PIECES OF OUR PAST - 2008

 

PIECES OF OUR PAST

Sketches of the History of Dublin and Laurens County, Georgia

and The East Central Georgia Area

2008

Written by 

Scott B. Thompson, Sr.

SCOTTBTHOMPSONSR@YAHOO.COM 

Copyright 2008

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

08-01

WHAT'S ON THE DOCKET?

Mayor's Court

I recently came into possession of  a docket book from the Mayor's Court of Dublin from 1888 to 1890.  The torn and tattered volume documents the four hundred and fifty cases filed against Dublin citizens for low misdemeanor crimes committed at a time when demon rum was being run out of town.  For most of the two decades following the Civil War, the abundance of alcohol led to the labeling of the struggling town of Dublin as a wild, rowdy and raucous town.  It was only after the temperance crowd marched in and barely managed to ban the legal sale of spiritous liquors and intoxicating ales that crimes in the city began to decline.

Virtually no one was exempt from the dogged enforcement of town ordinances.  The very first case in 1888 was made against Lucien Q. Stubbs, who was fined the sum of $5.00 for fighting.  Stubbs, who went on to become one of Dublin's most popular mayors by winning four elections, probably paid the fine in lieu of being humiliated by working on the public streets.  Judge J.B. Wolfe and W.R. Scarborough were cited for violating an ordinance prohibiting the obstruction of a drainage ditch.  Tom Hughes and F.T. Clark paid an equal amount for obstructing the wooden city sidewalk. 

John Walker plead guilty to a charge of riding an animal in too fast a manner through the city streets.  I assume it was a horse that John Walker was riding, but the joy ride cost old John the sum of $3.00.  Richard Nelson's crime was somewhat more vague.  Nelson was sentenced to pay only court costs for his conviction of "lurking on the streets at unusual hours," which begs the question, "was it legal to lurk during usual hours?"  Mayor David Ware, Jr. sentenced Thomas Reinhardt to pay a fine of $5.00 for "loitering on the streets at unusual hours."  Reinhardt's miscue was that he should have been lurking instead of just standing still and loitering. 

In the summer of 1888, there was a rash of charges for operating restaurants without a license.  In one day, the Mayor fined Paul Hillman and Ben Simmons the minimum sum of $1.00 for skipping the red tape.  Rachel Linder, one of the few women cited in the docket, and R. Robinson were inexplicably fined $20.00 for the same act.  Maybe their food wasn't as good as Paul and Ben's.

L.Q. Stubbs, who would preside over the court beginning in 1890, was joined by W.J. Hightower, T.M. Hightower, Robert Smith and George Bangs in some type of shooting match inside the city limits.   This particular frolic costs the leading businessmen the paltry sum of $1.00.  Stephen A. Corker, who son, Frank G. Corker, was soon to be elected Mayor,  joined businessmen R.P. Roughton, Dan Green, John Hightower and William Colley in pleading guilty to shooting without permission.  Maybe they should have just asked.

Sam Madison's horse broke loose and started running on the streets like breakaway horses generally do.  This slip of the knot cost Madison a mere dollar but why was he there in the first place?    Shouldn't city court be reserved for those real bad boys, the drunks, the disorderly and the combination thereof?  Alex Mitchell went beyond drunk and disorderly, he was pure out drunk and riotous - a charge which landed him a twenty dollar fine.

Christmas and New Year's revelry usually brought out the mandatory arrests for the improper use of fireworks.  Richmond Nelson paid two dollars for exploding fireworks without permission.  Jessie Bracewell had to pay a $ 5.00 fine for using combustible material without due caution.  It remains unclear whether or not Bracewell received permission to combust his material or that he was fined an extra three bucks for doing something stupid.

Jack Stanley was fined by Mayor L.Q. Stubbs for violating the Sabbath.  Paul Hillman  was found to not have really broken the Sabbath.   Remember him?  He had gotten of lightly for running a restaurant without a license.  Sam Wright, Lewis Tillery and John Hudson each paid $2.00 for riding too fast in town.  

Mayor Stubbs' father, the inestimable Col. John M. Stubbs, who led the town's growth out of obscurity into prosperity, had a awful autumn in 1889.  In October, he and his brother in law H.V. Johnson, son of former governor, judge and vice-presidential candidate Gov. Herschel V. Johnson, were each fined for fighting.  In December, Col. Stubbs returned to face charges of being disorderly.

The moniker of being the "town drunk" easily belonged to one "Pink" Hughes.    Pink was twice sentenced in the last half of 1888 for being drunk and disorderly and resisting arrest.  But in 1889, Hughes was convicted on seven separate occasions.  Hughes contributed nearly $120.00 to the city coffers for his improprieties.  He plead guilty once in September and was surprisingly found not guilty later by Mayor Stubbs.  Seems like ole' Pink was always tying one on and this time fooled the local constable.  

With the elimination of alcohol, crime rates plummeted.  In the last half of 1888 alone, there were 294 criminal cases.  The following year saw only 177 cases, the majority of which were drunk in the streets or just plain drunk.  Many people were disorderly and an equal amount were both drunk and disorderly.  Thirty three people were convicted of fighting in 1889, which represented a dramatic decrease from the twenty three persons convicted in the first half of the preceding year.

Obviously there were more crimes committed in the city and throughout the county in those days.  High misdemeanors and felonies came under the jurisdiction of the state courts.  Of all the more than five hundred cases documented in the book, one case stands out above all the rest.  While most of the fines handed down by the mayor were ten dollars or less and few ever exceeded $25.00 per offense, a thirty five dollar fine was levied on James Taylor.  What was Taylor's crime?  It didn't involve drinking, fighting, or even loud swearing - that cost Brant Gay $2.50 - swearing softly seemed to be legal.  No, it was not the twenty five dollars which Taylor paid for fighting which resulted in the court's highest fine.  The whopping $35.00 penalty was for insolence towards a lady.  If Mayor Phil Best was holding court today, the line of men answering that charge would wind out the door, run down the hall, extend out the door and cover the sidewalk all the way up to the courthouse.

08-02

"THE WOOLEN MILL"

A New Beginning

Out of a desolate grove of once bountiful pecan trees on the banks of the Oconee River grew a complex of buildings which changed the face of life in Laurens County forever.  On a cool St. Patrick's Day morning in 1947, bulldozers began clearing the site for the location of one of the  most modern woolen mills in America.  For six decades, the men and women of J.P. Stevens and Company and later Forstmann and Company went to work.  With a pride unrivaled anywhere else in the community, these folks, our folks, produced the finest textile materials in the world.  This is the story of the beginning of the "Woolen Mill," and its impact not only on the styles of our garments, but the styles of our lives.

The construction of the Stevens mill in East Dublin was supervised by Colonel John Baum. In the year after the end of World War II, John Baum was sent to survey cities in the South for the company's first mill outside of New England.    Baum, a member of Georgia Tech's Baseball and Engineering Hall of Fame, oversaw every single element of the construction of the mill, which was completed in the fall of 1948.  The owners of the company chose the location because of its proximity to the Oconee River and the assurance of abundant labor by local leaders.  The local leaders weren't lying.   Nearly two thousand two hundred applicants besieged the workers in the temporary employment office.  By January 2, 1948 the applications were so voluminous that a notice was printed in the newspaper that no further applications would be taken.  

The company knew that in order to succeed the workers, who had little or no industrial experience, would need to be trained to work the textile machinery before and after the plant was up and running.  Six looms were shipped in and installed in a dairy barn.  Walter Anderson oversaw the training program which began on August 18, 1947.  Within a matter of seven weeks, the first twelve pieces of woven cloth were shipped from the training  room.  Production continued on a small scale until the plant became fully operational. 

Baum wrote of his new employees " The attributes they have that outweigh their knowledge of textile manufacturing are their desire to learn, their educational background, their natural ability and their interest in the community and the organization that will mean so much to the economy of this community."  Many workers yearned to learn more about their new job and volunteered to pay half the cost of correspondence courses while the company picked up the other half of the bill. Every applicant was carefully screened and given a physical examination before being considered for employment by the department supervisors.  

Of the initial one hundred and sixty three employees hired, 58% percent were men and 42 percent were women.  The average worker was white, male, and twenty-nine years old.  He was a  native Georgia Baptist who completed two years of high school.   No one under 18 was hired and the oldest worker was a 60 year old woman.  All trainees earned a starting salary of sixty cents per hour, with a dime an hour increase after a four-week training period.  The production employees worked eight hours a day for six days a week, earning one full day of time and a half for Saturdays.

The highest salary paid to the most productive workers was a whopping $1.05 per hour.  Six people, five men and one woman, made more than $70.00 a week.  

Safety was a big concern in the mill.  Each employee had it drilled into his mind the necessity of safety in the workplace.  In the first year of operation no time was lost due to the sixteen minor accidents on the job.  

Col. Baum's key personnel were his office manager Herbert C. Ervin; James E. Powell, Walter W. Anderson, Foster Blue, Milton Christie and Edwin Head, Jr. in the Gray Goods Department;  Donald C. Johnston, C. Flannery Pope, Jr. and Duncan C. Weatherall in the Dyeing and Finishing Department and Plant Engineer Luther O. Swint. By the time the mill went into full operation, George P. McIntyre, John Sims and John A. Smith joined the staff.   Though the key employees had technical training, absolutely none of them had any technical experience in the manufacture of woolen cloth.  Each of them underwent rigorous training in other mills in the East, where they taught that quality and quantity were of the utmost importance.  

At the end of the construction phase late in 1948, Col. Baum reported to the company that there were numerous problems that would need to be addressed in the coming months.  The most critical of these was the transportation of materials into the plant and finished goods out.  With utmost confidence in his employees and people of Laurens County, Baum concluded that after a careful study, a satisfactory solution would be found. 

In January 1949 an open house was held and thousands came to see where thousands wanted to work and where only one in two were lucky enough to get a job.  A second plant, named "The Nathaniel Plant," was opened in 1956.  Named after the founder of the company, Captain Nat Stevens, the Nathaniel Plant manufactured yarn-dyed or patterned, woolen fabrics.  By 1960, the Dublin Woolen Mills were ranked as the third most productive mills in the textile industry.  

One of the unique features of the Dublin plant is the cornerstone.  Fashioned from a piece of granite from Capt. Nat Stevens' mill in North Andover, Massachusetts, the corner stone bears the date of 1813-1947.    The Dublin-Laurens Museum is now the repository of many items of Stevens and its predecessor, Forstmann and Company.    

For decades men, women and children across the country and throughout the world wore coats, sport jackets, blazers, dresses, pants and hats made from cloth made right here in Laurens County.  The champions of the Master's Golf Tournament donned green jackets made from Stevens' green cloth.  Major league baseball players played in hats made in the mill.    But J.P. Stevens and its Forstmann descendants was more than just a mill.  It was a family - a family of dedicated and hard working employees who were a part of all of our lives.  They were our families, friends and neighbors.   

In 2007, after sixty years of operation, the mill is silent.  But it is not forgotten.  Thanks to the generosity of the plant managers, many of the items of memorabilia of the history of J.P. Stevens/Forstmann are now on display in the Dublin-Laurens Museum.   Included in the collection are scrapbooks, photographs along with samples of the first woolen yarn, first bolt of woolen cloth and the last bolt of woolen cloth made at the Woolen Mill. The trowel used by company officials to lay the cornerstone in 1947 lies in a display case, also donated by the company.  The public is cordially invited to visit the museum to view these items and many more which reflect the two hundred years of Laurens County's history.

08-03

MARVIN METHODIST CHURCH

You may have never heard of Marvin Church. And, you probably never knew it was in Laurens County, much less that actually it still is.  Many of you ride by it nearly every week and never knew it was there.  Wearing a disguise of clay bricks, Marvin Methodist still stands more than one hundred and thirty years after it was first built.  Transported from its original location on the New Buckeye Road in northeastern Laurens County, the small one room church is now a part of Centenary Methodist Church, which recently closed its doors after nearly ninety years of service to the Lord.

The story of Marvin Church actually goes back to January of 1866, when Pro Gustavas Adolfus Holcomb, a teacher from Riddleville, Georgia, opened a school on the old W.O. Prescott Place on the Dublin to Sandersville Road.  Sixty seven students came to class on the first day, eager to learn.  Holcomb's school house was a one room log structure, measuring only eighteen by twenty feet.  Obviously with less than five square feet per pupil, the facility was not large enough to accommodate the students.  Parents rushed into action and added a forty by fifty foot shelter. The ten foot tall addition rested upon hearted pine posts.  The floor was made of rough pine planks nailed to a foundation of logs.  The cover was made from five foot pine boards, cut from local woods and fastened with nails made in a local blacksmith shop.   One end of the shelter was boarded up entirely and the others were left open except about three feet around the three sides at the bottom, which gave an appearance of an enclosure.  

The primitive school house had no heat.  On colder days, the teacher and the students built a large fire out on the grounds and positioned their school benches as close to the heart of the fire as possible.  In the school's early days, twenty of the older kids were denied the opportunity to attend school because they were serving in the Confederate army.  These young men, who had experienced vast extremes of heat and cold, spent most of their time in outdoor classrooms.  

In 1867, the Methodist Conference sent the Rev. John Morgan of Guyton, Georgia, to serve as the minister of the Dublin Circuit.  At the time, there were only four Methodist churches in the circuit.  The main church was in Dublin with three churches located in eastern Laurens County at Boiling Springs, Gethsemane and what would become Lovett Methodist Church, but which was then a small church about one mile north of Lovett, known as "Gopher Hill," taking its name from the fact that gophers had chosen this sand hill for easy digging of their holes.  

Church services began in the school, which was affectionately known as "the Shelter."  Rev. Morgan kept his appointments to preach on the third Sunday of every month.  The Rev. Thomas Harris, a Christian Church minister from Sandersville, preached to his flock late in the evening on every fourth Sunday.   Frederick W. Flanders, a member of a clan of Methodist ministers from Johnson and Emanuel Counties, filled in when ever he had a free Sunday. 

For nearly a decade, the plan of filing engagements had to suffice until a permanent church could be established.  After ten years of planning and hoping, it was the energy of a young minister, H.M. Williams, that provided the impetus to build at church at "the Shelter."  

During the four years in which Rev. Morgan served the yet organized and unofficial church, local residents subscribed twelve hundred dollars to build a permanent house of worship.  Any building needs a plan and it was obvious that Col. John M. Stubbs was just the man to design the church.  Stubbs, a lawyer by profession and a man of many talents, lived just up the road at Tucker's Crossroads, the seat of his wife's family, the Tuckers.  Mrs. Stubbs' father was Dr. Nathan Tucker, the largest plantation owner in the area and one of the largest property owners in the county.  Stubbs tried several plans and attempted to come up with final cost estimates.  He settled on his design which included a magnificent edifice with a tall steeple.   His estimate of a cost at five thousand dollars discouraged many citizens whose resources were scant in the days of Reconstruction and its aftermath.  The young lawyer's ambitious plans were abandoned in favor of the status quo.

  Only when Rev. Williams rekindled up a new interest, did the citizens of the community come forward with their pledges and subscriptions to pay for the framing and weather boarding.   A new site one mile south from "the Shelter" was chosen as a more desirable location at a meeting at the old "Shelter."    

Sixteen people stepped forward to form the new church to be named Marvin.  The members represented many of the oldest and wealthiest citizens of the community.   They were: Elijah F. Blackshear, Mrs. Elijah F. Blackshear, William H. Walker, Mrs. William H. Walker, Kinchen H. Walker, Richard A. Kellam, Mrs. Temperance Kellam, Miss Addie F. Kellam, Winfield B. Smith, Alfred A. Morgan, Laura M. Smith, Mrs. Polly Garnto, Mrs. Rebecca Davis, Mrs. I.M. Blackshear, David S. Blackshear, Mrs. Susan Mason and Mrs. Winifred Mason.    

The first Board of Stewards was composed of Kinchen H. Walker, Richard A. Kellam, W.B. Smith and David S. Blackshear.  After the election of stewards, the next step was to give the church a new name.  Suggestions were sought from the members.  Some suggested the traditional names such as Evergreen and Olivet.   One person suggested naming the new church Guyton in honor of Joseph M. Guyton and Col. C.S. Guyton who had given the land for the site.  A disillusioned old gentleman rose from his seat in the back of the church and proposed  the name of "Luck and Trouble."   Rev. Williams asked the pessimistic old man, who was somewhat of an agnostic, why he suggested that name he supplied should be used.  He responded that "they were lucky to get it so far and trouble to get it further." Rev. Williams proposed the name of "Marvin" in honor of Bishop Enoch Mather Marvin.  Rev. Williams's suggestion seemed most popular and the new church was given the name of "Marvin."

Robert H. Hightower instructed his mill hands to furnish the lumber from his mill, some sixteen miles away in Johnson County.  T.J. Blackshear volunteered to hall the lumber with a three-yoke team of oxen as his matching contribution. David Stout Blackshear directed the construction.  With little or no haste the the church was framed, weather boarded and covered The building remained unfinished until about 1885, when the work was finally completed.  During the interim, regular services were held at  "the Shelter." 

After the organizing of Marvin Church, the membership increased until the day of opening the new church   A large enrollment of members were present.  The church was not dedicated until 1885.  Dr. J.O.H. Clark preached the dedication sermon. George C. Thompson was pastor at that time.  The following preachers filled the pulpit at intervals.  Rev. A.M. Williams, Rev. F.W. Flanders, Rev. Hudson, Rev. Powell, Rev. Hearn. Rev. H.A. Hodges, Rev. Joseph Carr and Rev. G.M. Prescott, a local preacher. 

By the 1940s, the church, located on the western side of the Buckeye Road, just before it intersects with the Cullens/Ben Hall Lake Road,  was abandoned and was used sparingly for funerals in the church yard cemetery.  After decades of abandonment, the building was removed some twenty five years ago and annexed to  Centenary Methodist Church on Telfair Street, where it still stands today. 

08-04

LOVETT, GEORGIA

A Look Back 

The town of Lovett is the third oldest incorporated town in Laurens County, losing  the honor of being the oldest town not including Dublin or Brewton, which it finished behind  by a mere three days in 1889.   At the turn of the 20th Century much of the experiences in Lovett was published in the Macon Weekly Telegraph.  Then without any explanation the snippets of the shenanigans and shining moments disappeared leaving the historians with virtually no record of the events which happened there until surviving issues of the Dublin papers began to chronicle her past. But when the calendars began to replace the 18s with the 19s,  Lovett could be lively and Lovett could be lovely. And, Lovett could be lurid, but loving too.  

Just after Easter Sunday, the Rev. George C. Matthews, a former minister of the First Methodist Church in Dublin and a founder of the Holiness movement in Georgia, was the featured speaker at the South Georgia Holiness Association's annual meeting.  The streets of Lovett were crowded with  hundreds of people, all in town to hear the elegant sermons of Rev. Matthews and a host of other prominent religious leaders.   Association organizers provided special daily train rides for the large crowds  from Garbutt's Mill to the meeting place, a large sixty foot by ninety foot cloth tent.  The professing Christians met for more than a dozen days.  The Rev. W.A. Dodge, Matthew's counterpart in the North Georgia District, spoke to the gathering, estimated to have been more than two thousand believers and sinners.  As the session came to a close, thousands appeared at the tent.  They came on foot, on horseback, in wagons and on trains. They came early and continued to assemble after the climactic service began.  Rev. Dodge preached the morning sermon and spoke only to the men that afternoon.  Mrs. Crumpler spoke to the ladies, while the men folk talked about manly things.  It was reported that the meeting exceeded any other meeting ever held in Lovett in the good it did and "many sinners were moved to repentance and conversion - and the town was generally shaken up."

But, as it goes in small towns of the day, the good news turned to bad news, within a cycle of the moon.  Pebe Hall and Miss Radford of Lovett had gone down to the Big Ohoopee River at Snell's Bridge for a day of jollity and picnicking.  Leaving their friends on the banks of the river, Pebe and his best girl rowed their boat into the center of the stream. All of a sudden the boat wobbled throwing the couple into the swollen stream.  They cried out for help, and help was on its way.  But before they could be rescued, the popular couple disappeared down to the sandy bottom of the muddy water. The pall of their deaths lasted a long time in the minds of their many friends.

It would only be three fortnights before another dead body would be found in the merciless waters of the Big Ohoopee near Snell's Bridge.  A crowd of men were seining the river for a mess of fish when to their utmost horror the fisherman found a solitary leg and a man's head.  Attached to what remained of his neck was a 150 pound iron bar.  A closer examination of their nets revealed a satchel and several articles of clothing.    Investigating officials determined the dismembered remains belonged to one George Yates, who had disappeared three months earlier on March 4th.  There were suspects.  Just to make sure, Georgia governor Allen D. Candler offered a one hundred dollar reward for the villainous perpetrators.  

Within a week, George Yates rose to the surface, not from the water or his grave, but he had been alive all the time.  Thoughts of the identity of the corpse turned to Jack Benedict of Athens.  Thought to have been wearing similar clothes at the time of his disappearance led Dr. Benedict, the brother of the suspected victim, to examine the remains and determine that the skull sizes matched.  Believing that the Athens physician was simply seeking closure to his brother's fate, the investigation continued.    J.T. O'Neal, a convicted bootlegger who had vanished after his release, may have been the casualty of vindictive co-conspirators he helped to convict.    Johnson County Ordinary J.E. Page continued to investigate the true identity of the mystery man. 

Just as the citizens of Lovett were trying to overcome the horrors of the river deaths, a small epidemic of smallpox terrified every man, woman and child.  Between two and three dozen cases of the deadly disease were reported in a small area between Harrison and Lovett.   Physicians were summoned and comprehensive vaccinations were begun, ending the crisis.

Another month brought another tragedy.  On the 9th of August, Bascom Flanders was trying to find a seat on the wood in the tender of a fast running train when he lost his balance and fell to the ground striking his head against an series of immovable cross ties.  Little hope for his recovery was given.

 

On the lighter side, the farmers of Lovett were enjoying a plentiful season, raising enough corn, fodder and provisions to provide for their families for another year, without being forced into debt.  Ike Askew brought the first two bales of cotton into town on August 9th.    Mr. E.A. Lovett paid Askew $5.80 for his prized bales.  By the end of the month, heavy tropical rains severely damaged the unpicked half of the cotton crop. Fears of losses were erased by the first of October, most of the farmers were happy.    But Lovett continued to grow.  Sidewalks were given much needed and overdue repairs and three new handsome homes were erected that summer.  The young people were preparing a concert and a traveling showman thrilled the congregation of folks with a ascension of his hot air balloon. 

The townsfolk of Lovett were proud of the wonderful springs on Tucker's Mill Creek. Although unnamed in a newspaper article, these springs are now known as the "Thundering Springs," which are located three crow fly miles west of town.  Folk medicine believers swore by the healing effects of the mineral laden waters which erupted from the earth.  The boil of the spring was constant and constantly rose about a foot above the surrounding water level.  The springs were ideal for swimming and bathing because even the poorest swimmer could never sink below his heart.   Determined divers attempted to touch the bottom, but the force of the boiling water pushed them back to the surface.  It was said that on cloudy days, the roar of the springs, which emanate from miles and miles away,  rival the loudest reports of an approaching  thunderstorm.

After a festive, and somewhat lively,  holiday season and the end of the 19th Century, promises of bigger and better things were abundant in Lovett.    On the very first day of the 20th Century, six inches of snow covered and killed  a fine crop of winter wheat and oats in the fields. J.T. Lovett was chosen as the century's first mayor.  E.A. Lovett, A.T. Cobb, W.J. Stewart, P.M. Johnson and Z.M. Sterling constituted the town's first council in the 20th Century.    Professor W.J. Daley opened the doors of the Lovett School.  Fifty kids came to class and more were expected to attend. E.F. Cary and W.J. Stewart established an Express office in town.  Lovett farmers planned to increase corn plantings in the spring.  The farms and saw mills of the area were so profitable that the lack of available laborers became a problem.

   

08-05

McHENRY BOATWRIGHT

Bravo!

McHenry Boatwright could sing.  Man, could he sing!  If you were to typecast this young man from Tennille, Georgia, with his tall frame and handsome rock and roll star looks, you would swear he would have been a "doo wopper" of the fabulous fifties.  You would be wrong.   This young man from Washington County catapulted himself to the top of the music world, not as a member of a pop vocal group, but as one of the leading baritone-bass opera singers in America.

McHenry Boatwright - he was once called "Mac Henry Boatright" - was born on Leap Day, February 29, 1920.  The youngest son of Levi and Lillie Boatright, Mac first lived in a home at 112 South Church Street in Tennille.  Levi, a switchman in the rail yards in Tennille, was out of work when the Great Depression struck in 1929.  Mac's mother Lillie helped to support the family by  working as a cook in a private home.  Mac's siblings Valeria, Annie,  Levi J., Ruth, and Grover later lived at 418 N. Smith Street in the railroad town.

By the age of seven, McHenry's interest in music had manifested itself in the sanctuary of St. James A.M.E. Church.  A talented piano player, the young man's future seemed to be not so bright in the waning South, which had been stripped of her cotton and railroad fortunes.  His older sister, recognizing that her brother's chance for musical success could only come in the culture rich northeastern states, summoned McHenry to come to  Boston and join her.  So, McHenry left T.J. Elder school and the only world he ever knew and moved to Boston at the age of twelve.  

In making a choice between high school and playing jazz music, Boatright chose the latter, but completed his school studies at night.  To pay for his tuition at the New England Conservatory of Music, McHenry worked as a cab driver, elevator operator and other jobs.  Near the end of his studies at the conservatory, McHenry decided to major in voice.  To pay for his voice lessons, McHenry tutored other students in the art of singing.

McHenry Boatright's first real success came in a performance of Berlioz's oratorio, "The Damnation of Faust," accompanied by the Boston Symphony.  His big break came in 1953 at the Chicagoland Music Festival.  An overnight star at the age of thirty three, McHenry was chosen the best of nearly two thousand hopeful participants.   That outstanding performance led to an appearance on "Chicago Theatre of the Air," and eventually a national solo on Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town."

It was as the New England Opera Theater where McHenry was discovered by the legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein, only eighteen months his senior, and invited to sing with Bernstein's New York Philharmonic Orchestra.  In 1956,   Boatwright sung the lead role in Clarence Cameron White's "Ouanga at the Metropolitan Opera House in a performance sponsored by the National Negro Opera Foundation.  

In the early 1960s, McHenry Boatright sang the role of "Crown," a tough stevedore  in the first stereo recording of George and Ira Gerswhin's "Porgy and Bess."  

In 1974, Boatwright returned home to his old school in Tennille.  He stopped in on his way to a performance in Atlanta.  People from all over the county filled the auditorium to hear one of the county's most famous sons.    

Late in his life, McKinley married Ruth James, who was the only sibling of the legendary musician Duke Ellington.  Duke and Ruth were inseparable.  They traveled together and some say Ruth reduced the likelihood of Duke's many girlfriends bickering with each other.   Ruth's life was remarkable in her own right.  After graduating from Columbia University in 1939, she studied and taught in Europe.  While she was in France, she met and developed a close relationship with the immortal singer Josephine Baker.   In 1941, Ellington asked Ruth to manage his business.  She accepted and took care of his business affairs for more than half a century.  McHenry sung the eulogy song at Ellington's funeral in 1974.  In 1982, Boatwright aided his wife in managing his brother in law's tribute Sacred Concerts in New York and London.  

Among Boatwright's most celebrated performances were those with the Schola Cantorum of New York, the Boston Symphony, the Boston Pops, the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra along with concerts in Carnegie Hall.    Among his most cherished awards were two from the Marion Anderson Foundation and the National Federation of Music Clubs. 

McHenry Boatright died of cancer on November 5, 1994.  He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City.  His wife Ruth died on March 6, 2004.  

08-06

STEWARDS OF THE LAND

Laurens County African American Farmers.

For more than two centuries they have toiled in the fields, first as slaves, then as sharecroppers and, eventually, as owners of farms.   Throughout our past the contributions of these men, and women too, have left an invaluable impact on our local economy and our way of life.  This is the story of the African American farmers of Laurens County.

When Laurens County was created in 1807, the first black farmers were slaves.  Three years later the first census of the county enumerated 485 slaves.  Most of these people lived in the northern regions of the county on the large plantations.   By 1860 that number had increased to nearly 3,300 persons, some of whom were employed in non-agricultural positions or were too old or too young to work in the fields.

The end of the Civil War brought about the liberation of the black farmers.  While many farmers were relegated to living and sharecropping on the lands of their former masters, some were given land or were quickly successful enough to buy their own piece of land.  In 1870, there were fifty black farmers who were more than just farm laborers.  Among these, David Lock, William Coats, Jacob Coney, Moses Yopp, S. Ellington, Sandy Stanley, Robert Stanley, J. Yonks and Jordan Burch owned their own land.  The granddaddy of these farmers was 80-year old William Coats.  Harriett Harvard was the only female farmer in that census year.

During the latter decades of the 19th Century, the leading black farmers included Ringold Perry, Daniel Cummings, Hamlet McCall, D.  McLendon, Jacob Fullwood and many members of the Yopp and Troup families.  Adam McLeod, of Lowery's District, was so successful that he was known to have been the first black man to buy a car in Laurens County.  

In 1910 near the zenith of cotton production in Laurens County, there were 2266 black farmers in Laurens County, ten more than their white counterparts.  In that year, 274 farms were owned and cultivated by their black owners.  Nearly three fourths of all of Laurens County's five thousand farms were cultivated by tenant farmers, 2027  of them were black.  Though the net wealth of a black farmer was less than $40.00 per person, farm ownership increased by 76% in the first decade of the Twentieth Century.   

The rapid growth in the impact of the black farmer came to a screeching halt in the next decade when the boll weevil came to Laurens County and all but eliminated cotton as the most important part of the local farm economy.  By the mid 1920s, many of the tenant farmers were leaving in masses for the North and better paying and more reliable industrial jobs.  One notable migrant was Walker Smith, Jr., father of boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson, who moved to Detroit to make $60.00 per week as opposed to $30.00 per month on his Laurens County farm.

In effort to lessen the devastation of the coming of the boll weevil, Laurens County hired the first black farm agent, a man known only as Mr. Robinson and later Mr. Carlton of Tuskegee.  Essex Lampkin took over the duties in 1930.  Five years later, Emory Thomas came to the county and organized community farm clubs and 4-H clubs throughout the county.  The work of these pioneers continues today under the leadership of Gary Johnson and his staff and volunteers.

