 1948.  The odds of being born and dying on Christmas Day are one in one hundred thirty three thousand two hundred twenty five.  His wife, Leonia Wood Loyd, was born on March 15, 1876, known to many as the "Ides of March."  Mrs. Loyd died in 1944 - the date was of course, March 15th, her sixty eighth birthday.  The odds of a husband and wife both being born and dying on their birthdays is one in one hundred thirty three thousand four hundred and seven. The Loyds are buried in the cemetery at Union Baptist Church on the Soperton Highway just north of Minter.

William Foskey was out in his cotton field in late June of 1902 around noon,  when a strong whirlwind came up.  The funnel, about the size of a mule, moved up into the sky and then came back to the spot of its origin. Eventually the whirlwind dissipated,  leaving a half acre of withered cotton, much liked it had been scorched by heat.  The story brought back recent memories of the time a pine tree in the Brewton area bent to the ground forming an ox bow.  The bark on the tree showed no signs of peeling or tearing.  Almost at the same instant,  the boilers at Garbutt's Mill northeast of Brewton exploded.  Two or three men were killed.  Superstitious Brewtonites figured that the bent tree was created by supernatural forces and held religious services under it.

Many people today collect antiques, stamps, coins, baseball cards, or the like.  R. Lee Miller, a Dublin undertaker, had a different kind of hobby.  He referred to his collectibles as his pets.  Miller set out on a project to collect as many types of animals as he could.  He would acquire the animals alive and then use chloroform to kill them without bruising or cutting them.  He then patiently and skillfully embalmed the animals, including a large Gila monster and three rattlesnakes. 

00-26

DUBLIN AND LAURENS COUNTY IN 1950

The Metamorphosis Begins

Dublin and Laurens County  experienced a metamorphosis at the mid-point of the 20th Century.  Changes were constant.  Lifestyles were changing.  Work habits were changing.  There were new faces in the churches and on the streets of the city.   New businesses were coming to town.  Old ones were expanding.  There was even talk of the possible location of the United States Air Force Academy in the area at the behest of Cong. Carl Vinson of Milledgeville.  Dublin’s population had grown by twenty five percent during the 1940s, while the county population began to decline.   The year 1950 was indicative of Dublin and Laurens County’s  enduring change  from a pre-war agricultural toward a post-war baby-boomer industrial economy.  The change was reflected on the new mast head of “The Courier Herald,” which featured silhouettes of a barn and a factory.

The year and the new decade of the Fifties began just like any other.  The news was good.   Mrs. C.L. Dominy gave birth to the first child of the decade.  Two of Dublin’s finest young men, W.C. Stinson and Ray Battle,  excelled as cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point.   Dublin businessman Herschel Lovett was appointed to the Georgia State Board of Education.  A new Federal Highway from Miami through Dublin, East Dublin, and Wrightsville to Asheville, North Carolina was planned - though it never came to pass.  Many of the leading officials of J.P. Stevens & Co. came to East Dublin to tour the company’s newest plant. The plant became the catalyst for the shift of the local economy toward a mixture of agricultural and industrial.

New stores were being built.  Peacock Chevrolet opened their new modern showroom, garage, and automobile lot on East Jackson Street.  Colonial Stores moved out of their location at 204 W. Jackson Street into Dublin’s first modern grocery store building on the corner of W. Gaines and N. Jefferson Streets.  The move made room for the new location of the Citizens and Southern Bank.  Managers R.L. Smith and H.W. Sears welcomed old and new customers into the county’s first modern free-standing grocery store.  New industries were coming to the county.   A spinoff of the J.P. Stevens Co. was the Textile Aniline & Derby Co., which formally opened in East Dublin in July of 1950.  The chemical company, which was headquartered in Lawrence, Massachusetts, was operated under the direction of Dick Henry, George Spicer, and Joe Uliano. The company oversaw the testing and warehousing of dyes used in connection with textile operations in the area, most notably by the plants of J.P. Stevens.

Old businesses were expanding.  Cochran Brothers Wholesale Grocers celebrated their 30th anniversary in the business in Dublin by acquiring Alsup Grocery Company, one of Dublin’s oldest wholesale grocery firms.  Buddy Dunn opened a new Dunn’s Department Store on South Jefferson Street. He was following in the footsteps of his grandfather Harris Dunn who opened the first Dunn’s store on Lawrence Street in 1908 and his father Hyman Dunn who opened the second family store on the corner of Jackson and Lawrence Streets in 1919.  Dunn’s Department Store was one of the leading department stores of the “pre-mall” era in the county along with Belk’s, Penney’s, Churchwell’s, and R.L. Stephens stores.  Myer Caplan celebrated his 10th year in Dublin with the construction of his new store on West Madison Street in Dublin.  Caplan’s large store was the first of the modern furniture store buildings in Dublin.    Pharmacists Dr. Ernest Oatts, Robert Garbutt, Gratice Prescott, and Dr. Lewis Smith opened the modern Oatts Drug Store at its current location on W. Jackson Street in late August of 1950, complete with cosmetics department, sandwich counter, and soda fountain.  The members of Jefferson Street Baptist Church celebrated the construction of their new church building in the late summer of 1950.  

As the year began to unfold, Laurens Countians already in military service along with new inductees served their country in the Korean War.  Capt. Bob Shuler, already a highly decorated ace pilot from World War II, continued  to garner one air medal after another as a fighter pilot.  Col. A.T. Coleman, Jr. of Dublin was named to command the new Army Reserve unit which met in the American Legion Hall.  World War II naval hero, Adm. Robert E. Braddy retired from the service and moved back home to Dublin.

Dublin and Laurens County schools were beginning to reclaim their dominance in high school sports.  The Dexter Boys basketball team, composed of Alligood, B. Davis, Warren, NeSmith, J. Davis, and Hobbs, captured the 6th District Class Title with a win over Irwinton.  Ouida Dixon and Edwina Davidson led the Cedar Grove girls to a double-overtime 64 to 57 victory to capture the Laurens County girl’s basketball championship.  The girls from Cedar Grove didn’t miss a beat and kept on winning until they captured the county’s first state championship in 1951.    The boys from Dudley defeated the Cedar Grove boys for county bragging rights.  The same four teams staged a rematch in Dublin a few days later to benefit the Easter Seals program.   Dublin’s tennis team, composed of Sarah Kaplan, Patsy Sutton, Peggy Sutton, Gayle Attaway, Allen Trapnell, Joel Pierce, and Don Brown captured the 6th District Championship.  The Track team led by Carl Gettys, Ray Daniel, Allen Trapnell, Phil Coyle, Alton Amis, Robert Tarpley, Charles Hudson, Billy Swilley, Weldon Davis, Arnau Bedingfield, Felton Dunn, Frank Hodges, Preston Joiner, Ben Cochran, Vance Brantley, and Bob King ran, jumped, and threw to win the school’s second district championship.  Gettys won the first of his two  state championships in the 440 yard dash.     On the non-athletic side of school teams, the debate team of John Hicks, Mickey Pope, Peggy Sutton, and Pierce Barker won the state debate title in a debate on the issue of popular or electoral college voting to elect the President of the United States.   Joe Fennell, Roy Bentley, and James Fennell were pioneer Laurens Countians,  who were just beginning to participate in the new sport of stock car racing.  Herbert Green was named the new pro at the Dublin Country Club.  His son, Bert, who learned to play golf on the Country Club course,  went on the compete on the P.G.A. Tour, winning the L&M Open in 1973.  The Washington Street Trojans won the 2nd District Championship and made it to the finals of the Southern Regional Championship under the leadership of coaches H.T. Jones and Richard Johnson.

The Dublin Green Sox’s second season in the Georgia State League was their most successful one.   On June 25th, the Sox launched a home run barrage on Tifton with dingers by Parnell Ruark, and two each from Jack Collins, “Smut” Davis, “Itchy” Wright, and Johnny Johnston, the latter banging two round-trippers in the 8th inning.  According to records of the “Sporting News,” the home run derby set a minor league record for the most home runs by one team in a single game.  The Dublin team defeated the league All-Star team in a mid-season game played in Dublin.  The Green Sox won the regular season pennant and in doing so set an all-time league attendance record.  The season didn’t quite seem complete when the Sox lost the post season playoff to the Eastman Dodgers.  Jack Gilbert of Dexter was a pretty fair country ball player.  Playing for the St. Augustine Saints of the Florida State League, Gilbert no hit the Leesburg Packers.  In his next game against the Packers, Gilbert shut out the Packers  thus getting the attention of Herschel Lovett, owner of the Green Sox, who purchased Gilbert’s contract and brought him home for the stretch run for the pennant.  

The Veteran’s Administration Hospital experienced a successful, but rocky, year in 1950.  The hospital announced cutbacks in employment as a matter of economy.  Laurens Post No. 17 of the American Legion along with other Legion posts in the state launched a vigorous protest to officials at state and local levels.  As many veterans of World War II began returning to the community, Laurens Post No. 17 of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars posts saw  dramatic increases in membership.  These new veterans, led by H. Dale Thompson - the first World War II veteran to command the local American Legion post, took active roles in improving their community.    Legion members led by Horace Hobbs, Don Hattaway, E.F. Moxley, J.W. Stubbs, M. Yagado, E.E. Prescott, Bobby Black, G.B. Parrott, H. Dale Thompson, Carl Nelson, J. Roy Rowland, Sr., E.D. Lindsey, Felton Pierce, and W. H. Lovett organized a “40 and 8" Honor Society.  One of the most controversial and semi-political issues of 1950 was the question of whether or not to build a county hospital.  The issue centered around fiscal responsibility of county taxpayers and the determination of whether or not the hospital would be under local control.   The effort was spearheaded by the Laurens County Hospital Committee, several local doctors, and the American Legion.  Almost daily, the “Courier Herald” published letters in favor of and against the issue, which was approved by forward thinking county voters nearly three to one.  

Dublin and Laurens County teenagers began plans for the construction of a new teen club.  Until that time, the kids met in a downtown building while longing for a place of their own.  They canvassed the community for donations and were more successful than they had dreamed.  Their success was due  in part from the generous donations from the community,  like the one thousand dollars given by the Elk’s Club.  Henry Morris led the parents group in the fund raising effort to build the thirty two foot by eighty four foot Quonset type building, which was painted white with a green roof in keeping with the colors of Dublin High School just across the street.  Ben Hall of Dublin Construction Company was awarded the contract for the building, undoubtedly because of his generously low and public spirited bid.

Schools were expanding.  Lowery School students celebrated the addition of new classrooms and a shop building.  Dublin’s High School on North Calhoun Street was burned by student and serial burglar, James Faircloth, on March 20th, just hours after officials announced plans for an expansion.  Students attended classes in other school buildings and facilities around the city until a new bond issue was passed by voters to build a new school.  Late in 1950, contracts were let for the construction of Oconee High School and the new Saxon Street School.  Billy Linder won State 4-H contests in Gardening and Leadership, while Beeman Keen, Jr. won the top prize for his project on the marketing of cotton.

Mrs. Nina Fuller, of the Business and Professional Women’s Club, led the effort to “clean up and fix up Dublin as a part of the “Better Home Town Contest.”  This highly successful effort was due to the community wide support of persons including W.L. Garrard, Cecil Carroll, L.H. Battle, James Dixon, Mrs. L.H. Cook, Mrs. W.L. Garrard, Mrs. L.O. Howard, Sarah Orr Williams, Paul Sconyers, B.H. Lord, Clifford Jernigan, Dr. I.N. Lozier, Steve Fuller, J.W. Stubbs, F.P. Davis, W.H. Champion, R.H. Hightower, Harold Ward, J.O. Ogburn, H. Dale Thompson, R.W. Beall, Rev. Pace, Mrs. Carl Nelson, Mrs. Morton Mason, J.E. Bedingfield, Mrs. H.L. Cordell, Wilbur Jones, Susie Carroll, Mrs. Charles Stroberg, and countless others.  The effort paid off and Dublin was cited as one of the top communities in the state for their work in making Dublin a “Better Home Town.”  Cities along U.S. Highway 441 banded together to promote the highway and the cities along its route as the “Uncle Remus Highway,” named in honor of the classic southern literary character of Joel Chandler Harris of Eatonton.  B.H. Lord of Dublin served on the board of directors of the promotional organization.

W.H. Champion, Mrs. John Wooten, Irma Marsh, Helen Dekle, and Rev. Frank Nalls led the formation of the Laurens County Concert Association in an effort to bring  classical and operatic music artists to Dublin.    Margaret Speaks, a nationally known soprano and regular performer on “The Voices of Firestone” radio program,  was the first artist to appear in concert.

Laurens County’s first fire observation tower, christened the Davidson Tower,  was dedicated in a March 9th ceremony on the McRae Highway, now U.S. Highway 441.  A second tower near Brewton and a third one in the planning stages were being constructed under the leadership of Marshall Lord as a part of the State forestry program.

Scouting was at the height of its popularity in the county.  While old troops were flourishing, new ones were being formed.   The Moye-Browning V.F.W. Post in Cedar Grove sponsored a new troop, Troop 171, under the leadership of J.C. Lord, Eugene Jones, Roger Ussery, Garland P. Gay, Prentice Warren, Frank Walker, and E.C. Strickland.   Donnie Howell and Larry Bryant were the first patrol leaders.   Bill Lollar, Dexter Whitley, Joe Ben Donaldson, Jr., C.W. Odom, Robert T. Beall, J.B. Donaldson, Sam Swinson, Sam Hutchinson, and Paul Sconyers led the organization of Troop 65, which was sponsored by the Men’s Bible Class of First Methodist Church.  Among the first scout leaders were Jimmy Hutchinson, Allen Donnigan, Sydney Hatcher, Jimmy Wilkes, and Jimmy Sconyers. Boy Scout leaders announced the completion of a Boy Scout Hut in Stubbs Park next to the Shanty. The Dublin Service League, led by Mrs. Fred Sharpe, Mrs. Fred Flanders, and Mrs. Theodore Smith, established the first Junior Girl Scout, (or Brownie), troop in Dublin. 

Laurens Countians made a successful effort in the attempt to rid the world of the dreaded Polio disease.  March of Dimes Chairman Felton Pierce announced that over twenty two hundred dollars had been raised through dances, basketball games, and school students asking for donations.  Dublin mayor J.E. Bedingfield, along with Wilbur S. Jones and Harold Ward led the formation of the first Civil Defense Unit in the area.  To demonstrate the horrors of nuclear war, the V.F.W. sponsored a display of a real H-Bomb at the courthouse.

In a time when sightings of UFOs were rampant, Dublin was no exception.  Several residents claimed they saw a disc-like object streak across the skies on March 31st, leaving a bright vapor trail which stretched across the entire sky.  A.J. Toole, long time general agent of the Wrightsville & Tennille Railroad company, was awarded a thousand dollar prize by Swift and Company for the best story in the company’s “Smart Pup” contest.  Toole’s Springer Spaniel “Smokie”  loved ice cream so much that a local drug store established a charge account for the dog, who was well known for his ability to do tricks.  In somewhat of a false alarm and typical government snafu, the Army Corps of Engineers reported that Laurens Shoals near Dublin would be the site of a new reservoir on the Oconee.  They then  realized that they meant to say that the new lake, to be known as Lake Sinclair, would be located between Milledgeville and Sparta.

The Dublin Moose Lodge was organized in the summer of 1950 by Clifford Jernigan, J. Roy Rowland, Sr., Charles Stroberg, Father Braumen, J.H. Maddox, Louis Hatcher, Lamar Bryant, Murray Hankin, T.B. Hitson, D.C. Rogers, Bob Hightower, Sr. and Carlus Gay in the first lodge, which was located at 602 Bellevue Avenue.

So ended a remarkable year which set the stage for five consecutive decades of moderate but continuous growth in Dublin and Laurens County.  The men and women of that time were the same men and women who survived the Great Depression, saved the world  during World War II, and transformed our community into the best place in the world to live.  

00-27

WE DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO DO

SO WE CLIMBED A TREE AND STAYED THERE

It was a time when people ate goldfish, danced for days at a time, and sat in trees for weeks at a time - for no good reason at all.   In Atlanta, Charles Preston and Bratton Davies were trying to set a record for most holes of miniature golf played in a weekend.  In Arizona, Larry Peters was seeking an endurance record for sitting on a cactus. Ouch!  In New Jersey, Jack Evans set a record for lying in a coffin, only to find that the promoters wouldn’t let him  be removed from the ground until they got their cut of the deal.  They called them fads, many of them disappeared as fast as they came.  It was the first summer of the Great Depression, although Laurens County had been in a depression since the Great War.  The fad of tree sitting struck the kids of Dublin in the mid summer of 1930.  Within two weeks the fad was over and everything was back to normal.

Standing in front of the Jordan home on North Franklin Street was a tall walnut tree, perfect for climbing and perfect for a tree house.  Wickes Jordan and Gordon Cartee II had heard about people sitting in trees for days, even weeks at a time. The boys knew they could do it too.  After all, school didn’t start until September.  During the day of July 17th, Gordon and Wickes carefully worked out every detail of their plans.  The boys found some old boards and carried them up into the tree, where they used their father’s hammers and nails to construct their perch.  They knew that if would be getting dark soon, so an electric light was installed - the cord running down to a plug inside the house.  In their haste, the two tree sitters forgot about the enemy of all of their ilk, rain. Mercifully, it was only a slow drizzle and not a thunderstorm,  which might have sent deadly bolts of lightning into their nest.  A few kids sent up a cover, some food, and some drinks with the aid of a rope and a well windlass.  After supper, Wickes and Gordon decided to play a game of checkers to stay awake.  Gordon was the first to succumb to the sandman.  Wickes was a little bored and perhaps a little afraid, probably because he was nine years old and had never slept in a tree before.

Wickes climbed down and headed for his cozy bed in his home across the street. Suddenly, Gordon heard a thud.  Gordon’s first thought, much to his horror, was that his buddy had fallen out of the tree.  Gordon called out.  There was no answer.  Gordon called out again - still no answer.  Gordon, petrified at thought of what he thought just happened,  hurried down from his perch to look for a body.  There wasn’t one.  The Jordans relieved Gordon’s anxiety when they told him what had happened.  The adventure ended after only four hours.  Gordon promised to return to the tree the next night.

Word was spreading.  New climbers were going up every day.  Gordon and his friend 

Hoke Overstreet went back up on Friday night. Wickes had been booted from the team for leaving his post.  Rufus L. Tindol, who lived up the street at 1102 N. Franklin, went up solo into a china berry tree in his front yard determined to outlast his two friends who had started two days earlier.  On the south side of town, Charles Dominy, 14, and Rudine Fort, 15, made their way up into the large water oak at their home at 411 Pine Street.  Their avowed purpose was to stay up until school started.  Vivian Fort and Roy Wilson offered their services as a ground crew.  Mrs. Fort figured the boys needed to do something useful, so she put them to work shelling a basket of butter beans for their supper on the first night.  

Tree climbing wasn’t just for boys. Evelyn Fitchett, her sister Helen, and their friend, Camille Proctor were the next crew to go up.  Proctor announced to the whole North Franklin Street neighborhood that the girls would begin their quest for the record at 8:00 p.m. on the 22nd in a tree in front of the Fitchett home at 501 North Franklin Street.

Gordon and Hoke were going strong after four days.  Rufus experienced a slight problem when he brought up too much ice cream.  The mothers of the participants were worried.  City physician Dr. A.T. Coleman stated that in his medical opinion, “tree sitting might prove to a great strain on the nervous systems of the children; not to mention the mothers.  When Mrs. Tindol read Dr. Coleman’s statement in the newspaper, she pulled the plug on Rufus’s stay at one hundred hours.  

The Fitchett girls delayed their endeavor until the morning of the 24th of July.  Camille Proctor didn’t go up for an undisclosed reason.  The girls had somewhat of an advantage over their male counterparts.  Mr. Fitchett built them a regular tree house, equipped with such amenities as lights, water, beds, an electric stove, and a front porch.  Helen, the younger sister, came down after a short stint. She went back up again, oblivious to the fact that her own streak had been broken.