These farm programs worked and worked well.  Emmett Hall won national recognition for his planning and budgeting procedures.    With the aid of Farmers Home Administration and Georgia Extension Service, Hall, a tenant farmer for twenty six years, bought his own farm.  Through careful planning and hard work, Hall not only managed to pay off the farm's debt in five years, he bought two more farms.  Hall and his sons built nearly six miles of terraces to prevent erosion on their hilly farm north of Dublin.  Hall needed the extra money, for had eight children to feed.

Henry Josey followed Emmett Hall's example.    In a good year as a sharecropper, Mr. Josey would make about $5.00 a week.  With the aid of extension agents P.L. Hay and Luther Coleman and state leader P.H. Stone, Josey turned a hilly farm, with most of its top soil eroded down to the clay, into a highly profitable six thousand dollar a year enterprise.  Josey built terraces and planted lupine, kudzu and legumes to halt erosion.  He added to live stock to supplement his field crops.  Josey's yield of corn increased five fold.  After saving up enough money to put down on a farm, Josey said, "We had $29.00, 35 bushels of corn, and a broken down mule to make a crop with."    But Josey and his wife persevered.  The former sharecroppers paid off their loan in a few years, and increased their acreage from 40 to 184 acres by the end of World War II.   After thirty years of struggling to make a living on the farm, life was good for the Henry Josey family.

During the war years farm production was critical to the war effort.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt organized the Farm Security Administration to ensure increased production.  The Federal agency gave out awards to families who had gone above the goals set by the department for food production for home use and marketing with a special emphasis put on hogs, poultry and peanuts.  In 1942, six black farmers - Dempsey Wright, Johnny Beard, Jordan Wright, Ed Mathis, Emmett Hall and Bob Blackshear - were awarded certificates of merit for food for freedom production in a special ceremony held in the Laurens County Courthouse.

The location of the Georgia 4H Club for black youth in Dublin only helped the work of 4H programs in the community.  Willie Brantley lost his father and had to drop out of school in the 8th grade.  With no hint of hope in sight, Willie turned to Emory Thomas and his friends in 4H.  With their encouragement, Brantley worked hard and gradually began to increase his production of corn and livestock.  He served as chairman of the Laurens County 4-H Council for three years and garnered several awards.  In 1940, all of Willie Brantley's hard work and prayers were answered when he was awarded a scholarship as the state's most outstanding 4H club member. 

With the advent of the Civil Rights movement, black farmers, and especially their children, were afforded opportunities outside the farm.  Tenant farming was becoming a part of the past.  Farmers, like Robert Coleman of Dudley, took jobs in industry and worked on their farms on a part time basis.  Coleman told a reporter for the New York Times in 1992, " It's twice as hard for the black farmer.  We lose our land after a bad year or through bad management practices.  Some of us just can't afford new techniques to produce higher yields.  As for me, I'd have lost my farm if it wasn't for my job at the mine."  Fifteen years after the New York Times predicted that the extinction of black farmers was near, there are now less than sixty black farmers left in Laurens County.

Though the time of the black farmer in Laurens County may be coming to an end, their legacy of their steadfastness, dedication and hard work will endure for centuries to come.      

08-07 

  

ANNIE YARBOROUGH

Georgia’s Second Female African American Dentist

Dr. Annie Yarborough may or may not have been the first African-American female dentist to practice dentistry in the State of Georgia, but she was certainly the second African-American woman ever to be awarded a license by the state.  Dr. Yarborough was the first woman ever to practice her profession outside of Athens, Georgia, where Dr. Ida Mae Hiram hung her out her shingle in 1910.

Born Annie E. Taylor on July 18, 1882 in Eatonton, Georgia, Dr. Yarborough was the mulatto daughter of the Rev. Hilliard Taylor and Anna E. Pennaman.  Her maternal grandfather, Morris Penneman, was a successful farmer and mill right and for his time a large landowner among a small group of former slaves who owned land in post Civil War Georgia.

Annie attended the public schools of Eatonton. After she graduated from high school in 1896, Annie enrolled at the Atlanta University.  Life was difficult for Annie and her family after Rev. Taylor died all too young.    She was educated in the field of education and took her first job in her hometown.    Miss Taylor moved out of town and taught in the Putnam County schools before moving to Jasper, Dodge and Laurens Counties.   In her spare time and between school terms, Annie was quite a successful dressmaker and fancy seamstress.

It was during her tenure in Laurens County that Annie met Dr. Adolphus Yarborough.  They fell in love and married on February 22, 1906.    Adolphus Yarborough learned his dental skills while working as an office boy.   Before he entered Dental School, Adolphus worked as a porter.   He was regarded by many as the best mechanical dentist of his race in Georgia.    Adolphus Yarborough, born in September 1881,  was a son of Nelson and Charley Yarborough and was the first African American dentist to practice in Laurens County.  When they first got married, Adolphus and Annie lived in his father's home on Marion Street in Dublin. 

Annie longed to work beside her husband.  Adolphus' office hours and home visits rarely allowed the couple to see each other, so Annie made up her mind that she was going to become a dentist.  There was only one problem.  There were no black female dentists and Georgia and no black dental schools in the state either.     

Annie had to leave Dublin and move to Nashville, Tennessee where she enrolled at Meharry Medical College.  During her first year at Meharry, Annie was elected to teach sewing and domestic science at Walden University.  In another rarity, Annie was both a student and a teacher at the same time.  

In the spring of 1910, Annie Taylor Yarborough walked across the stage and accepted her diploma as a graduate.  Dr. Ida Mae Hiram, credited as the first female African-American dentist in Georgia was also a member of Class of 1910.    Later that same year Dr. Hiram passed the dental board examinations and joined her husband in their dental office in Athens.    It would be another year before Dr. Yarborough would be officially licensed to practice in Georgia.

Dr. Yarborough was active in the Baptist Church.  She was an outstanding member of the Household of Ruth and the Court of Calenthe.  

The onset of World War I provided new opportunities for dental students and practicing dentists as well.  Black dentists finally thought this may be their chance to expand their practices beyond their own race.  Applications to the newly created Dental Reserve Corps poured in.  Annie Yarborough was one of the first to apply.   On June 6, 1917, just two months after the United States officially entered the war, Dr. Yarborough volunteered for service.  Her two brothers had served in the 9th and 10th Cavalry during the Spanish American War and at the age of thirty four, Annie believed it was her duty to serve her country.  She informed the Army that she was one of the few female dentists in her state (either black or white) and had completed four years of dental education at Meharry College.

Four weeks later, the office of the Surgeon General of the Army issued its standard denial of all women applicants, though the offer was appreciated.  As the war progressed, the policy of no women in the Dental Corps changed. 

During, or shortly after the war, the Yarboroughs divorced.  Annie, with no children, changed her name back to her maiden name and lived in a house at 626 South Jefferson Street in Dublin with her mother and her sister Leola Smith and her husband Henry.

Following the 1920 Census, Dr. Annie Taylor seems to vanish from Dublin.   I could find no records of her.  Perhaps she, like her father, died young.  Maybe she moved to another town.  Who knows?  If you know, contact me immediately.

Dr. Annie Taylor Yarborough was a woman of high integrity, high education and one whom all of Laurens County can rightfully and deservedly be proud of.

08-08

HEALERS OF THE BODY

HEALERS OF THE COMMUNITY

Physicians are often called "healers of the body."  Ministers are seen as "healers of the soul."  Psychiatrists are known as "healers of the mind."  This is the story of the early black physicians of Dublin and Laurens County and their roles not only as "healers of the body," but as "healers of the community" during the turbulent times of the first five decades of the 20th Century in the rural South.

It wasn't until 1876 when the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church established the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College in Nashville, Tennessee that black males in the South were given the opportunity to obtain a medical education.  The medical school, named Meharry Medical College in honor of its founder Samuel Meharry, became part of Walden University in 1900 and became self sustaining in 1915.  

Laurens County's first known black physician was Dr. C.P.  Johnson.  Though little is known of his practice in Dublin in the mid 1890s, Dr. Johnson was known to have been educated by Alexander Hamilton Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederate States of America.  Dr. Johnson left Dublin in 1895 and moved his practice to Cordele.

The first native black Laurens Countian to practice medicine was Dr. Benjamin Judson Simmons.    Dr. Simmons was born in Laurens County on October 16, 1870.  His family moved to Macon, where the young man dedicated his youth to obtaining the best education available.  Simmons attended the Ballard School in Macon and the Georgia State Industrial School in Savannah before returning home to teach in the county school system.  Simmons dreamed of becoming a physician.  With little or no money in hand Ben Simmons set out on foot for Nashville, Tennessee and Meharry Medical College.  When he walked out of Meharry in 1897 with his medical diploma in hand, Simmons was the school's most outstanding student in his studies of human anatomy.  

One day when he walking back and forth from home to Meharry, Ben Simmons met and later married Clementine Slater of Baldwin County.  Dr. Simmons passed his state licensing exam and immediately set up his practice in the old capital city of Georgia.    The first black physician in Milledgeville, he was recognized by his white colleagues as a doctor with outstanding diagnostic skills.  Dr. Simmons successful career came to an untimely end on January 7, 1910, when he accidentally shot himself.  Though he had accumulated quite a fortune, his white friends pledged to pay for a handsome monument over his grave in the mostly white ancient Milledgeville burial ground.

  Henry Thomas Jones, Sr. was born on Oct. 3, 1875 in Hepzibah, Ga.  Like many of his local colleagues, Jones attended Georgia State College in Savannah.  Dr. Jones graduated on Feb. 21, 1900 from Meharry Medical College, where he was the first of his class to graduate under the four year program at Meharry.  Jones began his practice in Dublin on Sept. 23, 1901 and continued here until his death on July 29, 1945.  Henry Jones  married Theodosia Hinton of Warrenton, Ga.  By faith he was a Baptist and served as a Sunday School Teacher and a deacon of First A.B. Church, Dublin, Ga.  Civically, Dr. Jones was a Knight of Pythias and a 33rd degree Mason. 

Perhaps of all of the African-American physicians of the early 20th Century, the most well known and admired was Benjamin Daniel "B.D." Perry.  Dr. Perry was born on April 12, 1876 in Laurens County.  He graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. on February 26, 1902.  He began his practice in Brewton, Ga. on May 10, 1902 near his ancestral home on the Wrightsville Highway.   In his early adult hood, Perry, like many physicians of his time, taught school during the day. Dr. Perry practiced in Dublin for over 40 years  and was a member of St. Paul A.M.E. Church.   He married Eliza J. O'Neal and died on Oct. 8, 1957.  In the 1950s, Dr. Perry was honored by Laurens County with the naming of B.D. Perry High School, which is located across the highway from his family home.   Dr. B.D. Perry was buried in Perry Cemetery on Highway 319 opposite East Laurens Middle School.  

The fourth of a group of early black physicians was Dr. J.W.E. Linder.  Dr. Linder graduated from Meharry in 1908 and began his practice here seven weeks later on May 23, 1908.  Very little is known of Dr. Linder and he may have moved on to another city to practice his profession.

Dr. Ulysses Simpson Johnson was born on July 18, 1882 in the Jones County town of Clinton.  A son of Henry Johnson and his bride Elizabeth Bland,   Johnson attended local schools before matriculating at Georgia State College from 1895 to 1897 while he was in early teens.  At the age of 17, Ulysses graduated from Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina.  During the time he was attending school, Johnson taught school during his free time.    

Dr. Johnson graduated from Meharry Medical College in 1908 and set out to practice medicine in Dublin in 1918.  A convert to Christianity from the age of fourteen, Dr. Johnson believed that he was given the call to heal the souls of his community's citizens.  On March 17, 1922, Dr. Johnson also became known as Rev. Johnson when he was licensed to preach at St. Paul's AME Church in Dublin.  Nineteen months later, he was ordained a Deacon in the church and in 1925 was designated as an elder.  He pastored churches at Cadwell, Dexter, Wrightsville, the Strawberry Circuit, Smithville and Eastman before his appointment as Presiding Elder of the Hawkinsville District in 1937.  From 1938 to 1940, Rev. Johnson served as the Presiding Elder of the Dublin District, before returning to Hawkinsville to service.  During his long career, Rev. Johnson attended dozens of annual conferences.

In 1924, Dr. Johnson, who lived on South Jefferson Street and practiced in his office across the street, began publishing  "The Record." the city's first newspaper exclusively for black citizens.  Dr. Johnson served as a Trustee of Morris Brown College for more than thirty years.  He served as President of the State Medical Association of Black Doctors and was Vice Chair of the National Medical Association. He was active in many local civic organizations, including the Masons, Knights of Pythias and Woodmen of the World.  His first wife, Josephine Hutchings, died early in his life.  His second wife was Miss Cleo P. McCall.

Ulysses Simpson Johnson was named after one of the 19th Century's most popular Republican presidents, U.S. Grant.  Fittingly it seemed only popular that nearly one hundred years after the end of the Civil War, Dr. Johnson served as one of the old line black delegates to the Republican National Convention in 1960.  He died on March 17, 1962.  Dr. U.S. Johnson was the last of the old school black physicians, who dedicated their lives to serving their community in every possible way.

08-09

LORYEA L. BOYD

Talking to a Nonagenarian

If you are a historian, you yearn to talk to an nonagenarian.  These are the people who are closing in on a century of living.   To us fanatical history nuts, the tales and stories they tell you remind you of the day you first went on an Easter egg hunt.  These folks have forgotten more events than many of us remember.  As soon as you get a chance, go out an find one.  They aren't that hard to find.  Don't just talk to them.  Listen and listen intently.  Oh, by the way, take detailed notes. 

Loryea Lee Boyd came into this world on November 14, 1909.  Though he lived most of his life in his native South Carolina, Mr. Boyd now lives in Swainsboro, but visits his son Larry  and his wife Yvonne here in Dublin every chance he gets.  Mr. Boyd grew up on a farm, sharing his modest house with nine siblings - six brothers and three sisters.  

At the relatively old age of thirty-four, Loryea Boyd served his country in the Pacific during World War II.  As a member of the Quartermaster Corps, Boyd drove a jeep carrying messages and working as a mail clerk in India.  At the end of the war in Europe, Boyd was preparing to leave for the inevitable invasion of Japan.  But along the way, he met his brother.  The Boyd boys had a marvelous reunion and visited the sites around Calais, France.  Loryea, or "L.L." as his friends call him, left Europe on this thirty sixth birthday bound for Camp Kilmer, New Jersey before virtually coming home to Augusta.   During his years in the service, L.L. Boyd circumnavigated the globe.

When L.L. Boyd was born, William Howard Taft was the President of the United States.  Since then, Boyd has lived under the administrations of seventeen presidents.  His favorites are Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.  Roosevelt's fireside chats are still vivid in his ninety-eight year old mind.  He thinks not very highly of Herbert Hoover.  It was during the "Hoover Days" when Boyd and his neighbors lived in hard times.  But he remembers, "I lived on a farm, but we didn't need anything.  We had plenty to eat and never sought any relief."

It is indeed amazing how so many nonagenarians remember ancient things in details we youngsters can't remember from yesterday.  Like the time L.L. needed a truck.  He and his  brother bought it from their uncle and took up the payments on a 1929 Chevrolet truck.   Boyd remembers to the penny the $190.00 he spent on his 1931 Ford.  It was about then when L.L. graduated from Wofford College in his home state.  He did a little work on the vehicle before trading it in for a brand new '33 Plymouth and its spoked wheels.  To help pay for these vehicles, Mr. Boyd kept a grocery store and a gristmill before going into the insurance business.    With a good job in hand, Boyd married Lila Sheppard of Tampa in a marriage which lasted sixty five years.

 

Loryea L. Boyd's secret to a good life are having a good family, not drinking and not smoking.    He does have some vices, chocolate - chocolate pie, chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream.    When a piece of red velvet cake is put in front of him, few, if any, crumbs are left.

Among his heroes are Lou Gehrig and Strom Thurmond. But, just ask him. I think he is more proud of his sons, Larry and Edward.  His pride in his sons is reflected in their pride in their dad.

"I have never known him to do anything except what is considered the right thing.  He taught us by example, not words," said Edward.  Though Edward was sparingly used as a substitute in high school sports, his father was there at every game and never complained to the coaches, not once.  When his granddaughter graduated from college two years ago,  her 96-year-old grandfather insisted on buying her a class ring out of his limited income.

Hard working men like L.L. Boyd have little time for hobbies, though he did love the occasional fishing trips and dove hunts.  Most of his free time was spent in church, where he rarely missed a Sunday School class or a morning sermon.  For more than fifty years, he served as a member of the Lions Club.  He was president of the club and remained active,  even when the club's membership dwindled down to three.  Lion Boyd was there on the first day of the Allendale, S.C. Lions Club and fifty years or more as president.  He sold light bulbs, brooms and candy on the streets and in homes to raise money for Lions Club projects.  Several times Lion Boyd accepted the role as club president and was elected by his peers as Lion of the Year.

As a member of the Allendale Masonic Lodge, L.L. Boyd earned he way up the all degrees of the Masonic brotherhood, only to be forced into retirement when he moved to Georgia.  For more than twenty five years, Boyd worked to attract doctors to practice in rural Allendale County.  

When he wasn't doing any of the above, L.L. Boyd worked for the County Heart and Cancer Associations.  By the way, he also served on the school board and town council.  

At the age of ninety eight, L. L. Boyd considers every day a gift and so does his son Larry, who has his Daddy here for one more day.

Mr. Boyd will be the first to tell you all about his life, but he will also be the first one to tell you that he is not a special person and did nothing outstanding.  He doesn't toot his own horn.    All the things he did, whether for his family or for his community, he did out  of love without questions, without complaints and without a moment of selfishness.

During this American History month, let us salute L.L. Boyd and the many folks like him, who serve their community with their time, expertise and devotion, often with little or no pay - monetary that is - just for the love of his fellow man. And, in the end, that is what we as Americans should all be about.

  08-10  

"TEN CENT" BILL YOPP

 A Man to Whom Friendship Was Paramount

History will be made in Georgia's capitol building next week.  For the first time ever, the State of Georgia will recognize and honor an African-American Confederate Soldier.  Governor Sonny Perdue will sign his annual proclamation honoring Confederate Memorial Day by recognizing Bill Yopp, a native of Laurens County, for his contributions to the State of Georgia.  Bill Yopp is more than just a black Confederate soldier.  Bill's life was not just that of a soldier,  a porter, or a servant.  His life was centered on the essential element of human life.  His friendships transcended  slavery, racism and politics.  To Bill, friendship was paramount to any barriers set  in his path of life. 

William H. "Bill" Yopp, the fourth of eight siblings,  was born in Laurens County, Georgia.  Like his parents, he was a slave belonging to the family of Jeremiah Yopp.   The Yopp family owned two major plantations.  One was located in the western part of Dublin centered around the Brookwood Subdivision.  A second was located along the eastern banks of Turkey Creek near the community known as Moore's Station.  Other small plantations were scattered over the county.  Jeremiah Yopp assigned Bill to his son, Thomas.  Bill once said that he followed Thomas like "Mary's little lamb."  The two instantly became friends.  They fished, hunted and played together.  Bill's childhood, while stifled by slavery, was molded by education and religion within the plantation, which included regular church services.

On January 16, 1861, John W.  Yopp attended the Convention of Secession at the state capital in Milledgeville.  Laurens Countians voted to side with the Cooperationists who favored remaining in the Union.   Yopp, the largest plantation owner in western Laurens County, was joined by Dr. Nathan Tucker, a wealthy plantation owner from northeastern Laurens County.  Dr. Tucker, a northerner by birth, voted to remain in the Union.  Yopp cast his vote with the majority who voted for secession.

The first company of Confederate Soldiers in Laurens County was organized on July 9th, 1861 as the Blackshear Guards.  The company eventually became attached to the 14th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment.  Thomas Yopp was elected First Lieutenant.  Nine days later Lt. Yopp was promoted to Captain when Rev. W.S. Ramsay was elected Lt. Colonel of the regiment.  Bill desperately wanted to join Lieutenant Yopp.   So, he  enlisted in the Blackshear Guards as the company drummer.   Marching in front of company going into battle was not the best place to be, especially if you cared about living.   After the company completed its training in Atlanta, they moved to Lynchburg, Virginia just after the Battle of the First Manassas.   In August, the company was sent to West Virginia,  where they fought under the command of Gen. John B. Floyd, a former Secretary of War in the Buchanan Administration.  Gen. Robert E. Lee was in overall command of the West Virginia campaign.  

Bill often found himself between the battle lines.  He often said "I had no inclination to go to the Union side, as I did not know the Union soldiers and the Confederate soldiers I did know, and I believed then as now, tried and true friends are better than friends you do not know."  On several occasions, Private Yopp was sent out on foraging missions.  Bill ceased to forage for food because his Captain and friend found it to be "wrong doing."  Bill obtained a brush and box of shoe blackening and began to shine the shoes of the men of the regiment.  He soon began performing other services for the men.  Bill charged ten cents, no matter what the service was.  The nickname of "Ten Cent Bill" was penned on Bill.  Bill often had more money than anyone in the company.  His fellow company members took delight in teaching him to read and write. When he was sick, they took care of him.  Bill had a case of home sickness.  Captain Yopp paid for his trip home.  Bill realized that his place was back with Captain Yopp in Virginia.  During the winter of 1861, the company became part of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The first battle of the peninsular campaign of 1862 took place on May 31st.   The 14th Georgia, under the command of Gen. Wade Hampton, got into a bloody fight with the Federal forces.  Four Confederate Generals were wounded or killed.  Captain Yopp was also wounded in the Battle of Seven Pines.  Bill comforted Captain Yopp and accompanied him to the field hospital. After a short stay in a Richmond Hospital, Bill went back to Laurens County with the Captain, who recuperated from his injury and went back to join the company by the fall of 1862.  

At the bloody siege of Fredericksburg, Captain Yopp fell when a shell burst over him.  Again Bill was there,  coming to the aid of his friend.  Captain Yopp recovered during the winter.  The company saw Stonewall Jackson being carried off to a field hospital at the Battle of Chancellorsville.  Bill witnessed the pure carnage of Gettysburg from the company's position on Seminary Ridge.  The Blackshear Guards missed most of the fighting those three days in July, 1863.   On August 31, 1863 Capt. Yopp cashiered, or bought out his commission.  He returned to the ranks as a private until April 2, 1864.  Captain Yopp transferred to the Confederate Navy on board the cruiser "Patrick Henry."   Bill was not allowed to go with Thomas Yopp.  

By some accounts, Bill returned home until the close of the war.  By another, and more official, record, he was present at Gen. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.  In May of 1865, he learned of Captain Yopp's return home.  He left just in time to see the wagon train of Confederate President Jefferson Davis during his attempted escape through Laurens County.    

Times were hard  for people of both races.  Bill worked as a share cropper until 1870.  He went to Macon,  taking a job as a bell boy at the Brown House.  There he became acquainted with many of the influential men of Georgia.  Bill accompanied the owner of the hotel back home to Connecticut.  After his duties were finished, he was given train fare to return home.  Bill became fascinated with New York City and worked there for a short time.  In 1873, Bill returned home for a short time before taking a position with the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. He fell ill with yellow fever and returned home to recuperate and spend some time with Captain Yopp.

Bill returned to New York where he worked as a porter in an Albany Hotel.  There he again met the influential men of the state.  He briefly served a family in California.  In his travels, Bill visited the capitals of Europe.  He worked for ten years as a porter in the private car of the president of Delaware and Hudson Railroad.   Bill then worked for the United States Navy aboard the "Collier Brutus".  His travels amounted to a trip around the world.

As the world was at war for the first time, Bill realized that old age had crept upon him.  He returned home and  found his friend Captain Yopp in poverty.  Captain Yopp was about to enter the Confederate Soldier's Home in Atlanta.  Bill took a job on the Central of Georgia Railroad.  During World War I, Bill was given a place to live at Camp Wheeler near Macon.  He made regular visits to the Soldier's Home  providing Captain Yopp with some of his money along with fruits and other treats.  Bill won the admiration of the officers at Camp Wheeler, who presented him with a gold watch upon his departure.  Bill's generosity toward Capt. Yopp soon spread to all of the soldiers in the home.  He enlisted the help of the editor of  The Macon Telegraph for aid in a fund raising campaign.  Bill and his friends were able to raise funds for each veteran at Christmas time.  The campaign became more successful every year.  The Dublin Courier Herald  contributed to the campaign in 1919 when the amount given to each veteran was  three dollars.  Bill took time  each Christmas to speak to the veterans in the chapel of the home.  The veterans were so impressed they presented him a medal in March of 1920.  Bill had a book published about his life.  The books were sold with the proceeds going to the soldiers in the home.

Captain Yopp's health failed.  The Board of Trustees voted to allow Bill a permanent place at the home.  Bill stayed at his friend's side, just as he had done in the muddy trenches of Virginia nearly sixty years before. Captain Yopp died on the morning of January 23rd, 1920. Bill, now in his eighties, gave the funeral address.  He reminisced about the good times and his affection for his friend.  Bill was a popular member of the Atlanta Camp No. 159 of the United Confederate Veterans, who held their meetings every third Monday at the capitol.  Bill died sometime after the 1933 reunion.  He was buried with his fellow soldiers at the Confederate Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia.  After the body of Amos Rucker was disinterred to be laid next to the body of his wife, Bill became the lone African - American soldier of the Confederate Army to lie in the cemetery.  His gravestone provided by the State of Georgia reads: 

DRUMMER BILL YOPP,  CO. H,  14TH GA. INF., C.S.A. 

08-11

SANTA ISABEL DE UTINAHICA

Mission For A Mission

     Many people might give credit to General James Edward Ogelthorpe as the founder of Georgia.  In a sense they are right, but three centuries before Ogelthorpe began to plan  his mission to establish a colony in North America, Spanish explorers were already venturing along the coast of Georgia in search of fertile and lucrative lands in what we now know as Georgia. Beginning with Lucas Vasquez de Allyon and his visitation of the southeastern coast from St. Catherine's Island to the mouth of the Santee River in North Carolina in 1522,   Spanish adventurers and missionaries began to establish coastal missions to bring Christianity to the "New World" and to its native inhabitants.

     For the last two years, archaeologists, anthropologists and volunteer novices have been searching through the woods of lower Telfair County, Georgia in search of Santa Isabel de Utinahica, thought to have been one of the earliest missions into east Central Georgia.  The quest, under the sponsorship of Fernbank Science Center, is being directed to a bluff near Jacksonville, the ancient capital of Telfair County.    Located some twenty-two crow fly miles from "The Forks," where the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers converge to form the mighty Altamaha River, the mission was thought to have been a remote outpost during the second and third decades of the 17th Century.

     In the summer of 2006, a team of archaeologists under the direction of Dr. Dennis Blanton, curator of Fernbank's Department of Native American Archaeology, began exploring the high bluffs along the Ocmulgee, long suspected to be the sites of Native Americans who inhabited the area for millennia before the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s.  At the request of Frankie Snow of Douglas, Georgia, who knows the land of South Georgia more than most of us know our own backyards, Blanton, a native of Alma, Georgia, began his quest to finally establish the location of a permanent mission near "The Forks."

     The first known Spaniard to travel to the area was a Franciscan missionary, who traveled north from St. Augustine in 1616.  Most experts agree that others may have previously come to the area, or possibly even later.  The key goal of the mission is to find the church itself along with other buildings to support its operation.  

     Of the more exciting finds were a hatchet blade and a glass beads, believed by Dr.

Blanton to be made between 1520 and 1560 in Venice, Italy.  "If the beads were vintage to the time they were deposited, their presence could suggest that the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, or at least some of his patrolling soldiers, may have come to the area during their exploration of the Georgia interior in 1540.    Additionally, Blanton's team found iron tools, Spanish pottery shards and pipe pieces, as well as pieces of marine shells and animal bones. Among the found artifacts are dirt dauber nests, which strongly suggest the presence of some

type of structure," he added.

     

     Surprised at what has been found so far, Dr. Blanton commented, "The most exciting result is evidence for much earlier, pre-mission Spanish activity on the lower Ocmulgee.  Conventional wisdom has it that the early exploration of our state  before 1550 was confined to either the coast or to areas farther west and north. What we are seeing rather serendipitously may be challenging those notions."    Most of the Spanish artifacts we are seeing very obviously date to the first half of the sixteenth century. What I'm referring to are glass beads and iron tools. While we have only a small number all told it is fast becoming the largest collection of such things from any archaeological site in Georgia."

     Blanton postulates, "The most plausible source for the pre-1550 artifacts would be Hernando de Soto . An earlier generation of scholars was comfortable with proposals that he crossed the Ocmulgee in the general vicinity of our project area. Over the last 25 years, however, there is a new interpretation of the available evidence that puts Soto's crossing of the Ocmulgee at Macon. A second suggestion is that we have material in Telfair County that originated with the failed colony of Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon (1526). Potentially the artifacts we are finding were pilfered and traded to the interior from the abandoned coastal colony, or perhaps they were

carried inland by a desperate band of survivors. In any case, we are not yet in a position to be definitive about the source. But, regardless, the results are telling us things we didn't know or they are leading us to ask questions we didn't know to ask before about 18 months ago." 

     Dr. Blanton excitedly said, "We discovered a buried wetland deposit consisting of peaty soil about 15 feet below the modern flood plain surface. Radiocarbon dates tell us that the wetland was created 38,000    34,000 years ago. What's astounding about the contents of the peaty soil is the state of preservation of plant material    like pollen grains, seeds, twigs, leaves, logs, etc. In short, through proper analysis, we'll have an unprecedented window on southeastern Georgia's environment from a time that is very poorly known. Let's call it a geological time capsule!"

     "More excavations are planned, but there is no rush.  Archaeology is a very tedious and painstaking process. "In general, through archaeology, we are seeking to fill in the many and often vast gaps that traditional historical records leave when it comes to the Spanish colonial story of southeastern Georgia. We set out initially to expand what we know about mission Santa Isabel de Utinahica but, as is often the case, the archaeological path has taken some interesting turns," Blanton said.  

     "We're in this for the long haul. What that means precisely is anybody's guess. At the very least I want to bring some closure to the early exploration story, and then get back to the mission search. The latter could take years in its own right. But maybe our luck will hold out and we'll close in on it sooner rather than later. We will be back on and off all year but the next formal program will be organized for May-July 2008. The public part of the program is generally limited to June," Dr. Blanton added.

     Blanton encourages anyone to enroll in the program, so long as they are of high school age or older. The public program in June consists of four one-week sessions that allow participants a chance to work alongside professional archaeologists. There is a modest fee for participation. A formal announcement will be issued soon, and it should also be on the Fernbank Museum of Natural History web site in a month or so.