Ellison Pritchett and Charles Molony developed a wild scheme.  They hired their own attorney, W.W. Larsen, Jr., and their own personal manager, Steve Fuller.  Pritchett, an aviation enthusiast, theorized that the refueling process could be made much easier by aerially sending supplies from a plane piloted by Frank Elmore.  Pritchett had just returned from a flight to Atlanta in Elmore’s plane, making Pritchett the first Dublin man to take an airplane ride to another city.

On the evening of  Cartee and Overstreet’s 8th day, a high wind whirled through the branches of the walnut tree on North Franklin Street.  When a branch was knocked off the trunk of a nearby tree, Gordon and Hoke decided it was time to call it quits.  The boys ended their try at exactly nine days and were leading the race.  The Fitchett girls had already conceded defeat.   The wind wasn’t quite as bad down on Pine Street, so Charles and Rudine stayed up in their tree. They stayed up for nearly ten days, falling two hours and forty minutes short of the milestone.  The streak ended when a powerful electrical storm came up just before dark.  The boys were taken to Claxton Hospital, where their aunt, Annie Hardaway, the superintendent of nurses, gave them a checkup and a cash reward for a job well done.  No kid tried tree sitting again.  Their mothers wouldn’t allow it.  Fort and Dominy’s record was safe. However,  Judge J.S. Adams’s tabby cat stayed up for seven days without food or drink,  fearing that the dog who had chased it into the tree was still waiting for its supper.

00-28

CAPTAIN WILLIAM C. THOMPSON,  JR.

Hero Beneath the Sea

William Calhoun Thompson was born in Dublin, Georgia on September 26, 1913.  His father, Dr. William C. Thompson, practiced medicine in Dublin for several decades in the first half of the twentieth century.  Thompson’s mother, Margaret Hicks, was a member of several of  Laurens Counties oldest families.  During his thirty-year naval career, Captain Thompson established one of the most outstanding records in the submarine service of the United States Navy.  It was a career that spanned three wars, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

Thompson graduated from Dublin High School before attending South Georgia College in Douglas.  He was given an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1935.  His first assignment was aboard the battleship the U.S.S. Tennessee.  Thompson then transferred to submarine R-11.  His second assignment aboard a submarine was onboard the U.S.S. Sea Lion.  The Sea Lion  launched in 1939 from Groton, Connecticut,  was sent to the Philippine Islands, where she arrived in December of 1940.  The submarine was docked in the Naval Yard at Cavite alongside the U.S.S. Sea Dragon.  On the afternoon of the third day of  World War II, fifty Four-Japanese fighters swooped down on the navy’s fleet of submarines at Cavite.   The commander officer ordered all hands below.  On the second bombing run, the planes dropped one bomb which destroyed the conning tower, located a few feet from the controlling room.  The other bomb exploded in the after engine room, killing four men.  The stern of the Sea Lion settled in the mud.  After several attempts to repair the sub, Naval officials decided to scuttle her to prevent capture by Japanese forces, making the Sea Lion the first U.S. submarine to sink in World War II. Thompson was below deck and escaped harm.

Thompson was assigned to the U.S.S. Sea Dragon, which was sent to Java for repairs.  The Sea Dragon returned to Corregidor to aid in the evacuation of key personnel following the fall of Manila.  Thompson’s next assignment was as the Executive Officer of the U.S.S. Tarpon, which he retained onboard the U.S.S. Bowfin from November of 1942 to December of the following year.   

The Bowfin was assigned to duty in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.  During the Bowfin’s first war patrol from August 16, 1943 until October 10, 1943, the submarine traveled more than fourteen thousand miles and sunk more than eight thousand tons of Japanese shipping.  During an encounter with an enemy ship, Lt. Commander Thompson’s gallant and intrepid actions as the Assistant Approach Officer rendered invaluable assistance to Commander Joseph H. Willingham. His actions helped enable  the ship to maneuver into an advantageous position for a fierce, aggressive strike, which resulted in the sinking of a substantial amount of merchant shipping.  As a result, Thompson was awarded the Silver Star,  the nation’s third highest award for heroism.  Willingham was promoted for his successful mission.  Willingham asked Admiral Christie to appoint Thompson as the new commander of the Bowfin.  Instead, Christie appointed Walter T. Griffith, who had more time in the submarine service than Thompson, who was himself an experienced submariner.  Griffith knew that Thompson was disappointed, so he asked his “exec.” to share his cabin, where the two worked more as partners than as senior and junior officers.

The Bowfin traveled to the South China Sea for a refitting.  On November 9, 1943, the sub sunk four schooners.  Two nights later,  two oil vessels fell victim to the Bowfin’s 50-caliber guns.  In the middle of a heavy rain on November 26th, the crew of the Bowfin found themselves of the coast of what is now Vietnam, right in the middle of a Japanese convoy.  The captain ordered all of the engines back to avoid a collision with a steamer.  From the surface, the Bowfin sunk two enemy ships with her torpedoes.  Two hours later, a Vichy French steamer was sunk by the Bowfin.  In coordination with the USS Billfish, the Bowfin made a concentrated attack on a large convoy two days later.  Two more enemy ships fell to the bottom of the ocean.  During the attack, again in a heavy rainstorm, the Bowfin’s starboard main air induction was struck by an artillery shell.  Lt. Commander Walter T. Griffith ordered the ship to pull back when the remaining torpedoes misfired.  The Bowfin headed back to her base for repairs, but managed to sink a yacht-sized vessel on her way home.  During the ten thousand mile patrol, the Bowfin sank more than seventy thousand tons of shipping, the second highest total of any submarine on a single war patrol during World War II.   For his gallant and intrepid actions in assisting the commander officer in sinking fourteen Japanese vessels, Lt. Commander Thompson was awarded a Gold Star in lieu of his second Silver Star.  Lt. Cmdr. Griffith was awarded a Navy Cross, and the entire crew was given the Presidential Unit Citation for their successful mission.  Admiral Christie invited Griffith and Thompson to his mansion outside of Perth, Australia.  Christie informed Thompson that he would now command the U.S.S. Cabrilla, whose former commander was too careful.

   During the fourth war patrol of the U.S.S. Cabrilla, Thompson was awarded a Bronze Star medal with a Combat “V.”  As commander of his own submarine, he pressed a daylight attack sinking an 8,360 ton XCVS and damaged a 5,500 ton cruiser.  After completing a vital reconnaissance mission of the enemy fleet’s anchorage, Thompson transmitted vital information on the movements of the fleet, during a time in which his submarine was being bombed by enemy aircraft.  Despite the fact the both periscopes were inoperable, Thompson managed to bring the ship safely back to port. In the Sulu Sea area in the Summer of 1944, Lt. Cmdr. Thompson made two attacks and sunk nearly twenty-eight tons of shipping.  In the first attack, the Cabrilla sunk a heavily escorted convoy of four ships.  He took the sub back into restricted waters, outmaneuvered hostile escorts, depth charges, and aerial attacks to strike a convoy’s inshore flank.  For his extraordinary heroism, the U.S. Navy awarded Thompson the Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest award for heroism.  During the sixth war patrol in the early Fall of 1944, Thompson took the Cabrilla into enemy waters,  penetrated strong air and surface escort screens,  and delivered effective torpedo attacks. The attacks resulted in the sinking of a large tanker, a transport, two freighters, and one other ship, all of which totaled nearly thirty thousand tons.  For his extraordinary heroism, Thompson was awarded a Gold Cross in lieu of his second Navy Cross.

In the latter months of the war, Thompson was transferred stateside to head the Dept. of Communications at an Officer School in New London, Conn.  After the war, Thompson served as commander of the U.S.S. Spikefish, as an advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as Commander of Submarine Division 81, as advisor to the Argentine Navy, as commander of the attack transport U.S. S. Rayfield, and as head of the Material Requirements Branch in office of the Chief of Naval Operations.  His last tour of duty before coming back to the United States  was a member of the staff of the Commander of the Allied Forces of Southern Europe, a branch of N.A.T.O..  Captain Thompson retired in 1965 as the Chief of Staff of the Commandant of the Sixth Naval District in Charleston, S.C..

After thirty years of highly successful service in the United States Navy, Thompson and his wife Beatrice retired to private life in Brunswick and later in Coronado, California.  Captain Thompson died on March 22, 1977.   His family erected a marker in the family plot in Northview Cemetery.  Thompson’s body was buried  with military honors in Arlington National Cemetery, making him the third and last Laurens Countian to be buried in our country’s most sacred cemetery.

00-29   

JAMES LINDSEY SEWARD

Congressman from the Wiregrass

James Lindsey Seward was born in the infant town of Dublin, Georgia on October 30, 1813.  His parents, William and Sarah Roberts Seward, were among the first settlers of the town.  Seward’s grandfathers, James Seward and Frederick Roberts, fought for independence during the Revolution.  The former lost his life in the fight for freedom.  The latter died in 1823 and was buried near the Seward home place near the lower end of South Franklin Street.  James Lindsey Seward became one of the most influential men in South Georgia in the tumultuous decade of the 1850s.  He was a voice for reconciliation in the cataclysmic decade of the 1860s.

William Seward died in 1826.  With her father also dead, Sarah Seward gathered her belongings and took James and his younger brother, Hansel Roberts Seward,  to another infant town - Thomasville in Thomas County.  The family’s trek to Thomas County was part of a larger migration of Laurens Countians to the Southwest Georgia community.  Mrs. Seward, with the assistance of her sons,  opened a boarding house in the newly created town.  The Seward House became a place for traveling attorneys,  who spent a week in town when court was going on and a few days when they were passing through to other county seats in the circuit.  James Seward decided at an early age that he wanted to practice law.  James Scarborough invited Seward to come to Hawkinsville to read law in preparation for his admission to the bar, which took place in Hawkinsville in 1836.

Twenty three-year-old Seward’s abilities were well known by Thomas Countians, who elected him to represent their county in the Georgia Legislature in the election of 1836.  Seward resumed his full time and highly lucrative law practice after serving  three one-year terms  in the capital in Milledgeville.  During this time, Seward met and fell in love with Miss Fannie Tooke of Hawkinsville, whom he married in 1838.  The voters of Thomas County returned Seward to the legislature in 1846 and in 1850 for a two-year term.

Seward’s successful terms in the legislature led his friends and colleagues to encourage him to seek a higher office.  He began his political career on a national level when he was selected to represent the 1st Congressional District of Georgia at the National Democratic Convention of 1852.  Later that year, Seward narrowly defeated Francis S. Bartow of Savannah to win a seat in the 33rd Congress.  Bartow would become famous for being one of the first Confederate field grade officers to be killed in the Civil War.   In the first hours of the first battle at Manassas, Bartow was shot while directing his troops.  

James Seward and his next door neighbor, Peter Early Love led similar lives.  Love, a son of the first Clerk of Laurens County Superior Court, was trained as a physician, but practiced law as well.  In the mid-1840s, Love served as Judge of the Southern Superior Court Circuit, which included his native county of Laurens.  Judge Love was a member of the Georgia Congressional delegation, who gave up their seats in Congress when Georgia seceded from the Union in 1861.

James Seward served three terms in the United States Congress when the country was being ripped apart over the issues of state’s rights and slavery.  Seward, a loyal Democrat, stood in support of slavery, unlike many of his fellow Laurens Countians, who sought cooperation with the northern states on the issue.  After declining to return to Congress for a fourth term, Seward accepted the nomination of the Democrats of Thomas County to run for a seat in the Georgia Senate, which he won in the 1859 election.

As the issues of slavery and state’s rights came to a climax in 1860, Seward was taking an active role in national politics, serving as one of the Georgia delegates at the Democratic National Conventions in Baltimore and Charleston.  By the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Seward had amassed a fortune estimated at one hundred twenty-five-thousand dollars.  Seward donated a large sum of money to outfit and equip the “Thomasville Guards,” one of the county’s first military companies to begin training for service in the Confederate Army.  Seward continued to serve in the Georgia Senate until 1863 in addition to his duties as a trustee of Young’s Female College in Thomasville.

The Sewards moved to the outskirts of Thomasville. They established a plantation, which included the present site of Glen Arven Country Club.  During the war, Mrs. Seward opened her home to wounded and sick soldiers.  The eldest Seward daughter, Martha, or Mattie as she was affectionately known, sewed the battle flag for a local military company known as the “Dixie Boys” or Company A of the 57th Georgia Infantry.  The flag became the regimental battle flag and is now in the possession of Lester L. Porter, III, formerly of Dublin.  Mrs. Seward and her daughters, Mattie and Fannie, spent many hours preparing clothing and supply packages for the soldiers.

Although Seward was an active proponent of secession, he was just as active as a proponent for reconciliation after the war.  He served as a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention of 1865, along with many other men like Dr. Nathan Tucker of Laurens County, who had been a Cooperationist before the war.  Georgia governor Charles Jenkins appointed Seward to serve on the State Committee for Distribution to the Needy.  Seward joined ex war governor Joseph E. Brown in calling for Georgia’s ratification of the 13th amendment banning slavery - a choice which was widely denounced by many Georgians.  When Georgia’s military commander, General Pope, was about to replace Jenkins as governor, he offered the provisional governor’s position to Seward, which Seward politely declined.  Just a week later, Seward declined another appointment by General Pope as Supervisor of Registration.

In the years following the war, Seward remained active in public service, particularly in the field of education.  Seward served a twenty-one-year term as a trustee of the University of Georgia, a twenty-six-year term as trustee of Young’s Female College, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Thomas County Board of Education.  During the post war years, Seward became less active in political circles.  He did serve as a delegate to the State Democratic Convention in 1870 and the Constitutional Convention of 1877.  He abandoned his attempt to return to Congress in 1878 when it appeared that a radical would win in a three-way race.

As James Seward approached his 70th birthday, rheumatism struck ailing his body.  For four years as a mere shadow of the man he once was, Seward suffered through his invalism.  On November 21, 1886, James Seward’s life slipped away.  He was laid to rest in Laurel Grove Cemetery, where his beloved wife would join him eleven years later.

00-30

A HERO COMES TO MILLEDGEVILLE

The Victory Tour of the Marquis de Lafayette

His name was Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier.  He was born in 1757 into a wealthy  family of France.  He was an orphan by the age of two. Following the death of his father, Marie inherited a large estate. Like his father,  he was a soldier.  He trained at a military academy and became a captain in the French army.   When the teenager heard that the American colonies had declared their independence from England, he acquired  a boat and sailed to South Carolina, where he arrived in 1777.  In four short but eventful years, the young man became the greatest foreign-born American soldier in history.  Marie is more commonly known as the Marquis de Lafayette.  Dozens of American cities and counties are named in his honor.  The city of LaGrange is named in honor of his home in France.  One hundred and seventy five years ago, the boy hero, but then an elderly man,  toured the United States on a reunion tour.  His travels throughout the country brought him to Milledgeville, the state capital of Georgia, where he was greeted by thousands, including several Laurens Countians.

Lafayette returned to America in 1824, forty years after the end of the American Revolution.  Upon the news of his arrival, Georgia governor George M. Troup of Laurens County invited the French hero to visit Georgia on his tour.  Lafayette responded from the national capital in January of 1825 stating that he would like to visit Georgia. However, he would have to cover four thousand miles between February and June and that his time in Georgia might be limited.  In anticipation of his arrival, Gov. Troup invited any surviving soldier of the Continental armies and militia to assemble in convenient places along the General’s route.  On March 19th, Lafayette arrived at Yamacraw Bluff in Savannah, the same place where General James Oglethorpe first landed in 1733.  Lafayette and his escorts were greeted by Governor Troup, who praised Lafayette in the presence of four thousand greeters by saying, “O, sir, what a consolation for a man, who has passed through such seas of trouble, that the millions of bayonets which guard the blessings we enjoy, stand between you and them.”

After a large celebration in Savannah, Lafayette traveled to Augusta, another of Georgia’s colonial capitals.  From Augusta, the General and his party followed the old road to Milledgeville through Warrenton and Sparta. Gov. Troup meticulously planned LaFayette’s itinerary for his eleven-day stay in Georgia.  Troup appointed thirteen gentlemen, including John Clark, former governor of Georgia,  and Everard Hamilton, brother of Mrs. David Blackshear of Dublin, as managers of the glorious event.  Gen. LaFayette was escorted from Sparta by General Abecrombie and the Hancock Cavalry.  Just before the column reached the Oconee River on Sunday morning, the 27th of March, they were met by the Baldwin Cavalry.  When the procession reached the east bank of the Oconee, a cannon salute was fired from the statehouse grounds.  Another round of cannon fire was sent skyward when LaFayette and his entourage reached the west bank of the river.  The bells at the Market House and the State House were ringing.  Crowds were cheering.

LaFayette dismounted and boarded a barouche, drawn by four handsome bay horses.  Lafayette led the procession up Hancock Street to Wayne Street and and on to Wayne Street to Greene Street and the State House.  Following LaFayette were Gov. Troup, soldiers of the Continental army, and various government officials.  Along the route, which was lined with thousands of people.  There were little girls laying flowers along the  path and welcoming the beloved General.  After a brief rest, the Marquis came out to greet his fellow soldiers in the war for American independence.  Gov. Troup accompanied LaFayette to a service at the Methodist Church, which was filled with worshipers who stood in absolute reverence until the General was seated.  After returning to his quarters, the General spent five pleasant, but obviously arduous, hours greeting well wishers until ten o’clock in the evening.  Another volley of cannon fire was set off at sunset and a fireworks show lit up the early Spring sky.  

As the second day of LaFayette’s stay in Milledgeville dawned, the men of the Wilkinson Volunteers, Twiggs Volunteers, Milledgeville Volunteers, Clinton Blues, Baldwin Cavalry, and the Hancock Cavalry fired artillery and musketry salutes.  They formed a line for a ten o’clock inspection by the General.  After an address to the members of the Masonic Lodge, LaFayette was escorted to the State House for a reception.  Accolade after accolade was heaped upon the French hero, who humbly responded,  thanking the citizens for their praise and regretting that he had no longer to stay in the city.  By mid-afternoon,  LaFayette finally had time to eat dinner.   Gov. Troup and his staff and committees sat down with the General and  discussed the arrangements for the remainder of the day.  A hot air balloon was sent up during the meal. The feast was spread over seven hundred feet of tables, which were covered with barbecue, roast beef, breads, and other fine foods. A band was playing.  General LaFayette was seated at the upper end of the center table, flanked by Gov. Troup on one side and Col. Seaborn Jones on the other.  Jones was one of Troup’s chief aides and a former Laurens County landowner.  Many of Georgia’s political leaders were in attendance, including former governor John Clark, Troup’s chief political nemesis.  Col. Jones called for a toast to liberty.  Cheers rang out.  The band struck up, “Hail to the Chief.”  Gov. Troup rose and saluted the General by toasting, “ A union of all hearts to honor the ‘Nation’s Guest’ - a union of all heads for our country’s good.”  Once again cheers erupted.  Cannons fired.  The band played a national march.  Gov. Clark followed with a toast to Count Casimir Pulaski, the foreign born defender of Savannah.  LaFayette, who rose in gratitude for the fine hospitality he have been given,  toasted the Georgia veterans of the Revolution.  The grand event was not without unfortunate incidents. A gang of pick pockets, one of whom relieved Maj. James Smith of Clinton of four thousand dollars, moved throughout the crowd.  The thieves were caught within a few weeks and sentenced to four years in the penitentiary.  One of the cannoneers, not knowing that his shirt sleeve was burning, reached into a box of cartridges and caused an explosion which cost him his life and serious injuries to two others.