      

08-12

THE EMERALD CITY EXPRESS

A Resounding Success

There is something mystical, even magical, about the wail of an approaching train.  It is a sound which once permeated the landscapes of Central Georgia.   By day, it is only another sound filtered by the hustle and bustles of life.  At night, it echoes through the still dark air like a ghost of yesterday. Only occasionally does a train pass through our midst these days.  Always with loads of commodities aboard, these trains chug imperceptibly along the tracks, except when we are sitting there waiting in our cars, looking at our watches, and wondering if they will ever pass by.  

Although I love trains, I wouldn't classify myself as a train nut, not even a buff.  Both of my grandfathers worked for railroads.  Two of my great great grandfathers were conductors for the Central of Georgia during the Civil War.  I only got a chance to ride a real train once, a Christmas holidays ride with Harriett and Bo-J Claxton and our friends to Rich's Department Store in Atlanta on the legendary Nancy Hanks.    As a young child, I marveled at the silhouettes of her passengers as they whizzed by my grandparent's home at Lakeside Park in Macon just after supper time. 

When I first got a call to come to a meeting with Dubose Porter to discuss bringing a real life passenger train to Dublin, I jumped right in, head first, bound and determined to  ride a train in and out of Dublin.  No one, in more than forty-nine years, had traveled to and from here on a regularly scheduled passenger train.  It had been longer than that, almost fifty-eight years, since anyone had journeyed along the tracks of the ancient Macon, Dublin and Savannah Railroad from Vidalia to Dublin to Macon.

It was about that time I was asked to join the Dublin Civitan Club.  There are times I think that's why they asked me to become a member.  Civitan Vernon DeLoach already had the idea in his head.  Fire Chief Robert Drew also thought it was a good idea too.  To make any project work, we enlisted the aid of several capable women to make Vernon's dream a reality.    We asked for the help of Kathy Jones of Main Street, St. Patrick's Festival Chair Nicole Ward, Katy Edwards of the Dublin-Laurens Welcome Center and Patsy Baker, a long time friend of the railroads.  Of course we had to ask Tal Orr, the sage of railroads, to lend us some of his wise counsel.  

Our first job was to find a train.  That's where Kathy Odom of the SAM Shortline came in.  Kathy traveled to Dublin early in the morning twice from her home in South Georgia.  From the very beginning, Kathy was as helpful as  a soda jerk in the Sahara Desert.  Members of the committee traveled down to Cordele to see her trains up close.  We loved it. We were  hooked.

We set out to establish a budget.  This was no small task.  We were talking big money.  The folks at the SAM Shortline gave us a deal.  It was then  up to the actual owners of the rail lines to give us a price.  After months of attempted communications by Kathy and Dubose Porter, we got our price and went into motion. Albeit it was now December and the date of our ride was less than six weeks away.  Sponsors were needed.  After all, we needed to make money to provide services for the disabled and disadvantaged children in our community.  That was the real reason I joined the Civitans.  I enlisted my good friend Mark Lee, a train buff from way back, to do  the asking.  It is a task that I never relish.     Though money was tight, three banks, the Bank of Dudley, First Laurens Bank and Morris State Bank, subscribed a sponsorship.  The City of Dublin, Matt Hatchett, owner of Hangar's Cleaners, and I furnished the balance.

To have a train ride, or four train rides to be exact, you have to sell tickets.  That task I assigned to my trusty staff of Juliaette Shepard, Lora Mimbs, Renee Green and Patti Evans.  One by one, in person and over the phone, the people and the calls poured in.  The premium seats sold out in less than three days.  By the end of the first two weeks, most of the main ride seats had been filled.  I conceived a ride from Vidalia to Dublin, just to bring in a little more cash.  I suspected a few folks, real train enthusiasts and friends might want to tag along.  By the time we would arrive in Vidalia, there were nearly 130 riders already waiting.

People began to call from all over the country.  Strangers from Colorado, South Dakota, Massachusetts, New York, and most every state in between inquired about the details.  They call themselves rare mileage collectors.  It is their sole mission in life to seek out and find new train rides.  They catalog every mile of their journey in their tattered notebooks.  With their maps in hand, they study the history of the railroads they travel on.  They observe the terrain, switching equipment and tracks.  It is their passion. It is their undying devotion.  They are compelled to go where no passenger has gone in a long time.  The word of a rare mileage ride spread like lightning amongst their ranks.  Thirteen lucky ones made it to Vidalia and Dublin for the rarest of rare mileage journeys.

We left Vidalia a few minutes late, the result of having to wait on one of those infrequent freight trains coming in from Dublin to pass by and leave an all clear route ahead.   We passed through Smut, Tarrytown and Soperton with horns blaring and onlookers gazing in disbelief.  It was a real train.  There were actually people aboard.  Among those were Vickie Bradshaw.  As a small child, Mrs. Bradshaw rode the last MD&S train out of Dublin in 1949.  Tal Orr and General Billy Steele, Tal's counterpart in Eastman, were there too, reminiscing about the days when the Iron Horse wove a web of tracks throughout the countryside.   Up near the front were Chandler Beasley and Stubbs Hagas, two ex Marine veterans of the South Pacific in World War II, talking about the good ole days.  Dick Hamilton, another train guy,  was there with his son and his grandchildren.  His daddy, John C. Hamilton, conducted the last Wrightsville and Tennille train to Eastman in 1941.   Campbell Woodburn brought her road map with her.  As the train passed each town along the way, the young girl carefully traced its route.  Campbell proceeded to get as many of the passengers and crew to autograph her map, which she donated to be placed in the county's bicentennial time capsule. 

As we crossed under the Interstate, the landscape began to look familiar.  Through the ancient towns of  Rockledge, Minter and Catlin we rode.  As we crossed Highway 199, we were greeted by Mark and Stacye Lee and their kids.  Their hands were waving, their faces were smiling and their cameras were clicking.  On past the old Woolen Mill and the ancient sand dunes we passed, just before we turned west for the final approach into the Emerald City.  Suddenly, we were surrounded by swamps.  The river bridge, built in 1891, was dead ahead.    Emotions swelled as we crossed  over the water. 

Back at the Farmers Market, anxious passengers and onlookers heard the  reports of our arrival.  The brilliant light on the front of the engine and the tooting of the horn signaled that the Emerald City Express was about to arrive.  We came to a stop  on South Monroe Street.  The setting sun bathed the silvery coaches with a shimmering gold coat.  A throng of people rushed toward us.  It seemed as if they thought there were celebrities aboard.  Likely it was more curiosity than admiration for us.    No one planned it, but the first passenger to set foot on the ground from Vidalia since New Year's Eve in 1949 was Tal Orr himself.  

There would still be two more evening rides that Friday evening.  They were designed as shorter forty-five minute mini-excursionS toward Dudley and back.   Those who climbed aboard the first train were the first group of passengers to leave Dublin on a west bound train since the last day of 1949.  In appreciation for their support, sponsors were provided their own car to invite their employees to enjoy an evening train ride.  The City of Dublin employees sat in the dining car, while the bank employees  and Matt Hatchett's guests road in the coaches.  My guests, the best students from Susie Dasher and Moore Street School, had a blast.  I put them next to the commissary car so they could eat all the hot dogs, pop corn and ice cream they could swallow.  They swallowed quite a bit of them.  Then almost as soon as they began the night rides were over.  The Heart of Georgia Railroad crew and conductor Lee Kinnamon put the train to bed at the freight depot at the South Franklin Street crossing.

At 8:00 on Saturday morning while the crew was reporting for duty, the rare mileage collectors were already there, patiently waiting to collect more miles.  It was a beautiful February morning, crisp and cold with no rain in sight and the temperature climbing toward a spring afternoon level.  As soon as the last passenger was aboard, the whistle blew and we were off, bound for Macon and more history.  

The locals recognized the scenery as we approached the old stops at Moore Station and Shewmake.  Then it was on through Dudley and Haskins's crossing toward Montrose.  As we approached Montrose something in the scrubby dormant trees along the side of the track caught my eye.  I thought at first that I was seeing things.  But then there was another and then another.  What I saw and my eyes didn't believe were old fashioned telegraph and telephone posts.   Nearly covered by vines and fallen trees, these sentinels of yesterday once carried electrical and communication lines along rail lines through isolated areas.  I managed to spot one pole topped with glass insulators, once a popular prize with antique and junk collectors.

After we passed through Montrose, we began to parallel the old Gallimore Trail running from the once thriving towns of Montrose, Allentown and Danville to the ancient Gallimore's Mill Pond east of Jeffersonville.  There were folks in cars and trucks racing us down the tracks.  They easily kept up with us for the train only hits about 30 miles per hour at its top speed.  When the road curved away from the tracks, the train won the race.

On through the county seat of Twiggs, only a shadow of its former days, we went.  The terrain began to change.  There were hills and valleys, covered by pine, oaks and a carpet of kudzu.  Soon we passed the home place of Chess McCartney, whom old timers and  middleagers remember as the "Goat Man."  After passing through Fitzpatrick, we began to slow down, way down.  I looked forward to see that we were climbing a steep grade.  I thought, this must be the place on the railroad they still call "Pike's Peak."  That's the place where Fuller's Earth and kaolin are found in abundance.

I soon recognized some of the remnants of Camp Wheeler, a U.S. Army infantry installation in eastern Bibb County where soldiers by the thousands came from all over the country to train for combat in World War I and World War II.  It wasn't too long before swamps began to surround us.  Off to the northwest the trees began to disappear and the landscape became more of a large lake spotted with dead trees.  We spotted first one turkey vulture and then another.  No one could count the number of them roosting in the trees, fanning their wings to stay warm.  If I had to guess, I would say there was about a hundred of the ugly "buzzard like" birds.   As we passed back under Interstate Highway 16, the Ocmulgee River was straight ahead.  

We got into Macon about fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.  Then everyone was on their own.  They could do anything they wanted, but we had to be back at three o'clock.  Failure to do so would result in a long walk back.  Seven people did disappear.  One of the rare mileage folks had to get back home.  Three teen age boys left their girlfriends.  I don't know what happened to the other three. So,  I did check the news for missing person reports.    

The passengers fanned out and descended on downtown Macon.  The line at the Nu Way hotdog stand on Cotton Avenue was fifteen people deep outside the door.  The lady behind the counter said she hadn't see this many people in her place on a Saturday  since Oprah Winfrey appeared at the Macon City Auditorium several months before.  We waited more than a half hour to get the famous hotdog.  My parents and grandparents swore by the  red wieners in a bun.  Personally and honestly, the sausage dogs on the train were much better.

Trainmen Ernest Fussell and Bill Byrd scanned the parking lot for stragglers.  Finding none, Conductor Kinnamon phoned the crew to head on toward to Dublin.  After we crossed the river and returned to the swamps, the vultures were still roosting, though their numbers seemed to have doubled.    

Conductor Lee Kinnamon came up and asked me to come with him.  I thought there must be a problem, but we went to the back of the train past the restricted access sign and into the car where the loud turbines were spinning.  He said to step out through the door and hop on to the rear engine.  I thought for a second about where to plant my foot and how much force I would need to propel myself across the three foot gap and certain death.  Obviously I made it.  I stopped to take pictures, but Lee urged me to hang on to the handrail.  We entered the cab. That's what the crew calls it.  It's the place where every kid who ever loved a train wanted to be.  Lee explained how it all worked.   Though Lee Kinnamon is the train's conductor, he  also serves as chairman of the Southwest Georgia Railway Authority, which oversees the operation of the SAM Shortline between Cordele and Plains.  In his day job, Lee teaches history in the Americus school system.  Finding one of my own ilk, we talked about history and heritage and found that we were each other's counterparts in our respective cities.

As a matter of fact, most of the folks of the SAM Shortline you see in the cars are volunteers.  They leave their jobs to ride the train.  They love it.   It is the ultimate job for people who like talking to and meeting new people, from Georgia and around the country. Trainman Bill Byrd's regular job is the Human Resources Director for the hospital in Americus.  Byrd is temporarily out of work because his work place was destroyed last year by a tornado.  Thankfully, Byrd and his fellow employees are still paid thanks to the foresight of management in purchasing business interruption insurance.  

The train was making good time until we reached the outskirts of Dudley.  All of sudden we came to a stop.  The trainman announced there was a small technical problem.  That's when we saw an engineer fetching a cardboard case of oil.   A couple of kids put the box on their four wheeler and carried it swiftly to the front engine.   The concession stand lady came to the end of the line, still carrying a few hotdogs and a box of cold popcorn.  She announced that the train wasn't going to move until she sold out.  We scrounged up enough money to empty her arms. Instantly the train began to lunge forward.  She laughed. We smiled.  

As the sun began to set behind us, the inaugural ride of the Emerald City Express pulled into Dublin.    It was a historic, wonderful and memorable  day.  Everyone was smiling as they one by one climbed down the steps to the ground.    After scores of thank yous, one of the rare mileage guys walked up to me and stuffed an envelope in my cloth bag where I was keeping my important documents.  I thought perhaps it might be a contribution to the Civitans.  After supper, I opened it.  It was signed by all thirteen of the guys that came from all over the country thanking me for allowing them to ride.  This ride meant so much to these folks.   My emotions overcame me.  All of my efforts and those of  who helped me were worth it.  So, to all of those who rode and to all of those who helped get us to Macon and back home safely, I humbly thank you all for making the rides a success and in the process helping the Civitans to help those who aren't able to help themselves.

    

    

08-13

HONORING "TEN CENT" BILL

There was something special, even magical, which took place under the golden dome of the Georgia Capitol on the 5th day of March.  The occasion was the signing of a proclamation honoring Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia.  With a few strokes of his pen, Georgia governor Sonny Perdue signed a proclamation which honored a black man, who was a soldier of the Confederate army.  After serving with master Thomas Yopp, Bill lost touch with his life long friend for more than forty years.  The winds of fate brought these men together in Atlanta after the end of World War I.  Those winds still whirl around the capital city and on this day brought together a new circle of friends, bound together for the common love and admiration of a single man, some loving him for just being their great great granddaddy and others just in tribute for his undying love for his friends, despite the obstacles society put in his way.

Rosa Chappell, of Laurens County, began inquiring about any available information on her ancestor Bill Yopp.  On another front and completely unknown to anyone else who came to the governor's office that day, local realtor Rusty Henderson, a member of Georgia's Civil War Commission, proposed to the governor's office that this year the state honor Yopp, one of the most well known black Confederate soldiers in the South.   Mrs. Chappell and Mr. Henderson met and the word spread among Bill's descendants.  

Up in Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlie Pittman was putting the finishing touches on  his historical novel, Ten Cent Bill.   Pittman, who has been studying the life of Bill Yopp for more than four years, had lost touch with his contact at the Laurens County Historical Society.  He knew nothing of the ceremony until Betty Page's call to Joy Warren at the library's heritage center.   Warren informed two researchers in the library about the ceremony.  They happened to be Pittman's sister and brother-in-law, who informed him of the pending plans.  Within a matter of minutes, the author was making plans to come to Atlanta and began making contacts with other descendants of the subject of his work.

That's where Doris Taylor and Jeanne Massey of Detroit, Michigan and Lorene Pittman, of Louisiana, come in.  Along with Mrs. Chappell, these four first cousins recently began a serious study of their genealogy.  Despite three deaths in their immediate families, these ladies made it their mission to come to Atlanta to see their ancestor honored by the State of Georgia.  

A delegation began to assemble in the Governor's outer office.  Surrounded by other groups seeking to have their picture taken with the chief executive, the group's numbers began to swell.  Charlie Lott and Ted O'Brooke, commanders of the Sons of Confederate Veterans came in.  They were joined by Debra Dennard, who was representing the Daughters of the Confederacy.  John Culpepper, Chairman of the Georgia Civil War Commission, was also there along with a couple of Georgia legislators and SCV representatives.  Keeping his distance and not wanting to intrude was a young man, whom no one seemed to know.  He may have been a part of the other dozen or so groups crammed into the office.  One by one the delegation shook hands with the governor.  All assembled quickly, smiled for the camera, and then were whisked out the door to make room for the  next group.  In an instant, the ceremony was over.

Henderson made arrangements to allow the ladies to view the battle flag of the 14th Georgia Infantry, which has been fully restored and kept in a vault on the first floor of the Capitol.  This was the actual flag that would have been carried in the position next to Yopp, who was the regimental drummer.   The young man, who didn't want to intrude, introduced himself as Shawn Peacock. He was a descendant of G.B. Faulk, who served with Bill Yopp in Civil War.  Yopp and Faulk were just teenagers when they began serving in the Army.  

Then, without a moment's hesitation, the ladies and Shawn began to hug each other.  Tears flowed.  Just as their ancestors had ignored their outward differences, these descendants  became good friends.  

Those who came to honor Bill Yopp had one more item on the agenda.  They assembled in the Confederate section of the Georgia's Confederate Cemetery in Marietta.  As they made their way down the windswept hill toward Yopp's grave, everyone seemed to notice that Bill Yopp was in a row by himself.  Yopp's remains occupy a single row, not by design, but because of the fact that he was the last of the veterans of the Confederate Soldier's Home to die and be buried in the cemetery.  Symbolically he held out until all of his friends were safe from the ravages of old age before he took his place at the head of the unit, just as he had done as he beat out the rhythms of the march.

Hanging around the cemetery was a middle age man with a ball cap.  He meekly introduced himself as Larry Blair.  Blair, who grew up in the neighborhood of the cemetery, makes it his life's mission to take care of the state cemetery, which gets little or no funding from limited state funds.  Blair's adopted hero was, of course, Bill Yopp. He had studied his life for decades. Someone from the Capitol had alerted him of the visit.  Once again the winds of fate had joined another into the band of those who revered this once forgotten hero.  Tears flowed, stories were told and more friends were made.

Dee Taylor was thrilled and blessed to witness the accolades heaped upon her great-grandfather.  As she stood at the foot of Yopp's grave, she felt love and pride.  Her mother Lucile Davis, is Yopp's last surviving great-grandchild.  "We have come full circle back to the place where it all began with our Grandpa Bill Yopp," Taylor said, as she was representing her mother and those who had gone before her, including her great-grandmother Rosina, a daughter of Bill Yopp.

Jeanne Massey said, "In the Capitol when I saw the style of drum that our great great-grandfather played during the march into battle, it evoked a new sense of pride and elation about my heritage."   "When the actual battle flag for the 14th regiment was presented to us, along with Sean, I again felt my heart soar. But nothing compared to meeting Larry Blair and seeing his dedication to "10 Cent Bill." The location of "10 Cent Bill's" monument and his position as drummer leading the troops gives insight to the appreciation of those of the lighter nation for a great man," Massey concluded.

Henderson has for the last ten years with the Governors Office to proclaim April as Confederate History Month. “This year being the 200th anniversary of the founding of Laurens county I thought it appropriate to build the theme around a prominent Confederate from our own county. That is where Bill Yopp came, in addition it tells a story many people are unaware of. That is the role African-Americans played in the War for Southern Independence. Bill is also a role model for reconciliation and brotherhood between Black and White Georgians who have lived together as family for hundreds of years. Bill was a former slave, who like Saint Patrick returned to his home to help his people in the best ways he could. We should all follow his example today and promote the best examples of our history for all to see.” Henderson said..

Yopp's grave marker indicates that he was a drummer in Co. H of the 14th Georgia Infantry.  The color of Bill Yopp's skin  is not noted on his tombstone, and when it comes to friends, that's  the way it should be.

08-14

BASIL HALL

THE TRAVELER

Sir Basil Hall made it his mission to travel throughout North America.  He sought out to explore and chronicle the former British colonies known as the United States of America.  One hundred and eighty years ago this month, Sir Basil made his way through the forests and streams of Middle Georgia during his journeys in America in 1827 and 1828.

Basil Hall was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on the last day of 1788.  At the age of thirteen, Basil joined the Royal Navy.  While still in his teens, he was commissioned a Lieutenant.  In nearly all of his travels, Basil kept a journal of his daily activities.  Possessing an intense attitude for science, Hall gave details accounts of his observation of nature, as well as the cultures of the lands he visited.  The son of eminent geologist Sir James Hall of Dunglass, young Basil logged copious notes for future scientific papers.  Still in his twenties as a naval captain, Hall was one of the first officers of the British navy to visit Korea, writing of his travels to that far eastern country as well as those in Japan and China.  In the 1820s, Captain Hall traveled along the western coasts of Mexico, Chili and Peru.     

Just after the Ides of March in 1828, Sir Hall arrived in the ancient city of Savannah.  He commented that the houses of Savannah lacked the charming piazzas and verandas of  her sister city of Charleston.  Though he admired the tasteful way in which the city had been laid out in squares, he lamented that her wide streets prevented the necessary amount of shade of the oak trees along the sidewalks.  Hall thought Savannah's designers would have been well advised to have copied the designs of the French planners of the city of New Orleans.   Hall traveled south along the coast to St. Simons and Darien, where his fellow countrymen had settled nearly a century before.  After several days, Hall and his guides traveled north toward Riceborough and Augusta.  

Traveling west from Yam Grandy Creek on the 24th day of March, Sir Basil's entourage reached the banks of the Oconee River, which he described as "a dirty stream."  He took dinner in a home in eastern Laurens County.  Their meal was somewhat forgettable.  Hall wrote, "When dinner was ready, we were favored with the company of the mistress of the house, who, however, neither ate, nor spoke, nor gave us one look of welcome; but sat at the top of the table, steadily watching all we did.  The formality of this superintendence was sometimes not a little oppressive." 

Upon his arrival in Dublin on the morning of March 26, 1828,  Sir Basil immediately saw the tell tale signs of a withering town which he deemed to be "the result of mushroom growth of rapid and unthinking speculation."  Hall wrote in his journal, "The inhabitants of some of these juvenile but decaying towns explained to me, that much of the evil which I saw arose from the unfortunate description of their laboring population."  Hall noticed that whites worked, as they expressed to him, with a clog around their feet, like convicts.  "We sir," said a worker, "we are the slaves, not the blacks; we cannot make them work as men ought to work, neither can we get rid of them, nor supply their place with better subjects; they hang about us, and grow up, increasing and multiplying our curses.  They are the only people who do not care how things go on.  You see them always happy, and they have no wants."

Basil Hall concluded  that as his caravan moved further from the coast, the condition of the Negroes he observed improved dramatically.  "We often saw them working in the same field with white men; and I more than once saw a black man seated in the same room with a free person - a thing never dreamt of elsewhere.  They appeared to be better fed, and better dressed also, than the Negroes of the coast; and, from all I could hear, were fully better treated in all respects, and no son generally kept in ignorance.  The beneficial effects of this difference in the condition of the slaves, even to the masters, I was rejoiced to learn, was generally acknowledged."

The  journey continued in a westwardly direction.  As the sun was straight overhead  Hall reported the scenery change.  He noticed that they were leaving the seemingly endless pine barren.  Instead of the dreary forests, the woods were covered with "cheerful oak openings."   The fields were covered with Indian corn and upland cotton.  "The surface was very prettily diversified by irregular high grounds, and wooded glens, decked with peach trees, all in full blossom.  The dogwood, also, which bears a snow-white flower, was in great beauty, together with our old friend, the honey suckle, growing as a tall independent shrub, and giving much interest to the underwood part of the scenery.  

They entered Twiggs County after a long day's journey of more than thirty miles; the voyagers stopped at a house, which they had been told, was open to travelers.  No one appeared to be home.  They found a young Negro boy, who found a cook, who with a little bribery, found the keys and opened the mansion.  Their hopes of a quiet meal vanquished when the daughter of the house sat quietly staring at them, as if they were a pack of wild beasts feeding.  Hall wrote, "the show, I presume, was too good to be lost, for the cook, shining from the kitchen, together with her black daughter, and her black son, and one or two more half-naked Negroes, came into the room, and continued moving about during all the time of dinner on one pretense or other, but, in reality, merely to see how the strange people ate their food."  

Sir Basil Hall arrived in Macon on March 27th.   Macon was just in its infancy.   Just as he had written about Dublin, Hall's comments about Macon were less than flattering.  After a brief stay, he proceeded on his westerly course toward Alabama.  In 1829, Sir Basil Hall published his accounts of his travels in America under the title of Travels in North America in the Years of 1827 and 1828.   The work was blasted by American critics for his seemingly distressing views of American society.    

During his thirties, Hall traveled through southern Europe.  He compiled a nine volume work which he titled The Fragments of Voyages and Travels.    Basil Hall completed his last work Patchwork, a collection of sketches,  in 1841.   

Insanity marred the otherwise remarkable life of Sir Basil Hall.   For the last two years of his distinguished life, Basil Hall lived in torment.  He died on September 11, 1844 in Haslar Hospital in Portsmouth.     

08-15

KARL SLOVER

More than Just a Munchkin

for

Laurens Now Magazine

Have you ever met someone that you liked to be around the first time you ever met them?    If you are lucky, sit down beside him and just  listen.  Listen to his  stories.  Listen to his contagious laugh as the tales flow.  He tells and retells the same stories verbatim, but everyone in a while, he’ll add a new twist or accent his point with an obscure phrase and his infectious giggle.   And, once you get up to leave,  you’ll find that you have just met  one of the warmest, funniest and kindest people you’ve ever met.  I felt that way the first time I met Karl Slover and every time I sit down with this little man with a big heart, big ears and an even bigger grin.

  

Karl was born Karl Kosiczky on September 21, 1918 in Prakendorf in that portion of Hungary which later became a part of the Czech Republic and later Germany. Karl’s six-foot six-inch tall father expected that his only son out of his five children would follow in his footsteps as a local gendarme.  No one knows exactly how large Karl was when he was born, but for the first few years of his life, Karl appeared to be a normal child.  But then, Karl stopped growing.

Desperate to make his two-foot tall eight-year- old son grow, Karl’s father came with all sorts of “bright ideas and brainstorms” as Karl calls them.  “He got a big wooden barrel and filled it with coconut leaves and boiled them, and then put me in it.  I was as red as a lobster when they took me out,”  Karl recalled.  His mother had to coat him all over with an ointment to keep his skin from blistering.  Eight doctors were called in to help.  “They put me on stretchers,” Karl said, “but one of the doctors thought they were doing it all wrong,” he said when his bones began to pop.

“They would put me in a sand pile.  I would wear a pair of long underwear.  We had a maid.  My mother would tell the maid, who came in around 2:00 p.m. one day, to get me out around 4:00 while she went to the grocery store.  The maid went inside and it began to rain.  I cried out for the maid, but she didn’t hear me.  I called to our dog, a Doberman Pinscher.  She came over and picked me up and drug me over to the dog’s house. Our dog loved us.   My mother got home and asked where I was.  The maid shrieked, ‘I forgot about Karl. He’s still out in the yard.’  My mother looked at the sand pile, and I wasn’t there where I was supposed to be.  My mother called  to me.  I told her, ‘I’m here in the dog’s house.’  My mother and my father bawled out the maid.”

One day Karl and his sister were returning from a walk when they stopped by the mailbox.  They handed a letter to  their mother who read it to Karl.  The letter said that an agent was going to be sent over to the Slover house to see if Karl would be interested in joining Singer’s Midget Show, the largest midget show in the world.  Karl remembers leaving the railroad station with his father as if it was yesterday.  

“Dad and I went to the train station.  He told Mr. Singer  that he was glad to get rid of me and that I would do him no good in following in his footsteps,” Karl recalled.   Though his mother reluctantly relented, Karl kept thinking to himself “maybe it is for the best.”  Karl missed his family, but being around people of his own size made up for it. “I was with little people more my size.  It was like a new family,” said Karl.   The midget show owners tried to find clothes for Karl.  They looked all over for underwear.  Finally they found a man in a department store who gave me some underwear to try on. “They went back and told me that the underwear had been given to the world’s smallest midget.  The man was so excited that he gave me and some of the other midgets all the underwear we could wear for free,” Karl chuckled.

John Ringling, one of the world’s most famous circus owners, sought out Karl for his circus.  After all, Karl was billed as the “World’s Smallest Midget,” and Ringling had to have him in his big top shows.  Karl remained with Mr. Singer and played in Billy Rose’s “Jumbo Show” in the Hippodrome Theater in New York.    He appeared in “They Gave Him a Gun” with Spencer Tracy, his favorite co-star.  His first speaking role came as “Sammy the barber” with an all midget cast in “Terror of Tiny Town.”   In another single line movie appearance, Karl uttered the classic line “Out, please!” in Blockheads, one of Laurel and Hardy’s most popular films.  

Karl’s most famous role came as one of Munchkins in the Wizard of Oz.  Karl played five roles; the first trumpeter, a sleepy head, a soldier, one of those who escorted Dorothy down the Yellow Brick Road, and even a female villager to balance out the mostly male midget cast.  Karl is most often asked why he thinks the Wizard of Oz remains so popular nearly seventy years after its original airing.  His standard answer goes something like this, “Children love it.  It’s a family movie. There’s no filthy language in it.”  Ironically, Karl’s parents never saw the movie, nor did any of his sisters.

Singer’s Midget Show continued to stage performances until the early days of World War II.    Many of the Munchkins left Singer because he had robbed them of most of their pay.  They made less than the dog Toto.  The troup disbanded, and Karl was left to face the world alone.  He went to work for  B.A. Slover and Ada Slover in Tampa, Florida in their amusement show.    Karl finally received his American citizenship and elected to adopt the new surname of Slover for the family who tried to adopt him but couldn’t under the prevailing state law.  

During the war, Karl received a letter from his sister, who was confined to a concentration camp in Germany.  He told her to try and contact their father to get her out and then go to the American Zone where she would be safe.  Ironically,  the abandonment of Karl by his father may have not only saved his sister’s life, but may have saved Karl himself from the maniacal and diabolical Nazis who wanted to experiment on non pure Arians.

  

It would be thirty seven years before Karl would return to his native home. He found his mother living in the American sector of Berlin.  He expected to find that his mother would be gray, but he was surprised to find that she still had blonde hair.  Karl  discovered that she had little memories of him and his childhood, a result of the horrors she endured during the war.  

After the war, Karl continued to work with the Slovers  as a barker, ride operator, and ticket taker.  He also kept the books.  When his days in the carnival were over, Karl’s  main occupation was a poodle trainer. “I first started training Daschunds and all small breeds of dogs and even some police dogs as guard dogs.  Then, I mostly trained poodles.  I didn’t believe in hitting dogs.  Once you hit them they won’t obey you.  I tried to give them a snack when they did what I told them. I also trained horses for a time. I used to train dogs and perform them at nursing homes, schools, birthday parties and even churches.  But you can’t get any more jobs like that, so I gave it up,” Karl recalled.

Karl never learned how to drive though he did try driving a go-cart.  It scared “the heck” of out him and he gave up driving forever.

For ten years, Karl would pack up his memorabilia once a month  and go an antique mall near his home in Hyde Park and set up a table covered with an emerald green cloth.  For a small fee of ten to fifteen dollars, he sold autographed pictures of himself from the Wizard of Oz and other films.  Slover made his last appearance in July 2004.   

For nearly twenty years now, Karl has traveled all over the country for Oz festivals and autograph signing sessions.  Donna Stewart Hardway, a regular sized child who portrayed one of the Munchkins, described Karl as “a baby doll.” “When people find out that he was in the movie they go nuts.  Children especially warm up to him,” she continued  Karl’s closest friend among the surviving Munchkins is Clarence Swensen, who played a soldier in the movie.  “He’s a good and nice guy,” Karl quipped.

After his movie career ended, Karl began to grow.  He always wanted to grow to a normal height, but after being dependent on others to do the most mundane of daily tasks, his extra height allowed him to do things on his own.  He never regrets being a midget. “I got to be in the Wizard of Oz and got to meet some movie stars and a lot of nice people,” Karl said.

These days Karl likes to watch television, especially game shows.   When the weather is warm, Karl loves to work in his garden.  He  loves sweets, especially chocolate, and more especially chocolate ice cream.   I recently watched Karl eat the “largest hamburger he ever saw” before topping off his meal at an LA eatery with a big bowl of chocolate ice cream.  

Karl Slover is more than just a Munchkin.  He is one of the kindest, sweetest, gentlest and funniest people you will ever meet.  After nearly ninety years of traveling all over the country, Karl firmly believes “there is no place like home,”  and he is right here, living in the Emerald City to prove it.

QUOTES

“The lines on his face are bunched together like rings on a dwarf maple.  The tiny, squeaky voice in unmistakable.  He was delightful, polite and witty, with a face forever locked in a smile.”

Ed Grisamore, The Macon Telegraph, December 4, 2005

  “I’ve got a good life.  A wonderful life. I have no complaints.”

Karl Slover

Advice to people in their eighties.

“Just try to get along the best you can.  Enjoy what you have.  Enjoy where you live.  Most of all remember what Judy Garland said, ‘There’s no place like home.’”

Karl Slover

08-16

THE EMERALD CITY LEPRECHAUN MARATHON

The Early Years

                                   

     What makes someone want to get up early in the morning and run ten thousand meters?  For some, it is the spirit of competition.  For others, it's the exhilaration.  And, for many, it's the comradery, friendships and bonds that runners share.  That's what Dublin physician Dr. J.Y. Jones had in his mind in 1977 when he orchestrated the Emerald City Leprechaun Marathon race on the Super Saturday of the Dublin Saint Patrick's Festival.

     A small crowd of runners, both amateur and semi-professionals, gathered at the starting line.  Vicki Davis, Richard Johnson and Ann McCaskill fired the starter's pistols and they were off toward the finish line.  There were actually two races, the main10K marathon and a mini two-mile run.  Tom Childers, Mike Cadwell, and Chris Thibodeau were there.  These guys ran marathons on a regular basis in the Southeast.  Clint Harrelson, a former tackle and catcher for Dublin High School, was there also.  Though catchers and tackles aren't generally known for their speed, Harrelson desperately wanted to win the first marathon.  The outcome was never in

doubt from the start.  The three outsiders finished in the top three positions.  Harrelson became the first Dubliner to cross the finish line with a respectable time of 47 minutes and 48 seconds, just about ten minutes behind the race winner Childers.   Tom Fagan, III, the youngest runner in the race, finished in 63 minutes.  In the mini marathon, Linda Jones, wife of Dr. J.Y. Jones was the first woman to finish.  Frank Adams, of Dublin, finished first with a time of 12 minutes and 44 seconds.

     Word of the new race began to spread and in 1978 scores of runners from around the Southeast signed up to participate.   Tom Childers was back again as the first seed.  He didn't disappoint.   Besting his previous year's mark by more than seven minutes, Dr. Childers defeated Thomas Crom of North Carolina to garner his second consecutive trophy, presented to him by former Dubliner and television and movie star Cassie Yates, who was back in her hometown to serve as the grand marshal of the parade.    Janice Gage, of Florida, was the first woman to finish. Lu Ann Durant was the first local female runner to finish.  Back again was Harrelson whose time of 37:11 gave him the best time of a local racer.  Ironically, Harrelson's time in his second effort would have won the previous year's race.  Jack Crofton, 64, and Kenneth Gonzalez, 8, were the race's oldest and youngest participants.  Dr. Jones, the race organizer, posted his best time to date.

     Larry Reeves, a former track star at Dublin, won the mini marathon in his first attempt. Thirteen-year-old Randall Daniel, a seventh grader at Southwest Laurens Elementary, came in second.    There was a distinguished man in the crowd.  Someone handed him a running suit and some shoes and said "come on, run."  He put his new clothes on and ran, finishing with a respectable time of 14:36, a mark good enough to earn him the best time in the forty and over category.  Because he was not a native of Laurens County, the man wasn't eligible to win the official award, though Dr. Jones did present the man, a native of Houston County, with an official t-shirt signifying that he, United States Senator Sam Nunn, had participated in the second Leprechaun Mini-Marathon.  Emory Palmer, 8, and Dr. John Bell, 67, were the youngest and oldest participants.  Edwina Wicker, a fourteen-year-old Dublin student, was the fastest woman in the two-mile race.

     In 1979, the race went national when runners from more than fourteen states joined to participate in the event.  Though two-time defending champion Childers would not return as a result of an injury, race organizers and sponsor American Color and Chemical Corporation secured the presence of Bill Rodgers and Jeff Galloway.  Rodgers won both the Boston and New York Marathon races of 26. miles four times each between 1975 and 1980.  At two times, this 1976 Olympic marathoner  held the record for the fastest American in the marathon.  Galloway was the founder of the legendary Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, which annually attracted tens of thousand of runners.  

     It wasn't even close.  Rodgers dusted the field with a time of 3o minutes and 16 seconds  to set a course record.  Galloway, suffering with a nagging injury, failed to challenge Rodgers and  finished tenth.  The first Dubliner to cross the finish line was -you guessed it- Clint Harrelson, who improved his time again and led the local runners for the third year in a row in a triumph for all former catchers and tackles.   Floridian Kris Powers led the ladies.  Chuck Briscoe, a six-year old, became the youngest runner ever to finish the race.   Local notables in the race were Mickey Register, a former All SEC University of Georgia baseballer, Dublin accountant and long time runner Frank Seaton, Jr. and future congressman Dr. J. Roy Rowland, Jr. 

     In the mini marathon, Edwina Wicker led the females for the second consecutive year.  Willie Reed overcame Larry Blash and former winner Larry Reeves to win the trophy for the fastest male in the shorter race.  The youngest finisher was eight-year-old Spence Mullis.  James Wilbanks, at the age of sixty, led all of the runners in his age bracket.  The most conspicuous runner that day was Jim Walker, who towered above the pack in both races. 

     The 1980 marathon was one of the most competitive ever.  With strong competition from Olympic hopeful, Atlantan Benji Durden, Rodgers bested his own course record by posting a 28 minute 57 second jaunt ahead of an even five hundred finishers.   Ellison Goodall, a legendary Duke track star, was the fastest woman in the race.  Jeff Kibler, of Dublin, broke Boyd Anderson's course record for the two-mile run, finishing just ahead of Willie Reed and Ben Canady, the latter being on leave from a tour of duty with the Army in Germany.  Edie Brantley outran most of the males in the race to capture the women's crown in the mini marathon.

     In 1981, for the third year in a row, Bill Rodgers won the Leprechaun Marathon. 

Finishing thirty two seconds ahead of Louis Kenny and Ronnie Carroll, two full blooded Irish runners, Rodgers yet again set another course record with a 28 minute 40 second mark, just four seconds behind Rodgers' career best in the 10K run.  Ellison Goodall was once again the top female finisher in the pack.  Jeff Kibler was the top local finisher in the 10K and for the second consecutive year, was first in the two-mile run.  Edwina Wicker, a high school junior led all females in the mini-marathon.  Once again, James Wilbanks and Jim Walker led the senior citizens in the main race.

     Bill Rodgers' string of victories came to an end in 1982, when he was defeated by Dean Matthews in a field of world class runners in stifling hot weather.  Ellison Goodall captured her third straight women's championship.  Kibler captured the mini-marathon for the third straight year and was the top local finisher in the 10K.  Ramona O'neal, of East Laurens High School, won the two-mile race among females.

     Dean Matthews won his second straight trophy in 1983 and broke Bill Rodgers' course record with a 6.2 mile run of 28 minutes and 33 seconds.  Francie Larrieu-Lutz, an Olympic runner, US Champion and member of the Track and Field Hall of Fame, was the fastest female in the race.  Larry Dutwiler and Edwina Wicker won the two-mile run.

     The all time course record of 28 minutes 4 seconds is held by Jim Cooper, a world class runner, who won the all the races from 1984 to 1989.  John Tuttle, a 1984 Olympian, won nine consecutive races after that.  Joan Nesbitt holds the record for women with a 32 minute 45 second mark in 1988.  Sherman Eller and Kathy Woodard hold the record for the local runners.     

     In the early years of the Leprechaun Marathon, Dublin hosted some of the best long distance runners across the country and Europe.   Though the numbers are down, the race is still held on the morning of Super Saturday and it remains a testament to the dedication of the race's founders and participants to keep running, running for the record and running just for the fun of it.  For more information, go to www.leprechaun.active.com/history

8-17

DOWN ON THE FARM

200 Years of Laurens County Agriculture

From its inception as a county and for every day of the last two hundred years and for two thousand years before, Laurens County has been home to the farmer.  A love of the land and its bounty coupled with a desire to just survive made farming the main occupation of Laurens Countians for most of our two hundred years.  Nearly every one of us descend from a dirt farmer, which is a good thing.  Farming, often seen by non-farmers as  somewhat mundane lifestyle, is quite the opposite.  It is occupation that involves faith, in yourself and nature, good agricultural skills, unabated determination and a whole lot of pure old fashioned luck.

Just a few more centuries than two thousand years ago, the Native Americans who lived in this area, abandoned their hunting and gathering methods of acquiring foodstuffs and established a more sedentary lifestyle.  They established somewhat permanent villages under the governance of a chief.  New methods of planting and nurturing native plants supplemented the wild game and randomly gathered fruits in their diets.

When the first white settlers came to our area in the mid 1780s, the most highly sought after lands were located on the eastern banks of the Oconee River and its major tributaries.    Once Laurens County was created and more lands were added to the western side of the river, large plantations began to prosper among the smaller farms.  These plantations were officially run by the owners, often given the title of “planter,” a moniker  which designated that their economic status more than their agrarian skills.  Most of the actual plowing, planting, weeding and harvesting was done by slave labor or by middle and lower economic class whites.

The plantations and farms primarily produced enough products to become self sufficient.  When less common items were needed, farmers would trade with the neighbors  or visit a nearby general store.  

Actual farm production figures were revealed for the first time with compilation of the 1850 Agricultural Census.  Though Laurens County was third among Georgia counties  in land area, only 18 percent of her lands were improved with farms and buildings.  A substantial portion of the southern half of the county and many creek side lands were covered with trees.  

The livestock population was composed of  twenty thousand cows, eight thousand sheep and twenty four thousand pigs and hogs.  While milk cows, working oxen and sheep were maintained to produce replenishable products, much of the other cows and swine were slaughtered for food.  Chickens were not counted and obviously there was a vast consumption of wild fowl and game.    On average, each sheep produced less than two pounds of wool a year.   The main produce crops were Indian corn (32.76 bushels per capita less what was feed to livestock,) about eight thousand bushels of both wheat and oats and surprisingly  nearly nine thousand pounds of rice.   Potatoes, in particular sweet potatoes, were the staple of the average Laurens countian’s diet, with each person consuming an average of twenty four bushels a year.  Very little tobacco was harvested.  With a relatively large slave population of 45%, ginned cotton bales numbered less than 4000 bales, a small fraction of the amount produced during the cotton boom at the turn of the 20th Century.

  

The third quarter of the Twentieth Century saw many radical changes in the ways farms and plantations were operated.   Before the war began, cotton and wool production was rapidly increasing.  The coming of the Civil War caused a virtual halt in  farming, except of course for growing enough food to keep the people alive.  With nearly all of the available young farm hands off at war and very little cash available to operate with, farmers had to curtail their acreage.   The end of the war saw a slow but moderate recovery.  Those had been slaves before the war, then became tenant farmers.  By the 1870s, a few former slaves became property owners and operated their own farms.  Cotton production plummeted in 1869, though the wool industry continued to surge.

The period after the war the first organizations composed of farmers.   James Chappel, John M. Stubbs and C.S.  Guyton led Laurens County farmers in the Georgia Agricultural Society and Farmer’s Granges.    The revitalization of river boat traffic allowed the transportation of farm products outside of the county to become more economical.  Likewise, the importation of fertilizers and implements led to more increases in farm production.    The coming of the railroads in the 1880s and 1890s was the final impetus which would begin to propel Laurens County to the forefront of cotton and field crop production in the state.  In 1870, there were 520 farms in Laurens County.  Forty years later, Laurens County farms totaled 4,923, the second highest number in the state.  The total number of farms peaked at more than 5,500 in the early 1920s.

In the  1880s, a new and more powerful farmer’s organization began to spread across the South and the farm belts of the Mid-West.  The Farmer’s Alliance, locally led by John W. Green, never really caught on.  The Georgia Alliance actually disbanded after it’s annual meeting in Dublin in 1891.

Over the next several decades farmers organized under various names.  The Farmer’s Union was the main organization for most of the first two decades of the 20th Century.   Capt. W.B. Rice of Dublin was one of founding board members of the Georgia Farm Bureau in 1920.

Laurens County has been home to two commissioners of the Georgia Department of Agriculture.  James J. Connor, a former Mayor of Dublin, served as Georgia’s Agricultural Commissioner  from 1912 to 1913   As a member of the Georgia Legislature, Connor sponsored the bill to establish the agricultural education department at the University of Georgia.   Thomas “Tom” Linder led the Department of Agriculture from 1935 to 1937.  Re-elected in 1941 and serving three four-year  terms, Linder is the second longest head of the Agriculture Department and the only person ever elected to statewide office who lost a statewide election and then was re-elected. 

The explosion of cotton production in the last quarter of the 19th Century and the first  sixteen years of the 20th Century was fueled by the clearing of the virgin timberlands across the southern part of the county to make room for massive fields, fertilized by guano fertilizer and the coming of six railroads to the county, which allowed cotton farmers to ship their “white gold” to all parts of the world. 

Agra-businesses flourished.  A cotton compress was built in Dublin in 1895.  The compress allowed a farmer to deliver his cotton on Monday morning and have it on an ocean bound cargo ship the following afternoon.  By 1911, Laurens County produced more than three million pounds of cotton, compressed into more than sixty thousand bales.  That state record stood for nearly ninety years until it was eclipsed in the late 1990s by large counties in South Georgia where more modern and technological methods of agriculture 

were used.

The villainous boll weevil invaded the county in the years before World War I. By the end of the 1910s, cotton production plummeted.  Tenant farmers gave up farming or moved away.  Throughout the 20th Century, farming and farms have practically disappeared.  Unable to compete with corporate farmers and endless assets, cheap labor and hefty government programs, the traditional farmer as we know him as virtually disappeared.  When all of the results of the 2007 Agricultural Census are tabulated, it is estimated that there will be no more than six hundred farms left in Laurens County.  

Sandy fields which once yielded some of the most bountiful crops of cotton, corn and sweet potatoes are now planted in trees or covered by new homes.  The profound impact of agriculture is still present and will always remain so for centuries to come.  Everything we are as a county - our heritage of who we are and who we will be - we owe to the men and women, who plant the seeds, gather the crops, feed the livestock, sweat in the sun, break their backs and take the risks many of us could never take.  Progress is fine, but  let us take heed of the words of the great Populist orator William Jennings Bryan, “if you destroy your cities, they will grow back, but it you destroy your farms, then the grass will grow in every city street in the country.”

08-18

 

IT'S NO JOKE

The Weird, The Wacky and the Bizarre

Today is the first day of April.  For centuries this day has been dedicated to hoaxes, pranks, and practical jokes.  Though its origin is shrouded in mystery and doubt (what else would it be shrouded in) April Fool's day may have originated in the 16th Century when New Year's celebrations began on March 25th under the Julian calendar and ended in the first days of April as a time of revelry and merrymaking.  What you are about to read is true. I swear it is true.  My fingers are not crossed.  Cross my heart and hope to die.  Trust me. 

Ira Allen was a bad man.  At least that is what the judge said when he sentenced Ira to a term at the county prison farm.  But Dr. A.T. Coleman and his colleagues were fascinated with Ira.  Allen was brought into Dr.  Coleman's office one day in 1922.   Ira rolled up his sleeve and prepared to get a shot.  As Dr. Coleman's needle punctured Allen's vein, something remarkable happened.  Instead of an oozing of blood, Coleman heard the  swishing sound of air escaping from Ira's arm.  Yes, I said air.  Coleman compared the sound to the puncture of a bicycle tire.  He tried another vein and then still another  as blood sprinkled all over his clothing.   Coleman kept telling himself that this man should not be alive.  Air in the blood usually means sudden death due to an embolism.  As Allen became somewhat agitated and fearful, who wouldn't, at the doctor's incessant sticking, Coleman stopped his prodding and waited to see if Allen would survive.  He did, much to the amazement of Coleman and Dr. J.B. Donaldson, who witnessed the examination and confirmed it to the newspaper.

It was a fine summer day in the summer of 1940 when a visiting apple man called upon farmer James L. Whitaker.  Whitaker complained to the stranger that his apple trees weren't producing as well as they used to.  The traveler asked Whitaker if he had any rusty nails lying around.  Finding an adequate supply, Whitaker set out to drive them into the trunks of the non-bearing trees just as he was advised to do, all except one tree which remained as it was.  Well, the time came for the trees to bloom and bear fruit.  Just as the man promised, all of the trees, except the one Mr. Whitaker skipped, were loaded with luscious fruit.

If you've ever ridden through the countryside of Laurens County, especially in the early fall, you've noticed the blooms of the cotton.   When cotton was king, some folks called it white gold.  In an especially good year, fields looked as if they have been blanketed by a heavy snow fall.    The first blooms of the summer were once newsworthy events.  Every farmer coveted the prize of having the first bloom as an indication that his crop would be the first to be harvested, the first to be ginned and he would be the first to get paid.  This usually occurred in July or August.  

J.L. Bush decided to take a walk into his field on Christmas Day in 1921.  To his astonishment, Bush discovered a patch of cotton plants.  They were in full bloom.  Many old timers had seen blooms on Thanksgiving, but never this late in the year.  What was equally astonishing was the fact that resting inside each of the blooms was the dastardly boll weevil.  This tiny insect, which single handedly destroyed the cotton crop in the South, was nestled inside the bloom protecting itself from the cold December winds, just hibernating for the next warm day to come out and began devouring everything in its path.  Twenty eight years later in February, W.D. Browning noticed that global warming must be imminent for he found that his dormant, brown and broken cotton stalks were bursting into new blooms. 

In 1889, the Savannah naval stores firm of Peacock, Hunt & Company was one of the largest in the entire world.  The firm handled hundreds of thousands of barrels of the liquid distilled from the sap of pine trees which blanketed the coastal plain of Georgia.  Charlie Baldwin, an experienced dealer in turpentine, received a small bottle which contained a sample of turpentine from Laurens County.  The only problem was, this turpentine didn't come from a tree, it came from a well near Donaldson, between Lovett and Brewton on the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad.  

In an accompanying letter, the operator of the company's farm stated what seemed to be colored turpentine had been drawn from a well at a depth of sixty feet.  The well had been dug to furnish water for the operation of the company's turpentine still.  Workers frequently noticed the odor of a strange gas escaping from the well.  One curious fellow decided to drop a bucket down and see what he brought up.  He couldn't believe his eyes or his nose.  It was turpentine, not from the nozzle of the still, but from the bottom of a shallow water well.  His fellow still hands got busy and hauled up fourteen barrels of the valuable commodity.  A few days later, eighteen more barrels were filled with the mysterious substance.    Seems no one ever knew exactly how the turpentine came to be found in the well.  No one actually believed there could be an underground lake of turpentine, but neither did they believe that the find was nothing but a hoax.  

There's an age old legal maxim that if one comes to court, he must come with clean hands.  That axiom was never more true than in the 1915 case of Newsome V. Blackshear.  It seems Walter Blackshear had contracted with J.A. Newsome to give his dear departed mother a proper burial.  The funeral service took place, but when it came time to pay the undertaker, Blackshear refused to honor Newsome's request for payment.  Blackshear's defense was a most unusual one.  He claimed that the coffin which was provided by Newsome was all too narrow to accommodate his mother's body and that in order to fit his mother into her eternal vessel, her corpse was trimmed to make it fit.   Blackshear presented a witness, who from her vantage point behind a wall, peered through a crack and watched the embalmer split Mrs. Blackshear from throat to stomach and stuff her into the wooden box.  Despite Newsome's good reputation in the community and his explanation that the incision was a standard procedure, the jury brought in a verdict for the defense.  Accordingly, during the following fall, Newsome advertised a sale to clear out his overstocked inventory of spring and summer coffins.  

Okay, I will admit it. This one was a joke and a good one.  The Rev. T.B. Seibenmann placed a sign out in front of Centenary Methodist Church.  The notice read "Seats Free."  Some joker thought it would be hilarious to remove only one letter from the invitation for worshipers and repenters to come inside.  Crowds of people pushed and shoved their way into the church filling it beyond its capacity.  They weren't coming for salvation.  After all, this was the Great Depression.  What they came for was food.  You see, the solitary letter which the prankster removed was the first letter in the message, which then read "eats free."

08-19  

HUGH CLAFTON BARRON

On the Wings of a Hero 

For sixty eight minutes, an American Airlines twin-engine Convair circled in the skies above Chicago.  With his plane's  fuel nearly exhausted, jet airliner pilot Clafton Barron had to make an emergency landing and make one soon.  Barron and his crew struggled mightily to release the right main landing gear, which has been stuck in the upright position.

Earlier in the day of November 9, 1954, passengers boarded the doomed plane in Fort Worth, Texas for the relatively short flight to Chicago.  Along the way, the plane stopped in Springfield, Missouri to pick up more flyers, including Mrs. Shirley Stratton, wife of Illinois governor William G. Stratton.  It was about five minutes until four o'clock in the afternoon, when the pilot Barron, based out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, but a native of Dublin, Georgia, radioed air traffic controllers in Chicago that one of his landing gears was stuck and wouldn't drop down into its landing position.  Barron got Capt. Fred Bailey on the radio and went through a series of routine measures to lower the right wheels.

After twenty minutes of futile efforts, Bailey directed Barron and his co-pilot H.L. Henderson to fly north of the city to Glenview Naval Air Station, where there would be a crash and fire crew standing by. Gov. Stratton stayed in contact with airport officials from his Chicago offices on LaSalle Street. By 4:30, Barron reported that he had about 65 gallons of fuel left - maybe enough to keep flying for about 30 minutes.  "I decided that the best way to keep everyone calm was to tell them what was wrong and how I intended to overcome the trouble," Barron recalled.

Barron lowered  the Convair's flaps and began his descent.  Approaching low from the south, Barron attempted to tilt the right wing higher to keep it off the ground upon contact with the runway.  As the plane lost speed, the right wing dropped dangerously and deadly toward the ground below.

The crew and passengers braced for a crash.  Barron pulled the flaps all  the way  and gently edged the left and nose wheels to the ground.  For four thousand excruciating feet, the crippled plane slid down the runway until it spun around at a right angle to a full stop.  Stewardess Anita Roberson had calmly and brilliantly prepared the passengers on the proper evacuation procedures. All were safe, breathing, but barely.  Within a minute, Navy crash crews had ripped open every door and hatch from the plane and retrieved everyone from the wreckage. 

Mrs. Statton and the other passengers praised Capt. Barron for his calm demeanor during  the descent and especially for saving their lives.  Thirty seven men, including an Illinois state senator and three women, made it to safety, though they were visibly shaken as they boarded emergency vehicles. 

Capt. Hugh Clafton Barron followed the manual and performed a successful emergency landing in his first try, well almost. 'Bo Peep" Knight was riding his truck on a Dublin road a little more than twenty years earlier on March 31, 1934.  With Wansley Hughes and Bob Gentry aboard, Clafton Barron was taking off in his prop plane.  Arthur Rowe and R.T. Smith saw Barron's plane wasn't going to clear their truck.   They jumped out to save their lives.   One of the plane's wings struck the truck and tipped it over  killing "Bo Peep" on the spot.   The plane spun and came to a stop when it struck a wire fence about thirty yards away.  Barron and his passengers limped away from the crash. Poor "Bo Peep" was laid to rest days later.

Barron's crash on the outskirts of Dublin in 1934 didn't stop him from flying.  He loved to fly and kept on flying.  His kinsman W.H. "Bud" Barron went on to become one of Dublin's and Georgia's most celebrated flyers.  Bud Barron was known to have flown the second most miles of any Army Air Corps pilot in World War II.    Clafton Barron took a job as  a commercial airline pilot with American Airlines in 1942.

On August 4, 1955, just eight months after his first crash landing in Chicago,  Barron piloted his American Airline plane off the runway  at Springfield, Missouri, where his former plane had developed landing gear problems back in November.  Twenty-seven passengers and two other  crew members were aboard.  They had taken off from Tulsa, Oklahoma bound for New York City.  Aboard were eight women, two children and a Catholic priest and missionary, the Rev. George Crock. Daveron and Robert Galloway were traveling with their mother Betty to join their father Robert Galloway in his new job in Jordan as a community development adviser.

Just a few minutes after takeoff, the forty-five-year old Capt. Barron radioed a "mayday" signal to the St. Louis Airport that he had one engine on fire.  For thirty minutes Barron and his first officer William G. Gates valiantly fought to glide his damaged  plane to a nearby military airstrip.  Unlike his successful crash landing in Chicago, this situation was different, completely different.    His plane was on fire and falling fast.  Stewardess Thelma Ballard did all she could to comfort the terrified passengers. 

   

Witnesses at Fort Leonard Wood saw the plane as its glided toward the runway some two hundred to five hundred feet above the ground.  It appeared at first that the plane would make it to safety, but all of sudden there were muffled explosions.  Parts and eventually  the wings dropped off the plane as it tumbled for a quarter of a mile before it  disappeared into a woody ravine only a half a mile from the edge of the landing strip and possible safety.  It was the third time in less than eight months that an American Convair out of Springfield crashed.  Previously in March, thirteen were killed and twenty-two were injured in the only crash Barron was not involved in. 

Rescue workers, thwarted by a dense underbrush of vines, scrubby trees and brambles  and the intense flames emanating  from the plane, desperately tried to rescue the passengers and crew.  All of thirty people aboard perished inside the inferno. 

Captain Hugh Clafton Barron was buried in Northview Cemetery.   He was born to William J. and Ella May Hughes Barron of Dublin on Christmas Eve 1909.  He married his wife Margaret in 1928 and for a time lived with their daughter Maggie in a house at 318 Rowe Street in Dublin.  After he graduated from high school, Clafton worked as a delivery clerk for the post office.  

Clafton Barron may have died in a plane crash, but he died as a hero.  During the last thirty minutes of his life and with his very last breath, Barron fought to keep his plane flying, trying to save the other  twenty nine souls aboard. And, those forty two other persons who survived the Chicago crash landing owe their lives and the lives of their descendants to the brave and the dauntless, Captain Hugh Clafton Barron. 

08-20

CLARENCE LLOYD

A Baseball Man

In his day, Clarence Lloyd was considered one of the best baseball men in America.  First as a sportswriter and then as the traveling secretary of one of the sport's most legendary teams, Lloyd saw many of the game's greatest players in an era when the game was played not for the love of money, but merely for the love of the game.  This is his story and how he wound up in Dublin, Georgia. 

Clarence Frederick Lloyd was born on February 4, 1887 in St. Louis, Missouri.  Clarence lived on Cass Avenue with his mother, who worked in the home, and his father Henry, who was a native German bartender in a neighborhood saloon.  As a boy, Clarence loved to go to watch the St. Louis Cardinals play at nearby League Park, located some twenty blocks from his home.   He would often go watch the Browns, St. Louis's entry in the American League, every chance he got.   

After high school, Clarence took a job as a sportswriter.  He got to know some of the  players both on the Cardinals and the Browns including enough Hall of Famers to field two teams. Clarence, a 30-year-old sports writer for the St. Louis Star, claimed an exemption from the draft in World War I to look after his widowed mother, who was dependent on her only child to support her.    Clarence and his mother Minnie  moved from Cass Avenue to Page Boulevard after the war. 

  It was in 1913, when Clarence was introduced to Branch Rickey, the new and exciting young manager of the Browns.    Rickey was fired by the Browns in 1915 and was immediately hired by the Cardinals.    As general manager of the Cardinals, Rickey built the  team into one of the game's premier franchises.  After nearly twenty five years with the Cards, Rickey took over the management of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Rickey changed the face of baseball forever, not by building the Dodgers into a perennial power for more than four decades, but by taking the unthinkable risk of signing Jackie Robinson on the team and in the process, breaking baseball's color barrier in 1947.  

When Rickey took over the management of the cross town Cardinals in 1919, he remembered seeing Clarence around the ball park.  As his first hire as the team's new manager, Rickey, considered to be one of the game's greatest general managers of all time,  lured Clarence away from his arduous duties as a beat sportswriter for a job as the team's traveling secretary.  It was Lloyd's responsibility to take care of every need of the team while they were on the road.  He had to coordinate train schedules, meals, hotel rooms and in the process keep both management and the players happy.  While the team was at home, Lloyd was working, planning the next road trip.  

Clarence Lloyd at times found himself at odds with certain club officials.  Both Rickey and team President Sam Brendon and his wife, stood behind Lloyd when times were tough.  But the players admired him.  He got a one-half share of the winnings after the team won the World Series in 1926.   Following their loss in the '28 World Series, they voted him a one-half share, the handsome sum of nearly twenty one hundred dollars.  

Lloyd built a special relationship with the team's best and most unpredictable star, Dizzy Dean.  One day, Dizzy, in one of his frequent moments when he was short of cash and way ahead on his salary advances, came up to Clarence and asked for a twenty dollar bill.  Lloyd, under strict instructions to only allow Dizzy to have a single crisp one dollar bill a day, asked Dean why did he need twenty dollars.  Dean refused to disclose the reason, but finally, and embarrassingly, admitted it was for a gift for his bride.  At the height of Dean's superstardom in 1935,   team officials ordered Clarence to be Dean's personal secretary.  No one, not even Dean's wife or his brother and teammate Paul, could reach Dizzy by phone without the approval of Lloyd.  