The culmination of LaFayette’s visit was the Grand Ball at the State House.  The rooms were beautifully decorated by the ladies of Milledgeville.  Nearly six hundred invited guests danced in two rooms until ten in the evening.  Supper was served - the women eating first, followed by the gentlemen.  LaFayette and his escort headed out the next morning for Macon, where a similar reception followed.  The General’s stay in Georgia ended with a visit to Fort Mitchell.

No single military hero has ever been given such a welcome in the history of our state.  The gratitude for LaFayette’s services to our infant country and the French king’s support of the Colonial armies lasted well into the next century,  when it became a common expression for our country’s soldiers to proclaim upon their arrival in France, “LaFayette, we are here!”

00-31 

A HOSPITAL FOR HORSES

The Horse Infirmary on the Parsons Place

Up on the Buckeye Road in the northern part of Laurens County where Laurens and Johnson Counties join is the old Parsons Place, the sixty-five-hundred acre ante-bellum plantation of Dr. Thomas A. Parsons.  In the latter months of the Civil War, Dr. Parsons leased a portion of his pasture lands to the Confederate government for the establishment of an infirmary for the care of sick and lame horses.   The horse was critical for the cultivation of crops, transportation of troops, and scouting of enemy movements.

The infirmary was located on the southern end of the Parsons Place in northern Laurens County and the extreme western tip of Johnson County about a mile east of the Oconee River.  The land was good for horses- plenty of good water, rolling hills, and good grasslands.  Dr. Parsons, a native of Burke County, moved to the area in the 1850s.  An exact date is impossible to determine since there are no extant records which show when and from whom Dr. Parsons bought the place.  It is likely that Dr. Parsons moved to the area when it was a part of Washington County, prior to the creation of Johnson County in 1857.  Oddly enough, there are no recorded deeds in the Clerk’s office of Laurens County, even though a portion of the lands are inside the boundaries of Laurens County.

Dr. Parsons practiced medicine in Burke County for about fifteen years before moving to the banks of the Oconee River.  As a doctor in Burke County he owned relatively few slaves, only about twenty.  When he moved to what became the Ringjaw District of Johnson County, he purchased more slaves to maintain his large plantation.  The 1860 census of Johnson County enumerated sixty four slaves on the Parsons Place.  Dr. Parsons was the second largest slave owner in Johnson County, second only to his neighbor, John B. Wright, who owned one hundred fifty six slaves.  Parsons and Wright together owned nearly one-fourth of all the slaves in Johnson County at the beginning of the Civil War.  On May 15, 1861, a public meeting was held at the courthouse in Wrightsville for the purpose of forming a militia company for service in the Confederacy.  Dr. Parsons took an active role in the meeting.  His wife, the former Malvina Virginia Jones of Burke County, made a temporary flag for the company that later became the Johnson Grays, who were officially designated as Company F of the 14th Georgia Infantry.

The summer of 1863 was the time in which the armies of the Confederacy suffered mortal defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.  During that summer, the Confederate Army changed its policy on the care of sick horses.  Good horses were becoming hard to find.  At all times before the change, sick or lame horses were either turned loose to fend for themselves or put out their misery.  The government decided that it needed to maintain a good stock of horses and that new measures for the rehabilitation would be needed.  

The three thousand acres on the lower edge of the Parsons Place was centrally located in the Department of Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.  The climate was temperate.  The land was located twelve miles south of the Central of Georgia Railroad depot at Oconee.  The tract featured a good supply of sugar cane and nearly two hundred acres of Bermuda pasture.  Immediately after the lease agreement was signed, the government began the erection of stables, lots, and feed houses, along with sufficient quarters for the men who would care for the horses.

    

Capt. J.G. McKee, characterized as a man of great zeal and fidelity was in command of the post.  Capt. McKee, who had been disabled in the service of the Confederacy, was a former resident of Columbus, Georgia.  W.P. Davis and J. Dasbrow were employed as farriers and surgeons to care for the horses.  Capt. McKee initially had in his employment  about fifty slaves and eight white men, who themselves were former soldiers, disabled during their military service.  In the winter of 1864, the men were busily preparing the area for an additional twenty-six hundred horses.

Horses suffering from glanders, distemper, and other ailments were segregated into different sections, a safe distance from each other.   Wounded or injured horses were placed in separate and roomy stalls to prevent further injury.  During the day the horses were turned out into the pastures and exercised as much as possible.    The workers curried, combed, and washed every horse each day.  The sick ones got daily attention from the doctors.  

Capt. McKee maintained a systematic and highly efficient operation.  Glanders diseases was thought to be fatal to horses in most cases.  On his visit to the Parsons Place, a Richmond newspaper writer found that over thirty five cases of the dreaded disease had been cured.  He reported that the employees were dedicated to their profession and treated the horses with the same compassion shown toward wounded soldiers.   Of the total number of horses sent to the infirmary until mid-January 1864, eighty-five percent had been returned to the army.  No horse was sent back to service without a meticulous inspection.  Those who weren’t well enough to return were advertised and sold to farmers.  

Unfortunately, no other records of the infirmary have been found.   Although the operation was apparently successful, it is difficult to determine just how long the infirmary was operated.  In November of 1864, the sixty thousand man right wing of Gen. William T. Sherman’s Union Army passed within a few miles of the Parsons Place on their march toward Savannah.  It is a reasonable certainty that Gen. Joseph Wheeler and the four thousand cavalrymen under his command would have made provisions for the removal of the horses when they passed by the area in their attempt to get in front of Sherman’s army.

The Parsons Place has since been divided into several smaller tracts, although a large portion of the original place is owned by a single timber company.  The Johnson County Boat Landing, which actually lies in Laurens County, is located near the southern end of the tract near the mouth of Deep Creek.  Any sign of the haven for diseased and injured horses is gone.  This is a story which might have been never discovered had it not been found in an obscure and distant newspaper by an avid historical researcher.  It should serve as an example to us: that we should chronicle our lives so that generations to come will know us and how we lived.

00-32

THE GREER INCIDENT

Preview to War In the Atlantic

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the United States government chose to remain neutral in the war raging in Europe.  Groups of German U-Boat submarines were patrolling the Atlantic in what the British sailors called “Wolfpacks.”  These underwater menaces were a threat to the lives of any person or ship caught on the high seas.  For the first two years of the war, American ships carrying badly needed war supplies to England had managed to escape the deadly torpedoes of the German U-Boats, killers  in the sea.

September 4, 1941 was two years and two days after the English government declared war on the Fascist government of Adolph Hitler and more than three months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. On that day, the United States Navy found itself involved in an incident, which came to be known as the “Greer Incident.”  The name came from the naval destroyer involved in the incident which would begin the process of propelling the United States into a war with Germany.  

The U.S.S. Greer, a destroyer which had been launched during World War I and decommissioned in 1922, was back in action in 1930.  When the winds of war were blowing across Europe in October 1939, the ship was re-commissioned and assigned to duty in the Neutrality Patrol in the North Atlantic in February 1940.  During the next twenty months, the destroyer patrolled the waters of the Caribbean during the winter. The Greer joined the American ships in the North Atlantic in 1941.  These ships patrolled the waters around Reykjavik, Iceland and Argentia, Newfoundland.  The commanders had explicit orders not to attack any German submarines.  German attacks on British shipping began to accelerate.  War was inevitable.

On the morning of September 4, 1939 at 0840 hours, the Greer received a signal from a British plane which was flying overhead southeast of Greenland.  The pilot signaled the destroyer, which was on a mail and passenger run to Argentinia, that a U-boat had just crash-dived ten miles dead ahead.  The Greer’s sonar crew picked up the echoes of killer sub.  The Captain ordered the helmsmen to follow the course of the U-boat.  The plane dropped four depth charges and returned to its base.  The Greer kept up the chase.    The submarine began a series of evasive moves before firing a torpedo at the American vessel about forty eight minutes after noon.  The Captain order a hard left.  The torpedo missed by some one hundred yards.  The destroyer attacked, firing a pattern of eight depth charges, and barely avoided a second torpedo by three hundred yards.

After losing contact with the submarine, the Greer’s men desperately looked for any sign of the U-boat.  About mid-afternoon contact was reestablished.  More depth charges were sent toward the German ship. The U-boat slithered away from its only deadly enemy, the destroyer.  The incident was the first involving United States and German vessels.    The “Greer Incident” prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to hold another of his famous “fireside chats.”  Roosevelt told the hundreds of thousands of radio listeners to their radios that war with Germany was coming. He declared that the German U-boats acts in the North Atlantic amount to piracy.  Roosevelt amended the orders not to shoot first, giving the naval commanders the right to “strike the deadly blow first.”   The President told the American people, who listened to every one of his words, “From now on,  if German or Italian vessels enter the waters the protection of which is necessary for American defense, they do so at their own peril.”   Roosevelt’s ire had clearly been raised.  He cited one incident after another of German attacks on merchant vessels, some of which were flying under the American flag.  The incident with the U.S.S. Greer was different.  This time it was a ship of the American Navy.  The acts of the German U-boat were tantamount to acts of war.   Although there was no official declaration of war, the United States had unofficially begun its entry into World War II.    Calls for the repeal of the Neutrality Act rang out.  

Six weeks later on October 17, 1941, the U.S.S. Kearney was torpedoed by a U-Boat.  Eleven of her crew were killed.  Roosevelt was livid, declaring that all of America had been attacked.  German submarines paid no attention to Roosevelt’s warnings.  Two weeks later on Halloween, the U.S.S. Reuben James, was sunk of the coast of Halifax.  One hundred and fifteen souls perished in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.  War was just around the corner.  The Greer remained on patrol duty in the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas as well as in the Atlantic Ocean for the remainder of the war.  The ship was decommissioned two and one half weeks before the end of the War.

The U.S.S. Greer was the first American ship in World War II to fire upon a German vessel. The incident accelerated American’s entrance into the war.  It was a time when we knew war was coming.  We just did not know exactly when.  The incident was reported in national news reports and in the Courier Herald.  What the folks in Dublin did not know was that one of their own was onboard the Greer on that fateful day.  Elbert Brunson, Jr. of Dublin was serving in the United States Navy and was stationed onboard the Greer when she was attacked the German navy.  Brunson transferred to the Pacific for duty aboard an aircraft carrier.   Brunson was awarded the Purple Heart in 1943. Brunson was wounded again - though no details of the degree of his wounds were ever published.

00-33

UNJUSTIFIABLE FORCE

The Murder of Dudley Policeman, John Jessie Webb

John Jessie Webb was the police officer for the City of Dudley in 1945.   Webb, seventy four  years old, was typical of many small town policemen in the rural South in the post World War II era.  On September 12, 1945, Carl Pope was putting on a tent show in Dudley.  Just before the show ended, Aaron Napper, alias Lovett Napper, became involved in an incident with Mrs. Pope, the wife of the show’s proprietor.  Napper put his face into the face of Mrs. Pope, who pulled back and walked away.  Napper attempted to lie down, but was forced to sit down when he became entangled in some ladders.   Pope summoned Officer Webb.  When Webb arrived, Pope advised him that Lovett had been drinking.  Webb pointed his flashlight into Napper’s eyes and concluded that he had been drinking.  Webb escorted Napper away, holding him by the wrist.

As the two men passed between the post office and another building, witnesses heard four shots fired. Bystanders ran toward the source of the gunshots.  There they found officer Webb mortally wounded.  He had been shot three times, once in the neck and twice in the stomach.  Webb was buried in the Duggan Cemetery in Dudley after his funeral at Dudley Baptist Church.   Napper escaped during the night and eluded Sheriff Carlus Gay’s bloodhounds for several days.

Napper and Sheriff Gay had a run-in earlier in that evening.   Gay had gone to the jail in Dudley to answer a disturbance.  Napper was there  attempting to get his brother out of jail.  Gay nearly arrested Napper when he became too boisterous.   Believing Napper would leave peaceably, Gay let him go.  Napper was captured a few days later by Sheriff G.R. Barwick in Treutlen County about three or four miles north of Soperton on the M.D. and S. Railroad which ran through Dublin to Dudley. 

A trial was held on October 30, 1945 in Laurens County Superior Court, with Judge R. Earl Camp presiding.  Napper was represented by Lester F. Watson and Will Stallings.  W.W. Larsen, Jr. represented the State of Georgia.   Eloise Jones was sworn as the first witness for the state.  She testified that she saw the arrest and heard shots being fired.  After the shots were fired, Jones testified that she saw Napper running toward some warehouses, his path lit by the flashlight of Carl Pope.  There was no cross-examination.  Carl Pope  took the stand next.  Pope testified that Napper had “a very bad look on his face.”  After the shooting, Pope said that he heard the postmistress crying for help.  At first he thought Webb was the one shooting in an attempt get help. Pope shined his light on Napper until he disappeared into some tall weeds.   Again, the state’s witness was not cross-examined.

William Smith testified that he knew Aaron Napper.  Smith and Napper had worked together on the railroad.  The two had spoken earlier in the night, and Smith stated that Napper “talked a little unconcerned.”   As Smith, his brother, and a friend were walking along the street, they heard four gun shots.  They dashed between many parked cars where they found Officer Webb on the sidewalk in front of the post office.  Smith ran to find someone to carry the wounded Webb to the hospital.  When Smith returned to the scene, he found that Webb was already dead.  Harry Smith also knew Napper and testified he saw him that night.  

Tommy Walker, the fifth witness for the State, told the jury that he took Napper to a railroad car to collect a debt owed to Napper.  Walker stated that Napper didn’t seem to be drunk.  After Napper went to the tent show, Walker drove his car to a spot just above the post office.  After a few moments, Walker heard several shots.   He stated that he was afraid to move.  He saw Napper walking very fast by the car with a gun in his hand.  Tom Jackson said he saw Webb hit Napper.  After the shots were fired, he saw Napper running down the street.

The entire case turned on the eye witness testimony of Robert Thomas, Jr.   The thirteen year old testified that he saw the entire incident.  He demonstrated that he was as close to the struggle as “that glass over there,” a reference to the courtroom window.   Thomas told the court that he saw the men struggle.   He testified that he saw Napper hit Webb with his fist, knocking him on the ground.  Napper grabbed Webb’s service revolver.  Webb attempted to get on his feet.   He indicated that Napper shot Webb three times at close range and then backed off a few feet before firing the fourth shot.   Thomas stated that he saw no threats against Napper by the policeman.  Thomas was terrified.  He ran across the street and saw two girls run to the aid of the policeman.   He ran to the home of Alfred Williams, who took him home.    After its most damaging testimony was heard by the court, the state rested.  

The defendant’s attorneys never cross-examined any witnesses.  Instead, Aaron Napper took the stand in his own defense.  Napper said “I was drinking that night and I don’t remember nothing.  It comes kindly hazy to me.  I haven’t ever had any trouble with anybody in my life.... I hate that it happened.... I hate it from my heart.”  Napper’s attorneys called James Waller, a Soperton turpentine and cotton farmer, who testified that Napper had a good reputation in his home community.  Treutlen County Sheriff, G.R. Barwick, and Soperton Police Chief, M.B. Ware, both testified of Napper’s good reputation in Treutlen County.   Sheriff Barwick did testify that he found Webb’s gun on Napper’s person.

The defense rested his case.  The case went to the jury.  The verdict was swift and unanimous.   The jury headed by foreman W.A. Hobbs  found Aaron, alias Lovett, Napper guilty of the murder of Officer John  J. Webb.  The trial was so swift that the trial transcript was only eight letter-sized double- spaced pages.  The verdict was published in “The Courier Herald” that afternoon.  

Judge Camp sentenced Napper to death by electrocution a few days before Christmas.  Napper’s attorneys appealed his case to the Supreme Court of Georgia.  They argued that Napper had used reasonable force to resist a technically illegal arrest by Webb. The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s decision.  The court reasoned that the 41 year old Napper could have easily knocked Webb to the ground to escape and that no gunshots were necessary.   The Department of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency and Napper died in the state electric chair in July of 1946.

00-34

THE WINDS OF WAR

The National Guard Mobilizes

Sixty years ago Europe had been engulfed in a year long war.  The United States, while attempting to maintain a policy of neutrality, began preparing for an eminent war with Germany.  The effective troop strength of the U.S. Army had declined for decades.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the mobilization of the various National Guard units around the country in September of 1940.  Roosevelt knew that when war came, the National Guardsmen would help form the nation’s first line of defense.

The initial preparations for mobilization began with a three-week encampment at Camp Shelby, Mississippi.  In early August, one hundred and six members of Company K and the Headquarters Detachment of the 121st U.S. Infantry Regiment boarded trains at the depot in Dublin. The men were bound for large scale war games in the Sabine River Valley of Louisiana.  The local guardsmen joined with other Georgia companies in Atlanta for a train ride to Camp Shelby, where they would train for ten days.  The last half of the training period would be a series of maneuvers with seventy thousand men from other guard units from the southeastern United States.  The plans called for a simulated mechanized invasion by an enemy force.  The operations, according to regimental commander Lt. Col. L.C. Pope of Dublin, were a success.  The greatest enemies the men had to faced were the heat, the humidity, and the mosquito.    On August 24, the men returned home for a brief rest and visit with their families.

President Roosevelt, acting under a recently passed act of Congress, set September 16th, 1940 as Mobilization, or “M”, Day.  Company K’s normal strength was eighty eight  enlisted men and four officers.  Forty one more men were needed to raise the company to its required level of strength.  The Headquarters Company needed fifteen more men to bring its total number to twenty six men and one officer.  Overall, the 121st Regiment would need five hundred more men.  The mobilization act called for a period of service of twelve months, during which time the regiment would train at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

Col. Pope made an inspection tour of each of the companies in middle and southern Georgia.  A recruiting officer was stationed at the National Guard Armory in the old Four Seasons Building at the northwest corner of South Jefferson and West Madison Streets.  Recruiters were instructed to choose only select men between the ages of twenty one and thirty one.  By September 10th, fifty seven new men had enlisted in Company K, according to Capt. Clifford H. Prince.  Lt. R.L. Webb, commanding the HQ detachment, 3rd Battalion, stated his unit was nearing its peacetime strength.  The HQ company was stationed in its armory in the Pierce & Orr Building at the northwest corner of West Jackson and North Jefferson Streets.

The people of Laurens County wanted to honor their young men for their military service.  The members of the Celestia Smith Bible Class of First Methodist Church treated the guardsmen to a barbecue supper.  E.F. Moxley was the toastmaster for the evening’s festivities, which included an inspirational talk by Col. Pope.  A few days later,  another barbecue supper, this time in the Hargrove Gym on North Calhoun Street,  was held in honor of the guards through the sponsorship of local businessmen.  Bob Hightower, manager of the Ritz Theatre, arranged for a special movie for the men.

It was “M” Day, September 16, 1940.  One by one, the guardsmen reported to Co. K’s camp on the old baseball diamond of the 12th Dist. fairgrounds at Troup and Telfair Streets, just east of the Guard’s present post.  The men camped there for a week before leaving for Fort Jackson on September 23rd.

Those who left Dublin with Company K of the 121st Infantry were:  OFFICERS: Captain: Clifford H. Prince, 1st Lieut.: Alfred T. Coleman, Jr. and Lem Clarke (Macon), 2nd Lieut: William S. Drew; NON COMMISSIONED OFFICERS: 1st Sergeant: F.C. Tindol; Sergeants: Comer F. Holton, Herbert Holton, Ernest L. Stephens; Corporals: Cecil H. Edwards, Julius C. Edwards, Thomas Couey, Rex Brantley, Wallace McCord, Thurman Shepard, George Walker, Jr.; PRIVATES FIRST CLASS: Arthur J. Adams, Howard W. Brantley, David G. Daniel, Jr., Herschel L. Daniel, Theron Hall, Fred B. Kitchens, Rudolph McLendon, James W. Neumans, William B. Russell, George B. Snellgrove, James B. Smith, Milo Tomlinson, James B. Veal, Cleveland A. Warren, Hilton C. Wood, Wilbur M. Witherington, Willie Lee Young; PRIVATES:  Hubert Adams, James P. Atkinson, Rufus L. Autry, Jr., Willie H. Ballard, George M. Bass. Dennis L. Beasley, John C. Boone, Jr., Lois Boyles, Carl H. Braddy, Ralph H. Brantley, Julian J. Bryan, Albert Bryant, Willie D. Bush, Alfonso W. Clark, Charlie W. Collins, Joe B. Cook, Robert F. Davidson, Charles L. Dominy, Mett C. Dominy, Tullie J. Donaldson, Lawrence D. Estes, Nelson T. Floyd, Henry C. Evans, John B. Gaillard, Milton Gaillard, Ira T. Garnto, Charles R. Garrett, Cecil C. Gay, Harley L. Gilder, Ralph F. Gilder, Ralph M. Gore, Roy S. Graham, Walter Graham, Douglas D. Granger, Thomas C. Hart, Carl B. Herrington, Arthur L. Hilliard, Hugh R. Holland, Willis V. Holland, Julian L. Holliman, Willie T. Holmes, William C. Holton, Rex L. Jackson, Joe R. Johnson, Harold Kennedy, James O. Kilgore, Manning Killingsworth, David W. Knight, Benjamin T. Layton, Roy B. Leach, Ernest H. Lee, Ralph J. Lewis, Wilbur R. McDaniel, James R. Mc Gowan, W.J. McGowan, Jr., Ernest M. McGowan, Nathan McGowan, Walter C. McMullan, Edison H. Miller, Joe D. Miller, Jr., Emory E. Morgan, Willie E. Morgan, Lester W. Mullis, Clarence Nobles, John D. Page, John C. Passmore, Floral E. Payne, Paul Perry, George W. Pryor, Vernice Ricks, Johnnie L. Reese, Thomas A. Robinson, Walter A. Rountree, Thomas J. Russell, Jr., Archie T. Salter, Jerrell Sawyer, Roy D. Shepard, Albert C. Smith, James D. Smith, John L. Smith, Raleigh E. Smith, Emory A. Snider, Elmer R. Thomas, Robert Thomas, Willie L. Tipton, Jr., Calley L. Warren, James P. Warren, Samuel J. Wester, Ralph Wilkes, Warren B. Wilkes, Harry Williams, Thurman W. Wyatt, William C. Wyatt, and Edwin P. Yarborough.

The following are the men of Laurens County who were assigned to Regimental Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 3rd Battalion of the 121st Infantry: OFFICERS: Colonel: Lewis Cleveland Pope; Lt. Colonel: Charles Flannery Pope (3rd Battalion); Captain: William B. Bryans; Regimental Adjutant: Ralph L. Webb; 1st Lieutenant: Alfred T. Coleman, Jr., 1st Lieutenant: Robert Graves; NON COMMISSIONED OFFICERS:  Tech Sergeant: Delmas L. Webb; Staff Sergeant: Bennett L. Carroll;  Corporal: Addison Savage, Graham P. Dowling, Thomas E. Goodwin. PRIVATES: James C. Adams, Thomas O. Bates, William A. Beckham, James T. Coleman, Basil E. Dunn, Malcolm L. Dunn, Elliot L. Durham, Jr., Marvin J. Flanders, Jessie D. Harrison, James T. Haskins, Henry T. Kalb, Prentice Perry, Lester E. Pritchett, Emory F. Scarborough, Edwin Smith, Fred L. Smith, Joseph B. Stanley, Emil L. Tindol, John W. Tompkins, Jr., Robert C. Ware, Thomas P. Watson, and Perry W. Woodard.

The men served their one year in the guard. When the war finally came in December of 1941, most of them remained in the service for another four years.  While some of the men in Company K remained in the 121st Infantry, most of the men were assigned to different units.  This was done to prevent the devastating results of the Civil War, when local companies caught in horrific battles sustained massive casualties, all from the same town or community.

00-35

REV. WHITEFORD S. RAMSAY

A Truly Noble Man

A little more than a century ago, a great man passed from our midst.  He was an educator by ancestry, a soldier by necessity, and a minister of the Gospel by divinity.  His life in our community spanned the depths of the dark days following the end of the Civil War to the zenith of prosperity at the turn of the twentieth century. Whiteford Smith Ramsay was born on June 8, 1839 in Milledgeville, Georgia.  His father’s family was rich in its Scotch heritage.  The progenitor of the American Ramsays, William Ramsay, married Caroline Randolph, granddaughter of William and Mary Randolph. The Randolphs were the namesakes of William and Mary College in Virginia and the ancestors of three of the more famous Virginians, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, and Chief Justice John Marshall.

Ramsay’s parents, Randolph Ramsay and Mary Cleghorn Ramsay, were children of eminent men.  James Ramsay served North Carolina in the Congress of the United States and wrote a widely acclaimed history of his state.  Dr. George Cleghorn was a physician and scientist from Edinburgh, Scotland.  Randolph Ramsay moved his family to Milledgeville in 1839 following his graduation from Yale University.  Ramsay took a position as rector in the prepatory academy for admission to Oglethorpe College, which was located at Midway, near Milledgeville.   Randolph Ramsay taught his son, Whiteford, at Oglethorpe until the younger Ramsay transferred to Princeton University in 1858.  Later that year, the 19-year old Ramsay came to the floundering town of Dublin, Georgia to open an academy.

In April, 1861, the then 21-year old teacher led the organization of “The Blackshear Guards,” a group of local men who would later be designated as Company H of the 14th Georgia Infantry.  The men elected Prof. Ramsay as their Captain on July 14, 1861.  Two days later, Capt. Ramsay was elected Lieutenant Colonel of the 14th Georgia.  Col. Ramsay may have been one of the youngest colonels in the Confederate Army.   The company was mustered into Confederate service on July 23, 1861.  Twenty five days later, Col. Ramsay resigned his commission from the army.

Ramsay returned to Dublin.  The true reason for his return is not known today. In the war years, Ramsay was led toward the ministry.  In 1870, Rev. Ramsay converted and was ordained as minister of the First Baptist Church of Dublin.  Rev. Ramsay served the congregation for over two decades, retiring as an active pastor in 1891.  In addition to his service to First Baptist Church, Rev. Ramsay served at Poplar Springs North Baptist Church for twenty years and four months, the longest period of service in the history of Laurens County’s oldest church.  In fact, not only did Rev. Ramsay serve as pastor of First Baptist and Poplar Springs North, he also served Rocky Creek Church - all at the same time.  During his thirty years in the ministry, Rev. Ramsay also served Ohoopee Baptist Church, Jeffersonville Baptist Church, and Bethlehem Baptist Church, Laurens County’s second oldest church.    Ramsay was also active in the Ebenezer Association, the governing body of Baptist churches in our area,  serving as moderator for eight years and as an officer for over twenty years.   It has been said that Ramsay preached more funerals and baptized more people than anyone in the history of Middle Georgia.   Many of those baptisms were held in the Oconee River.  Ramsay would wade out into the middle of the river and call those wishing to be baptized to join him in accepting Christ as their savior. 

In accordance with an act of the 1870 Georgia legislature, the Laurens County Grand Jury of the 1872 April term established the first county board of education.  The initial board chose Rev. Ramsay as the county’s first school superintendent.  The board established stringent standards for teachers, which included passing a seven part exam.  The superintendent was not exempt from the exam.  Ramsey accepted the challenge and made six perfect scores and missed a seventh one by two-thirds of a point on the school law test.  In addition to his duties as a trustee of the school system and as superintendent, Ramsay served as Principal of the Dublin Academy, which was then a two-story wooden building that stood on the site of the present City Hall.

During the 1880s, Dublin’s religious leaders led a temperance movement in the city to rid it of the sale of alcoholic beverages.  At one time, there were nearly a half-dozen bar rooms in the city.  At that time, Dublin had a population of less than five hundred, half of which were women, and half of the remaining people were not allowed to drink because of their age or their race.  Eventually the “dry” folks won, and the bar rooms closed.

Rev. Ramsay’s contributions to his community extended beyond his religious and educational work.  In October of 1884, Ramsay joined other civic leaders and businessmen in seeking the location of a railroad into Dublin.  These men knew that a railroad was the key to any future growth of Dublin.  Stock subscriptions were sold, and the leaders formed the Dublin and Wrightsville Railroad, which later merged with the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad. The Wrightsville and Tennille came into Dublin in 1886 and gave Dublin a connection with the powerful, and profitable Central of Georgia Railroad.  Rev. Ramsay served as treasurer of the D&W Railroad and was elected to serve on the board of directors of the W & T Railroad following the merger.

Rev. Ramsay was one of the foremost leaders of Laurens Lodge No. 75, F. & A.M. in Dublin.  Ramsay was made a Master Mason in 1874.  He later became a Royal Arch Mason and member of the St. Omer Commandery Knights Templar.  Rev. Ramsay served as chaplain of several Masonic organizations and as chairman of the Foreign Correspondence Committee of the Grand Lodge.  He served as Worshipful Master of the Laurens Lodge for eight years - longer than anyone in the one hundred fifty two year history of the lodge.

Whiteford Ramsay was re-elected to another term as county school superintendent at the dawn of the 20th Century.  During the winter of 1899-1900, his health began to fail.  His physicians did all they could do.  Ramsay’s family decided to send him to St.  Joseph’s infirmary in Atlanta.  After a week of unsuccessful treatments, Rev. Ramsay decided that home was the best place for him to be.  On March 16, 1900, Ramsay returned to his home on Bellevue Avenue at its southeastern corner with the street which bears his name. Rev. He passed away just two hours later.  A pall was cast over the entire county.  Laurens County’s most beloved man of the 19th century was dead.

Thousands of mourners, many of them from all parts of the state, came to pay their respects.  The old wooden First Baptist Church was too small to accommodate the crowd of people who came to the funeral.  The front porch of the church was used as the pulpit.  The crowd extended across the street and beyond the academy where Rev. Ramsay once taught.  Rev. Ramsay was buried in the Old City Cemetery in the Thomas N. Guyton plot.  Ramsay’s wife, Henrietta Jane Guyton, survived him by sixteen years and was buried beside her husband in the family plot.  Ramsay’s elaborate marble monument, made locally by W.F. Womble, was placed over his grave over two years after his death.  Rev. Whiteford Ramsay’s contributions to our community are still felt today, one hundred years after his death.  He truly was, in the strictest sense of the word, a noble man.

00-36

A HURRICANE COMES TO LAURENS

Atlantic hurricanes of the Twentieth Century were relatively kind to Georgia.  Those of the Nineteenth Century were much deadlier.  Deadly hurricanes struck the Georgia coastline head on in 1804, 1813, 1824, 1854, 1881, 1893, and 1898.  The latter storm packed one of the biggest punches, striking between Cumberland and St. Simons Islands.   In 1989, Hurricane Hugo was headed for a direct hit on Savannah, destined to die out in eastern Central Georgia.  The storm turned to the northwest and devastated Charleston and Charlotte in the Carolinas.   The storm of October 2nd and 3rd of 1898 moved northwesterly through southeast Central Georgia, including the lower portion of Laurens County before becoming a tropical storm. That made it the only known hurricane to strike Laurens County, which is located more than one hundred miles inland.

On August 27, 1881, a hurricane struck the coast of Georgia, killing an estimated seven hundred persons.  Exactly twelve years later, another hurricane hit Georgia’s coastline.  This storm, which killed an estimated one thousand to twenty five hundred persons, is considered America’s third worst natural disaster and the twentieth deadliest Atlantic hurricane in the second half of the second millennium, A.D..  The 1893 storm came up from the southeast hitting Savannah and then Charleston and probably did not impact Laurens County, which would have been on the weaker, eastern end of the storm.  Six weeks later, a hurricane killed two thousand or more people in Louisiana.  The 1881 storm is  estimated to have been the fifth deadliest hurricane in American history.  The deadliest storm in American history occurred just over a century ago when eight to twelve thousand people were killed in Galveston, Texas on September 8, 1900.

The book  “History of Laurens County, Georgia, 1807-1941" states that a catastrophic hurricane moved northeasterly across the southern part of Laurens County in 1882 causing major damage to a wide belt of primeval pine trees.  It was said that for many years the area was a wasteland of great clay roots.  No newspaper references to this storm have been found to corroborate this storm.  Except for the direction of the storm, the event could have occurred during the hurricane of August 27, 1881.  The “Dublin Post” reported: “The heavy wind and rain storm which lasted from Saturday night to Monday morning worked untold ruin on the cotton crop.  All open cotton was beaten out, and the young stalk often blown or beaten down.”

The moon had been full on September 29. 1898.    Horace Gould, of St. Simons Island, reported that the wind had been blowing steadily out of the northeast for three days prior to the arrival of the storm.  The “northeaster” added to the water level in the marshes and estuaries, which is normally higher in October along the Georgia Coast.  The storm struck late in the evening of the 2nd.  The inhabitants of St. Catherine’s, Campbell, Butler, Wolf, and Chapney Islands to the north of St. Simons Island suffered the most damage -  being on the deadly northeastern edge of the storm. All but one person on St. Catherine’s was killed.  All fifty something residents of Campbell Island were washed away in the storm surge.  A little to the south, residents of Darien reported that the storm surge was thirteen feet high.

J.A. Falk, assistant superintendent of the Jekyll Island Club, reported that “we had the most severe storm ever known here - it was a tidal wave.”  The dunes along the beach were washed away. The fisherman’s houses and the northern and southern ends of the island were washed away.  The village of millionaire’s cottages survived the storm virtually unharmed, despite the fact that the entire island was covered with water and many oaks were blown down.

Cumberland Island, now thought to be the site of the landfall of the eye of the hurricane, was subjected to vicious winds, heavily rainfall, and a high storm surge.  Frank Fader’s pilot boat was found on a bluff twenty feet above the high water level.  Many homes, especially along the northern end of the island, were destroyed.  Most of the city of Brunswick was under water.  Eight people were dead.  Communication wires were downed.  Damage estimates approached the million dollar mark.  Most of the ships at the docks were destroyed.  Further inland, the storm destroyed the railroad depot at Jessup.

In East Central Georgia,  the winds began to pick up late in the evening of October 2nd.   Damage reports came in from all over southeastern Central Georgia.  The “Montgomery Monitor” reported that “one could not look in any direction without seeing evidences of the storm’s devastation, or walk more than a foot without encountering them.”  The entire cotton crop was damaged in Montgomery County, with the sugar cane fairing only slightly better.   Travel in and out of Mt. Vernon was suspended due to fallen limbs on every major thoroughfare.   In Lumber City, the cotton was damaged along with the remaining fall crops.  Many roads were washed out or covered with trees, limbs, and debris.  In Cochran, farmers reported that the entire cotton crop was ruined, and the sugar cane crop had suffered greatly.  Dodge County farmers faired a little better.  Only half of their cotton crop was lost.  In Hawkinsville and Abbeville, farmers reported similar destruction of the cotton crop.  Unfortunately, since there are no surviving Dublin newspapers from the time, there are no direct accounts of the storm’s damage, which most likely would have been similar to other counties in the area.

The storm still packed a powerful punch when it struck Macon.  Although there was no thunder and lightning, one observer described the tempest as “a rain blizzard of the fiercest character, such as the oldest inhabitant has rarely seen.”  The damage was surprisingly light, though H.N. Burke, a trolley conductor, was electrocuted during the storm.

Twentieth Century studies of archival data have concluded that the eye of the storm may have passed thirty miles more to the south than was originally thought.  With a pattern of increasing storm surges, which peaked on Jekyll Island at 19 feet, it appears likely that the hurricane made landfall on Cumberland Island. It then passed on to the northwest before becoming a tropical storm in Peach County.  The remnants of the storm continued to move to the northwest, making a large loop around Illinois and Indiana before turning to the northeast and returning to the Atlantic Ocean in northern Massachusetts.

00-37

TY COBB, JR.

No Chip Off the Old Block

He was never a baseball player, although his name was Tyrus Raymond Cobb, Jr.  He loved the sport of baseball, but he never played it on a professional level or even in high school.  He loved other sports, especially tennis and hunting.  His was one of the most famous families in Georgia history, though he never reveled in their fame.  He would talk to others about his famous father. However,  he had his own successful, but all too short career.  He was a healer, and he took pride in doing his job and doing it well.

Tyrus Raymond Cobb, Jr. was born on January 30, 1910 in the home of his maternal grandfather, Roswell Lombard.  Lombard, a well-known Augusta, Georgia businessman, lived on Dean’s Bridge Road, which later became known as U.S. Highway No. 1, just this side of Augusta.  Ty Cobb, Sr. married Charlie Lombard on August 8, 1908.  Ty, their second child was a bid red-headed baby, tipping the scales at nine pounds.  Newspaper writers knew that he was going to be a great baseball player, just like his daddy.

The elder Cobb had made it to the pinnacle of the American League in 1909.  He was the second of only fourteen players in major league history to win the Triple Crown, leading the American League in batting average, home runs (9), and runs batted in.  Cobb also led the league in runs, hits, on-base average, slugging average, and stolen bases.  The 1909 season, just before Ty’s birth, was one of the greatest seasons a major league ball player ever had.    Cobb nearly won the Triple Crown  three years in a row, leading the league in two of three categories.  Cobb, considered one of the best and meanest players (his own teammates disliked his tactics) who ever lived, remains at the top of the all-time statistical leaders.  Cobb is first in runs scored, and lifetime batting average with a .366 average. He got on base 43.3 % of the time.  He was second in triples and hits, although he batted nearly three thousand less times than the leader, Pete Rose.  He is fourth in games played, doubles, total bases,  and at bats. Cobb stands fifth  in runs batted in.   In an era when stolen bases were not the norm, Ty Cobb still remains fourth on the all time list. Cobb, known as the “Georgia Peach,” led the American League in batting average 12 out 13 seasons.  Famous people came to visit Cobb, including President William Howard Taft soon before the younger Ty’s birth.

The Cobbs moved into a two story home at 2425 William Street in the well-to-do Summerville section of Augusta, just a short distance from the current location of Augusta State University.  Ty’s childhood was not like that of a typical Augusta boy.  Visitors to the Cobb home included such legendary Americans as Knute Rockne, Bobby Jones, John Phillip Sousa, Robert Woodruff, and baseball commissioner, Kennesaw “Mountain” Landis.   The sounds of classical music filled his home, while a wide variety of pets and animals were kept outside in the back yard.  Although the elder Ty’s feats on the baseball diamond provided the Cobb family with all of the amenities of life, their family life was not so amenable. Ty Cobb’s legendary ball field temper came with him when he came home during the off season.  

Ty, Jr. attended Richmond Academy in Augusta, where he was a two-sport star.  Ty chose football and tennis, not even trying out for the baseball team.   He knew that he could never match his father’s feats as a baseball player.  Ty Jr., the antithesis of his father, was considered shy and took a lot of jealous ribbing from his fellow students.  Ty loved to play tennis, then considered a game of the erudite.  He played in the South Atlantic Tennis Tournament against Bill Tilden, the greatest tennis player of his day.  Tilden, the first American to win at Wimbledon, became Ty’s personal tennis coach.

Ty attended Princeton University for a time before failing too many courses.  He continued to play tennis after transferring to Yale University, where he was captain of the team.  Ty returned nearer to home to study medicine at the Medical College of Charleston.  He did his intern work at the University of Georgia Medical School in his hometown, without the financial aid of his father.  While on a fishing trip in Florida, he met his wife, Mary Frances Dunn, whom he married on June 13, 1942.  Ty returned to Augusta to his practice, before moving to Dublin several years later.  The Cobbs had three children, Ty, III, Charlie, and Peggy.  In 1945, Dr. and Mrs. Cobb bought the Hardeman Blackshear home at 1108 Stonewall Street, where the senior Cobb reportedly visited him on at least one occasion.  