There was a day in Pittsburgh, when Dean was no where to be found.  No one, not even Clarence knew where he was.  Was he off gallivanting he was prone to do and often,  or had something happened to Ole Diz.  Dizzy had a personal appearance.  Lloyd and Dean's business manager Bill DeWitt were worried.  Finally, Lloyd told DeWitt to find a bell boy and open the door to Dean's room.  When the door was opened, the boy found Dizzy, snoozing with his radio blaring away. 

The Gas House Gang was famous for their antics, both on and off the field.  Dean and Pepper Martin were the team clowns.  They and others  frequently impersonated Clarence  and told rookies that they were being sent down to the minor leagues.  

One of Clarence's best friends on the team was Grover Cleveland Alexander, known to his close friends as "Old Pete."  When Alexander died in 1951,   Lloyd sent in a contribution to a memorial fund and a letter stating that Alexander was " a great athlete,  a great competitor and a good friend."

Minnie Lloyd continued to live with her son even after he went to work for the Cardinals.  On February 19, 1937,   Lloyd, a confirmed bachelor of fifty years, married Dorothy McBride Grossman.  After Lloyd left the team after the 1937 season,  the couple moved to Dublin, where Clarence took a job with Georgia Plywood Company, where he worked for twenty five years and served as the company's president.  Minnie Lloyd  died at the age of ninety at the home of her son in Dublin on October 9, 1951.

Lloyd was honored by the Baseball Writers Association of America when he was given a No. 1 card in 1966. Lloyd served as a sportswriter for the "St. Louis Dispatch" and the "St. Louis Times" before his association with the Cardinals.  In May of 1967, the Cardinals honored Lloyd by inviting him to an all-expense paid trip to St. Louis.  The occasion was the final game at Sportsman's Park and the first game at Busch Stadium.  At that time, Lloyd held a lifetime pass to all major league games, being the second oldest sportswriter in the United States. 

Clarence loved to swap baseball stories.  It's part of the lore of the game. It's what baseball people do.  Former Courier Herald sportswriter Bush Perry fondly remembered  talking about the old days of the Cardinals, a team they mutually loved.  Ernest Oatts, who dubbed Lloyd as "Mr. Abernathy" hailed his friend as a great man of baseball.  Just a week before his death on October 9, 1970, Clarence Lloyd and Bush Perry talked for the last time. The subject was baseball.  And so, I salute the memory of Clarence Lloyd in the words of the late baseball commissioner Bart Giamati,

"It breaks our heart.  It is designed to break your heart.  The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filing 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, and summer is gone." 

08-21

 

FRANK S. LOFTIN

Public Servant

Though he only lived in Dublin for a brief time, this former Dublin attorney and Irwinton native made a name for himself, not on the bloody battlefields of the Civil War, but as a leading citizen of Heard County in Franklin, Georgia.  This Saturday is Confederate Memorial Day.  So on this day, let us honor the memory of one former citizen who took the life lessons from that horrible and so unnecessary war in which Americans killed and wounded more than a half million of their own souls, and for more than three quarters of a century, served his community with dignity, distinction and determination.

Frank S. Loftin was born in Wilkinson County, Georgia on November 14, 1847.  He was a son of James H. Loftin and his bride Mary Coney.  The Loftins, natives of North Carolina, settled in Wilkinson County at an early date.   Coming from rugged German stock, James Loftin farmed the clay soil lands with a undying and fierce determination.    The younger Loftin's  biographers recorded that at the age of fifteen, Frank joined a company of the 4th Georgia Infantry under the command of Captain Tucker in Savannah.   He later joined Captain Cato's Company of the Fourth Georgia Regiment of Calvary of State Troops.  Frank attended Georgia Military Institute and was assigned to Company B under the command of Captain Victor Magnet of General Frank Capers' battalion of cadets.    The cadets of Georgia Military Institute, located twenty miles from Atlanta, were used to help stem the  tide of General Sherman's march through Georgia. 

The cadets found themselves right in the middle of the Battle of Ball's Ferry on the Oconee River in November 1864.  Loftin was devastated to see Sherman's sixty thousand man right wing passing through his native county.  The cadets joined convicts and guards from the state prison in Milledgeville, and local militia in attempting to hinder the massive column from crossing the river until the cavalry under General Joseph Wheeler could arrive.    The endeavor was short lived and wholly ineffective.    A similar stance in the ditches before Savannah just before Christmas was also a  total failure.  When the Union army easily took Savannah and turned northward toward the Carolinas, the cadets were assigned to guard the Confederate Arsenal at Augusta, where they remained until their discharge on May 20, 1865.  Before Frank legally became a man, he had endured three years of war, a task which no child should ever have to undergo.

After the war, Frank Loftin enrolled at Mercer University, then located in Penfield, Georgia.  After graduation, Frank briefly read law in Dublin before moving to LaGrange under the tutelage of Judge Benjamin Bigham.  After passing the oral examination, Frank  Loftin was admitted to the practice of law at Newnan in 1870.

During his old age, Judge Loftin was active in the United Confederate Veterans.  A regular at state reunions, Major Loftin served as Assistant Judge Advocate on the staff of state commander, General Clement A. Evans.    

Frank Loftin was one of Heard County's greatest public servants in the post war period.  For ten years, Loftin served as the county's school commissioner.  He was mayor of the county seat of Franklin more many terms.  Loftin served two terms in the Georgia Senate from 1917 to 1918 and from 1923 to 1924.  His legal skills led to his service as Judge of the City Court of Franklin.  A proponent of higher education, Judge Loftin served as a trustee of Southern Female College at LaGrange and Bowden State Normal and Industrial College.    When the Bank of Heard County was organized, Loftin was invited to serve as vice president and director, positions he held for more than thirty years until his death.  Civically, Loftin was member of the Masonic and Odd Fellows lodges.  By faith, he was a Baptist.

Frank Loftin's ability as a lawyer was legendary in West Georgia.  Always thoroughly prepared in cases, Loftin prosecuted his cases with vigor, but remained courteous to all.  Though his public deeds were many and often recognized, his private acts of charity were countless, without any sort recognition given or sought.  Judge Loftin was somewhat of a historian and possessed a passion for the science of politics. 

Frank S. Loftin first married Mary Davis, a daughter of James B. and Cynthia E. Davis.  He later married Eula Brittain, daughter of O.C. and Elizabeth J. Brittain.  He had two daughters, Emmie Lou, who married W.P. Gearreld, and Mary Coney, who married her brother-in-law after her sister's death.

On November 12, 1936, just two days before his 90th birthday, Judge Frank S. Loftin died.  He was the last of the long gray line in Heard County.  This fifteen-year-old boy, who stepped forward into the cataclysm of war, persevered through adversity, dedicated his life to the service of others, and made his community into a better place to live. 

In eulogizing this great man, who practiced law in Heard County for sixty-nine years, the directors of the Bank of Heard County resolved, "He was a Confederate veteran who remained true and loyal to a lost cause.  He was a lawyer without deceit, a judge without partiality, a Christian without hypocrisy and a man without guile."

The Civil War, or the War Between the States as it is called in the South, was not glorious.  No war is.  While some may still disagree on the causes, their validity and their merit,  the struggle is an integral part of our past.  The lives of all of us have resulted from those four dark years in our history when determined men slaughtered each other in defending what they truly believed what in the best interests of their states.  To honor the memory of these men, many of whom were mere boys at the time, is not a vindication of the evil and cruel institution of slavery, but a commemoration of their valor and dedication to their homeland.  

On this day and every other day of the year let us all remember the words of General Robert E. Lee as he sat on his horse on a ridge of Marye's Heights in Fredericksburg.  As the general looked down the slope upon the corpses and dying bodies of more than eight thousand Union soldiers, he declared, "It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we may grow too fond of it." 

 08-22

MORE LAURENS COUNTY CONNECTIONS

A Colossal Cousin 

Bobby Davis, it has often been said, was the biggest baby ever born in Bowie County in the great state of Texas.  Weighing fourteen pounds at birth, Bobby tipped the century mark on the scales before he started school.  When he became a teenager, the scales began to strain as the needle hit the two hundred pound mark.    As a grown man, Bobby grew to at least three hundred pounds.   What, you may ask yourself, does this large behemoth of a man have to do with the history of Laurens County?   Well, first we will need to turn back the clock some two hundred years or so.  Don't read ahead, please don't.  You might spoil your surprise.

Young Keen, son of John, came to Laurens County with his widowed mother when Laurens County was still in her infancy.  Keen fathered sixteen children by three wives.  Kindred Lawrence Keen, a son through his Young’s  wife Margaret Jones, joined the Troup Volunteers, Company B of the 57th Georgia Infantry.  Keen, who played the fife in the regimental band, surrendered with nearly all the Confederate forces entrenched in and around Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1863.  Unlike many of his comrades, Keen escaped injury - a result which will play prominently in this story.  

After the war, Keen and his wife, Mary Alice Chipley, decided to pull up their stakes and go to Texas to find a new, and hopefully better, life.  Before they left, the Keens were blessed with their first daughter, Mary Alice Robena Keen.    Lawrence, a mechanic by trade, landed in Navarro County and later removed himself and his family over to Erath County.  Lawrence, as he was known to his family and friends, got the calling to become a Baptist minister in Palo Pinto County.  He had been a deacon in Bethlehem Baptist Church in Condor in eastern Laurens County before moving to the Lone Star State.  Being a minister, Rev. Keen and his family moved around quite a bit.    Keen possessed a great talent for singing and taught school kids how to sing, for a small fee of course.  He died in 1906.  His body lies in an old grave in the Garland Cemetery, south of Annona.  

Mary Keen married a Davis and they had a daughter who they lovingly named Mary Arizona Davis.    Mary Davis married Ora.  I can't give you Ora's last name right now because the identity of the mysterious cousin would become instantly obvious.    

Mary and Ora's second child and first son was born in Bowie County, Texas fifteen days before Christmas in 1928.  Bobby, always big for his age or any age for that matter, claims he got his size from his mama's side of the family.  When he was six, his family moved to O'Donnell, Texas where Ora worked on farms and eventually bought and operated his own grocery store, a handy thing to own with a son like Bobby who devoured everything on his plate.  By the age of thirteen, Bobby could carry a hundred pound sack of feed, fertilizer or flour under each arm to load on his daddy's customer's trucks.  When he really wanted to show off, said old friend Bob Clark, "Bobby lifted his car by its rear axles."

Bobby never tried to be a Hercules.  He tried his hand at boxing, but gave up after  one round with a professional fighter over in Odessa.  Bobby attend Texas Military Institute.  In 1946, he was named the vice president of the class and lauded as the most popular and best natured member of his class, probably because he was fond of practical jokes, good natured ones, not the cruel kind. 

In college, Bobby planned to major in the social sciences and physical education.  In his senior year at Sul Ross, Bobby was bitten by the acting bug and graduated with a degree in drama.  Shortly after graduation, Bobby was promoted to a sergeant in the 45th Oklahoma Division during the Korean War.  As soon as he was discharged, and as fast he could get back home to Texas, Bobby married the love of his life, Dolphia Lee Parker, his college sweetheart.

Inside his humongous human physique was the astute mind of a scholar.  With a framed master's degree hanging on his wall, Bobby Davis taught grade school in Senora, Texas and in Carlsbad before he and his family moved to Glendale, California, where he planned to  work on his Ph.D. degree at the University of California at Los Angeles. While studying at UCLA, Bobby was a substitute teacher to help pay the bills.   He always wanted a career in education, but he loved to act too.  

One day in 1956, Bobby was invited to appear on Gunsmoke, the granddaddy of all western television shows.    And as they say, the rest was history.

In 1959, the producers of a new show tabbed Bobby to play the role of "Eric" in a new western.  Don't get ahead of me yet.  Eric was one of a group of half brothers who lived with their father on a Nevada ranch.   If you ever watched a western on television, I think you know who I am talking about.  But if you never heard of Eric, you missed the one show in which his real name was revealed.  Named for his maternal Swedish grandfather, Eric was known by one of the most enduring terms of endearment ever penned on any television character.

You see, this mountain of man, who always wanted to be a school teacher and grew tired of acting, was fondly known on the show and to the hundreds of millions of viewers as "Hoss" Cartwright.   Bobby's given name was Bobby Dan Davis Blocker, who played the affable character for thirteen seasons on NBC.  

Though his career as "Hoss Cartwright" was nearly over in the early 1970s, Blocker had become  an astute businessman as the owner of Bonanza steakhouses across the country.    Because of his superior people skills and intellect, which he displayed weekly on television, and his passion for politics, Dan was often asked to run for governor, senator or congress.    In one of the most tragic cases of celebrities who died all too young, Dan Blocker died after a clot formed in his body following gall bladder surgery on May 13, 1972.    He was only forty-three years old. 

Which brings up two philosophical questions.  What would have happened if Dan Blocker's great grandfather had been killed or wounded at the Battle of Baker's Creek along with dozens of his fellow Laurens Countains?  What would have happened if his grandmother never moved to Texas with her family?  The answer is quite simple.  We would have never loved and admired this man whose ancestral roots run deep into Laurens County and who as "Hoss," carried the heart of a lamb and the brilliant mind of professor inside the frame of grizzly bear. 

08-23

 

THE BIG ONE THAT STILL GOT AWAY

The World Record Large Mouth Bass

As fish stories go, this is a big one - a really big one.  For more than three quarters of a century, this verified fish story has withstood the test of time, a drove of doubters, and a congregation of cynics,  and though there is no existing direct evidence to prove, or disprove, his claim, George Washington Perry, a former resident of Telfair County and a native of Laurens County, Georgia, still holds the record for catching the biggest large mouth bass in the history of the world.  This is the true story of his catch and how it still got away.

George Washington Perry was born on March 1, 1912 in Dublin, Georgia.  One of six children of Joseph and Laura Perry, George grew up on farms in central Georgia.  When he wasn't helping out with the chores or working in the fields, George dreamed of going fishing, not only for the sport of it, but for something good to eat.  You see, George lived in the days when the boll weevil came and devoured most of the cotton plants which brought money to everyone, regardless of whether or not they owned or even worked on a farm.  This was the Great Depression.  There was little food to eat.  With what little money George and his family did have, it was a shame to waste it on buying food, especially when he  could reel it in out of a stream, creek, pond, lake or a river for free.

It was early on the morning on Thursday, June 2, 1932.  George woke up, saw it was raining and immediately thought to himself - no farming today,  the fields are too wet.  But, it would be a good day for fishing.  Fish usually bite better when the atmosphere's pressure falls during storms.  So, George called upon his buddy Jack Page to join him for a day of fishing.  The pair hoped to catch a mess of fish for supper that night, but just in case they didn't, it would be good for two teenage boys to talk about things teenage boys tend to talk about, not to mention missing a day of toiling in the hot Georgia sun.

With only one lure between them - a Creek Chub Fintail Shiner - George hopped in Jack's pickup truck bound for Montgomery Lake, an ancient ox-bow lake formed over centuries as the meanders of the Ocmulgee River's were cut off from the river's main run.  The 1931 Creek Chub catalog boasted that the No. 2101 Natural Perch fintail shiner with its beautiful, natural colors, scales, fins, with flat sides and a swishing tail and flexible fins was as near like a living, breathing and wiggling minnow as any human could make.  The company guaranteed their lure would make a fool out of any big old wise fish.  Their promise would turn out to be more than mere puffing, more than George could ever imagine or even dream.

George didn't want to lose his prized plug.  After all, it cost him $1.25 - which in those days, was a good wage for a long  day's work.  Perry pulled back his $1.50 rod and reel and carefully cast his lure between two horizontal cypress trees lying on the surface of the once bountiful lake.   Perry saw a splash.  He felt a tug.  He pulled back.  When nothing moved, George feared that he had hung his line on a pesky stump or a submerged log.  

But then, the tug became a pull.  The pull became a strain. The strain became a struggle.  Adrenalin gushed through George's veins.   His instincts took over.  George pulled.  He pulled harder.  After an arduous fight, George and Jack got the monster bass to the bank and put it in Jack's truck and set off to Helena, the closest town.  

George and Jack pulled up to the store of J.J. Hall and Company.  They knew they had something special, certainly the biggest bass they ever saw and naturally they wanted to show it off.   As they strode into the store to exhibit their prized trophy, all eyes turned, gazed and bugged out in disbelief.  

George laid the lifeless bass on a pair of scales.  No one would question the accuracy of these scales which were actually the official scales of the Helena Post Office.  The needle stopped at twenty-two pounds and four ounces.  Someone grabbed up a measuring tape and wrapped it around the twenty-eight inches of the fish's girth and then laid it out on the counter and marked off thirty-two inches.    There were no digital cameras in those days and certainly not any cell phone cameras.  It was more than six decades before any purported photograph appeared.  The one that did showed an unidentified man and an unidentified young boy holding a big fish.  The palm trees in the picture's background still stand on the post office property and lend some credence to its authenticity.

Someone suggested that Perry submit his fish to Field and Stream Magazine as a part of their annual fishing contest.  Obviously George won it  that year.  Though George Perry was a legend in the Big Bend region of the Ocmulgee River, he never received much of any national recognition until later in life and more so after he died.    As a part of his prize winnings, George did receive a shotgun, a pair of boots, a rod and real and a tackle box, a  seventy-five-dollar value, as the catcher of the biggest fish of the year.   Today his picture and story would be all over the Internet and plastered in every fishing magazine in the country.   Just to put the doubters to rest, George went out and won the contest again in 1934, with a bass weighing a mere thirteen pounds and fourteen ounces.

So what did George Perry do with his big fish?  No, he didn't have it mounted and put on his wall.  He did what every country boy of the 1930s would have done.  He gave it to his mama, who cut it up into pieces and fried it in a big cast iron pan.  Mrs. Laura served the world record fish with some tomatoes and onions she picked out of her garden and a mess of good old fashioned skillet-fried cornbread.  The Perry's finished off the rest of fish the next day, much to the consternation of ichthyologists around the world. 

Jack Page seemingly disappeared.  No one ever seemed to know whatever happened to Jack.  Maybe he left Telfair County to see if he could catch an even bigger fish, always regretting the fact that it could have been his turn to cast the lure into Montgomery Lake that day.

George Perry put aside his fishing tackle as a vocation and took up an interest in aviation.  He worked on planes and opened a flying service in Brunswick.  In 1973, at the age of sixty-one and before he could tell the complete story of his world record catch, George Perry crashed into the side of a mountain near Birmingham, Alabama while ferrying an airplane.

No one in these parts ever caught a more celebrated fish.  Kelly Ward of Laurens County did manage to snare the largest striped bass ever caught in Georgia when he reeled in a 63-pounder in the Oconee River in 1967.  Some say it might have rivaled the world record had it been weighed immediately after Ward caught the big fish.   

Catching the world's biggest large mouth bass is no secret.  There are some necessary skills; careful planning, good weather, and a lot of luck that goes into landing the big one. In the words of my late daddy, who considered himself a fine fisherman, when it comes right down to it, "sometimes, you just have to hold your mouth right."

08-24

  

GOV. JOHN BROWN GORDON

 Stump Speaking in Dublin 

No one in late Nineteenth Century Georgia was more popular. During the War Between the States, General John Brown Gordon was one of General Robert E. Lee's most trusted lieutenants. After the war, Gordon staunchly fought reconstruction. Elected to the United States Senate in 1873, Senator Gordon, the first ex-Confederate to preside over a senate session, convinced his old enemy, President U.S. Grant, to rid Georgia and the rest of the South of corrupt northern officials who had been placed in power by Grant's successor, Andrew Johnson. He would return to Capital Hill in 1891, but in 1886, Gordon found himself embattled once again, not on the battlefields of Virginia, but in the most vicious of all war like combat, state politics.    With all of his popularity throughout the state, Senator Brown couldn't garner the support of Laurens Countians during his first gubernatorial campaign. The day - June 22, 1886. The occasion - a political speech by Senator Gordon. The location - the yard of the First Baptist Church in Dublin. 

The politicos of Dublin and Laurens County should have seen it coming. That morning it looked as if was going to rain. Supporters of Gordon's opponent, Senator Augustus O. Bacon, wanted to stage a rally of their own that day. Major Hanson of Macon had arrived the day before in hopes of espousing the platform of Senator Bacon. Bacon's men acknowledged that the day would belong to Senator Gordon, but requested that once the senator had finished his oratory, that their man be allowed to address the crowd. At first, the Gordon committee refused, though they were offered full reimbursement for the cost of the stand and seats. So the Bacon men retorted that they would stage a rally of their own in the courthouse at 11:00 a.m. In an act of political respect, a consideration still in affect in those days, Major Hanson vetoed the suggestion stating that all the crowd gathering to hear Senator Gordon would have gone home before the main speech was scheduled to start. 

It was 9:00 o'clock in the morning and Senator Gordon was not at the Dublin and Wrightsville Railroad depot on the east side of the river. It was later reported that the train had an accident up the line and that the honored guest and widely heralded general was relegated to riding a mule into town. Gordon finally arrived around 1:00 o'clock, a mere hour before his speech was scheduled to begin. Upon his arrival, Gordon was adamant that no one, including Major Hanson, would be allowed to speak for Bacon on his stand. Reportedly, Gordon promised that if Hanson was allowed to speak, "I will contact my committee in Atlanta to send a man after Major Bacon at his every appointment and make it hot for him." Several hundred men gathered around the grounds of the church to hear the Senator speak. 

Most of them actually came to hear Major Hanson. County Court Judge Mercer Haynes, a former mayor and postmaster of Dublin, and Confederate veteran, rose to introduce the illustrious guest. Gordon rose to speak. His reception chilled the hot air of the first day of summer. People in the crowd asked questions. Gordon responded petulantly. To make matters worse, two of Gordon's supporters, inebriated with several swallows of liquor, interrupted the General frequently and in an ugly and idiotic manner, which only further instigated the crowd to become even more indignant. 

After about twenty minutes, Gordon's eloquent speech turned into rambling gibberish. Temperatures and tempers were rising. All of the shady spots were covered with people. Gordon's voice faltered. He called for a water glass with sugar and honey added to help him get the words out of his raspy throat. During the next two hours, Senator Gordon attempted to rebut the charges of which he had be condemned for during the campaign. Gordon challenged his hecklers by asking that if he was guilty that he "be buried beneath an avalanche of votes and that he be driven from the society of decent and honorable men." 

Just when he nothing more to say, or couldn't say anything more, Gordon turned to James B. Sanders, a young attorney who had just moved to Dublin to practice law, pulled on his coat sleeve and then jerked it. "Now make your remarks; go on; now is the time," Gordon ordered as he remained on the standing, talking until Sanders began to speak. Bacon backers protested loudly, yelling, " Hanson! Hanson! Hanson!" Gordon and the nervous Sanders refused to yield the stand. The overwhelmingly Bacon crowd urged Hanson to take the stand, some even volunteering to "clear the way." Owing to his love of peace, Hanson declined the violent alternative and waited for the commotion to subside. Dr. R. H. Hightower yelled out, "Then we'll go to the courthouse!" Captain Rollin A. Stanley, the local president of the Bacon club, spoke out that in the interest of good order that Major would be better served by leaving and making his remarks elsewhere. 

Hanson agreed. Those who wanted to hear about their man raced to the courthouse. Within five minutes, there were only about forty or fifty people left before the grandstand. One Bacon supporter, Attorney T.L. Griner, remained to chastize Senator Gordon. Amid cries of "You're killing time" and "That's your way," Griner protested, "The committee promised us the stand!" Gordon and Griner went back and forth "They did! - They didn't." 

An announcement was made that a reception was going to be held in front of the stand. When no one approached, aides and supporters nudged those still remaining to step forward. Gordon greeted the lingerers in his own personal and amiable way by placing his left hand on their shoulders and saying something gracious to them. Those who remained slowly began to ease away. Gordon, in an effort to keep the reception going, re-shook the hands of those still on the stands. Within thirty minutes, virtually no one was left. Seeing that his continuing presence was futile, Gordon joined his escorts and retreated back to Wrightsville. 

Major Hanson spoke for ninety minutes to an agreeable and cheering crowd. He attacked Gordon for being a privy counselor to Victor Newcomb, a railroad speculator and a convict lessee. 

A mass meeting was held at the courthouse on July 6, 1886. Bacon tallied 360 Democratic votes and Gordon managed to garner only 248. John T. Chappell, Louis C. Perry, and Thomas B. Felder, Jr. were elected as delegates committed to Bacon. Statewide, Gordon won the Democratic nomination by a count of 252 to 74. With no Republican candidate of any consequence, Gordon was assured of winning the election in November.

In the end, Gordon triumphed, despite the vicious opposition he faced under the shade trees of the First Baptist Church and which must have seemingly been as fierce as that he received from the Army of the Potomac some twenty years before. Within 18 years, Gordon would die. All was forgiven as thousands of Dubliners and Laurens Countians gathered inside and outside the sanctuary of the First Methodist Church for a memorial service to honor one of Georgia's greatest heroes of the 19th Century. 

08-25

GROVER C. NASH

Soaring to New Heights

Grover C. Nash could fly a plane with the best of any pilot of his day.  Seventy years ago yesterday he made history during National Air Mail Week.  This is the story of a poor farm boy from Twiggs County, Georgia who piloted his plane into history as he became the first African American pilot to fly and deliver the U.S. mail.

Grover C.  Nash was born in Dry Branch, Georgia way back on April 4, 1911.   He was seventh child and third son of Joe and Annie Nash.   No one alive seems to remember what his life was like as a child, but history tells us that it had to be tough.  

Nash marveled in wonder when he saw planes flying overhead.  Like most boys of his day, Grover dreamed of flying like a bird.  But being black and being in the South, his chances of getting to fly in an airplane were just about as slim as his sprouting wings and flying on his own power.

Grover Nash went North in hopes of attending flight training classes.  The color of his skin prevented him from being accepted. But in 1931, Grover was accepted into flight school. A graduate of Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical University in Chicago and Moore's Flying School in Dayton, Ohio, Nash had earned a Master Mechanic's certificate within two years.  Flying his own plane, a midwing monoplane he dubbed Little Annie, Grover Nash honed his flying skills under the tutelage of Roscoe Turner in St. Louis.  Turner, a World War I pilot, was a champion racing pilot in the 1930s.  He also studied under John C. Robinson, who was one of the founders of the Challenger Aero Club, one of the first black pilots organizations.

Tuskeegee Institute was supposed to be the destination of Nash's first long distance flight.  Flying with him would be Col. Robinson and Cornelious Coffee, two of the nations' most famous pilots.  The trio were engaging in a southern tour to Birmingham, Chattanooga, Murfreesboro, as well as stops in St. Louis, Terre Haute and other cities in Illinois.  While they were approaching Decatur, Alabama, Robinson and Coffee had to crash land their two-man plane.  Being the junior members of the group, Coffee and Nash remained in Decatur, while their leader went on to address students at Tuskeegee.  Nash's disappointment vanished when he returned the following year to visit the renowned black educational institution.   

Nash made headlines in January 1935 when he gave a dazzling exhibition at an air show celebrating the seventy-second anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.  As a lieutenant of the Military Order of the Guards and a member of the Challenger Aero Club, Grover's reputation in Chicago continued to grow.  To help pay the bills, Nash managed the service department for a chain of automobile parking lots in the Chicago area and operated his own flight school for six years.  

A well-experienced private pilot, Grover C. Nash was somewhat of an automobilist.  In 1937, Nash set out from his Chicago home to visit a sick relative in Los Angeles.  Driving with little or no pauses, Grover made the 2,448 mile trip in 48 hours for an average of 50.8 miles per hour, a record for any automobile at the time.  It wouldn't be the only time that year that Grover Nash would take a long trip to see a relative.  When Grover left home in 1929, he promised his daddy that one day he would return home  in a plane.  There was much joy that day in Dry Branch when Grover's monoplane came over the tree tops and landed on the red clay soil of home.  

The United States Postal Service established National Air Mail Week in 1938.  As a part of the celebration, an experiment was conducted to determine the feasibility of picking up and delivering air mail throughout small cities and large towns throughout the country.   

It was early in the afternoon of May 19, 1938.  Excitement was escalating in Mattoon,  Illinois.  It was the first time the city's mail would be flown to its recipients around the state and the country.  As Nash landed his Davis monoplane in Mattoon, he was greeted by the post master, the police chief, city officials and somewhere near one hundred curious onlookers.   Grover was given a hero's welcome, a tour of the city, and dinner at a local caf‚.  Nash stashed about seven hundred more letters inside his plane and headed off to Charleston, only ten minutes away.

Charleston had never had airmail service either.  But, Grover Nash couldn't have dreamed that his reception there would dwarf the welcome he received on his first stop.  An estimated eight thousand people crammed the runway of the city's first airport.  A band played.  The crowd cheered.  Nash waved to his adoring admirers.     After waiting out a severe thunderstorm, Nash took off at 5:45 for Rantoul with another two thousand letters.  

An astonished Nash later told a reporter for the Chicago Defender that no one seemed to notice his color along the way - especially the  hundreds who pressed him to autograph their letters.  It was, however, the first time that an African American had carried U.S. mail through the air. And, on that day, Nash made the longest flight and carried more letters than any of the 146 pilots, before returning to Chicago, five minutes ahead of his scheduled arrival.

Five months later on Halloween Day, Grover Nash joined hands in marriage with his sweetheart, Miss Lillie Borras.

A group of black pilots in the Chicago area organized as the National Airmen Association of America in an effort to stimulate interest in aviation and understanding of aeronautics.  On August 16, 1939, a petition was filed to incorporate the organization in the state of Illinois.  Naturally, Grover C. Nash was among the founding directors.  The Airmen staged the first national all black air show in United States history earlier that summer.  

During World War II, Grover Nash served his country as mechanical instructor at the US Army Air Force Aircraft Mechanical School.  He spent sixteen months as an instructor for the Army Air Force Training Command. In his first ten years of flight, Grover Nash  logged more than 3,000 flight hours in thirty different types of aircraft.     In 1943, Nash was the only black instructor at Keesler Field in Mississippi and Lincoln Air Base in Nebraska.   After the war, Nash was a member of the faculty of Dunbar Vocational High School in Chicago, where he taught before his retirement to Los Angeles.

While visiting his relatives back home in Twiggs County, Grover Nash died on August 10, 1970.  He was buried in the church cemetery of White Springs Baptist Church.  Ten years after his death, Grover Nash was honored by in the exhibit "Black Wings" in the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.  