Dr. Cobb played very little organized baseball.  He did love baseball.  “He was my doctor, my favorite doctor,” Wash Larsen recalled.  “I still remember going into his office in the Thompson hospital on Rowe Street.  It was a thrill just to go in and listening to his stories about baseball, and he had some good ones,” Larsen said.  Larsen and his friends practiced baseball on the ball field at the old fairgrounds at the corner of Telfair and Troup Streets.  “Nearly every day, Dr. Cobb would pull up to the ballfield in his sports car. He would get out and ask if he could play ball with us.  We said sure, of course, Dr. Cobb,” Larsen said.  After all, he was Ty Cobb, not the ball player, but as close as the young boys would ever get to him. “He hit all of our baseballs over the fence into the kudzu-lined ravine across the road and then left,” Larsen fondly remembered.  Larsen and his friends went  to the kudzu patch and found every ball they could, hoping that Dr. Cobb would come back the next day and hit them over the fence again, which he did.  Dr. Cobb was one of the better golfers in Dublin.  He loved hunting.   One day he  was out on the Oconee River hunting for game birds.  When he hit his first wild goose, he found a band on the bird's leg.  Cobb stated, "I nearly fell out of the boat."  The bird came from a wildlife refuge and the home of his friend, the famous Jack Miner.  The Ontario refuge, where Cobb had visited many times as a child and an adult,  was home to thousands of birds under the protection of the Canadian government.

As a doctor, Ty Cobb became one of Dublin’s finest and most respected physicians.  Cobb joined Doctors A.T. Coleman and Fred Coleman and the American Legion in calling for the construction of a county hospital in Dublin.   Early in 1952, Dr. Cobb was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  He underwent an operation and lived for a time with his sister Shirley Beckworth in New York.  The family kept him in New York, knowing that the hot Dublin summers wouldn’t be good for him.  Although he looked healthy, the cancer was destroying his brain.  In a poignant meeting, Ty, Sr. offered to give Ty, Jr. a bird dog.  Ty had enough memory left to realize that his father had never given him anything.

Tyrus Raymond Cobb, Jr. died on September 9, 1952.  He was entombed in the family mausoleum in Palo Alto, California.  His father died in 1961 and his mother in 1975.  She was entombed by her sons, while Ty, Sr. chose to be laid to rest in his hometown of Royston.  Dr. Cobb’s fellow Dublin Rotary Club members started a memorial scholarship fund in his memory dedicated to providing scholarships to medical students.  Dr. Cobb’s son, Charlie probably summed up the essence of his father when he said, “ I don’t care what time he came in from treating his patients or delivering babies – sometimes two or three in the morning – my father always would come into our bedrooms and give us a kiss.  I probably remember that more about him than anything else.”

00-38

STATE CHAMPIONS AGAIN

The 1960 Dublin Irish Football Team

Winning a state championship is hard in any sport.  It takes hard work, talent, and a lot of luck.  Winning two consecutive championships is obviously more difficult.  Following the 1959 season, the Irish players, fans, and coaches could only hope to repeat as champions, The team, the smallest one in many years, had only three starting first string players coming back from the championship team.  The Irish opened the season at home on Battle Field, which had completely been refurbished through the efforts of Sgt . B.A. Snipes, Touchdown Club president Spec Hall,  and many others.  

Crisp County was the first opponent.  They had gone  9 and 1 in 1959.  The Irish shutout the Rebels 13 to 0  winning their sixteenth consecutive game.   Tennyson Coleman, Dublin’s star running back, scored two touchdowns.  While the Rebels concentrated on stopping Coleman, the other backs, Bill Riner and Pete Jernigan, took up the slack and piled up impressive rushing stats.

The Irish traveled to Fort Valley to face the Greenwave, the last team to have beaten them back in 1958.  While the game was closer than the final score, the Irish took their measure of revenge and defeated Fort Valley, 20 to 6.  Coleman added two more TD scores to run his total to four.  Jimmy Harrington, playing in the place of Jernigan ( who saw limited action on defense due to a knee injury) scored the final touchdown in the third quarter.  Jim Hilburn was the defensive star, swiping a last second pass at the end of the first half and killing a scoring drive with another takeaway in the final stanza.

Bill Riner and Ben Snipes led Dublin to a 19-14 victory over Sandersville in the third game.  Coleman led both teams in rushing.  Tal Fuqua, John Reed Deamer, Wayne Thomas, and Jimmy Dixon had outstanding games up on the front line.  Ronnie Baggett fielded a Washington County punt on the Washington County 36-yard line and handed off to Bill Riner. Riner followed a wall of green and white blockers into the opposing end zone to seal the third victory of the season.

The Irish trailed the Statesboro Blue Devils at the end of the half of the fourth and most crucial game of the year.  A near record crowd of four thousand fans surrounded Battle Field to cheer on the Irish.  Coleman had to leave the game in the second quarter with an injury he suffered during the off week practice.  Harrington stepped up and performed well.  He spun through and around several Blue Devil defense men to tally Dublin’s only touchdown of the game.  Bill Riner tossed a pass to left.  Wayne Thomas cradled it in for the extra point, the margin of victory.  Irish coaches praised Bill Brown, Hugh Palmer, Jimmy Scarborough, Hollis Neal, and Jimmy Hilburn for their fine play.

Riner took a reverse handoff and returned a punt for 70 yards for the first score against the Cochran Royals.  Riner scored again on a 76 yard run from scrimmage.  Riner scored a third time, a 57 yard run up the middle.  Riner returned the favor from Baggett, giving him the ball on a reverse for another 70 yard touchdown return on a punt.  As usual, Deamer, Brown, Hilburn, Harrington, Fuqua, Riner, Jernigan, and Snipes were stand outs on defense.

The Irish winning streak was stopped at 20 games by the Swainsboro Tigers, 19 to 13.  Mistakes cost the Irish the game and jeopardized the chances of repeating even the Region championship.  Despite a plague of injuries, the Irish came back the next week to defeat Eastman High, 20 to 6.  Riner and Jernigan pushed across the first two Dublin scores.  Jimmy Scarborough grabbed a Baggett pass at the end of the first half to end the scoring for the Irish, who held on in the second half for the victory.  The Irish continued to roll over their opponents in the homecoming game against Screven County.  Riner, Coleman, and Jernigan scored touchdowns for the Irish following a scoreless first half.   The stubborn Irish defense held the Gamecocks scoreless for their second shutout of the year. 

Coach Minton Williams was afraid of Jerry Reeves, star running back of the Americus Panthers and one of finest backs to ever play against the Irish.  In the first nine games, Reeves's rushing average was more than 130 yards per game.  The teams played before an overflow crowd at Battle Field in Dublin.  Reaves again put up outstanding numbers.  Dublin was ahead by one point at the end of third quarter.  Near the end of the game,  the Americus quarterback, who was a cousin of Jerry Reeves, scored on a one yard quarterback-sneak to put the Panthers ahead for good.  The Irish lost 27 to 21.  The quarterback who scored the winning touchdown went on to be a star player with the South Carolina Gamecocks.  He played professional football with the Dallas Cowboys from 1965 to 1972, playing in two Super Bowls.  After his playing career he went into coaching.  He coached the Denver Broncos from 1981 to 1992 leading them to the Super Bowl in 1986, 1987, and 1989.  He has been in eight Super Bowls as a player and coach, more than any other in the history of the NFL.  He left the Broncos to take the job as coach of the New York Giants, where he was Coach of the Year in 1993.   In 1999, he led the Atlanta Falcons to the Super Bowl.  The cousin at quarterback for the Americus Panthers, who beat the Dublin Irish on a last minute touchdown, was another Reeves - Dan Reeves. 

The Irish ended their regular season with a 18 to 7 victory over Baldwin County.  The Irish defeated their arch rival Blue Devils from Statesboro to win the 2-A Region Championship.  Dublin scored on two long drives of 87 and 83 yards, most of them picked up a few yards at a time.  Once again, Coleman, Riner,  Baggett, and Snipes dominated the offensive attack in the 14 to 7 victory.  Coleman, who gained more than a hundred yards on the ground, and Riner, who scored with less than ninety seconds in the game, scored touchdowns for the Irish.

Five thousand fans surrounded Battle Field to watch the Irish go head to head with Ware County for the South Georgia championship.  The Irish, with touchdowns from Coleman, Snipes, Riner, and Thomas, scored in every quarter for a impressive 28 to 7 victory.  Two of those scores came from passes from Baggett.  

The Irish traveled to Thomaston to meet Carrollton for the Class A State Championship.  Ronnie Baggett scored three touchdowns on keepers and completed all six of his passes to highlight the Dublin offensive attack.  The game was close until the fourth quarter when the Irish broke a 20-20 tie in the last stanza to win the game, 33-20 and  established themselves as two time state champions.  Scouting from the sidelines that night was the legendary Shug Jordan of Auburn University.

Other players who played on the Irish that year,  not previously heretofore mentioned, were Bob Garbutt, Roland Hill, Douglas McIntyre, Carl Stone, Bill Davis,  Roger Fountain, Eddie Scott, Phillip Haynes, Mike Belote, Sammy McAlexander,  Ben Morgan, James Gardner,  Malcolm Dunn, Hugh Hamrick and  Jimmy Nelson. Coleman, Riner, Baggett, and Snipes were named to the All Middle Georgia team.  The latter two were named to the All State Team along with their coach, Minton Williams.   

00-39

SNIPPETS, PART ONE

This week’s column deals with those little “snippets” that have  appeared in the newspaper, but you might not have seen or remembered and which I hope you would like to know more about. These events occurred in the early days of Fall in our past.

  

A large crowd gathered at the Laurens County Courthouse on September 27, 1960, to hear the testimony of a Macon man.  This man had seen a lot of immorality in his business and in society as a whole.    There were no lawyers in the courtroom that night - no judge - no jury.  Buses were sent around town to bring folks to hear the man's testimony.  He came to Dublin to speak about what Jesus meant to him and that he would rather have Jesus than all the fame of being a movie star or rock and roll singer.  As the man rose to speak, the crowd must have gone into a frenzy.  The man was not in his usual attire or putting on his public personality.   His brother was a local, Johnny Penniman, who worked at the Dublin bus station for many years.  The man who came to Dublin was  Richard Penniman, Christian.  You know him by his other name, "Little Richard."  There were a lot of amens that night, but alas, no "Tutti Frutti" or "Good Golly Miss Molly." Dublin Courier Herald, September 27, 1960.

Football was trying to make a comeback in Dublin.  During the Depression, the players tried to return to the glory years of the twenties.  Wilbur S. Jones chaired a committee known as Lighted Football Field Association.    Interestingly, the dedication of the new lighted field was scheduled for Halloween night in 1941.  The field and goal posts were covered with green and white decorations.  The undefeated "Fighting Irishmen" were ready for the Tennille High School team.  The festivities were kicked off by school officials and local politicians.  The featured speaker of the night was Gov. Eugene Talmadge, Georgia's most popular governor of the first half of the 20th century.  Gov. Talmadge promised the overflow crowd of 2000 that progress in Georgia education would continue.  Supt. S.H. Sherman dedicated the field, which was officially named the Dublin High School Athletic Field.  Later the name was changed to Battle Field for L.H. Battle, superintendent of schools.  George Bradshaw, Pinky Smalley, Ed Waller, R.T. Gilder, Lester Jones, and L.V. Joiner led the Irish to a 18 point shutout of Tennille.  Dublin Courier Herald, August 19, October 31, November 1, 1941, p. 1.

Cader Mann got on the wrong side of Judge Peter Early.  Judge Early was getting ready for court during the October Term of 1808 when he was forced to deal with a troublemaker.  Cader was out in the courtyard cussin' up a storm.  Judge Early ordered the sheriff to arrest Mann for his outrageous contempt of the court's authority.  Cader resisted the arrest by the sheriff.  Cader was sent to the Washington County jail to serve a term of three months. Laurens County didn't have a jail yet. After his release from jail, Cader was put under a  bond for his good behavior for five years.  If Cader didn't behave himself, the bondsmen would have to forfeit the sum of five hundred dollars.  Cader Mann disappeared after that, never to be heard from again. Dublin Courier Herald, Illustrated Industrial Edition, by Judge K.J. Hawkins, August, 1914.

In the movies Forest Gump did it many times. In real life many others have done it.  One of the first to walk across the country and through Laurens County was Tom B. Turner.  Turner bet a friend that he could walk from Pacific to Atlantic by Thanksgiving.  He set out from San Francisco on May 1, 1914.  He walked through the flatter southern states.  Turner reached Dublin on October 30th.  He had spent the day before in his home town of Macon. He hoped to visit his uncle, W.P. Mahone, while in Dublin.  Unfortunately, Mr. Mahone had just moved away.  Turner left Dublin on Halloween Day after visiting with a few of his friends.  Turner, a manager of a branch of the Standard Oil Company in California, easily made it to Savannah by Thanksgiving. Dublin Courier Herald, November 5, 1914, p. 9.

While no president of the United States has ever made a public appearance in Dublin while in office, the first known public appearance by a president was by Jimmy Carter on October 16, 1969.  Then former state senator Carter spoke to the annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce.  Carter, sounding like a current day Republican, praised the conservatism of Georgians, who wanted to solve their own problems and be left alone by the Federal government - citing that it should be left to local governments and the people to solve the problems of school integration.  Carter called for better law enforcement and lower dropout and birth defect rates in Georgia.  Carter encouraged the growth of local industry as a way of fighting the increasing costs of the welfare program.  Dublin Courier Herald, October 17, 1969, p. 1.

Today we have deputies and bailiffs.  We have metal detectors.  They are there to keep the courtroom free from violence.  Many yesterdays ago, Laurens County had a different type of problem.  The courthouse, which was built in 1845, was getting in bad shape.  It needed a good coat of paint. Many windows were broken.  The grand jury met in October of 1868.  As a part of their usual duties, the grand jury made a presentment on the condition of the courthouse.  It was their recommendation that some person in charge of the courthouse do a better job of keeping the courthouse closed when it was not in use.  The courthouse was open day and night - wide open.  The windows were left open at all times. The grand jury recommended that the last person out close the doors and lower the windows.  They sought to prevent rain from coming into the courthouse and to prevent the building from becoming sleeping apartments for goats. Min. Bk. J, Sup. Ct., pp. 131, 171.  

Fish naturally swim up stream. The men along the lower end of Turkey Creek knew that and knew that they could place traps in the creek preventing them from swimming up the stream.  The men of northwestern Laurens County sought the help of the Georgia Legislature.  On October 24, 1870, a law was passed directing the sheriffs of Laurens and Wilkinson counties to remove any traps or obstructions.  Any officer failing to comply with the directive was subject to a fine up to five hundred dollars. Georgia Laws, 1870, p. 457.

Before the coming of radio, major league baseball was followed only in the newspapers.  The local paper didn't give much coverage to the northern game.  There was a keen interest in the World Series every October.  The telegraphers of Western Union ran a wire to a theater or some other convenient place to keep fans informed.  The play by play of each game was telegraphed over the entire country.  A local announcer would announce each play.  Everyone had time to comment or react in the intervals between plays.  With the perfection of radio,  the telegraphed games faded into obscurity. Seven Ways to Cross, Marshall Chapman, 1971, p. 18.

00-40

SNIPPETS, PART TW0

  

In the early 1890s, Mrs. William Pritchett left her Bible to Jim Pritchett.  Somehow the Bible was misplaced.  One day a man came to the produce stand of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Newsome in Chattanooga.  The man sat a box down vowing to return.  He never returned and when the Newsomes decided to leave Chattanooga, Mrs. Newsome opened the box.  She noticed Mrs. Pritchett's name along  with  several  notations  concerning  Condor  and Sandersville.  Mr. Newsome had to come to Dublin on business.  Mrs. Newsome decided to tag along and visit a friend here.  The friend was not at home, so the lady decided to eat lunch at a boarding house.  Jim Pritchett, then living at Atlanta, came back to Dublin to visit.  He also was hungry and went to the same boarding house to eat.  The two, sitting near each other, were introduced.  After a few minutes Mrs. Newsome concluded that she had found the Bible's owner.  She handed the surprised Jim Pritchett his long lost Bible, which she just happened to bring along with her. Dublin Courier Herald, October 12, 1933.  

The October 16, 1920 issue of "The Oakland Tribune" carried an article about a mysterious event in Dublin, Georgia.  It seemed that in the middle of the day with no clouds in the sky, it began to rain on the sidewalk in front of a bank building.  The janitor inspected the building and found that the water was not coming from the building.  It seemed to be forming a short distance off the ground and would often fall in large droplets.  The mysterious rain continued for days at a time and randomly over a period of years. Scientists came from all over the country to study the cause of the rain.  Suddenly the rain stopped.  The cause was never found.  Can you solve the mystery? From "Dublin Courier Herald, October 25, 1945, page 1."

  Benjamin Fuqua was a brigade musician  in Co. G of the 49th Georgia Volunteer Infantry of the Confederate States Army.  While fighting on a Virginia battlefield, Ben Fuqua lost his most prized possession.  Ben had resolved himself to the fact that his Bible was lost forever.  In the early fall of 1885, a Mr. Black of Virginia found the Bible.  Black found Fuqua's name, which had been written in the Bible just prior to its being lost.  Fuqua feared being killed on the battlefield with no clue of his identity to the finder of his body.  He feared that his family would not know of his burial site.  The bible was returned after Fuqua confirmed that it was indeed his.  Dublin Post, October 28, 1885, p. 3.

Thomas E. Watson, Georgia's fiery populist leader, was the first presidential candidate to come to Dublin to speak during a presidential campaign.  He came in October of 1908 during the last few weeks of the campaign.  He returned in 1910 to speak at the Opera House, urging a renewed campaign against immorality in our country.  Tom Watson was a faithful supporter of the Industrial School of Poplar Springs and a close friend of Dr. C.H. Kittrell, at whose home he stayed during his visits to Dublin.  At that time, Dr. Kittrell lived in a two story home at the southeast corner of Academy Avenue and Palmer Street.

At the Veteran's Hospital, patients have come and gone.   There was something unusual about this particular patient.  He was a veteran of the United States Army who fought in Korea.  After the war he married Frances Googe of Hazelhurst,  where he made his home.  He did nothing to create the excitement.  The unusual amount of attention paid to this patient, Vincent Cadette, came not from his actions but because of his ancestry.  His ancestor was among the most famous men of the late 19th century.  Vincent was an American Indian like his great grandfather, Sitting Bull. Dublin Courier Herald, October 31, 1955, p. 4.

  She may have been the most unpopular woman in America.  To some, she was a hero.  To others she was a villain or even a traitor.  She was born in Montana in the 1880s and in 1916 became the first woman ever elected to the United States House of Representatives.  Prior to her election, she led the movement to allow women to vote in Montana.  She served as Legislative Secretary of the National American Women's Suffrage Organization.    She was a staunch opponent of war and voted against our country's entry into World War I.  After the war she devoted her life to being  a lobbyist and a social worker.  She moved to Bogart, Georgia in 1923 and established the Georgia Peace Society in 1928.  She served as the Secretary of the National Council for the Prevention of War. On October 3, 1935, Jeannette Rankin stopped in Dublin for a press conference.   She talked to reporters for an hour or so at the Fred Roberts Hotel. She returned to Congress in 1940 and cast the lone dissenting vote to declare war against Japan.  At  88 years of age, she took part in her last anti-war protest in 1968, when she led a 5000 woman march in Washington, D.C. Dublin Courier Herald, Oct. 4, 1935, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, 1994. 

Sen. Strom Thurmond, of South Carolina, is the oldest person to serve in the United States Senate.  On October 23, 1968, Senator Thurmond spoke to a large crowd at a luncheon held at the Dublin Country Club to support the candidacy of Joe Tribble for congressman from the 1st District of Georgia.  The topics of his speech were local control of schools, strong national defense, and state rights. Dublin Courier Herald, 10/23/68, 10/24/68.

Dublin High School's football team, "The Green Hurricanes", won the very first game it ever played.  The Swainsboro team was smashed forty five to nothing in October of 1919.  Not satisfied, the Hurricanes set a state record the next month by defeating Swainsboro by the score of eighty six to nothing.

Mrs. Grady Paine had never shot a gun in her life.  After all, she had never had to - being only 19 years old.  One day in the fall of 1943, all of the men were away from the R.H. Paine farm.  A group of girls ran to the Paine house and told Mrs. Paine of the presence of a large rattlesnake.  Mrs. Paine ran down to the edge of the woods to confirm the story.  She stationed the girls as sentries at a safe distance to watch the movement of the hated animal.   Mrs. Paine grabbed a shotgun and started to the door, when she was informed that the gun was loaded with birdshot and that she needed a more deadly shell.  The girls pointed out the location of the snake.  Mrs. Paine took aim.  She fired a direct and fatal shot.  The men folk returned and discovered that the snake had seven rattles.  They claimed the lady had set a record for killing a snake on her first shot.  We do know one thing - at least she tied the world record.  Dublin Courier Herald, October 16, 1943.

00-41

THE INDIANS OF

LAURENS COUNTY, GEORGIA

As the Pleistocene period ended nearly twelve thousand years ago, a new period in the history of America began.  The Archaic period was marked by diversification of food-gathering, with less emphasis on hunting and more on smaller animals and the growing of crops. It was during the early part of the Archaic period that  Indians first came to Laurens County.  While they were generally known as "Creek" Indians, the Indians who occupied this area can not be so easily characterized.  Over the years many different groups of Indians have lived in Laurens County.  Among those groups are the Yuchi (Uchee), Hitchites, Muscogee, and Yamassee.  Yuchi is sometimes pronounced "oo-chee" or "you-chee" and is the Muskogean Indian word for "seeing far away."  Due to the migratory nature of the Indian, it is possible that other groups from hundreds of miles away may have lived or hunted in Laurens County.

By identifying projectile points, archaeologists are able to identify when sites were occupied.  Points from the Paleoindian period of ten to twelve thousand years ago have been found in Laurens County.  Although the concentration of the points are light,  this area appears to be on the western limits of a macroband boundary centered near Columbia, South Carolina. A University of Georgia team of anthropologists found a spearhead from the era at the mounds at Fish Trap Cut.

A predominant period of occupation in Laurens County stretched from  the Woodland period of 1000 B.C. to 700 A.D. to  the Mississippian period which followed and lasted until the 1500's.  The Woodland era brought in a period where the people were more adaptive to their environment.  Village sites became more permanent.  Social systems became more structured.  The people of the Mississippian period are often characterized as the mound builders.  The mounds at the Ocmulgee National Monument in Macon were constructed between 900 and 1200 A.D.

Laurens County has two documented archaeological sites, along with numerous other areas where projectile points and pottery pieces have been found.  The most well known site is the twin mound site at Fish Trap Cut.  The site is typical of a Mississippian site. The river at this point is 150 meters wide with a broad flood plain  two miles in width,  the largest section within 30 miles in either direction. The soil is Norfolk Sandy loam, a rare type of soil.  The major period of occupation seems to be during the Mississippian period, with minor occupations during the early and late Archaic Periods and the Woodland Period.  There are no signs of Middle Woodland Swift Creek occupation at the site.  There are minor signs of a Lamar/Bell occupation on the northern edge of the site.  Dr. Mark Williams concluded that the site may have been used  as a camp for people who were migrating south toward the Spanish settlements on the Georgia Coast and Florida during the sixteenth century.  The site may have been the political center of the chiefdoms of the lower Oconee Valley.

The lower mound on the southern end of the site is most likely a ceremonial mound.  Recent probes have found very little evidence of any type of cultural material in the mound, which has a diameter of 100 feet at the top and 160 feet at its base.   The mound is flat topped with an average height of three meters and is made of red clay with a thirty inch cover of sand.  The upper mound was most likely the home of the chief and was probably built first.  Today it stands in grove of hardwoods and is only two meters in height, but it appears moderately larger than the lower mound.  Much more material has been found in the upper mound, which has a commanding view of the cut.  An examination of river maps near the end of the 19th century indicate that the cut was actually the old river bed and not a totally man-made feature.  It is possible that the cut was formed by connecting the riverbank with the upper end of an island in the middle of the river.  After his examination of the site in 1994, Dr. Mark Williams of the University of Georgia determined that the mounds were built during a period from 1200 to 1350 A.D.  It is most likely that the mounds were only inhabited for a period of 50 to 75 years at the most.  The site would have normally been inhabited by 50 to 75 persons. Firewood, the only source of fuel for fires, was soon decimated for a radius of miles.  The people would then move to another site while the vegetation at the old site regenerated.    

The society was built around a "talwa" or "okli" or chiefdom.   The chief was usually an elder member of the community and commanded the respect and honor of all. He served not only as leader, but as a judge and lawmaker.  In order to keep the large number of people under control, these chiefs were afforded the status of a diety.

Investigations of the distances between mound sites along the Oconee River valley have revealed an interesting fact.  Nearly all of the mound sites are almost exactly twenty eight miles apart.  The mounds at Fish Trap Cut are 60 kilometers miles below the Shinholster Mound site.  The mounds are also almost 60 kilometers above the legendary village site at the junction of the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers in lower Telfair County.

Villages were laid out with some forms of fortification ranging from light to heavy.  Some villages used ditches and small earthworks while larger villages used wooden palisades.  The center of the town was usually a plaza surrounded by public buildings and the dwellings of the townspeople.  Dr. Williams and his team found evidence that a village was located between the mounds beginning around 100 B.C.  The village was laid in a circular pattern about two to three hundred meters in diameter with at least eight houses.  The pottery shards found here are those from the Deptford period.  Deptford period pottery was predominant during the latter part of the early Woodland period. The village, 200 meters wide and 300 meters long,  is the earliest known Woodland village site in Georgia.   

The other site was examined in 1965 under a grant to a Georgia State College senior student.  The site lies along the side of the Dudley sewage pond northeast of Dudley off Highway 338.  The site may have been occupied during the Archaic period.  Half of the site was destroyed during the construction of the dam.  Pottery shards from the Stallings and Deptford periods were found there as well as from the relatively recent Brushed Ware period.  The proximity to Turkey Creek is typical of village locations in the Laurens County area.   

Numerous other sites have been associated with Indians in Laurens County.  For years, projectile points and pottery have been found along the banks of Turkey and Rocky Creeks in western Laurens County.  One of the most famous sites in the folklore of Laurens County is the village of Kitchee.  Kitchee is said to have been located north of Dublin at the northern end of the Country Club Road.  It is said that ancient trees with expanded rings stood as markers of the burial places of the Indian dead.  Another site is located along the northern edge of Dublin.  The major creek of Dublin is known as Hunger and Hardship Creek.  Victor Davidson, Wilkinson County's premier historian, states that there is a tradition that a group of Indians once lived along the creek.  A great drought occurred causing starvation and hardship.  As the people were forced to move, they named the creek for their experiences along the creek.  Could this village have been located at the lower end of Payne Place Subdivision where flint working sites have been found?  Still another site lies below the Fish Trap Cut site on the Oconee.  The area was known as Diamond Landing from the days in which timber was rafted down the river to the coast.  Indian mounds are reported to have been found at the mouth of Turkey Creek and near Rock Springs.

Many of Laurens County's streams retain their Indian names. The Oconee River is named after a tribe of Creek Indians that lived in the area along the river.  It has been said that Oconee is the Creek word for "the place of springs" or "the water eyes of the hills."  A recent discovery of a study of the 19th century Hitchitee language reveals that Oconee is the Hitchitee word for "place of the skunk".  The middle portion of the river was known to the Indians as "Ithlobee."  The Creek word for creek is "hatchee." Turkey Creek, which rises in Twiggs County and flows through Wilkinson and Laurens Counties, is the anglicized name of the Indian word "Pennohachee".   A branch of Turkey Creek which is known today as Palmetto Creek was formerly called "Taulohatchee" by the Creek Indians.  The name of Ockwalkee Creek, which flows from southern Laurens County through Wheeler County to the Oconee River, is derived from the Creek words meaning "dirty water."  The name of Stitchihatchee Creek, which is located in the Dexter area, is derived from the Creek words meaning "red man's creek" or possibly "crossing or fording creek."  Another of the major creeks in western Laurens County is Rocky Creek.  The Muskogee Indian name for Rocky Creek would have been Chattohachi - "chatto" for stone or rock and "hachi" for stream.  One of the branches of Pughes Creek in eastern Laurens County is named Indian Branch.  This is evidently a reference to some relationship between the Creek and the Indians who once lived along the creek.

Many of the old roads in Laurens County run along old Indian trails.  Perhaps the most famous of the Indian trails is the Lower Uchee Trail.  The Uchee Indians lived mainly in southwestern Georgia and southern Alabama.  The Uchee (Yuchi) Indians used this trail as a trading path from Old Town on the Ogeechee River in upper Jefferson County to Uchee Town on the Chattahoochee River in Russell County, Alabama.  From the Ogeechee River the trail connected with other trails leading to Uchee settlements along the Savannah River. The trail may have been opened as late as 1729 when the Uchee began removing to the Uchee town in Alabama.  The  Uchee Trail entered Laurens County from the northeast near the present U.S. Highway 319, feinting on Ben Hall Lake and crossing the river at Carr's Bluff, just a quarter of a mile down river from Blackshear's Ferry.  From the bluff it ran west and north along what is now Blackshear's Ferry Road.   At U.S. Highway 80 northwest of Dudley, the trail follows Georgia Highway 26 through Cochran and crosses the Ocmulgee River at Hawkinsville.  On August 1, 1808, the Justices of the Inferior Court of Laurens County ordered that a road be cut from Blackshear's Landing to cross Turkey Creek and at Rocky Creek to cross at the Indian camp above where the path crosses. The road would then continue  to Fishing Bluff on the Ocmulgee.  From there it ran near Montezuma and on into Alabama.   One old timer recounted that the road was named for Uchee Billy, who granted hunting lands to the white man and even helped lay out the road -- an act for which he was hanged by his people.

A second trail roughly parallels the Uchee Trail.  The road  known as the Chicken Road, ran from Old Hartford, opposite Hawkinsville on the Ocmulgee, northeast through the Kewanee area and on into Dublin.  Two basic theories exist as to the name of the road.  According to some, the road was named for the use of the road as a market road from Dublin to Hartford, along which peddlers would exchange their goods for chickens.  Another theory is that the name "Chicken Road " is an americanization of the Indian word "Chickasaw Road"  or "Chickasaw Trail."  In the 1730's, Royal Gov. Oglethorpe proposed that the area between the Oconee and the Ocmulgee be settled by friendly Chickasaw Indians to protect the colony of Georgia from attacks by the Yamassees and the Spanish.  This suggestion of the Chicasaw connection dates back to the 19th century.  The abundance of artifacts in the area along the road seems to be a good indication of the presence of Indians along the banks of western Turkey and Rocky Creeks.

The major east-west road running through colonial Laurens County is said to have been a trail from Indian Springs to Yammacraw (Savannah).  This road roughly followed Georgia Highway 86, The Old Savannah Road, through East Dublin to the Oconee River.  If the theory is true, the trail may have run from Dublin along the "Old Macon Road" to Macon and thence on to Indian Springs.  A well traveled road in colonial times was known as the Milledgeville and Darien Road.  The road entered southeastern Laurens County and ran along Georgia Highway 199 until it intersected with the road leading to the community of Condor on Georgia Highway 29.  From that point, it ran northerly until it intersected with the river road running along the eastern ridge of the Oconee River Valley through Oconee, Georgia, and on into Milledgeville.  This road may have followed an Indian trail. 

The Indians of this area lived off the land.  They were both farmers and hunters.  The men hunted and furnished the heavy labor of home construction and mound building.  The women performed the duties of gathering, cultivating, and cooking the food.  The making of pottery and basketry was done primarily by the women.  The adult Indians wore little clothing in the summer and used animal skins for warmth in the winter. The men made hunting trips during the winter seasons, often traveling as many as 300 miles away from camp.  

The diet of the southeastern Indian consisted of both wild and domestic foods.  The favorite meat was the white-tailed deer, which was captured by decoys or by setting fires.  Other favorite meats were black bear, turkey, passenger pigeon, and waterfowl.  Small game favorites included rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, and opossum. In this area, fish was a favorite food.  Channel catfish as large as 100 pounds could be captured in the rivers and creeks by netting, spearing, or and placing a "V" - shaped wooden or rock trap in the water.

Wild fruits, berries, nuts, and vegetables were highly sought foods.  Among the favorites were the persimmon, potato, huckleberry, chestnut, hickory nut, black walnut, and acorn.  The fertile alluvial lands along the creeks and rivers were preferred by the farmers over the yellow and red clay lands.  Corn, the predominant agricultural crop, was eaten in a variety of ways, including the favorite cracked hominy and cornbread.  Other favorite crops were beans and squash.  The Indian did not eat regular meals.  They only ate when they were hungry.

The Indian walked from place to place.  When the Europeans came to America in the 16th century, the southeastern Indian utilized the horse for transportation.  When transportation over water was necessary, the Indian used a floatation device made from wood or plant material.  For long trips, a log was fashioned into a canoe.

The recorded history of the Indian in North America begins with the coming of the Spanish Explorers.  In early March of 1540, Hernando de Soto led an expedition from northwestern Florida in a northeasterly direction toward the Augusta area.  For most of this century, historians have debated the true route of de Soto.  It is generally accepted that his destination was Cofitachiqui near Silver Bluff on the Savannah River, which was located near present day Augusta.  The route he took to Augusta has never been conclusively proved.  There are two basic theories as to the route.  One theory holds that De Soto crossed the Ocmulgee at Macon and then proceeded northeast to Augusta, crossing the Oconee along the Upper Uchee Trail in lower Baldwin County at Oconee Old Town.

Dr. John Swanton and others drew a different conclusion. Swanton believed De Soto took a more direct path to Cofitachiqui on the Savannah River.  A direct line from Tallahassee to Augusta runs through Laurens County.  Swanton theorized that De Soto traveled through Dougherty and Crisp counties and crossed the Ocmulgee in the Abbeville area.  Then he turned north for a short distance up to Hawkinsville.  From there, he followed a trail, later known as the Lower Uchee Trail, to Carr's Shoals on the Oconee River.  Carr's Shoals is located a quarter of mile east of Blackshear's Ferry.  The river at the shoals was filled with rocks and would have made an ideal crossing place.  Swanton claims that the description of Carr's Shoals matches the description given by Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto's secretary.  Ranjel described the crossing as very rough but that thankfully, only a few pigs were lost.  The weary Spanish spent the night on a hill not far from the river.  Is this the hill which for the last two centuries has been known as Carr's Bluff?  From Carr's Shoals, there he would have followed the trail on to Silver Bluff on the Savannah River.

On April 4, 1540, DeSoto and his men came to the Ocmulgee River.  The name of the place was known to the Indians as Allapaha or Altamaha.  The name "Altamaha" may be a derivative of "To Tama."  Luys Hernandez De Biedma, one of DeSoto's men, recounted "that after traveling three days, we came to the Province of Allapaha.  Here we found a river with a course not southwardly, like the rest we had passed, but eastwardly to the sea."  If this account is to be believed, then the crossing of the Ocmulgee could only have been below Abbeville where the Ocmulgee turns from a southerly direction to an easterly direction.  

Although its location is conjectural, many place the Indian province of Ocute in Laurens County.  Ocute is the Hitchitee word for "place of the green frog."  If Ocute was located within Laurens County, all signs of the province have been obliterated.  DeSoto reached Ocute on the 10th of April.  Upon reaching Ocute, DeSoto was met by nearly two thousand Indians carrying presents, including  corn, turkeys, birds, and dogs.  The Spaniards spent two days in Ocute.  It is said that it was in Ocute that DeSoto astounded the people by pointing a cannon at a tree, and with two shots, cutting it down.  Before leaving he presented the cannon to the chief, because it was too heavy to carry across the river.

The debate over DeSoto's route will never be settled.  It seems likely that he would have followed the direct route, as shown on a map included in Arrendo's "Historical Proof of Spain's Title to Georgia." Then again he may have been guided by the trails leading to the well populated area of the Macon plateau.  Another possibility is that he traveled over the Lower Uchee Trail and then turned north crossing the Oconee at Old Oconee Town, or Cofaqui, as it is sometimes called.  In any event, it seems likely that DeSoto passed through or on the outer edges of what was once Laurens County.

After DeSoto's visit, more expeditions were made into the Georgia coastal plains.  The Yamassee village of Tama, or Altamaha, is said to have been at the forks of the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers in or near what was once the lower portion of Laurens County. In 1597, Fathers Pedro Fernandez Chozas and Francisco Velascola made an eight day horseback journey to the villages of Tama and Ocute with tales of the Diamond Mountain.  On the return from Ocute to Tama, they were attacked and narrowly escaped with their scalps.  Only a volley of gunfire saved the priests.  According to a map of Spanish expeditions, Chozas and Velascola traveled from St. Catherine's Island on the Georgia coast and crossed the Oconee about ten miles below Dublin.  From there, they traveled west for several miles before striking a trail supposedly taken by DeSoto a century earlier.  

Five years later in 1602, Father Juan de Lara was sent out from St. Catherine's to investigate reports of survivors of previous expeditions in the Yamassee lands in the area between the Oconee and Ocmulgee.  Throughout the 17th Century, the Spanish contemplated establishing a mission at Tama.  A mission was established in 1680 but was shortly closed.   De Lara's followed Chozas's trail to the Oconee but turned north along the western limits of Laurens County and moved north to the Wilkinson/Baldwin County area.

The Yamassee Indians during the early European era inhabited the lands between the Oconee and Savannah Rivers.  Little is known of them.  They were described as flat footed and very dark skinned and bearing some distant relation to the lower Creek or Muscogee Indians. They allied themselves with the English in South Carolina, fighting the Spanish at the urging of the South Carolinians.  The Yamassee moved further south in Georgia and by 1685 were living in the area just south of Laurens County.  The Yamassee moved north again in 1685.  They were so mistreated by the South Carolinians, they joined in a confederation with the Creeks, Choctaws, Catawbas, and Apalachees.  By 1715, the newly formed confederation launched an attack on South Carolina known as the  Yamassee War.  The English prevailed in 1717.  The Yamassees were swept away from Georgia.  The area between the Oconee and Ocmulgee, which may have been shared by the Yamassee and the Uchee was uninhabited for many years.  The Yamassees continued to venture into this area, attacking Smallwood's trading post at the forks of Altamaha in 1727.

Another group of Indians, known to some as the Oconee, lived in the area around Oconee Town at the lower edge of Baldwin County.  They may have been of the Hitchitee stock or merely Yamassees living along the Oconee River.  The tribe is mentioned by Pareja, a Spanish missionary, in 1602 and again by Ibarra, Governor of Florida, in 1608. 

By 1685, many of the lower Creeks moved away from the Chattahoochee back to the middle Ocmulgee and Oconee River Valleys. The Spanish were insisting on a monopolistic trading relationship with the Lower Creeks or Muscogees.  The Lower Creeks moved back to this area to trade with the more friendly English out of South Carolina.  The Spanish attempted to move back into the area in 1690 with an outpost in Coweta on the Chattahoochee River.  An army headed by seven Spaniards led a force of four hundred Indians against the Oconee tribe at Oconee Old Town in 1695.  This was supposedly in retaliation for an attack on the Spanish supported Indians in southern Georgia. Several English trading posts were established along the trail from Augusta to Macon, including a post on the Oconee River.  The Indians along the Oconee left this area after the Yamassee War and moved to the Chattahoochee River Valley.