08-26

  MEMORIAL DAY

                                

     For most us, it seems like Memorial Day has been around for all of our lives. And,

in reality, it has.  But the holiday, which traditionally signals the unofficial beginning of summer, only became a national holiday in 1967, one hundred and one years after it was first celebrated to honor the memory of fallen Union soldiers during the Civil War.  Consequently, decades passed before Memorial Day was celebrated by the majority of Southerners, who opted to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day instead.  It was only after World War I, when the sons and grandsons of former combatants fought side by side, that Memorial Day began to evolve into a holiday to honor the memories of all Americans who died in military service.

     Memorial Day officially began on May 5, 1866, when the city of Waterloo, New York staged a celebration under the leadership of General John Murray, a citizen of Waterloo. General John Logan, seeing the way in which the fallen soldiers of the South were honored in April, led the effort to spread the celebration across the North and the nation as a whole. As Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, composed of former Union veterans, General Logan proclaimed that beginning on May 30, 1868 and the 30th day of May of  each year thereafter, "Decoration Day" would be established across the country to honor the nation's fallen soldiers.   On that day, both Union and Confederate graves were decorated in Arlington National Cemetery.   It was said that the date of May 30th was chosen because no battle had been fought on that date during the entire four-year Civil War.

 "The dead soldier's silence sings our national anthem."  

Rev. Aaron Kilbourn

     The citizenry of the South declined to celebrate the day.  The lingering wounds of

secession and death still tormented the souls of Southern families.  The town of Columbus, Mississippi made an exception and was the first to celebrate a holiday on April 25, 1866, which honored the dead on both sides of the conflict.  

     By the early 1880s, some began to call the day "Memorial Day," but the name of

"Decoration Day" continued until the end of World War I.    Suddenly, and seemingly

overnight, a movement arose to honor all of the nation's dead on Memorial Day, including Southerners and veterans of all other military conflicts to date.  Southerners, however, stuck to tradition and kept the day of April 26th as Confederate Memorial Day  as a solemn and solitary date on the calendars, as well as in their hearts.  It was not until 1890, when all of the former Union states and all non-Southern states adopted the day as a holiday.  

     Many Southerners also resisted celebrating the 4th of July as the anniversary of the birthday of the United States.  Not that they were still defiant as to the reason for the War Between the States, but July 4th was one day after the anniversaries of the fall of Vicksburg and General Robert E. Lee's devastating and tide turning defeat at Gettysburg in 1863.

     In 1918, people from all parts of the country were heavily invested in World War I, the "War to End All Wars."  Men were dying.  No one cared whether they were from Georgia, Vermont, or Iowa.  Up in Athens, Georgia, Miss Moina Michael was teaching classes at the University of Georgia.  Miss Michael poured her heart and soul into the YMCA and other organizations seeking to provide relief and comfort to the soldiers fighting in Europe.  Just two days before the end of the war on November 11, 1918, Michaels picked up a magazine and began to read the poem In Flanders' Fields by John McRae, a Canadian physician.  

     

     Though Michael had read the poem before, she was moved to tears and vowed to

herself to always wear a red poppy of Flanders Fields to remind her and others to remember to keep the faith for all of those who died in the cause of freedom.  Michael dedicated the rest of her life to raising money for veterans through the sale of red poppies.  Heritage organizations adopted her goals and children all over the nation, including the kids right here in Dublin, began selling real and artificial red poppies.   Although the Georgia department of the American Legion adopted the red poppy in 1920, it decreed that they would be worn, not on Memorial Day, but on Veteran's Day instead.  However, it could be argued by some,  and by me as well, that it was the blind patriotism of one Georgia educator that bridged the bitter chasm of a long ago struggle and led to the celebration of Memorial Day for all veterans across the land. 

"We cherish too, the poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led.

It seems to signal to the skies

That the blood of heroes never dies."

     Moina Michael

     It was not until after World War II that Memorial Day was celebrated as a holiday

in all parts of the United States.  Merchants took the opportunity to launch sales of summer merchandise.  Some government employees got the day off. Other employees began to demand equal treatment.  Mail wasn't being delivered - so why work?  Others saw the holiday as a chance not so much to honor the fallen soldiers of our country as we all should, but as a day for family, friends and food.

     In 1966 on the centennial observance of the first Memorial Day, the Congress of the United States officially declared May 30th as Memorial Day.  Two years later, the Congress passed a bill to establish a uniform policy of determining the date of Federal holidays, consequently moving many of them to Mondays to make them three day weekends.

     So on this day and especially during the National Moment of Remembrance at 3:00 o'clock p.m., let us all in our way pause to thank all of the Americans who died for us.  If you can't make it to Arlington Cemetery where some 260,000 graves are decorated with American flags, travel down to the National Cemetery in Andersonville, Georgia, where every single grave is marked with a small, but appropriate, American flag.  You will be moved.  You may cry.  I did. 

"Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women

 in the service of our country can never be repaid.

They have earned our undying gratitude.  

America will never forget their services." 

President Harry S. Truman

08-27

ROBERT L. HORTON

A Memorial Day Remembrance

Memorial Day is, and should be, a day on which we commemorate and honor the memory of those Americans who gave their lives in the service of country.  For the last one hundred and forty-two years, Americans have paid homage to those who gave the last full measure of devotion.  While many of those who have sacrificed their lives did so in battles on the land, on the sea and in the air, some have died slow and tortuous deaths, under mysterious and horrendous circumstances.  This is the story of Private Robert L. Horton of Laurens County, Georgia.

Robert Lee Horton, a younger son of Wash and Maggie Horton, was born in Laurens County on August 24, 1924.  Robert grew up on his father's farm and attended the local school when he wasn't busy doing his chores around the house and in the fields.

Horton enlisted in the United States Army sometime shortly after his eighteenth birthday.  He was assigned to the 422nd Infantry Regiment of the 106th Infantry Division at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.  After training in Tennessee and Indiana, the 422nd left from  Boston and arrived in England just in time for Thanksgiving.   Horton's regiment arrived in France on December 6, 1944.  

For the previous six months, the Allied forces had made steady progress in their march toward the German capital in Berlin.   Ten days after the Division arrived in France, all Hell broke loose.  The division was positioned at the Schnee Eifel salient near Schonberg, Belgium.  All was relative quiet in Ardnennes Forest.  Early, and unexpectedly, on the morning of December 16, 1944, a massive German force broke through the American line.  Jim Cram, of Co. E of the 422nd, remembered "They got us surrounded on top of a hill.  They had tanks of on top of the hill firing down on us and 90,000 Germans coming at us."

By the end of the next day, the 422nd and 423rd regiments were surrounded.  Colonels Descheneaux and Cavender realized that further resistance was futile and could result in total annihilation of their men.  After two days of negotiations with German commanders, the Americans surrendered in the largest mass surrender of US troops in the Eastern Theater of Operations.  The captured were taken to POW camps at Stalag XIIA and Stalag IXB.

Three hundred and fifty of approximately two thousand prisoners were assigned to  a prison camp at Berga, a mining center in Germany.   The prisoners arrived in Berga on a train from Bad Orb just before Valentine's Day, but their new quarters would be  worse than they already experienced.  The men were brought in to help the thousand or so political prisoners already in the town digging tunnels for some unknown military reason. 

Prisoner Gerald Daub noted, "The air was just totally filled with stone dust.  Everything coated with it, including your lungs filled with it. And we had no bathing facilities, so you can picture that, after a day or two, we just looked like cement statues walking around."

Some historians believe that the POWs at Berga were selected because they were Jewish or simply looked as if they may be Jewish.  In reality, eighty, or less than a quarter of the prisoners, were Jewish.  There were some 120-130 captives who were branded as "trouble makers" for failing to follow orders  or violators of camp rules.  The rest of the compliment of prisoners needed for the operation of the mines were randomly selected from other camps.

Atrocities were common.  In comparison to POW camps in the South Pacific, German camps were generally considered less barbaric.  Such was not the case with the Nazi camp at Berga.  To prevent escapes at night, prisoners were stripped of their clothes, which were stored in an adjoining building, and placed two to a bunk bed stacked three high, with little or no heat on the coldest of nights.  Threats were constant and often brutal.  The prisoners were frequently forced to stand in the bitter elements with little clothing for long hours.

In an average week, each prisoner received about a hundred grams of bread a week. This hard crusty black ration was not your normal piece of sandwich bread, but  was often made with a saw dust filler.    Tea, boiled with weeds and shrubs, was highly coveted.  If the prisoners were lucky, their soup was made with rotten potatoes and turnips.  The usual soup de jour. was made with cats and even rats, according to Anthony Acevedeo, a medic with the 275th Infantry regiment. 

To pass the time, the prisoners often dreamed and talked of their favorite foods and what each would eat for their first meal when they got back to their homes.  In his book, Given Up For Dead, Flint Whitlock wrote, "Some recall that, from different parts of the barracks, intermingled with the moans and hacking coughs and nightmare shrieks, came the soft sounds of crying." 

Private Robert Lee Horton died on April 2, 1945 in Stalag 9C at Bad Sulza Sax We  Mer, succumbing to the diseases, bed bug bites, cold temperatures and malnutrition which typified the daily life at Berga.   He was only a twenty-year-old kid.   In the latter part of the day, the prisoners at Berga could hear the sound of artillery and small arms fire in the vicinity.  It was clear that some offensive action was underway to free them from their torment.    The guards came in, rounded up everyone who could walk, and forced the men to march away from the camp toward the mountains.  

Along the trek, some seventy-seven prisoners died.  Those who survived, remembered the horror of the rotting corpses of political prisoners, including women and children, who had been slaughtered by the desperate Germans.  On April 23, 1945, the surviving POWs were liberated.  In comparison with the Malmedy Massacre, the deaths at Berga and along the march were the most atrocious acts of barbarism perpetrated upon American prisoners in Europe.

Robert Lee Horton nearly lived to breathe the air of freedom.   So when you pass by the grave yard of Mt. Zion Baptist Church next to Southwest Laurens Elementary School, remember that lying there is a man who died for all of us and for the generations to come.  It is only fitting that on this Memorial Day, we celebrate his dedication and the dedication of hundreds of thousands of Americans who given the last full measure of devotion to our nation.  May God bless their souls.

08-28

TWISTER!

A History of Tornados in Laurens County

Folks in these parts rarely worry about hurricanes. Only occasionally do their dying remnants ever cause any concern - perhaps a heavy rainfall, high winds and several fallen limbs. Until recently, most of us were not concerned with tornados either. Though tornados are not unheard of in our area, only twenty five twisters have been documented in the last two hundred years, the last two years have reminded us of the devastating damage which these spring cyclones can reek upon us. When we lost two of our citizens and more than a million dollars in damages this past Mother's Day weekend, the fascinating fury of the tornado can't be erased from our memories. The recent throng of powerful storms may be attributed by some as the result of global warming. Others may explain that these storms have always been with us and come in groups and cycles. This is the story of the documented tornados in the two-hundred-year history of Laurens County. 

The first documented case of a tornado in Laurens County came on March 28, 1810. A traveler reported " The citizens of Laurens County were awakened a little before sunrise with an incessant flood of rain, a violent wind and a frequent fall of trees." After twenty minutes every object around seemed to be threatened by one of the most violent tornados ever witnessed in Georgia. "So great has been its ravages, that whole forests have been laid prostrate, and some of the finest land in the state rendered in a heap of ruins. Many of the best plantations have become unfit for immediate cultivation. Houses, fences and stock have been swept away or destroyed," the reporter continued. Many settlers of the county were left without a horse to plough with or a cow to milk. The tornado, considered to have been six miles in width, approached Laurens County from the northwest. 

On the 8th of April, 1831, a tornado of a few moments duration did

 considerable damage to the buildings fences and shade trees of Dublin. No tornados were reported for forty four years until a cyclone traveled southeasterly along the Laurens-Wilkinson county line on March 15, 1875 doing minor damage here, but in Johnson County it was said that "Trees, houses, fencing of every description, wagons, carts, indeed everything within its two-hundred yard wide sweep, was torn into atoms. A number of gin houses were totally destroyed."

A series of strong tornados struck Georgia on February 7, 1878. The tornado

did substantial damage sweeping everything before it. A subscriber to the Macon Telegraph reported, "Almost every house in its course was blown down. It is frightful to behold." The storms which traveled the entire width of the state resulted in several serious injuries to people.

A small twister passed over the southern edge of Laurens and Montgomery

 counties on the evening of March 27, 1882 obliterating buildings, fences and trees along its one mile trek. S.H. Clark had every house on his place destroyed. H.B. Donaldson's fences and timber was shattered. The two-hundred yard wide tornado wrecked a two-hundred-yard-wide swath through Washington County. 

The most heralded tornado of the 19th Century appeared on April 22, 1883.

Dozens of Georgia cities and cities around the Southeast were inundated with tornados. Just before dark and just before leaving Dodge county homes and farms in ruins, the mile-wide cyclone crossed the Dublin-Eastman Road where it destroyed the entire plantation of Lemuel T. Harrell. Every house on the Harrell place, including his two-story home, kitchen, barns and stables, were swept away. Mr. Harrell and his wife were seriously injured. Mr. Harrell was beaten all over his body. His wife was thrown from the house and slammed against the ground. At the first news of the storm, there was little hope of her recovery. It wasn't until after the maelstrom subsided that one of the Harrell children discovered that one of his toes had been torn from his foot. All of the family's clothes, furniture and bedding was ruined. In Dodge County, a daughter of John S. Register and a widow Rogers were killed during the tempest. Mr. Adkinson was badly battered, but survived his injuries. 

In Laurens County, a witness reported, "Trees were torn from the ground and hurled hither and thither as mere straws." Another witness reported seeing "a vaporish cloud which seemed to descend within forty to fifty feet of the ground as the first indication of the storm. As the clouds became unusually black, lightning flashed and the thunder rolled. When the low rumbling noise similar to the sound of a freight train was heard, everyone knew a cyclone was coming. After all, there wasn't a train track anywhere in the county. 

Bob Coleman's tenant house was blown down as was the home of his landlord

J.W. Noles. Thankfully the Noles family, who were inside their home when the storm struck, managed to extricate themselves with only minor injuries. Shuf Browning's house was gone. His kinsman "Dod" Browning's house was "blown to atoms." Most of Mr. Wiley Browning's fences were smashed and many of his cattle were killed. W.T. Coleman's houses were not spared the wrath of the storm. Every building on the place of Harlow Clark were missing their roofs. Nearly all of his hogs and cows were killed. His furniture and clothes were in shambles. George Towns' house was spared, but everything else was blown to smithereens. The worst damage reported came at the home of Isham Branch. When the funnel cloud dipped down, it destroyed every structure on the place and threw the entire Branch family out into the yard, except one child who was being held by a Negro servant and safely remained inside the collapsed home. Branch was struck in the head by a log and a nail driven into his foot by the force of the wind. Mrs. Branch was bruised from the top of her right shoulder down to her right foot. Dr. Stapleton and his family managed to escape with only minor injuries. William Clark's house was the last house reported to be demolished by the storm. J.I.D. Miller, who observed the damage first hand reported, "We can not undertake to describe the destruction of timber, cattle and property for a mile wide. We have seen it, and can not tell you anything more than where it went it has utterly destroyed all property." 

I.J. Fillis outlined other details of the storm.  He reported that N.C. Gillis's

fences were torn down and that a Mr. Miller lost everything on his farm, except his home. Both of Arter Davis Sr. and Arter Davis, Jr.'s properties were severely damaged. Only one of five dozen head of their cattle was found alive. Mr. Curry's gin was blown down. Wylie Davis was struck in the side by falling timbers as his house fell upon him. Henry Town's ox cart reported to be "blown away and has not been heard from since." Seaborn Bracewell, who lived seven miles from the path of the storm, found a leather chair bottom from some unknown residence. Following the storm, neighbors, friends and those willing to help gathered at the home of Jack Clark to organize a movement to render assistance and help to the victims. After the calm, area residents began digging tornado pits where they planned to take shelter should another tornado ever pass their way. 

The old Governor Troup plantation was the target of a February 26, 1891 tornado near the community of Tweed. Considerable damage was done to outhouses and barns, along with several hundred trees, which were uprooted. On April 14, 1901, the Reedy Springs and Pinetucky communities were pounded by a five hundred-yard wide cyclone, which uprooted trees, leveled fences and blew houses down, thankfully, with no loss of life.

Dexter was right in the path of cyclone of "unusual severity" on the afternoon

of January 22, 1906. Those on the ground reported, " The Sun was blotted out and the darkness was so intense that no one could see for more than a few feet." The earliest known tornado in the last two centuries came without warning and blew over the school at Nameless, capturing the children and teachers inside. Logare Akin broke his leg and Lena Akin suffered injuries about her shoulders and head. Miss Benford, the teacher, tended to the many wounded until doctors J.E. New and W.B. Taylor arrived. Dr. Taylor had been on his lot in Dexter when the storm hit. He grabbed a post and hung on for his life as the three-hundred-yard wide tornado passed over him. Nearly every chimney top and most of the trees in Dexter were downed. For the second time in several years, the Methodist church was blown from its block foundation and badly wrecked.

Dudley was the target of a small tornado on the afternoon of June 22, 1925.

Mrs. Dick Hodges was injured when a mile and a half wide storm passed along the Macon-Dublin Highway. Shade trees were uprooted and small buildings were damaged. 

On April 25, 1929, one of the worst tornados in the county's history struck the Dexter area,  killing two people and injuring two dozen more.  At the end of the day, the murdering storm had killed sixty persons and injured several hundred more in six Georgia towns.

In 1929, there was no Doppler radar. The only warning came when the  southwestern sky turned as black as a moonless night.  The storm began near Cochran,  where five persons were killed and at least fifty were wounded.   It steam-rolled along a northeasterly course -  the way they usually go when they are up to no good - headed for a collision with the town of Chester.  Tall pines, which fifty years before had covered the sandy soil like grass on a football field,  were skinned like bananas.  The Chester School, a substantial building and the pride of the town, was lifted off its foundation and dumped flat on the ground a few feet away.  C.A. Mullis never had a chance.  He was killed instantly when the funnel sucked him up and slammed him into a tree.

The storm turned a little more to the north, and headed straight for the Mt. Carmel community.  Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, one of the most modern and best equipped church buildings in the county, was totally destroyed.   The Mt. Carmel School and the teacherage, located across the road from the church, were amazingly untouched.  Several homes in the community were destroyed.  The J.D. McClelland home and that of Mrs. W.A. Witherington were destroyed. No one in the McLelland family was harmed, but Mrs. Witherington, her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Milton Witherington, and an infant grandchild  were seriously injured.   Jim Dawkins lost his house and most of its contents.  Thankfully and most mercifully, his wife and five children only suffered minor injuries.  Calvin Patisaul's house was destroyed.  Almost  all of his large family suffered some type of injury, though none too serious.   Lee Floyd's wife was badly injured when her house was destroyed.  One vacant tenant house and the vacant old Dave Fountain home were torn to pieces. Tornados never distinguish between occupied and unoccupied houses.

The storm picked up  in strength and rushed toward the Donaldson community two or three miles from Mt. Carmel.   The destruction of homes, worse than at previous points along the storm's path, suddenly became deadly.   A nine-year old daughter of W.J. Southerland was killed when her house was demolished.  Mrs. Dan Knighton and her baby, living in the Southerland home, were injured and taken to the hospital.    M. J.  Crumpton noticed the blackening southwestern sky near Dexter, jumped out of his Chevrolet, and ran to pick up the seven members of his family.  Crumpton then drove "like a bat out of Hades" for a few hundred yards to the home of his son-in-law.  After rescuing four more family members,  Mr. Crumpton drove as fast as could, but not as fast as he wanted to,  for two miles before coming to a settlement road.  He dashed through fields, branches, and ditches,  barely reaching safety, just to the very edge of the storm's deadly reach.  The family returned to their home, only to find that  it had been completely destroyed.   Parts of the house, useless now and  only a painful memory of more pleasant times,  were found on a hilltop a quarter of a mile away.  Many chickens were slaughtered in the maelstrom - a fate which was only hastened by the swirling winds.   The cows fared better, coming out of the storm virtually unscathed, oblivious to what had just passed them by.   Two tenant houses on the Joe Donaldson place were destroyed.

Just before the funnel lifted off the ground,  it reeked a cataclysm on the home of John Knight.  Mr. and Mrs. Knight were seriously injured, each blown some distance from the home and landing in different places.   Mr. Knight's scull was fractured, and his heart and that of his wife were broken forever.  Their baby was found dead, lying forty yards from the house  in a mud puddle, that had rapidly formed in the freshet accompanying the storm.  The brick pillars and the chimney of their house  were picked up and thrown around as if they were small stones.    Mrs. J.W. Thomas lost every building on her farm,  including her house.   J.Q. Pittman also lost his home and just about every thing he had.  

Before leaving the county, the storm struck the Greystone Farms about a mile from Garretta.  One farmer was hurt.  A tenant house was destroyed.  The roof of the overseer's house was snatched completely off,  like the lid on a can of soup.   At that point,  the storm lifted off the ground -  headed toward Emanuel County,  where two were killed and several injured in Norristown.  Two others were killed further over in Emanuel County.   When the twister touched down for a third time, it became even more deadly than ever before.  Eighteen  persons were killed and many more were injured in Metter.  Thirty one  people lost their lives in Statesboro and over a hundred were injured.  Before it was finally over, four more persons were killed in South Carolina.  Tornadic activity continued in subsequent days across the Southeast.

B.H. Lord, President of the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad, the artery which had carried the life blood for the Dexter community for thirty or so years,  arranged for a special  train, which he sent to Dexter on the evening following the storm.  The seriously wounded were returned to Dublin for treatment.   Dublin doctors H.L. Montford, E.B. Claxton, Sidney Walker, and J.W. Edmondson rode the train to treat the  wounded in homes around the devastated community.   Dr. O.H. Cheek, County Health Director, worked all night with members of the local National Guard unit,  supplying the homeless with blankets, bedding, and cots.  Army trucks were converted into ambulances.   Countless women, with no formal training, became nurses - it  seemed the only natural thing to do.  When the comforters, healers, and those who just wanted to help out arrived back home in Dublin, they were greeted by over three hundred grateful and applauding citizens.

 

On Friday morning, when the sky showed no evidence of the previous day's unrelenting  fury,  property owners and local officials assessed the damages.   B.H. Lord, chairman of the disaster relief committee, witnessed the mass destruction first hand, along with Red Cross chairman H.R. Moffett, Red Cross secretary Mrs. Frank Lawson, and treasurer W.H. White.   Two little children were dead.  Twenty five people were seriously injured.  The seven most seriously injured persons were carried to the Claxton-Montford hospital in Dublin.  Many more suffered minor scrapes, cuts, and bruises.   Crop and property damages , originally estimated at one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, were  revised to over three hundred thousand dollars. 

The local chapter of the Red Cross sprung into action.   A national officer of the Red Cross arrived in Cochran in the late afternoon.  The disaster became the first test of the disaster relief committee -  one they passed with flying colors.  Calls from the Dexter City Council and Laurens County officials went out for any type of help.  Senator Walter F. George introduced a bill to bring Federal relief to the devastated areas of Georgia.   A local fund raising effort was initiated by  Laurens County, which donated one thousand dollars along with five hundred dollars by Dexter's neighbor city of Dublin.  Those amounts were nearly matched by local citizens with contributions from ten cents to the thirty five dollars and fifty cents given by Cochran Brothers Grocery.   The national Red Cross donated two thousand dollars for replanting the cotton fields.   Women from all parts  of the county  gathered together at the Chamber of Commerce to coordinate fund raising efforts and make plans for distributing supplies and necessities.  Mrs. Frank Daniel served as chairwoman of the Dexter ladies. 

A second deadly storm struck Laurens County on the morning of February 6, 1942. Farm demonstration agent Effie Lampkin was giving a program in a Montrose Church when a tornado smashed the building, killing Mrs. Lampkin, "Uncle" Sandy Owens, and Sam Gibson.  Fifteen others were injured.   Two churches were destroyed in Montrose.  Another church in the Bethsaida community was razed to the ground.  Dr. William C. Thompson and two of his hospital staff rushed to the scene to set up a field hospital.   The barns of J.W. Whitaker were destroyed.  Wade Dominy, H.W. Wade and a host of Montrose residents lost their homes. 

      The tempest maintained its intensity and  continued barreling toward the southeast as it first touched down in Dublin in Stubbs Park, uprooting or twisting off the tops off at least seventeen trees.  The walls of the recently burned Ritz Theater collapsed and plummeted into the roof of the adjoining Claxton Drug Company.  Miss Jeanelle Chivers, who was working in her father's Grain Company, suffered minor injuries when timbers fell upon her.  Mrs. Gresham Bracewell was severely injured when part of the third story of the old Four Seasons Building, then occupied by the McLellan's store  at the northwest corner of South Jefferson Street and West

Madison Street, collapsed on top of her.    Power was off for more than two hours and phone service was out as well.  Members of the State Guard patrolled the downtown area to prevent looting and to warn pedestrians and drivers of hazardous conditions along the streets of the city.  

     The cyclone, the deadliest in the county's history and the only tornado ever to strike the downtown area, killed three people, injured more than three dozen people and seriously damaged more than forty homes.    Within a few days, the Dublin Minister's Association, led by the Rev. Grover Tyner of the First Baptist Church, established a fund to help repair the demolished churches in Montrose and Bethsaida. 

     Laurens Countians were indirectly affected by two other tornados in the 1950s.  A powerful storm struck Warner Robins on April 30, 1953.  The F4 cyclone, one of the first ever documented on film,   killed twenty people.  A child was killed in Dry Branch and another child victim died later in a Dublin hospital.    Airman Bobby Tennyson Robinson was killed by a tornado at Lawson Air Force Base, Columbus, Georgia on March 13, 1954.  Airman Robinson remained at his sentry post despite the threats to his own safety and died a victim of the Cold War. 

     For the last fifty two years, the National Climatic Data Center has kept detailed records of all major weather events across the nation.  Through the use of more efficient equipment, more storms have been reported than in the previous century and a half. 

     On August 31, 1956, the first of two twisters struck the farm of B.F. Knowles three miles southwest of Dexter at about 4:00 p.m, sweeping the Knowles home from its foundation and carrying it for several feet, set it down softly, and breaking every dish inside.  A second smaller tornado struck the home of Mr. and Mrs. J.N. Skipper four hours later.  The Skippers and their three children survived the onslaught, but their porch and their roof was stripped from their home and their washing machine was blown 30 feet into the yard.  

     An F1, one hundred foot wide tornado tore up trees and houses for a mile in the Garretta community on March 31, 1961.  Obie Mackey, his wife and three children were sitting in the front room of their house, when the twister tore off the roof.  Their truck was thrown for a hundred feet and turned around when it took off the roof of their pump house.    Strips of their tin roof were found well away from the home wrapped around power lines and trees.    The windows of Turkey Creek Baptist Church were sucked out by the cyclonic winds.    The homes of R.C. Williams,  J.W. Brinson and Felton Mimbs were also seriously damaged. Mrs. Marguerite Faulk, County Director of Civil Defense, spearheaded the effort to extend aid to the victims with the assistance of Red Cross chairman of Disaster Relief, H. Dale Thompson, and executive secretary, Louise Howard.   

     A smaller tornado struck along the highway northeast of Rentz on June 3, 1965.

A powerful F2 cyclone damaged property in the amount of a quarter of a million dollars in the early afternoon of  January 13, 1972.  The 200-yard wide storm began southeast of Dudley along Interstate Highway 16 and cut a path of destruction for eleven miles through the Moore's Station community and along Highway 441 North and Country Club Road.  No one sustained any severe injuries.  Thousands were left without power.    The second story of Tom Scott's home at Moore's Station was picked up and scattered.  Irene Coleman's home on Walke Dairy Road was flattened.  Dan Childer's home down the road was nearly split into two pieces.   Grady Wright's Christmas Barn on Hwy. 441 North sustained major damage.   Trees and power lines, as they usually do, fell victim to the winds which were measured in excess of 113 miles per hour. 

     Around 4:00 o'clock p.m. on the afternoon of July 13, 1977, an F1 tornado did $25,000 in damages along a mile path a few miles southeast of Dublin.

     After a respite of 18 years, a tornado returned to its familiar location near Dexter on the afternoon of May 15, 1995, doing minor damage along a one mile path along Hwy. 257 into the edge of Dexter. Marilyn Davidson was attending a prayer service at the Dexter Assembly of God Church when she heard a loud noise, looked out the window and saw a funnel cloud.  Everyone took cover and prayed harder.  All were safe, although Mrs. Davidson's car was struck by a huge limb.  An unconfirmed tornado was reported at Cedar Grove.  The massive flag on the flag pole at Farmer's Furniture's corporate offices was blown away, landing on a power line.  More than

7000 people in the Dublin-McRae-Eastman triangle were left in the dark.  

     

A very minor twister struck 3 miles southwest of Dublin just before noon on March 6, 1996.   Just eight months later, and for the first time in history that two tornados struck the county in the same year, an F1 fifty-yard wide tornado began four miles west of Dexter and ended two miles north of town, doing an estimated $50,000.00 in damages.

Things were relatively calm for almost a decade until three days after Christmas in 2005, an F1 tornado touched down in the Ben Hall Lake area and cut a swath 300 yards wide ending a mile northeast of Lovett, doing an estimated $450,000.00 in damages.  Thirty minutes later, a smaller twister dipped to the ground five miles southeast of Cadwell and damaged only trees.

The early morning hours of April 15, 2007 saw the second documented multi-tornado weather event of the decade.  A small F0 tornado touched down about four miles north-northeast of Cedar Grove.  The 50-yard-wide storm stayed on the ground for nearly six miles.  Damage was estimated at $50,000.00.  Twenty minutes later a stronger F1 tornado touched down five miles southeast of Dublin and traveled for thirteen miles in a northeasterly direction, damaging seventy five thousand dollars in property before lifting from the ground eight miles East South East of Brewton.

Johnny and Mary Hightower were seriously injured when their home was demolished.   The Hightowers were bruised and battered and trapped in the ruins of their home.   Christopher Salinos and his family were much luckier.  The Salinos and their two small children miraculously survived the obliteration of their single-wide mobile home which flipped over several times during the gale.    At least twenty homes were damaged along with an equal or greater number of barns and storage houses.  Most of the damage was centered along Robertson Church Road.  

As is the case in the aftermath of every tornado and severe thunderstorm, the public servants of the Laurens County Sheriff's office, the Laurens County EMS, the Laurens County 911 Center, the Laurens County Fire Department, the Laurens County Emergency Management Authority, the American Red Cross, as well as a host of neighbors, friends and sincere volunteers, swarmed over the afflicted areas lending a hand, hope and a hug. 