From the removal of the Indians in 1717 through the American Revolution, Laurens County was a hunting ground for the Lower Creek Indians.  Relationships between Georgians and the Creeks were once again strained during the Revolution.  Some Tories fled eastern Georgia and lived along the Oconee River.  They formed an alliance with Alexander McGillivray, son of Lachlan McGillivray and an Indian woman.  McGillivray bore a deep hatred for the Georgians.  McGillivray was constantly launching attacks on the white settlers along the eastern banks of the Oconee River.  These attacks occurred in Washington County, a portion of which later became part of Laurens County.  By some accounts the Seminole Indians owned a good portion of the lands in western Laurens County during this time. 

In the late 1780s, Captain Kemp of Washington County sent John Galphin, son of trader George Galphin and an Indian woman, along the Lower Uchee Trail which ran through present day Laurens County.  Galphin met a party of Indians headed toward Washington County.  He reversed his course and raced back to Washington County to warn the settlers of an impending attack.  Galphin became a bitter enemy of the Washington countians because he felt they were ungrateful for his saving their lives. (Indian Affairs, Vol. 1, p. 36)  McGillivray won an important diplomatic victory at Rock Landing in 1789.  From then, McGillivray's power began to wane. His people and the American government could no longer trust him.  

In 1792, the clouds of war once again came into this area.  While negotiations were pending at Rock Landing, attacks continued along the eastern banks of the Oconee. Indian agent Seagrove went from village to village asking for the return of stolen animals.  In July, Captain Benjamin Harrison had six horses stolen from him by Uchee Indians. Harrison lived at Carr's Bluff, across from the present day Country Club.  Settlers in what would become eastern Laurens County stepped up their defenses.  An old Indian trail leading along the eastern edge of the river was used for border patrols.  This may have been the Milledgeville-Darien Road.   The settlers petitioned the Georgia governor for ammunition and forts.  The State built an outpost called Fort Telfair at Carr's Bluff on the Oconee River in 1793.  The people built their own forts arming their families and even their slaves.  On April 18, 1793, the Indians raided the home of William Pugh near Carr's Bluff.  Pugh was the son of Col. Francis Pugh for whom Pughes Creek in eastern Laurens County is named.  Pugh was killed and scalped in the attack.  Four horses were taken and one slave was captured.  The situation eased when the Oconee's waters rose, creating a natural barrier to an attack.

In the summer of 1793, armies were being raised all over Georgia to protect against further raids.  Benjamin Harrison, a resident of the Carr's Bluff area, bore the brunt of these constant attacks of horse-taking and killing of livestock.  Harrison once said "that there should never be a peace with the Indians whilst his name was Ben Harrison for he was able to raise men enough to kill half the Indians that might come to any treaty." Benjamin Harrison is said to have been described as a frontier character with a patch over an eye and a piece of his nose missing. Harrison reported to the Governor that he had 160 Montgomery County men under his command.  Harrison, a captain of the local militia, called his men together for a mission to retrieve some of his stolen horses.  The company moved along the Lower Uchee Trail until they reached the home of the Uchee King, who promised Harrison that the horses would be returned.  At another time, Harrison's men overtook a group of Indians taking three of their guns.  Timothy Barnard, the husband of a Uchee woman, convinced Harrison to return the guns, and the matter was temporarily resolved. 

By October of 1793, Harrison's ire had once again been raised by the Indians.   Captain Nicholas Curry's Company of Washington County Militia was stationed at Capt. Harrison's.  Captain Harrison's company and other companies under the command of Major Brenton set out from Carr's Bluff in defiance of General Jared Irwin.  Their destination was a Chehaw village on the Flint River.  Their objective was to capture any runaway slaves and stolen property.  They found the village defended by 16 males and four slaves.  The rest of the men were in Florida hunting for game.  A skirmish ensued with two Georgians and three Indians being killed.

Georgia Governor George Matthews set out to take a first hand look at the situation on the 380 mile long frontier in the mid winter of 1794.  Matthews realized that Georgia's frontier was vunerable to Indian attacks.  His tour ranged from the Tugalo River in northeast Georgia to Carr's Bluff. Matthews ordered a series of forts to be placed at intervals along the Altamaha and Oconee Rivers.  A fort or station was constructed at Berryhill's Bluff in Montgomery, now Treutlen County.  The soldiers at Berryhill's bluff held the extreme right flank of the Georgia Militia and were responsible for the area up to Carr's Bluff until a station could be built there.  The area above Carr's Bluff was the most exposed area to attack.  Matthews requested that a troop of horse cavalry be assigned to guard the northern end of the Oconee.  President Washington sent two hundred horse soldiers to help Guard the frontier.  Fifty of those soldiers were stationed along the east side of the Oconee from Berryhill's Bluff northward to Carr's Bluff, where the fort was completed by August, 1794.  The area to the north was without any soldiers until the governor got word of an impending attack.  The estimated strength of men at each fort probably ranged from 50 to 100 men.

In early May of 1794, Indian agent Seagrove invited the Lower Creeks and Uchees to return to their hunting grounds along the Oconee River while treaty negotiations continued. That same month, Georgia's war hero, General Elijah Clarke, was about to embark upon an attack on the Spanish at Saint  Augustine.  Clarke and his men were supported by the French government.  The expedition left from the upper Oconee area down an old Indian trail along the western side of the Oconee River.  The men camped at Carr's Bluff on their route to Florida. Before he could invade, Clarke was convinced by the federal government to call off the attack.

Elijah Clarke returned through Laurens County to his home base in northern Wilkinson County.  There he set up The Trans-Oconee Republic - a country of his own.  The area covered most of western Laurens County.  Clarke established a series of forts along the perimeter, including one on the Laurens-Wilkinson line near Turkey Creek.  Clarke made peace with the Creeks and rented the land.  The massacres along the Oconee virtually stopped.  Georgia's governor insisted that Clarke remove his men from Indian lands, but he appreciated the fact that there was no fighting for the moment.  George Washington had other ideas.  He demanded that Clarke be removed.  The Georgia militia reluctantly marched against Clarke who finally refused to fight his former comrades and left the Oconee area.  Georgia officials began to lay off the former Republic into districts.  The division was done in anticipation of the eminent acquisition from the Creeks and to prevent settlers from crossing the river.  All of the land from the junction of the Oconee and the Ocmulgee up to Carr's Bluff comprised the first district.  The area immediately to the north comprised the second district. 

The year 1795 was a critical year in relations with the Indians ,which had until then been called the Oconee Wars.  In February, John Watts and his company of seventeen men were at Heissey Bluff, two miles above Carr's Bluff on the Oconee.  Some of the men started down the river in two canoes.  The first canoe was fired upon for nearly fifteen minutes.  Joseph Blackshear and the men in the second canoe heard the gunfire and quickly moved ashore.  The next day Watts led a party to the scene of the incident.  There he found a decapitated William Laster, who had his intestines and private parts cut out.  Israel Smith's bullett-riddled body was found skinned like an animal. 

Benjamin Harrison continued to be plagued by Indian forays onto his property.  In early September, five Indians came to his home with guns and war-like instruments in hand.  They asked for rum.  Harrison stated that he had none.  The Indians insisted that must have some rum.  Harrison finally convinced the men that he did not have any.  The Indians left and Harrison thought nothing more of the matter.  The next day Harrison was riding through his cornfield on his way to his boat yard.  He spotted four Indians taking corn without his leave.

On October 28, 1795, an event occurred in Laurens County which nearly plunged Georgia and the United States into a war with the Creek Nation.  A small group of Indians had crossed the Oconee River and were visiting friends in a home near Carr's Bluff.  Benjamin Harrison, along with Mr. Vessels and their men, attacked the Indians, killing seventeen of them.  The dead, which included 1 Creek, 4 Lower Creeks, and 12 Uchees, were thrown into the river.  The next morning, the Uchees rode along the Uchee Trail leading to bluff.  They planned a retaliatory strike at dawn.  The Uchees surrounded Harrison's home.  To their dismay, Capt. Harrison was gone.  They moved to east attacking Bush's Fort.  Bush was a stepbrother of future General David Blackshear and lived in the area south of Ben Hall Lake ,along the newly created Washington/ Montgomery County line.  They captured the fort and killed one man.  The horses were taken, and the cattle were killed.

The Chiefs protested the killings to the Georgia government.  The legislature passed a resolution regretting the incident.  Harrison and his men were arrested for murder.  That same year David Blackshear, Joseph Blackshear, William Bush, Jr., John Bush, and other citizens of Montgomery and Washington counties were indicted for hacking five Uchee Indians to death.  The attack occurred at Harrison's boat landing on the Oconee.  Blackshear defended his actions as punishment for beating up one man, behaving badly, and demanding rum.  While the negotiations for the Treaty of Colerain were pending, many of the hostilities ceased.  However, Isaac Vansant had his brains blown away and was scalped at Bush's Fort in Laurens County in 1796.  By the spring of 1797, the Indians were becoming impatient with the failure to bring Harrison and his men to trial.  They attacked Long Bluff a few miles above Carr's Bluff,  killed a Mr. Brown and injured his wife.  The Indian leading the party had a son killed by Harrison at the massacre at Carr's Bluff.  In one of the last attacks in this area in February of 1798, William Allen was killed near Long Bluff.  

By the end of the century, most of the hostilities had ceased.  Gen. David Blackshear complained of the small thefts being committed by Indians in the late spring of 1799.  No harm was done, but he thought the Indians were too insulant and mischievous.  He found the remains of a bar-be-qued pig at a camp site.  Blackshear was aggravated that the Indians were killing any animal they could find on his side of the river and that he had done all in his power to stop them without laying his hands upon them. In one of the final clashes with the Indian people, two white citizens of Montgomery County crossed the Oconee River and took two horses belonging to Indians.  Gov. James Jackson wrote to Gen. David Blackshear who had command of this area.  One of these may have been ol' Benjamin Harrison.  Jackson gave orders to Blackshear directing him to arrest the offenders and not to resort to violence in the absence of any provocation.  Jackson reiterated the law against any Indians remaining on Georgia soil without permission.  The governor promised to back General Blackshear in any actions he might take.

Georgia renewed its efforts to obtain the land between the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers from the Indians.  All of the lands below Rock Landing near Milledgeville were claimed by Seminoles in Florida.  It was said that they were the rightful owners because they were the descendants of those who once occupied Oconee Old Town.  The government negotiators pushed to obtain a treaty before massive movements of settlers across the river could take place.  

Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins, Andrew Pickens, and General James Wilkinson acted as commissioners to sign the Treaty of Fort Wilkinson in May, 1802.  The treaty was signed ceding the land from the Oconee to the Ocmulgee. In May of 1803, the details of the sale were agreed upon, and the new county of Wilkinson could now be settled.  After nearly eleven thousand years of Indian occupation, all of the lands of Laurens County were no longer under the ownership of the American Indian.

Three final chapters of the Indians and their relationships with Laurens County were yet to be written.  As the United States and the British Empire once again became involved in a war, the southeastern Indians were drawn into the conflict.  The British convinced some of the Indians along Georgia's western borders to fight with them against the American government.  Suddenly, the western limits of Laurens County were subject to Indian attacks.  The State of Georgia raised dozens of regiments to protect the border regions.  Forts were established along the Oconee River.  General David Blackshear of Laurens County was given command of the 2nd Brigade of the Fifth Division.  The men from Laurens County were stationed in forts in Telfair and Pulaski Counties.   Georgia Militia fought along side Federal troops and Creek Indians in driving the British out of the southeastern United States.

In 1818, conflicts with the Creeks once again arose.  Capt. Obed Wright and Captain Robinson led a force of men against the Felemna and Hopaunee towns. A troop of 46 men was formed by the men of Laurens County.  "The Laurens Light Dragoons" were commanded by Capt. Jacob Robinson, with Charles S. Guyton and John Underwood serving as lieutenants.  An attack was made on the Cheehaw Indians in southwest Georgia.  The Cheehaw attempted to surrender but were decimated as Captain Obed Wright pressed the attack.  The attack angered the entire country because of the Cheehaw's friendly relationship with General Andrew Jackson. 

Two of the most prominent leaders in Georgia's relationship with the Creek Indians had ties to Laurens County.  Georgia Governor George M. Troup was a resident of Laurens County.  Troup had previously served in the Congress and the Senate before moving to Laurens County about the year 1818.  Troup was elected Governor in 1823 and served for four years.  Troup was bent on removing the Indians from all of Georgia's land.  He was a first cousin of William McIntosh, Chief of the Lower Creek Indians. Troup used his influence with McIntosh to affect the removal of the Creeks from Georgia.  Chief McIntosh and chiefs of other tribes met with government officials at Indian Springs in February, 1825.  A treaty was signed.  The Indians had given up all of their land in Georgia.  In the process of removal, Troup nearly entered a state of war with the United States by refusing to comply with the demands of President John Quincy Adams to stop any attempts to remove the Indians.

William McIntosh was the son of William McIntosh of Darien and a Coweta woman, Senoia Henneha.  McIntosh learned the language and customs of both of his parents.   He was known to have worn tartans and plaids of his paternal family along with the clothing of his maternal ancestors.   McIntosh allied himself with the American army during the War of 1812 and fought alongside the army against other Indian tribes.   T.F. Sawyer of Hutchinson, Kansas (grandson of the founder of Dublin, Jonathan Sawyer) wrote of McIntosh in a letter in 1904.   Sawyer tells of his father, who lived in Dublin in the first two decades of the 19th century.  He states that " Chilly McIntosh, son of the Chief, played and romped about the present site of Dublin and up and down the Oconee River, about 80 or 90 years ago, with Sawyer's father, the son of Jonathan.  They were also classmates."  Among the legends of Laurens County's history is the reservation of Chief McIntosh at Well Springs.   The  springs are  located on the west bank of the Oconee River a few miles below the Valdosta Plantation of Governor Troup.  Chilly McIntosh, son of the Chief, attended school while his father was visiting at the springs.  He later became the first school superintendent of Oklahoma.  The Upper Creeks retaliated against McIntosh for his part in the sale of Indian lands in Georgia.  On May 30, 1825, he was murdered in his home on the Chattahoochee River.  Chilly McIntosh escaped and made his way to the capital in Milledgeville to inform the government of the fate of his father.

The final events in the history of Laurens County with the Indian people occurred in 1836.  The Seminole Indians, elements of whom may have descended from the Indians of this area, began an uprising under the leadership of Osceola.  Governor William Schley ordered the formation of militia companies to protect against the threat of an invasion.  Gen. Eli Warren, head of the militia in Laurens County, organized several companies of men.  The Dublin Volunteers were organized on February 8, 1836, with George M. Troup, Jr. in command.  Newman McBain, 1st Lt., Thomas N. Guyton, 2nd Lt., and Edward J. Blackshear, Ensign, rounded out the cadre of officers.  The federal and state forces under the command of Gen. Winfield Scott easily defeated the Seminoles and effectively put an end to the conflicts in the southeastern United States.

Thus ended the era of the Indian in Laurens County.  The generations of eleven thousand years were gone, never to return.  It was a time of simple life.  It was a time when generations were taught to remember those who came before them.   They were a people who built their lives around their family and traditions - persevering for over a hundred lifetimes.    

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chapman, George, Chief William McIntosh, A Man of Two Worlds,

Cherokee Publishing Company, Atlanta, GA, 1988.

Cooper, Walter C., The Story of Georgia, Vol. I, 

American Historical Society, New York, NY, 1938. 

Davis, Robert Scott, Jr., A History of Montgomery County, Georgia to 1918,

W.H. Wolfe Associates, Roswell, GA 1992.

Hall, David J., Ocmulgee Archaeology, 

University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, 1994.

Hart, Bertha Sheppard, The Official History of Laurens County Georgia, 1807-1941, 

Reprint Edition, Agee Publishers, Inc., 1987.

Henri, Florette, The Southern Indians and Benjamin Hawkins, 1796-1816, 

University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Okla.  1986.

Hudson, Charles, The Southeastern Indians, 

University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN, 1976.

Jones, Charles C. History of Georgia,  

Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., Boston, Massachusetts, 1883.

Krakow, Kenneth, Georgia Place Names, 

Winship Press, Macon, Georgia, 2nd Edition, 1994.

Lanning, John Tate, The Spanish Missions in Georgia, 

University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1935.

Miller, Stephen, Memoir of General David Blackshear,  

J.B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, PA, 1858.

Scruggs, Carroll Proctor, Georgia Historical Markers, 2nd Ed.,

Bay Tree Grove, Helen, GA, 1976. 

Silverberg, Robert, Mound Builders of Ancient America, 

New York Graphic Society, Ltd., Greenwich, CT, 1968.

Stevens, William Bacon, History of Georgia, er

Beehive Press, Savannah, GA, Reprint Edition, 1847, 1972.

Governor's Letters Books, Department of Archives and History, Atlanta, Georgia.

Georgia Military Affairs, Department of Archives and History, Atlanta, Georgia.

Dublin Courier Herald, Aug. 9, 1934

Macon Telegraph, Aug. 11, 1934

0-42

KELSO HORNE

Hero From The Sky

Kelso Horne never claimed to be a hero.  He said to me, “I didn’t do anything heroic,” which is a typical response from a hero.  A photograph of the face of Kelso Horne  appeared on the cover of “Life” magazine on August 14, 1944.  The picture is known to some as “the face,” not the face of Kelso Horne, but the face of the infantryman of the American Army.  In fact, when the editors of “Time” magazine published an issue on the history of the 20th Century, the picture of Horne’s face was chosen to represent the millions of American servicemen who served their country in World War II and saved the world from Nazi imperialism.

Kelso Crowder Horne, the third child of Josiah H. Horne and Maude Crowder Horne, was born on November 12, 1912.  When World War II began in 1941, Kelso didn’t wait to be drafted. He wanted to see some action, “not something just anybody could do,” Horne said.  As a boy, Kelso had seen air shows in Dublin.  “They had people jumping out of airplanes,” Kelso remembered.  Kelso joined the U.S. Army in June of 1942 in Macon, Georgia.  He was assigned to Camp Wheeler for basic training for thirteen weeks.  Kelso remained adamant in his desire to be a paratrooper.  After four weeks of training in an NCO school, Horne was shipped down Highway 80 to Fort Benning in Columbus.

In February of 1943, Kelso Horne, became 2nd Lt. Kelso Horne.  He immediately applied for entrance into jump school.  Horne and the other candidates were taken out for a field demonstration.  A rocket carrying a dummy paratrooper was fired into the air.  As it fell to the Earth, the mannequin was riddled with machine gun fire. “That’s what can happen to you. Now, how many of you want to change your mind?,” the instructor inquired.  Kelso stood firm in his desire and completed jump school at Benning.  

Horne was assigned to the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment in March of 1943.  After reporting to the regimental commander, Kelso was placed in the 1st platoon of Co. I, 3rd, Bn..  He trained at Camp Mackall, N.C. and Lebanon, Tenn.  until Dec. 20, 1943, when the regiment assembled at Camp Shanks, NY.  Camp Shanks which was located less than an hour from Broadway in New York City.  After three days of administrative duties and learning how to abandon ship,  Kelso and his buddies were given an evening pass into New York for one last fling.  The 508th spent that Christmas day in camp. Their next Christmas would be spent right smack dab in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge.  The regiment boarded the U.S. AT Parker for a 12 day trip to Belfast, Ireland.  Two months later, the 508th sailed to Scotland for even more training.

The men knew that they were training for an invasion of Europe, but they didn’t know when or where.  As the hour of D-Day approached, Kelso and the rest of the regiment was told that their destination would be eight to ten miles inland from the eastern coast of the Cotentin Peninsula west of St. Mere Eglise, France.  The 3rd Bn.’s mission was to organize a defensive sector and the join with the 4th Infantry Division, which would be staging an amphibious landing on Utah Beach.  As the skies began to darken on the 5th of June, 1944, final preparations were being made.  Equipment checks went on until the last minute.  The men ate one last meal, a least for many of them it would a last meal.  After downing a few more cups of coffee and a couple doughnuts, the men took the smut from the kitchen stoves, blackening their faces for the nighttime jump.  At 2:06 a.m. on the morning of June 6, 1944, Kelso Horne moved to the door of the C-41, which was flying through a dark and moonless night.  Just as Kelso saw the waves breaking on the Normandy shore, the green jump light came on.  Men began yelling “go!”  Kelso waited; it wasn’t time to go just yet.  When Kelso spotted the Merderet River and the railroad, he jumped, landing between the two landmarks, just where he was supposed bo be.

The C-41s were drifting away from each other.  Night flying formations were tough, even for experienced pilots.  Most of the eight hundred and twenty pilots flying into Normandy had never flown at night. Some were shot down.  Bob Mathias of 2nd Platoon, Co. E, was standing in the doorway when he was struck by an artillery fragment.  Despite his wounds, Mathias jumped.  He died before he reached the ground.  Historian Stephen Ambrose credits Mathias as being the first casualty of the invasion and being the oldest paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division.  Kelso, at 31 years of age,  was three years older than Mathias.  He believed he was the second oldest paratrooper in the 82nd.  Most of the men who jumped that night were less than twenty years old.

Kelso found that he was in a small field about a mile from St. Mere Eglise.  He found it difficult to get out of his harness.  It wouldn’t unsnap or cut with a knife.  After a few moments, Kelso calmed down and managed to escape from his harness.  As he was heading for the woods, Lt. Horne realized that he had left his field bag behind.  Just as he retrieved his bag, Kelso noticed a figure of a man approaching him.  He put one round in the chamber of his rifle.  Kelso spoke first when the man was twenty feet away.  The man, who turned out to be the messenger of the company commander, gave the correct response to Kelso’s challenge.  The two men crawled into a ditch to determine their position.  Just after another man approached them, the green signal flare went up, signaling the 3rd Battalion to move to the assembly area.

The battalion rendezvoused at a farm house surrounded by an orchard of apple trees.  When Kelso got into the house, he went over to put a cup of water by the fire to make himself a cup of coffee.   The building became the headquarters of Gen. Matthew Ridgeway.  Lt. Horne and his fellow lieutenants gathered up as many men of the 508th as they could find.  They took their men to the Merderet River Bridge at La Fiere Manor.  

Col. Lindquist, the 508th’s commander, sent Kelso and fifteen to twenty men down the road to clear out a farm house from which the Germans had been firing on the American troops.  The squad ran down a sunken lane toward the two-story house.  The corpses of four or five German soldiers were strewn around the outside of the house.  While the Germans inside the house were distracted by fire from the sunken road, Horne and a sergeant moved into the first floor of the house.  The sergeant sprayed the rooms and the ceiling with machine gun fire.  A dozen or so Germans came down the steps and surrendered.  In the excitement of the moment, Kelso once again left his field bag behind.  Ordinarily the bag could be replaced, but a Bible which had been a gift from his wife Doris was in the bag.   Kelso never found the bag or his Bible.    Kelso noticed that a group of G.I.s were trying to cross the river.  The Germans began firing at them.  Kelso yelled out in vain trying to warn his buddies, but to no avail.  “Not a one of them, as far as I know, made it all the way across,” Kelso remembered. 

Kelso picked up an M-1 rifle .  It had belonged to a major, who had the fatal misfortune of being ambushed in a fake surrender trick by the Germans.  With only an hour of rest, Kelso and his men were suddenly subjected to intense artillery fire.  Col. Lindquist gave orders for the men to run, in order, to headquarters.  They made it to the railroad track and then to the bridge at Chef du Pont, where they remained for the rest of D-Day.

The next day, General Gavin led his forces toward the command point, yelling “Come on! Let’s go! Nobody lives forever!”  Horne remembered very little after D-Day plus one until Independence Day.  He was tired.  The daily fighting and expectations of combat at any time allowed no time for keeping a diary.  He did remember the capture of 1820 German soldiers by his troops and those of the 90th division near Cherbourg. After things began to calm down, Lt. Horne was relieved to learn that all of the men in his platoon had made it that far without casualty - a lucky streak which wouldn’t last too much longer. 

When Kelso crossed the La Fiere Causeway, he came upon a group of dead German soldiers lying in a ditch.  He was standing astride what he thought was a dead soldier.   The man, only dazed and not dead, spoke to Horne, yelling “Komrade! Komrade!”  Despite the urging of some of the men, Horne refused to shoot the helpless man.  Only a few moments later after Horne had left the scene, an inflamed young soldier came across the road.  He machine gunned the German to death.  “That happened a lot,” Kelso remembered.

About a week after the invasion, Kelso and his platoon from  Co. I  were walking down a road toward a French town.  Gen. Lawton Collins, commanding the 7th Corps, drove up along the column and asked to speak to the officer in command.  Horne advised the General that there were Germans in the town because they had firing on our troops earlier in the day.  Collins, owing to the fact that discretion is the better part of valor, ordered the driver to turn the staff car around.  Before the car left, Bob Landry, a photographer for “Life” magazine asked permission to take a picture of Kelso Horne.    Landry instructed Horne to kneel down and look off in the distance.  Horne complied and thought not much more about the snapshot.  Horne had mentioned it to his wife Doris in his letters. The photograph was selected by the editors of the magazine to grace the cover of the August 14th issue.  Horne’s family and everyone in Laurens County were elated.

As Independence Day approached, the 508th was moving north of la Laye-du-Puits.  Their objective, Hill 95.  Horne and his men knew the Germans were up there on the hill.  They heard them talking during the night.  Early on the morning of July 4th, Lt. Horne was giving his daily report to Sgt. Raymond Conrad, 1st Sergeant of Co. I.  While listing those who had been killed and wounded, a round pierced Conrad’s body from one side all the through to the other.  Kelso was terribly shaken.  The two men had gone through basic training together and were close friends.  A little while later, Lt. Horne was walking with his messenger, when the young man was hit in both legs with machine gun fire.  Once again, Kelso had narrowly escaped being shot.  Things were getting worse.  One of the company mortar men and the platoon sergeant were severely wounded.

Kelso began to question the prudence of the decision to attack the hill.  Col. Mendez was adamant.  Lt. Horne knew that the land approaching Hill 95 had no cover, not even a rock to hide behind.   Col. Mendez grew angry when Kelso intimated that the colonel would be safe in the rear behind the rocks, while he and his men would be in untenable danger.  The attack went off just as planned at eleven o’clock in the morning, five minutes after the artillery barrage began.    Lt. Horne was ten feet out of the hedgerow when he felt something.  “I never heard the shell.  I know it was a shell, because it was a fragment that hit me.  It just felt like somebody hit me in the chest with a baseball bat.  It knocked me down and when I got up my pistol had fallen out of its holder,” Kelso told his biographer, Perry Knight.  Pat Collins, who was standing beside Horne, took a hit and fell. Horne told Collins that he had been hit in the arm.  Collins looked over at Horne and said, “You’re  hit, too!  You’ve got a hole in your jump suit.  You got it bad,” Collins said.  Horne noticed he was bleeding and moved back to the security of the hedge.  He disassembled his rifle, threw the parts in different directions, and began to move back toward the rear.  Horne noticed that he had left his pistol at the point where he had been shot.  He crawled back to the spot, picked his pistol up, and then had the strength to walk back to the rear field hospital.   Horne was sent to a hospital in Cheltonham, England, where he arrived a couple of days later.  The attack fizzled that day, but the regiment took the hill the next morning after the Germans had abandoned it on the night of the 4th. 

Kelso remained in Cheltonham until the early days of August.  One day while he was lying in the bed, the man in the next bed said, “You’ve got a boy!”  Horne was momentarily puzzled.  He knew that his wife Doris, the former Miss Doris Garner,  was expecting a child, but didn’t know how the man would know about it.  Doris had tried to get word to Kelso through the Red Cross.  Horne’s uncle, Frank Cochran, knew about the slowness of sending a message to a soldier overseas.  He sent the announcement to the military newspaper, “Stars and Stripes.”   The July 25th edition of the paper carried the news of the birth of Kelso’s son, Kelso C. “Casey,” Horne, Jr.  who had been born on July 18th.   Casey joined the U.S. Army like his father.  Today he practices law in Dahlonega, Georgia.  Kelso C. Horne, III became a third generation paratrooper in the mid 1990s.  At the awards ceremony at the end of jump school, Kelso C. Horne, III had his wings pinned on him by his grandfather.  They weren’t a new pair of wings.  They were the same wings that had been pinned on Kelso, Sr. in 1943.  Pride and  tears  overflowed that day.

From Cheltonham, Horne was sent to Wales for further rehabilitation.   Horne returned to the 508th the day the unit left with the 82nd Airborne Division for a jump in Holland.  Unable to return to duty, Horne remained behind with orders to help care for the wounded until the unit’s return. Horne remained with the 508th throughout the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944.  On Valentine’s Day, 1945, Kelso returned to the states.  He was sent to Finney Hospital in Thomasville, Georgia - close to home, but not close enough.  Kelso was sent even further away from home, this time to Miami, Florida.  He returned to duty as a training officer at Fort Benning, where he was discharged in October, 1945.

Kelso and Doris returned to Dublin to make their home.  Kelso continued to serve his country with the United States Postal Service.  He died on a Saturday, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. In this holiday season, more than fifty years later, let us give thanks for men like Kelso Horne, the man behind the face, and all of the men who risked their lives for to preserve the freedoms we enjoy today. 

00-43

STARVING ACTORS

They called them starving actors.  In the days of the Depression and for many years thereafter, actors performed night after night in different towns to earn enough money to eat.  One such troupe of actors was formed in Abingdon, Virginia in 1933 by Robert Penfield.  Penfield arranged for a barter system to help pay his actors.  Barbers and beauticians would cut the actors’ hair in exchange for tickets to the plays.  Merchants would bring in food.  Supplies, costumes, and equipment were obtained in a similar way, leading Penfield to name his theatre the Barter Theatre.  By 1946, the acting troupe was the largest touring troupe in the country.  The group was rewarded twice in 1948 by the State of Virginia. The theatre was named the State Theatre of Virginia and was awarded a Tony Award for their contribution to regional theatre.

The Dublin Junior Chamber of Commerce sponsored a performance by the Barter Theatre at the Naval Hospital Auditorium on Friday, February 13, 1948 during the Barter Theatre’s second annual tour of the southern United States.  The performance that night was the Broadway play “John Loves Mary.”   Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein, in recognition of the talent and dedication of the cast members, granted special permission for their play to be performed in theaters and auditoriums around the country.  The play, a light-hearted comedy, dealt with the problems of a soldier returning home from the war and the complications of life being away from his sweetheart for long periods of time.

Ray Boyle played the title role of John.  Boyle received the Helen Hayes Award as the most promising actor on Broadway.  Playing Mary was Gerry Jedd, a talented actress in her own right.  As John loved Mary in play, so did Ray and Gerry.  The actors married each other shortly after their performance in Dublin.  Boyle continued acting into the 1950s.  He appeared in the not-so-classic science fiction film, “Zombies of the Stratosphere.”   Ray appeared in the premier episode of the second season of the legendary western, “Gunsmoke” in 1956.  Gerry Jedd appeared in numerous television series, such as “The Twilight Zone” and “The Naked City.”   Jedd received national recognition when she received the Obie Award for a distinguished performance by an actress during the 1960-1 theatre season.

Larry Gates co-starred in “John Loves Mary,” but had more success in television and movies than the leading actors did.  Gates played Dr. Dan Kaufman in the science fiction classic, “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and had a leading role in the film classic, “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,” with Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor and Burl Ives.  Gates also appeared in many television shows including the World War II drama, “Twelve O’Clock High.”

Other members of the cast included Fern Bennett, Fred Warriner, Caddell Burruoghs, Jane Schmidt, John Eton, and Stuart Day, all of whom never made it big on the small or the big screen.

Listed down at the bottom of the credits was a Connecticut born actor.  Ermes Efrron  was born in 1917.  His parents came to America from Italy at the turn of the century.  Ermes joined the Navy following his high school graduation.  He remained in the Navy for ten years, serving his country in World War II.  Ermes had risen to the rank of Chief Gunner’s Mate.  He went from job to job, not knowing exactly what he wanted to do with his life.  He had a strong personality.  At the suggestion of his mother, Ermes enrolled in the Randall School of Drama in Hartford, Connecticut.  Ermes joined the Barter Theatre.  He acted in various roles.  He even did odd jobs around the theater.  In 1949, Ermes made his debut on Broadway with the role of the male nurse in the play “Harvey.”

Ermes moved west to Hollywood in 1951 to try his hand at acting in movies and television. He made his film debut in “The Whistle at Eaton Falls.”    He began to take on the “heavy” role in movies after his success in playing “Fatso Johnson” in “From Here to Eternity.”  That role lead to his being cast as Marty Piletti, in “Marty,” for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He beat out Spencer Tracy, Frank Sinatra, James Cagney, and James Dean.  Ermes, known as one of the kindest, gentlest, and generous men in Hollywood, starred in other film classics such as; “The Dirty Dozen,” “The Wild Bunch,” and “The Poseidon Adventure.”  If you don’t know what Ermes Effron’s real name is by now, I will give you one more clue.  You probably know his best as the affable and happy-go-lucky commander of PT-73, Quentin McHale, in the Sixties television show, “McHale’s Navy.”  Ermes Effron was just his first two names.  His full name was Ermes Effron “Ernest” Borgnine.

In the early fifties, a young actor in his mid twenties toured the United  States with his wife.  He was a son of one of Ziegfield's Beauties.  The couple performed dramatic scenes from "Mark Twain", "Hamlet", "McBeth", and " Queen Victoria and Prince Albert."   When the actor's wife became pregnant, she was replaced by actress Lee Firestone.  The new team was engaged by the Laurens County Concert Association to perform their dramatic scenes at the Central Elementary Auditorium (now City Hall) on January 17, 1952.  The new acting team was known as Holbrook and Firestone.  The young actor went on to fame in television and the movies.  His portrayal of Mark Twain was universally recognized as one of the best in television history.    He has appeared in over ninety movies and television series and is currently appearing in movies and television shows. The young actor was, of course, Hal Holbrook. 

00-44

LAURENS COUNTY IN 1850

One hundred and fifty years ago, the citizens of Laurens County were at a crossroads.  The most cataclysmic political and social upheaval in the history of our county was simmering.  Ten years later our whole world was thrown into a maelstrom.  As we reach the true end of the 20th Century, let’s look back to the way we were in the middle of the 19th Century.

Following the Clay Compromise of 1850, an election was held on the issue of slavery.  The Constitutional Union Party of Georgia was led by Howell Cobb.  Locally E.J. Blackshear led the Union Party.  When Laurens County's votes were tabulated, 272 voted for the Union, while no one voted for the Resistance.  The election of 1860 prompted South Carolina to leave the Union.  

A Federal census was taken of Laurens County in the Spring of 1850.  There were one thousand seven hundred and forty white males, one thousand seven hundred and nineteen white females, making a total of three thousand four hundred fifty nine white persons, or 53.7% of the total population.  There were three free colored males and six free colored females.  There were one thousand five hundred seventy five male slaves and one thousand three hundred and nine female slaves, for a total of two thousand nine hundred seventy four, or 46.3% of the total population of the total population.  It is interesting to note that 57% of the white citizens and 60% of the slaves were under the age of twenty-one.  The total population of 6,442 persons made Laurens County the 74th largest county in the state.

The adult illiteracy rate was forty eight percent among whites. Owing to the fact that most slaves were not taught to read and write, the rate among slaves approached one hundred percent.  There were one hundred and seven persons who lived during the American Revolution.  Druscilla Pilot, who lived in the David Wood household, was one hundred and eight years old.  The vast majority of Laurens Countians in 1850 were natives of Georgia.   Approximately five percent of county residents, or one hundred seventy seven people, were natives of North Carolina.  Ninety county residents were natives of South Carolina.  Of the rest, nine were natives of Virginia, three of Maryland, two of Florida, and one each from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Alabama. The latter was Gov. George Troup, who was born in the portion of Georgia which later became the State of Alabama.  Freeman Rowe, of Connecticut, and Nathan Tucker, of Rhode Island, would play important roles in Laurens County’s involvement in the upcoming war.  There were four foreign-born residents: a Mr. Christopher from Switzerland, Abraham Doll from Germany, and Ann McNeal and M.P. Simon from Ireland.   Charity Branch had the largest family of children- an even dozen.  The population density was one person for every fifty three acres, keeping in mind that at that time Laurens County was one of the largest counties in the state and included a portion of present-day western Johnson County. There were only six hundred and thirty four families in the county in 1850, a figure which does not include slave families.

Farming was the major economic activity of Laurens County in 1850.  Cotton, corn, sweet potatoes, and wool were the main products.  On sixty two thousand two hundred forty nine acres of land, Laurens County farmers produced enormous quantities of food stuffs.  In the year before the census was taken, Laurens County farmers produced 8,902 bushels of wheat, 291 bushels of rye, 211,958 bushels of corn, 7535 bushels of oats, 8,885 bushels of rice, 6648 bushels of peas and beans, 118 bushels of Irish potatoes, 82,995 bushels of sweet potatoes, and 11 bushels of barley.  Farmers produced slightly more than one and one half million pounds of cotton, 17, 119 pounds of butter, and 14,849 pounds of wool. Other minor farm products produced by county farmers included $100.00 worth of orchard products, 1000 pounds of sugar cane, 5205 gallons of molasses, and 1909 pounds of cheese.

Livestock farming was also a major part of agriculture in the county.  Census takers counted 1416 horses, 351 mules, 5740 milk cows, 579 working oxen, 13,533 other types of cattle, 8027 sheep, and 24,038 swine, all valued at a little more than a quarter of a million dollars.   Just over $50,000 worth of animals were slaughtered for food during the prior year. Farm equipment was valued at thirty one thousand dollars.

Census takers enumerated six schools, six Baptist Churches, and six Methodist Churches in the county. Historical records show that there were at least eight Baptist churches - Poplar Springs North, Dublin Baptist, Bethlehem, Bluewater, Bethseda, New Hope, Centerville, and Rock Springs.  Darsey’s Meeting House, which later evolved to become Buckhorn Methodist Church, is known to have been the only 1850 Methodist Church which is in present day Laurens County.  Maple Springs Methodist Church, located on the banks of the Ohoopee River in Johnson County, was located in Laurens County in 1850.  There may have been a Methodist Church in Dublin, but there are to extant records to prove this assumption.  One Methodist Church, Gethsemane, was organized one hundred and fifty years ago this week by Kinman Jones, Edward Holmes, William Pope, Francis Drake, and William Brantley in a building located on Dewey Warnock Road about a mile south of East Laurens School. 

There were only three post offices in the county: Dublin, Buckeye, and Laurens Hill.  There were no newspapers, no banks, and no railroad.  Gov. Troup and others had defeated the location of the Central of Georgia railroad through the county.  In his 1855 book, the Rev. George White described Laurens County as “a rolling countryside, with a soil of sand and vegetable mold on top of a clay foundation.  One third of the uncultivated lands were covered with oak and hickory, while the remainder contained pine trees and wire-grass pastures.  The climate is considered as pleasant as any in the United States.” 

Nearly all county residents lived on a farm.  Dublin was a very small hamlet near the center of the county.  Most slaves lived on the plantations along the northern end of the county.  In the northwestern sector were the O’Neal, Coats, Stanley, Yopp, Hampton, Harvard, Troup, and Vickers plantations.  In the northeastern sector were the Guyton, Blackshear, Kellam, Hightower, Holmes, Linder, and Ballard plantations.  In southeastern end of the county, were the Gov. Troup, the county’s largest plantation owner, and Smith, McLendon, and Kinchen family plantations.  The Burch and Noles plantations in the southwestern sector of the county were nestled among tens of thousand acres of virgin pine trees.