The Mother's Day tornados of 2008 will forever be ingrained in the minds of Laurens Countians who are alive today.  A derecho of rotating supercell thunderstorms struck western Georgia just before 4:30 o'clock on the morning of May 11, 2008.  After destroying hundreds of homes and businesses in the western and southern regions of Macon, a line of strong thunderstorms and tornados beared down on Laurens County, merely two hours after they entered the state.    At the last count, the National Weather Service determined that at least ten and as many as an even dozen tornados struck the Middle Georgia area. 

At 6:36, an EF0 tornado with winds below seventy two miles  per hour touched down near the intersection of Old Macon Road and Oscar Wynn Road.  Continuing on an easterly track along Evergreen Road, the twister damaged houses, buildings and a near forest of trees as it grew into an intense F2 storm with winds between 113 and 157 miles per hour as it crossed Highway 441 North and struck the home of James Tracy Clements and his wife  Lisa.  The Clements were inside their home as it was smashed against a wall of trees, killing the couple and running the reported death total from all tornados to seven people.  Miraculously, their two grandchildren survived and sustained only minor injuries.   

At its maximum intensity, the tornado was measured at 250 yards in width.  Over it's nine-mile long swath, the storm damaged two mobile homes, severely damaged six others  and reeked a cataclysm on thousands of trees before weakening as it crossed the Oconee River.  After reaching the Buckeye Community, the storm re-intensified to an F2 storm along the Buckeye Road.

Another storm, measuring winds of 73-122 miles per hour, touched down about a mile west of Tucker's Crossroads in northeastern Laurens County.  Several homes were destroyed.  One truck was reported to have been blown thirty feet by the strong winds.  The storm, calculated to be as wide as a third of a mile at times, sprinted on through Johnson County for a total of ten miles.   

Paling by comparison, a smaller F1 tornado touched down around 7:00 o'clock a.m. about a mile north of Lowery in the southern part of the county.  The half mile long, 200-yard wide gale, damaged one home and uprooted or twisted off numerous trees. 

After the maelstrom subsided, it was once again time for the public servants to spring into action.  Power and utility companies worked desperately to restore power and service to thousands of residents.  As curious onlookers paraded along the route of the storm, a battalion of good deed doers instantly appeared and began doing what good deed doers do.

Though all of us have a better chance of being killed in a car wreck or even by lightning, tornados and severe thunderstorms bearing tornadic velocity straight line winds are extremely dangerous.  Stay tuned to television and radio during the peak of tornado season, but remember tornados can strike our area any time during the year, though most of them occur between December and May.   But remember, tornados have hit Laurens County in every month except September, October and November when the air is traditionally not as moist.   All of us should be especially wary of the menacing tornado, especially in light of the fact that seven of the twenty-five documented tornados in our county's two-hundred year history  have struck our county in the last three years.  

08-29

LET FREEDOM RING!

Our Famous Bells

When we think of the most enduring symbol of American Independence, some might think of fireworks.  This mainly modern pyrotechnic display  pales in comparison  to the sight of the American flag waving in the wind.  No symbol still reverberates the sound of Independence like the bell and in particular, the Liberty Bell of Independence Hall in America's ancient capital of Philadelphia.  Since the early Middle Ages, church bells have rung to celebrate the presence of Christ.  In July 1776, the Liberty Bell was rung to announce America's freedom from England.   The common use of bells in our area were by farmers, who used smaller bells to proclaim the end of a work day or to signal the farmhands that it was time to eat.  These famous bells haven't hung in a church or weren't fastened to the side of a barn, they have been suspended in the bell towers of our government buildings.  This is the story of three of the more famous bells in Laurens County.

The first known courthouse bell was placed in the bell tower of the county's first brick courthouse, which was completed in 1895.  The bell rang hailing the aging heroes of the Confederate army as they gathered for reunions and Confederate Memorial Day celebrations.    

The bell, three feet in diameter, signaled the end of World War I, the "War to End All Wars."   The ringing of the bell started in somewhat of a comedy of errors.  In the predawn hours of a November morning, a call was made from the offices of the Macon Telegraph to Dublin mayor Isadore Bashkinski  that the Armistice had been signed in France.    The peace accord designated that the war, which resulted in the deaths of more than twenty millions souls and injuries to another twenty million combatants and civilians, would end on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.    Locally, the time was 6:00 o'clock on the morning of November 11, 1918.

Some joker got the jump on the official bell ringers and called in a false alarm to the fire department, then located in the City Hall across the street on the northern side of the courthouse square.  Before the echoes of the fire bell subsided, someone began to hammer the bell in the courthouse tower.  Within a quarter of an hour, more than one half of the city's male population turned out to celebrate the end of war.    

Shortly after the ringing of the bell to open that day's sessions in the schools, a holiday was declared.  Students poured into the streets like ants at a picnic.  The celebration lasted throughout the day.  Several boys banged one bell for more than a solid hour, perhaps not so much to celebrate the end of the war, but a day long recess.    Bells continued to ring all over the city.  Grown men cheered and hollered.  One reporter compared their celebration to a  group of young boys playing.  Firecrackers popped.  Businesses closed.  The jubilee ended that night  with a gathering of thanksgiving and speeches at the courthouse. 

During the gubernatorial campaign of 1934, candidate Claude Pittman was scheduled to speak at the courthouse.  The janitor climbed to the clock tower to alert the townspeople.  The bell was designed to be rung by pulling a rope attached to a big wheel.  The rope had frayed and would no longer work.   The janitor climbed a ladder and struck the bell, presumably with a hammer or some metal object.   As he struck the bell, it cracked upward from the base.  

County officials knew that they would need to acquire a new bell since the crack could not be repaired.  The cost of a new bell could have run as high as $2000.00.  The commissioners turned to scrap metal dealer P.M. Watson.  Watson agreed to sell a slightly smaller bronze bell to the county for $100.00.  Despite its smaller size, the bronze bell's vibrations would carry further than the iron one's.  

That bell, which dated back to 1908, came from neighboring Dodge County.  Watson purchased the bell in 1939 after the courthouse fire thinking it might be of further use.   Until Howard Edwards came along with an idea on how to put the bell up in the tower, the old Dodge County bell sat out in front of the courthouse waiting to be hoisted up to its perch.  Edwards had to remove one of the four pillars of the tower to get the bell inside.  

That pillar bore the scars until the old Laurens County Courthouse was razed in 1963.  Dubliner W.W. Walke purchased the bell and donated it to Christ Episcopal Church, where it is still in use today.  The plans to build an elaborate bell tower beside the church  never materialized.  For some time, the bell was turned upside down and used as a planter.  One man in charge of ringing the bell drilled a hole in so that he could ring the bell from the inside of the Church using a long thin wire attached to the hole.  

You may have wondered what happened to the old original Laurens County courthouse bell.  Remember the year it was removed.  Mr. Watson sent the old bell, which had signaled so many important events in our history, to perform one more patriotic duty.  The bell was melted down and used in the war against Germany and Japan in one final act of the fight for liberty. 

The  city of Dublin refurbished the former Hilton Hotel on the courthouse square into a city hall.   John Kelley, Dublin's premier contractor, was hired to do the work.  As a part of the renovation work, Kelley and his crew installed a one ton bell in the top of the courthouse.  The three thousand pound bell was dubbed "Big John" in honor of Alderman Kelley, who also supervised the work on behalf of the city.    The fire department devised a process where the  number of rings of the bells indicated what quadrant of the city the fire was occurring.  Alarm boxes were placed at various locations throughout the city.  When the alarm button was pushed, a particular box rang in the fire department office.  Then the bell was sounded to reflect the location of the fire.  

There is one old tale of a man who always kept his ear open for the sound of the fire bell.  Upon the ringing of the bell, the man would proceed rapidly to the fire, climb on the roof, and break open holes in the roof with his ax.  Ignorant of the draft he was causing in doing so, many houses were lost.  Some sarcastic Dubliners stated that the motto of their fire department was "we never lose a chimney."    

When the City of Dublin moved to its new quarters in 1959, the old city hall was doomed to demolition.  In 1960, the building was razed.  Local scrap metal dealer, P.M. Watson, Jr., purchased the bell.  His workers had an extremely difficult time in taking the bell out of the building.

The bell remained at Watson's place of business until Alonzo Boardman of Augusta came along.  Boardman had to have the bell.  He bought it and made arrangements to have it shipped to his garden fifteen miles from Augusta at Bath, near the notorious Tobacco Road.    Dogwoods, azaleas, and other varieties of plants adorned the Boardman home, which was modeled on an Austrian village.   Boardman's garden, known as Austrian Valley, was located on a 47 acre tract with lakes, fountains, terraces, and a hillside lodge near the Augusta National Golf Club.

08-30

HARTFORD

Western Laurens County's Oldest Town

You may have never heard of Hartford, Georgia.  If you have, you may have never thought of it as being in Laurens County.  But from December 10, 1807 to December 10, 1808, this ancient and dead town of Central Georgia lied within the bounds of Laurens County.  Located at an important crossing spot on the Ocmulgee River, Hartford became the first county seat in Georgia named for a woman.   By the slimmest of margins, Hartford  failed to become one of the most important cities in Georgia history.

The area which became Hartford, Georgia was located on the eastern banks of the Ocmulgee River, opposite Hawkinsville.    The State of Georgia acquired all of the land between the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers from the Creek Nation under the treaty of Ft. Wilkinson in 1801.  Hartford, located at  the extreme southwestern limits of the state at a point where the Lower Uchee Trail crossed the Ocmulgee River, became an important and strategic location for the location of a trading post and frontier defense outposts.  Many historians believe that the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto came to the Hartford area.  Early authorities believed the Spaniard's expedition traveled along the Lower Uchee Trail crossing the Oconee River in northern Laurens County.  Recently, historians have theorized that DeSoto traveled north from Hartford to Macon, where he turned northeast and crossed the Oconee below Milledgeville.    An 1806 survey shows the confluence of two trails just east of the town.

With the opening of the new lands to the Ocmulgee and in anticipation of the acquisition of additional lands beyond the river, the Georgia Legislature contemplated the  relocation of the capital at Louisville.  Forward-looking legislators realized that a new capital should be located on a navigable river.  The finalist locations were Milledgeville on  the Oconee and Hartford on the Ocmulgee.  Milledgeville was selected by a mere one vote.  Supporters of Hartford, which was located on navigable waters, had the last laugh, when after the location of the capital at Milledgeville, it was discovered that the new city was several miles above the limits of the navigable portion of the Oconee River.

Laurens County was created by an act of the legislature on December 10, 1807.  The original limits of the county extended to the upper line of Telfair County near the mouth of Crooked Creek on the southwest and just above the mouth of Shellstone Creek the lower line of what would become Twiggs County. 

Just one year after the creation of Laurens County, a new county, Pulaski, was carved from the western portion of Laurens on December 13, 1808.  Named for Count Casimir Pulaski, a Polish soldier who gave his life in support of the American independence, Pulaski County originally included all of present day Bleckley and Dodge Counties and all of present day Pulaski east of the Ocmulgee.

Counties weren't organized overnight.  A legislative act of December 13, 1809 fixed the site of the public buildings of the new county in Land Lot 394 of the 21st Land District.  A year later, George Walker, Jacob Snell, Allen Tooke, William S. Lancaster and Josiah Everett were chosen as commissioners of the town of Hartford.  The commissioners were given the authority to sell lots for the building of a courthouse and jail.    The new town was named in honor of Nancy Hart, Georgia's heroine of the American Revolution.  Hart County, also named in honor of Hart in 1853, is the only county in Georgia named for a woman.  In 1811, Thomas A. Hill, Solomon Hopkins, Elijah Wallace, Malbourn Lyon and Henry Simmons were named town commissioners until an election could be held in 1813.  

Hartford, it was believed, was going to be a thriving port city.  Physicians and lawyers  moved there in hopes of building their practices, and consequently, their fortunes.  

During its first six years of the county's existence, residents of Hartford and Pulaski County found themselves in constant perils from Indian tribes living across the river.  Four forts were constructed.  Fort Mitchell was located near Hartford.  Fort Greene was located six miles to the south.  Many Laurens Countians volunteered for and were called upon to do his share of frontier duty.  General David Blackshear, of Laurens County, was placed in command of the troops along the Pulaski front.  

It was once said that all roads led to Hartford.  The Lower Uchee Trail ran through present day Cochran and followed Georgia Highway 26 west of Dublin and crossed the Oconee River between the Dublin Country Club and Blackshear's Ferry on a northeasterly course to the Augusta area.   A Federal Road was constructed from Milledgeville through Longstreet down to Hartford. The Chicken Road ran from Hartford  to what became Empire.  After running a few miles south of present day Dudley, the Chicken Road (still in existence) entered Dublin along Moore Station Road.  

In addition to old Indian trails, four military roads were constructed during the War of 1812.  The first road was built by Major Elijah Blackshear of Laurens County.  This road ran northeasterly along the Chicken Road to Empire. From that point, the road generally followed U.S. Hwy. 23 to the Georgia coast near Darien.  A second road was used by General David Blackshear to transport troops along the eastern banks of the Ocmulgee northward to Camp Hope near Macon.  The General also constructed a road running southeast along the Ocmulgee through Jacksonville, the ancient capital of Telfair County, and down the Altamaha to the coast.  The fourth, and most famous Blackshear Road, ran westerly from Hartford through Indian territory to Fort Early.  This road provided a vital way of passage during the Indian troubles of 1818.  

It was during 1818, when Hartford became the center of military operations against the Seminoles in Florida and southern Georgia and Alabama.  General Andrew Jackson and his army spent a week in Hartford in preparation for military actions.

By 1836, the need to move the county seat across the river became apparent.  With most of the county lying on the west side of the river and the land around Hartford not being suitable for expansion, the legislature voted to establish Hawkinsville as the new capital of Pulaski County.

Today, there are few, if any,  remnants of Old Hartford.  Though the area is still known as the Hartford District, the ancient cedars which once surrounded the courthouse are gone as well.   The next time you travel to Hawkinsville, think back two hundred years ago to a time when this tiny hamlet of Hartford nearly became the capital of Georgia.

 

08-31

THE B-52'S ARE COMING!

A Promise Unfulfilled

“What if’s” are the things that dreams are made of.  Whether mere conjecture or near reality, pondering what might have happened “if” has long been the  preoccupation of historians and sociologists alike.  Laurens County is not immune from such speculation.  In the 1830s, county leaders blocked an effort to run the Central of Georgia Railway through the heart of the county, the effect of which would have been a long lasting economic boom to a decaying and overlooked river port town.  The negative impact would have been a total destruction by General William T. Sherman’s right wing as it passed through the area on its “March to the Sea.”  In the post World War II years, the Defense Department was surveying sites for the location of the Air Force Academy.  Milledgeville congressman, long time supporter of Laurens County, and supplier of Federal monies, Carl Vinson, wanted the new installation to be located in his district and particularly in Dublin.  Though Dublin was one of 582 possible sites, Vinson was the most influential congressional Democrat when it came to military affairs.  After the project faltered for six years into a government in control of the Republican president and Congress, Vinson failed, but he wasn’t deterred.

As the Cold War continued to heat up after the end of the Korean War, military strategists stepped up their plans for global warfare.  In 1946, the Pentagon established the Strategic Air Command, or “SAC” for short.  The flagship of the command was the highly dependable and long range bomber dubbed the “B-52.”  More than fifty-three years later, these heavy bombers remain as an integral part of the United States Air Force.

These flying fortresses needed places to stay when not in combat or engaging in training missions.  Once again enter Carl Vinson.  No longer yielding the power he had during World War II as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Vinson, the leading  minority member, was highly regarded as an expert on military affairs.

Seeing his chance to give his district an eternal economic boost, Congressman Vinson inserted into a joint House-Senate committee resolution a proposal to build a huge base in Dublin as the headquarters for strategic bombing operations.

The 838-acre site of the base would be centered on the former Naval Air Field northwest of Dublin and which is now the Laurens County Airport. With three near mile-long runways already in place and configured in a triangle, the site was much preferable to a secondary site on the Laurens/Johnson County line in the Buckeye District.   Built in 1943, the old airport was originally designed to accommodate flights in and out of Dublin for staff and patients of the United States Naval Hospital, the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center.  

If the largest base, a bomber wing facility, was built, a total of 5,000 acres would have been necessary.  The mid-sized choice, designed for a squadron, was the most likely choice.  Even if an emergency landing facility, the smallest of the three options, had been constructed, its runways would have needed to be extended to a distance of 12,000 feet, or more than two miles long.  

The conference committee, chaired by Vinson, approved the new base as a part of the government’s plan to decentralize the operations of the B-52 in the event the bombers were necessary to carry out retaliatory strikes against nuclear attacks on the United States - in other words against the Russians.

Local officials were beyond ecstatic.  Mayor Felton Pierce proclaimed that the air base would be of such magnitude it would help Dublin considerably.  Pierce further stated, “even Macon and other Middle Georgia towns would feel the effect of such a thing.”   Initial estimates anticipated the location of 15 to  45 planes manned by 270 officers and 1800 airmen and aided by 1700 to 5200 civilian employees, the latter representing one-sixth of the entire county population. 

In June of 1956, Vinson and his colleagues appropriated 6.5 million dollars for the project in which the existing runways would be lengthened and reinforced with stronger concrete.  Pierce and others didn’t seem to mind that the community’s private airport would be obliterated, believing instead that the city and county could work together and build another one well away from the flight paths of incoming and outgoing bombers.

The early July deal between the two houses wasn’t a done deal.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower wasn’t happy with the projects in the bill.  He threatened to veto the measure, and he did.  The President stated that Congress had overstepped the constitutional line between the legislative and executive branches because the legislation provided that the Defense Department could have not spent money on missile sites without congressional approval.    Remember Georgia was a solid Democratic state and even though he was a hero of World War II, he was a Republican.  In that year when racial relations came to the forefront of the legislature, many Georgians simply didn’t “like Ike.”  The big problem was that the Air Force hadn’t even requested the base in Dublin as well as two others.  In order to get the military spending bill beyond an Eisenhower veto, the conferees dropped the projects at Mitchell, South Dakota, Hobbs Air Force Base, and in Dublin from the compromise bill.   A contingent of Air Forces officials came to Dublin on August 1 to determine the propriety of locating the installation in Dublin.  Vinson continued to adamantly promise the location of the base, either presently or in the future.  He was once quoted as saying that the base would be built, “as sure as Christmas comes.”  Many Christmases came, but the base never did. 

Though there were  promises of future surveys and Vinson’s determination to build some sort of military installation in Dublin, the plans were officially dropped in the winter of 1957, when an Air Force report determined that there was no military need for a base in Dublin.

Carl Vinson had tried.  Though the base was never built, the Congressman did give us a Naval Hospital, an Interstate highway, the funds to build the first Federally funded county courthouse in the United States, and one of the first Federally funded county libraries in the country.

Thus begs the inevitable hypothetical questions.  What if the government had built the base?  What would Dublin and Laurens County have looked like today?    Would we have looked like Warner Robins?  We probably would.  Our athletic teams would have been nearly unbeatable. Our highways would be wider and busier. Our neighborhoods would been denser and more numerous.  

But is that what we really wanted?  Yes, progress is nice and necessary, especially moderate growth with the ability to expand our infrastructure.  But an overnight life-altering and radical changes in our county wouldn’t be right for me or you.  I love where we live just the way it is.  With our eyes and hearts continuously focused on improving our community,   we have fared much better than if the bombers shook and rattled our lives as they kept the World at peace.

08-32

ORALIE TROUP VIGAL

Shattered Dreams

Her parents named her Oralie, or "the golden child."  All of her life Oralie dreamed of being happy.  Born into great wealth, she never seemed to find the alluring bliss she longed for and so desperately hoped to find.  This little rich girl grew up without the constant presence of a father and without the guidance and nurturing of her mother, who died at a young age.  In her autumn years, Oralie was labeled a "lunatic" and involuntarily confined within the inescapable and claustrophobic walls of the Lunatic Asylum of Georgia.

Oralie Troup was born about the year 1820 - perhaps in Laurens County or wherever her mother may have sought the best medical attention.  Her father was George M. Troup.  Troup served two terms as Governor of Georgia, as well as terms as a United States congressman and senator.  Governor Troup and his family  moved to Laurens County around 1815.  Oralie's mother, Ann Carter, was a great granddaughter of Robert "King" Carter of Albemarle County, Virginia and one of the wealthiest landowners in Colonial Virginia.  Oralie was a second cousin of arguably one of the most famous southerners ever, General Robert E. Lee.

Oralie spent much of her youth with her older sister Florida and their Troup cousins who lived at Broughton Island near Darien in McIntosh County, where educational opportunities were much more available and where she could live a proper social life in keeping with her lavish lifestyle, much more so than in the sparsely populated agrarian back woods of Central Georgia.

Florida and Oralie developed an acquaintance with Fannie Kemble Butler, an English actress who resided on the nearby Butler Plantation.  Mrs. Butler kept journals of her experiences in the slave holding plantations of the coastal Georgia islands.  In them, she described Oralie as one of the most beautiful women she had met in America.   After a bitter divorce from her husband, Mrs. Butler published her journals in an effort to promote the abolition of slavery and convince the government of her native land to refrain from entering the Civil War on behalf of the South.

While there are no existing census records to show her residence before 1850,  Oralie did live in the home of her father at his Valdosta Plantation on the Old River Road, southeast of Dublin.  As the woman of the house, Oralie entertained visitors on their travels from Darien to the capital in Milledgeville.  The death of her sister Florida- perhaps her dearest friend -  in 1847, and living in solace with her rapidly aging and frequently ailing father and her ne'er-do-well brother George, Jr. did little to further her dreams of eternal happiness.  

Following the Governor's death in 1856 and that of George Jr. a few years later, litigation, often ugly and greedy, ensued between the heirs of the Governor, who had amassed a substantial fortune in real property and slaves.   The remaining heirs, all children of Florida, stood to inherit all of the estate of their grandfather if Oralie never had any children.   Oralie's share of the estate amounted to some $30,000 in land and more than $100,000 in the market value of the slaves she owned.   

Oralie chose to live on what had theretofore been called the Turkey Creek Plantation of the eastern outskirts of present day Dudley.  In 1860, Miss Troup made substantial improvements to the place, which she renamed Vallambrosa for a Benedictine abbey in the Appenine Mountains of Tuscany, Italy.  At the terminus of a winding path near the banks of Turkey Creek was a spring house, which featured a stone arch with the words "Oralie Troup 1860" carved in a stone marker along with a goblet centered inside a  four-leaf clover.  In point of fact, the spring house was not a house at all.  Moreover, it had no roof.  The simple structure resembled the entrance to an ancient Hebrew tomb carved in the side of a steeply sloping hill.  The stone, its original lettering now somewhat eroded,  rests in front of the Dublin-Laurens Museum.

 

The dark clouds of the Civil War opened in the latter months of 1865 in glorious splendor.  Oralie was anywhere from the age of 45 to 56, depending on which source you believe - the former being more likely than the latter.  Considered an old maid, her hopes for marriage at her age were slight, unless the suitors, who came looking for riches instead of youthful beauty, might come and court the  lonely Oralie. She had fully intended to marry before.  Oralie had the finest brocaded satin wedding dress tailored for her wedding, but the prospective groom met with an untimely death before the couple shared their vows. 

Enter one John A. Vigal, a Macon native who had lately resided in Sumter County before the beginning of the war.  An Assistant Surgeon of the 33rd N.C. Infantry Regiment, the presumably handsome and relatively young widower with two young sons, moved to Dublin to open his practice.  There he began to court Miss Oralie, some fifteen years his senior.   Though he was nowhere near destitute, his means were considerably less than those of the wealthy spinster.  John Vigal bore the scars of sorrow as well.  The scarlet stains of ceaseless carnage never  faded from his surgeon hands.  After losing his wife at a tender age, Dr. Vigal found himself amputating limbs and watching young boys bleed to death  in the blood-splattered field hospitals of Lee's army, who suffered acceptable casualties at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, but were slaughtered by slightly more than a score of thousands in a shallow valley south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,  some two summers prior. 

Though Oralie was "past the days of her youth," she was quite loved by those who knew her.  Tall and graceful, Oralie loved to dance. Finally she would dance with the man of her dreams.  In the days before Christmas, John Vigal proposed marriage to Oralie, who readily  accepted.   Oralie had her servants to take out her abandoned dress and revitalize it for her grand wedding, which was held on January 11, 1866. 

Sometime  in the fall of 1870 or the early winter of 1871,  it is not exactly known when,  Dr. Vigal fell ill.  He traveled to Macon to seek treatment.  Soon he removed himself to a healthier climate.  On June 14, 1871 , Oralie received a communique that her beloved John had died.  

Oralie’s life was about to change. And, once again, happiness devolved into sorrow.  Oralie’s stepsons, Clifford and Joseph, were sent back to their blood relatives, leaving her to face the world alone once again.  

Most of the people that knew  Oralie would tell you that she  “had little capacity for business and that she was generous to a fault.”  Credulous and trusting, Oralie was susceptible to connivers, schemers and fortune swindling lotharios.    Oralie was the last surviving child of George and Anne Troup.   She was in her early fifties and there was no one around to protect her from the avaricious miscreants who might seek to relieve her of her life sustaining affluence.  

It was about this time that the children of her departed and beloved sister Florida traveled to Vallambrosa to seek to take care of her affairs.  Col. Robert Wayne, husband of Augusta  Bryan and a veteran of the late war, assumed control of her affairs.  

The Vigals executed a post nuptial agreement which set forth the terms of the ownership of their respective properties.  Oralie’s lands, which amounted to nearly 5,000 acres, was placed in the hands of her husband to manage and control for her benefit, but not to be sold without her consent.  Vigal, in exchange for his services, was entitled to the use of the profits for the education and maintenance of his sons.  This was done without any requirement of any accounting to her whatsoever - a clause which would lead to much consternation after Vigal’s death.  Oralie stipulated that if she was to die before her husband, that all of her property should go to her children, and if she bore none, to her husband and his heirs.  

When Col. Wayne began to investigate Oralie’s assets and legal affairs, he discovered that Vigal had taken it upon himself to invest some of the excess and unreported  profits into bonds of the Macon and Brunswick Railroad and placed them in the hands of a trustee for the benefit of his sons.   Wayne believed that the late doctor had been embezzling funds from Oralie.  It was further apparent that Vigal did not maintain an extensive medical practice - the only extant evidence of his practice came more than three years after his death when the Simmons Liver Regulator Company published his testimonial of the benefits of their product, a statement attested to by dozens of Georgia luminaries.  

Upon the advice of her counsel, Oralie repudiated the terms of her agreement and sought to set aside the unwise relinquishment of her property to her late husband and his sons.  A jury agreed and all of her property rights were returned to her, of course under the management of her nephew by marriage.

Col. Wayne sought and was granted letters of guardianship of the affairs of Oralie.  Believing in his mind and the minds of his wife and in-laws that Oralie was incapable of handling her affairs, Wayne petitioned for a writ of lunacy directing that Oralie be confined to the Lunatic Asylum located on the outskirts of  the former Georgia capital of Milledgeville.   Oralie was taken under protest to the dreadful facility, where she was admitted on November 16, 1873.  

During her initial stay in the asylum, which lasted at least until June 30, 1875, Oralie received infrequent visits from her family.  Wayne did order and pay for the delivery of her favorite foods; lemons, oranges, sugar and cakes, as well as hair brushes and perfumes as pleasant reminders of the grand ole days when life was sweet and without care.   Meanwhile, the Waynes lived at Vallambrosa in lavishness.

After a confinement of six months, rumblings began among Oralie’s friends and acquaintances that she was being imprisoned as a part of a scheme to get rid of her and gain possession of her exceedingly valuable estate.  A correspondent of the Macon Telegraph denounced her immediate relatives and suggested their involvement in the dastardly scheme.  He communicated his suspicions to the superintendent of the asylum, Dr. Green, pleading with him to observe and analyze Mrs. Vigal’s behavior and to verify that she had been justly committed to the institution.

Apparently sometime later, Oralie was sent home on a permanent, or perhaps only temporary, basis.  For on October 10, 1877, Robert Wayne, acting as guardian for Oralie, petitioned Judge John T. Duncan, Judge of the Laurens County Court of Ordinary, for the appointment  of a commission to determine the propriety of an order to recommit Oralie back to the asylum.   Wayne alleged that his ward “had become very violent,”  and that he “had been unable to return her to home without force.”   Believing that she would be better cared for back at the asylum, Wayne asked the court to investigate the matter.  

Judge Duncan appointed a thirteen-man jury to meet at the schoolhouse near Mr. Moore’s house on October 24th  to try the issue of Oralie’s sanity.    D.H. Combs was elected foreman by the panel, which included David Ware, Stephen B.  Whipple, George H. Ware, John W. Horn, J.C. Pope, R.R. Stanley, J.T. Pope, C.C. Stokes, W.W. Howard, J.F. Howard and A.F. Thomas.  W.P.W. Anderson testified along with Oralie’s  nephew Hugh Bryan that Mrs. Vigal was incapable of handling her affairs.  Wayne and a letter by Gen. T.P. Smith corroborated the testimony of Dr. W.J. Kurtz.  Kurtz, a member of the jury, testified that he had known Mrs. Vigal for more than fifteen years and that he had recently spent one night and the better parts of two days observing her mental condition.  Kurtz was satisfied that her mind was much impaired and that she was unsure and incapable of taking care of herself.  Kurtz told the jurors, who agreed with his beliefs, that it was in Oralie’s best interest that she be sent to the institution where she could live with all the comforts of home - it being noted by the court that she possessed sufficient assets to enjoy said comforts for many years to come.  But the years didn’t come.  Nearly eighteen months after her return to the mental hospital, Oralie died on May 15, 1879.  All alone and without anyone she could truly call a friend, Oralie was back in the arms of her parents and her sister Florida, who would love her for all eternity.   

Oralie’s desire for everlasting contentment always seemed to have alluded her.  The happy times were often interrupted by years of loneliness and fortnight after fortnight of despair.  Her remains lie beneath an anonymous urn  with no indication of who she was or when she was born or when she died. In her death as in her life, she was separated from her family.  Lying just beyond her feet is Dr. Patrick Hoey, a doctor from Dublin, Ireland, who was a friend of Elijah Blackshear, an officer of the War of 1812 and the original owner of the  place on Turkey Creek.  Blackshear’s mortal remains lie to Oralie’s right in the cemetery in the yard of the now indiscernible Vallambrosa.   Even the promised obituary by the editors of Dublin Post never materialized.  Only a few of the ancient live oaks remain to mark the spot where, if only for a brief time, Oralie finally found true and belatedly deserved  happiness before she faded away into the future of obscurity, that is until now.   

08-33

BLACK GOLD!  TEXAS TEA!

Oil in Georgia

Black Gold!  Texas Tea!  Uncle Jed Clampett never found any oil in Laurens County.  It is here, but no slug of Jed’s trusty rifle could penetrate the ground deep enough to bring up the bubbling crude which is there and has been there for hundreds of thousands of years.  During the waning years of the Cretaceous period, millions of years ago, oil began to form from the remains of dead sea animals and plants along the receding coast line of the Atlantic Ocean.

For nearly three hundred years, oil had not been a necessary commodity for Americans.  It was not until the horseless carriage came along, that the slippery substance, which had only been used for lubricating stationary engines, become such a highly prized  viscous and highly valuable liquid. 

The first two oil wells in Georgia were drilled four and one half miles northwest and eight miles west  of Rome in 1902.  Neither of them were successful.  In 1908 and for three successive years, oil seekers worked to strike a gusher seven miles south of Madison in Morgan County.  At a depth of 1,015, the drillers gave up and went back home. 

The most common instances of the location of oil in Georgia are in seeps, which are places where oil rises to the surface, usually along streams or the banks of springs.  The majority of these seeps seem to follow a line from south of Augusta on the Savannah River, through Louisville, Sandersville, Wrightsville, lower Laurens County, Scotland, and Hawkinsville, along the line separating the lower and upper coastal plain.

   

Seeps weren’t known to be indicative of any underlying geological formations, which usually indicate the presence of massive pools of oil underneath.    In nearby Johnson County on the old Ed Spell farm, some four crow-fly miles north-northwest of Wrightsville,  Oil was found in globules and thick films in and around a small spring.  Geological tests from the seepage on the Spell farm to be greater than any other place in the state.    

Two oil seeps, one twelve miles west and another a half mile east of Hawkinsville, were noted for their massive amount of oil globules seeping up from the watery ground.

Perhaps the most celebrated oil seep ever discovered in Georgia was found in northeastern Telfair County near the village of Scotland.  In the fall of 1919, a team of geologists conducted a series of tests on the farm of H.G. Sample, eight tenths of a mile south of the town on the road to Lumber City.  State Geologist Dr. S. W. McCallie collected a pint sized sample which tested about sixty percent kerosene  - a level comparable to California crude, but somewhat inferior to the oil found in Texas and Oklahoma.  

The unexpected discovery led to eager, but reserved, excitement in the state capital in Atlanta, where a meeting of the Geological Board took place to discuss future plans for testing.  McCallie, in an attempt to restrain wild stake grabbing, issued a public statement confirming the presence of substantial seepage, but warned that  no substantial evidence of a workable  pool of oil was yet found.  Folks in Telfair County had been noticing the seepage for more than a quarter of a century, but never drew any conclusions as to its sources.  After discounting that the oil was simply the excess oil used to treat hogs for cholera, McCallie was convinced that the oil was naturally occurring.  He ordered an expanded examination of a hundred square mile area.  With inclusive results in hand, McCallie believed that a test well would yield oil somewhere at a depth of 1500 to 3000 feet in the cretaceous strata.    

It didn’t take long for the profiteers and exploiters to spring into action.  Within a few days of the announcement of the potential find, R.L. Kinchen, of Scotland,  led the organization of a dozen investors who rapidly acquired four thousand leased acres with their fortune-seeking eyes on as many a hundred thousand more acres of potential oil sites.  Speculation was wild.  Wildcatters, skulkers and the pure greedy were descending on Scotland like ants at a dinner on the grounds at the Smith family reunion.  Bidders piled on top of each other hounding Mr. Sample and his flabbergasted wife with lucrative and unrefusable offers, said by some to have amounted to fifty thousand dollars or more.  

By the opening of spring, the Telfair Oil Company was beginning the final preparations to begin drilling.  With more than a half million dollars in capital, the company imported drilling equipment from Kentucky and  piping from Pittsburgh.  Saw mill workers began to fashion beams to erect a derrick.    The experiment failed.  No large quantities of oil were ever found.  Investors, some greedy and others poor farmers trying to keep their families fed in the pre-Depression years, lost life  long fortunes, which  evaporated in a matter of weeks.  

McCallie and his staff continued to explore for oil in eastern and central Georgia.  A possible location was found in the northern part of Emanuel County, but no potential sites were found near Millen, despite some signs to the contrary.  

One Laurens Countian got in on the action. I.E. Thigpen spent $50,000.00 to purchase 3,400 acres of a promising oil field  in Jeff Davis County in 1920.   His descendants will tell you that he never struck oil. 

In the years preceding World War II,   owners of large tracts of land in Laurens County reserved all mineral rights to the lands they sold.  One such tract, which is still under lease rights today, is occupied by the neighbors of Quail Hollow Subdivision off Academy Avenue Extension.

In February 1971, Texaco, Inc. petitioned the Commissioners of Laurens County for permission to explore the possibility of oil deposits in the county.  The commissioners granted the company the right to conduct seismographic tests along the right of ways of county roads.  Texaco’s engineers placed explosive charges in the ground, ignited them and  then looked for signs of the presence of geological structures which might tend to support the presence of oil.  

F.W. McCain and George Nicholson were granted permission a year later to drill for oil on the property of R.T. Gilder, sixteen miles below Dublin.  With a standing reward of  a quarter of a million dollars to the first person to begin commercial production of more than 100 barrels per day, the State of Georgia was inundated with drillers looking to make millions for themselves and millions more for the state’s coffers .   As was the case with the 139 previous attempts, McCain and Nicholson were unsuccessful in their venture.

In the 1980s, the Southeastern Exploration Company signed leases for tens of thousands of acres of land in eastern and southern Laurens County in one final attempt to strike it rich.  No oil was ever found.  

And now, more than a century after the first oil wells were dug in Georgia and  when we need more oil that we can import from around the world, our gas guzzling auto’s  thirst for more oil and gas  may lead us back to beneath the ground we walk on, and for those who still do, shoot rabbits  on.  Maybe one day, one of us will strike it rich, become a millionaire,  and move to Beverly Hills.   Then we and all your kin will load up our trucks and SUVs, take off our shoes,  sit a spell with you, take a dip in the cement pond, and see a few movie stars.  But as for me,  I have been to Beverly Hills twice. And,  right here in this locality, hospitality and all, is  where  I want to be.

08-34

CEDAR GROVE 

The First Hundred Years

On August 17, 2008, the town, or should I say the community of Cedar Grove, will officially turn one hundred years old.  In reality, Cedar Grove, or the community that it encompasses has been around for much longer than that.  Cedar Grove has always been a community.  Cedar Grove, the town, never seemed to get off the ground.  The fates against it, Cedar Grove is the only incorporated Laurens County town to have never had a post office and though it was the largest Laurens County town ever created by the Georgia Legislature, its location far away from railroads and populous centers doomed it to fail as a municipality.  In the end, Cedar Grove and those who have lived there and those who still live there have persevered to make it a fine place to live.

Early residents of the community, the Clarks, Gays, and Burches   often traded for goods and supplies, not in Dublin, some twenty three-airline miles away, but instead along with other early residents of Scottish descent in Montgomery County, now Wheeler County, in the community of Little York, once located west of Alamo.  Later in the 19th Century, residents traded at McRae, ten miles closer than Dublin. 

Before there was a Cedar Grove, there was Arthur, Georgia.  Located near the intersection of Georgia Highway 45 and Paul Young Road and west of the present Cedar Grove Crossroads, Arthur, established as a post office on June 29, 1880, was named for Arthur Burch, a member of the Burch family, who has for more than a century and a half lived in the area.  The first postmaster at Arthur was Daniel H. Burch.  He was succeeded by D. Cabie, who served for only 18 days until Arthur Burch took office. Arthur Burch only  served for 79 days until John Burch was sworn in as postmaster, a post he held until C.M. Clark became the final postmaster in 1900.  The post office was closed on September 22, 1908 and the mail ordered to be sent to Depue in Dodge County.  

In the latter decades of the 19th Century, what would become the Cedar Grove community was inhabited by the Browning, Burch, Caldwell, Clark, Clements, Colemans, Currie, Gay, Harrell, Harrelson, Lowery, Miller, Mullis, Purvis, Ryals, Sears, Taylor and White families.   

Citizens of McRae desperately wanted a railroad to Dublin.  They had hoped to lure the Dublin and Southwestern Railroad away from Eastman.  In 1904 the men from Telfair County met and formed the McRae and Dublin Railroad Company. C.B. Parker was elected President of the company.  Grading was begun from the depot to the Seaboard Air Line near the Oil and Fertilizer plant.   Ransom Rogers of Atlanta laid off the route and the work was begun on the 35-mile road.  The road progressed along the present day Highway 441 toward Dublin, but failed due to lack of financial support.  Telfair County tried again in 1912.  The Jacksonville, McRae, and Northern Railway was incorporated to build a road from the Ocmulgee near Jacksonville through McRae and northward to Dublin through Cedar Grove. One of the incorporators was future Georgia governor, Eugene Talmadge.  Like many other attempts, this railroad also failed.  The coming of the railroad would mean new people and, more importantly, more money for the Cedar Grove Community.  

Promoters of an actual town had high hopes.  On August 17, 1908, the Georgia Legislature adopted a bill incorporating the town of Cedar Grove.  It was the largest town ever created in Laurens County.  With twenty four land lots of two hundred two and one-half acres each, the new town was 4,860 acres in size or 7.59 square miles.  John P. Harrell was named as the town's first mayor.  James Purvis, J.T. Parish, W.E. Kinchen, J.Y. Hill, and S. Harrelson were named to the first town council until an election was held on the first Saturday in January 1909. 

Yet, there is one burning and mystifying question about Cedar Grove which still puzzles anyone who ever lived there or just passed through.  Where are the cedar trees?   Well, the story goes like this.  About the year 1869, Rev. Cornelious Clark, a righteous and God-fearing man, wanted to build a church near his home.  He remembered a grove of cedars growing in a nearby cemetery and decided that this would be the place for his house of worship and obviously named it "Cedar Grove." Samuel Harrelson, Mary Pharis, B.L. Lowery and others joined with him in establishing the new church.   Others took offense that the community's church would not be located in a more central location, so B.L. and Lamar Lowery offered to build a church in the triangle formed by Georgia Highways 46 and 126 and Sudie Pearl Jones Road, about one and a quarter miles to the northwest along Sudie Pearl Jones Road.    Clark reluctantly agreed to the new location but insisted that the name Cedar Grove be retained.  And, it did.  

The most accepted authorities state that Purvis' store was the first business in the town.  Sam Mackey, Russell Howell and Cordie Joiner also operated establishments there.

Cedar Grove became the center of religious, civic and educational activities.  The earliest church, the Clark Baptist Church, ceased to exist in the 1880s.  There was a New Hope Church located southwest of the Cedar Grove Crossing off Chic Inn Road.  

The Masons of lower Laurens County organized the Whiteford Masonic Lodge in 1885, moved to the Lowery community shortly thereafter, and  later returned to Cedar Grove.  The Odd Fellows of Cedar Grove established a lodge, which they share with the Masons.  

The original school began in a log church.  As the school population grew, classes were held in the lower floor of the Masonic Lodge until 1924, when the schools of Whitewater, Oakdale and Union Springs were consolidated into Cedar Grove School.  A large school, for its time, was built in 1926 and expanded in 1939.  The school closed and  merged into Laurens High School near Rentz.  

In 1920, the Cedar Grove Community Council was created to help promote the community.  The original members were:  J.W. Horne, J.T. Grimsley, D.E. Grinstead, J.C. Ussery, J.F. Burch, J.W. Purvis, R.F. Gay, M.L. Miller, B.H. Howell, C.W. Clark, A.B. Miller, H.R. Gilder, J.P. Jackson, Dr. B.S. Benson, R.L. Thigpen, B.L. Lowery, E.N. Johnson, S.L. Miller, L.L. Howell, A.H. Johnson, M.L. Beasley.

The actual town of Cedar Grove only existed for ten years and two days.  For on August 19, 1918, when most of her citizens were fighting World War I, the boll weevil and flu bugs, the Georgia Legislature in its enigmatic wisdom repealed the town's charter.  They might have killed the town, but they could never kill the spirit of Cedar Grovers, who love their community as their forebearers did.   

08-35

KYLE T. ALFRIEND

A Super Superintendent

When the Dublin City Board of Education began to seek a replacement for W.R. Lanier as Superintendent of the Dublin City School System, they knew they needed to find the best man -women weren't considered in those days- for the job.  As one of the leading cities in the state at the time, the appointment of a highly qualified individual was critical.  The board chose, and wisely so, Kyle Terry Alfriend of Hancock County, Georgia to take charge of the five hundred and twenty five student system.   Though this would be the only time in his career that Alfriend served as a superintendent of a public school system, he was regarded by his peers as one of the foremost educators in the state.  Morever, many considered him to be one of the finest educators in the Southeast.

Kyle Terry Alfriend, Sr. was born on October 17, 1874 in Hancock County, Georgia.  A son of Benjamin Abram and Mary Alfriend, Kyle was a member of the first graduating class of Sparta High School.  He attended George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, where he obtained his formal training as a teacher.  For eleven years, Alfriend taught Latin and history at Georgia Military College in Milledgeville.

Based on outstanding recommendations, the Dublin Board of Education appointed Kyle Alfriend as school superintendent for the 1906-1907 school year.  During his first year, Superintendent Alfriend was paid the grand sum of $1250.00.  As superintendent, Alfriend occupied an honorary seat on the Board of Trustees of the newly constructed Carnegie Library.  He completed his second term in 1908, before a wealthier system called upon him to take charge of their main high school.

Beginning in the fall of 1908 and for four years, Alfriend took over the principalship of Lanier and Gresham High Schools, Macon main boy's and girl's secondary schools respectively.  

He returned to Milledgeville, not at Georgia Military College, but down the street at Georgia Normal and Industrial College.  As chairman of the Department of History and Sociology and active in the civic affairs of the old Capital City, Professor Alfriend became a well-known leader in the college and in Baldwin County as well.  The voters elected Alfriend in 1919 to represent them for a two-year term in the Georgia Legislature.  Naturally, he was named to chair the House Committee on Education.   Representative Alfriend led the fight for a compulsory tax to support local public schools and the Barrett-Rogers Act consolidating smaller schools to increase the amount of funds available directly for education. 

Professor Alfriend was always an active member of the Georgia Educational Association.  In 1919, he was elected the secretary of the group of educators dedicated to the promotion of advances in Georgia's schools.    The following year, his fellow members elected him vice-president.

In 1920, Kyle Alfriend took a new job and moved across the downtown area back to Georgia Military College, this time as President of the institution.  

Two years later, President Alfriend took office as President of the Georgia Educational Association.  During his term, the organization's membership tripled its number of members.   In addressing the delegates at the convention in Columbus, Alfriend stated his belief that, "Our main purpose is to better the conditions in rural schools.  Not only do we want to better school houses," he said, "But, we want a better environment, better equipped teachers, all of which means that we will need more money," Alfriend concluded. 

Alfriend specifically addressed the members of the Parent Teacher Association in attendance pointing out the critical need to co-ordinate the three essential elements of education; home, church and school.  

Though he was addressing educators more than eighty-five years ago, Alfriend's words still ring true today.  "It is extremely difficult for teachers to properly carry out their work in the schools if they do not have the absolute sympathy of the parents," he said as he appealed to all of the mothers in the state to support their schools and their teachers.  

Alfriend urged his congregation to eliminate the evils of ignorance and poverty among the student population believing that poverty perpetuated ignorance and ignorance perpetuated poverty.  

In the years following the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution allowing women to vote, President Alfriend urged the women present to register to vote so as to empower them in making decisions in the operation of schools in the state, thereby insuring the happiness of their children.

To make a point about the necessity of more investment into the public school systems, Alfriend pointed out that usually a community's crown jewels were its courthouse and jail. He urged the community leaders in attendance to shift their efforts to building bigger and better schools and to show them off as a symbol of their town's commitment to quality education.  

Later that year, Alfriend conducted an unsuccessful campaign for the office of State School Superintendent.  After losing the election to M.A. Brittain, Alfred returned to the classroom as Professor of History at Bessie Tift College in Forsyth, but continued to serve as Secretary of the Georgia Education Association.  While at Bessie Tift, Alfriend served as Dean. He also taught education and psychology. 

In his family life, Professor Alfriend married Katherine (Katie) Elizabeth Cone, daughter of his Georgia Military College supervisor, Professor Oscar Malcolm Cone,  on December 22, 1904 in her native home of Milledgeville.    They had five children: Kyle Terry, Jr., Malcolm Cone, Mary Watts, Rebecca Hunt and Katherine Carr.

An accomplished Mason, Alfriend was elected Master of the Benevolent Lodge # 3 in Milledgeville in 1922.  

Kyle Terry Alfriend, Sr. died on March 20, 1946 at the age of seventy-two.  He is buried in  Milledgeville next to his wife.

08-36

CLARK GRIER

Firing Up the Bull Moose

"Politics," Sir Winston Churchill once said, "is almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous.  In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times."  That evaluation was never more true than in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century when one Dublin man was assaulted with factional shots, only to persevere through one of most political divisive periods in American history, not only between the Democrats and Republicans, but between the divisions of the Republican party as well.  And, right in the middle of one of the greatest chasms inside the Republican Party, this man led a revolt at the Republican Convention of 1912 resulting in creation of a new party known as the Progressive Party, or the "Bull Moose Party," which was led by former president Theodore Roosevelt, rated by many as one of the greatest presidents in American history.

Clark Grier was born on August 11, 1860 in Griswoldville, Georgia, a railroad village established by his grandfather, Samuel Griswold.  A son of E.C. and Eliza Griswold, Grier moved to Dublin in the late 1890s as the manager of the local office of the Southern Bell Telephone Company.    Grier was active in business circles as a member of the Dublin Board of Trade and a promoter of the Dublin Chautauqua Association.  A director of the City National Bank, Grier earned most of his income as the owner of the Dublin Real Estate Company.  

It was the custom on those days for the President of the United States to appoint the postmaster of every post office in the country every two years.  Competition was often fierce and brutal.  In December of 1899, President William McKinley appointed Grier to the coveted job.  In those days when the Republican party dominated the White House for sixteen years,   the only Republicans to hold public office in the South were those who were appointed by their party's president.

Just two years later, Grier's reappointment for a second term was challenged by E.R.  Belcher, a black Republican leader from Brunswick, who wanted to replace Grier with Allens Simmons, a choice which would have given Dublin its first black postmaster.    Grier and Belcher were also competing for the chairmanship of the Georgia Republican Party,  which at the turn of the 20th Century was primarily composed of black members in a solidly Democratic state.     Belcher accused Grier of being a racist in that he cared nothing of the black citizens of the state, a position which was disavowed by the majority of local black Republicans.

In 1903, Grier's highly esteemed position came within the sights of Herman Hesse, a German immigrant and local plumber.  Hesse, supported by a large portion of the black members led by John Dasher, failed in his bid to oust Grier from office.  

Grier was reappointed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 for his third two-year term.  He served until 1908 when he announced his intentions to once again seek the chairmanship of the Republican Party.  Roosevelt kept the office in the family when he appointed Grier's wife Clara.  Her assistant was Herschel V. Johnson, grandson of former Georgia Governor and 1860 vice-presidential candidate of the same name.  

A year later, Grier suffered a personal and financial setback when he was forced to  declare that he was bankrupt.

The 1912 Republican Convention in Chicago promised to be a electrified one. And, it was just that.  Roosevelt, still a favorite of the common people,  realized that though he had the lead in committed delegates over President William Howard Taft, the choice of the professional politicians,  going into the convention, he didn't have enough to win the nomination to face Woodrow Wilson in December.

"When the delegates were elected, there was nothing to do but accept it and inevitable  defeat in November," Grier, who had previously supported President Taft,  told reporters prior to the opening of the convention.  "With the announcement of Col. Roosevelt's entry into the race, the party was given new life," Grier added when he announced, "I am going to vote for Col. Roosevelt because Taft is threatening to remove my wife as postmistress of Dublin."   

Postmaster J.H. Boone of Hazlehurst jumped on the band wagon, which was about to begin steam rolling throughout the convention hall.  Three of Georgia's black delegates joined Grier and Boone.  At one point, the remaining twenty-three black delegates announced they were reversing their positions as well, each thinking that delegation as a whole was going to vote for Roosevelt.  

A near riot between the white and black delegates ensued.  When Boone lost his temper and called his colleagues "infernal scoundrels," they approached him and demanded an apology.  When Boone refused, some of the angrier members picked up weapons and threatened him with immediate bodily harm.  The Mississippians joined in the pro Roosevelt movement.  When the convention chairman finally restored order - a moment of quiet ensued.  That is, until Grier rose and spoke. "Mr. Chairman, I make the point," he exclaimed in a loud laugh, "that the steamroller has exceeded the speed limit." Bedlam followed and lasted until a chorus of Nearer My God To Thee quieted the ruckus to a dull roar. 

Roosevelt, seeing that his efforts to obtain the nomination were futile, led a walkout of his supporting delegates to form a new party.  Just as Clark Grier had predicted, the split in the Republican Party led to the election of Woodrow Wilson, a fellow Georgian, as President in 1912. 

Clark Grier moved to Augusta in exile during the Wilson administration.  In the summer of 1920, Grier returned to the national scene as a delegate. Once again, he was in Chicago and thoughts of his glory days returned to his now aging body.    Grier still had his political enemies and many of them were Republicans.  In 1922, the Federal District Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia indicted Grier for violating prohibition laws.  It was alleged that Grier took possession of 86 gallons of whiskey and kept the same in violation of his duties as a prohibition officer for the Gulf States Department.  Grier had been indicted twice before and was acquitted both times.  It seems that the charges leveled at him came not from his actual guilt but from his disloyalty to the party, a finding confirmed by the majority of the members of the state party.  His final indictment came in Savannah in 1924.  Once again, Grier was defamed in the newspapers and exonerated in a court of law.  Nevertheless, Grier once again returned to the national convention as a delegate committed to Calvin Coolidge.  

In the last years of his life, Grier and his family moved their official residence to Macon.  Clark Grier continued to serve in the Hoover administration in Washington, D.C., where he died on July 21, 1930 after suffering a stroke.

08-37

PROJECT BLUE BOOK

The Search For UFOs

Could four Dublin women, who saw five strange objects flying over the western skies over the city, really believe that what they had actually seen were unidentified flying objects? To them, they were real.  They had to be.  After all, they saw them with their own eight eyes.

The year 1952, it has been said by those people who study such things, was the year of the UFO.  It was no wonder that with movies such as The Day the Earth Stood Still,  The Man From Planet X, The Thing, It Came from Outer Space, and The War of the Worlds that a wave of sightings of flying saucers flowed into law enforcement offices and air force bases across the land.  Many believed that the mysterious things out there were flying saucers with little green men inside. 

In 1952, the U.S. government established Project Blue Book.  This top secret project had two goals.  First and primarily, the agency set out to determine if these objects were threats to national security. And secondly, the Air Force wanted to gather as much data as possible relating to the sightings to explain their true identity.  Of the 12,618 sightings over an eighteen-year period, 701 still remain as a mystery, even to the most highly trained investigators. 

It was about 5:30 on a warm Wednesday afternoon, the third day of September 1952.  Four young ladies were visiting with each other in their front yards, somewhere in the northwestern section of Dublin, probably around or near the Moore Street neighborhood.  The sky was clear except for a few small cumulus clouds.   Visibility was measured at 15 miles.

Government officials would later black out the names of the witnesses of what was about to unfold.  So, I will call them Mrs. X, Mrs. Y, Mrs. Z and Lady M.    Mrs. X, a 23-year-old woman, had just taken her kids for a stroll around the block, she sat down to rest a minute before preparing supper.  She stood up for a moment when her neighbor Mrs. Y asked her to look at a large open space with no trees.  She noticed five peculiar objects approaching from the southeast and moving in a straight line at an angle of 45 degrees above the southern horizon.  Mrs. X assuredly described the quintet as five distinct objects, flat and round, with a bright aluminum color,  further noting that they were as brilliant as diamonds and appeared to be two to three miles away.  Investigators noted that she was not intoxicated and did not wear eyeglasses.  Mrs. X told air force officials that she had no particular interest in “flying saucers,” but only knew what she had read about them in newspapers.  When asked to illustrate what she saw, Mrs. X drew five elliptical shapes with one flying in front and two rows of two following close behind and appeared to be as large as bicycle tires.

Mrs. Y, who had been out in her yard for forty-five minutes,  saw the objects first and quite by accident.  “I looked twice before I brought it to the attention of Mrs. X,” said Mrs. Y, who asked Mrs. X  to take a look at the object which appeared to flying in the direction of the V.A. Hospital.  Mrs. Y reported that the objects first appeared to be a dull color and seemed to look as if they were the size of an ashtray at the limit of her arms.  When they simultaneously tilted, they all became a brilliant color for a few seconds and then turned back to their initial dull appearance.  After five minutes, she said the objects, with two in front followed by three in the rear of the formation, disappeared into the southwestern skyline. Mrs. Y concluded her written questionnaire by stating, “I have never seen anything in the air that looked like these things.  I have no idea what they were,” the assured witness wrote.

Mrs. Z was talking with her neighbor, Lady M, when she shouted, “Look at those funny things!”  In confirming Mrs. X’s description of bright, shiny, round, and flat  objects with one object flying in the front of the formation, a true depiction of what the ladies saw began to take shape.

Twenty-eight-year-old Lady M confirmed the depictions of Mrs. X and Mrs. Z and added that they appeared to be two-feet wide as compared to something at the limit of her reach.

After the initial excitement, one of the ladies ran into her house and called radio station W.M.L.T.  She reported what she saw to Sara Orr Williams, the station’s secretary, who promptly alerted the station engineer, the most scientific minded person in the station that day, and they set out to the scene of the sighting.  Mrs. Williams, a former secretary to three United States senators and who also worked as a newspaper journalist, listened to their stories, paying attention to details, as she had been trained to do.  Nearly three weeks later, she reported to Major Robert E. Kennedy at the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.  Mrs. Williams told the major that although she didn’t see the objects, she earnestly believed their stories.  “So earnest were they in their stories, and so apparently convinced what they had seen was not jet planes, etc.,” said Mrs. Williams. “I deemed it proper to telephone the Air Force base at Warner Robins,” Mrs. Williams wrote.  Williams was met by two officers from the base the next day and took them to interrogate the ladies who saw the mysterious objects.   

Reports of the sighting were broadcast during the evening news at 6:00  and  7:45.  After the last broadcast, a caller, who refused to divulge his identity, called into the station and reported that he saw five jet air planes flying toward Dublin around 5:00.  

Air Force officials immediately contacted the control tower at Warner Robins to inquire as to the presence of both military and civilian aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting of the objects by the four women in Dublin.  Weather balloons were immediately ruled out.  It was reported that a bulldog flight of five B-29 bombers from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana were flying in the vicinity of Warner Robins on a circuitous route from Albany to Macon to Athens to Atlanta and back through Tuscaloosa.  Lt. Col. Ben Crain contacted Cochran Field in Macon and found that the first plane was over Macon at 4:21 p.m. and the last came over at 5:33.   With this flight record in hand, the Air Force concluded that what the ladies saw in Dublin were the five bombers.

But how could it have been?  Each of the four ladies reported that the planes were flying in a tight formation.  It seems certain that the first plane was not seventy-two minutes ahead of the last one.  If the planes were flying from Albany over Macon to Athens, they would have been flying on a northeasterly course and not a westerly one.  The one doubter in Dublin reported that the planes were 12 miles from town at 5:00.  Even flying as slow as the fastest car, the planes could have traveled sixty air miles in the next thirty minutes.

And what about the massive sightings for more than one hour  in Marietta just two days before by 37 people, including an artillery officer and B-25 gunner? And what about  eight people, including a pilot and bombardier, in Warner Robins two weeks later who saw a bright yellow-white light moving over the skies for twenty minutes?

No one knows what these ladies saw.  It may have been extraterrestrial and it just may have been a formation of military aircraft.  No one will ever know.  But perhaps, if you are one of the four ladies that were out in your yard on the afternoon of September 3, 1952 and saw these objects, call me immediately!

08-38 

BISHOP JAMES E. DICKEY

“Faith of His Father, Living Still”

Have you ever see a man with true faith?  If you knew James E. Dickey, you would have known a man whose faith was implanted his in soul by his father, nurtured by his mother and blossomed on the campus of Emory College in Atlanta.  Frederick Faber never knew James Dickey.  But when he wrote the classic hymn Faith of Our Fathers, he would have told you that Dickey’s faith was true and lived still until his final breath.  

From the moment of his birth in a modest house in Jeffersonville, Georgia on May 11, 1864, James E. Dickey was prepared and groomed  to preach the Gospel.  His father, the Reverend James Madison Dickey, was an itinerant Methodist Minister of the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.  Though he spent most of life in North Georgia, Rev. Dickey did serve churches in Dublin in 1852 and in Jeffersonville in 1864, the last dark year of the Civil War.

James attended schools in Atlanta, Gainesville, Elberton and Calhoun as his father annually moved around serving new churches.  His summers were usually spent on the Richmond County farm of family of his mother, the former Miss Ann Elizabeth Thomas.  When Rev. Dickey’s health failed, the family moved to the solace of the farm.  James left school and worked on the farm. 

   

Dickey’s life changed forever in 1878, when the elder Dickey died.  James took his father’s lifeless hand and asked his grandmother Thomas if his father was dead.  When she responded in the affirmative, James knelt down and asked God, whom he considered to be his only father,  to grant him the ability and the resources to achieve his goal of attaining an education and making the most of his life.

For nine years, James Dickey worked as a store clerk and bookkeeper.  He never lost sight of his goal.  He studied at night and when he could took some courses in hopes of qualifying for entrance into a college.     His logical choice was Emory College in Atlanta.  So, on the opening day of classes in the 1887, James Dickey stepped through the doors of  college.  At the age of twenty three and older than those who had just graduated, James Dickey was determined to graduate.  And that he did.  In the spring of 1891, the man who never graduated from high school, walked across the stage as the salutatorian of his class.

So impressed were the president and faculty of Emory College with Dickey’s intellectual ability, they asked him to remain at the college as a professor.  Dickey readily accepted and with a secure position in hand, took the hand of Miss Jessie Munroe in marriage as classes were about to begin.  

As Professor of Mental and Moral Science, James Dickey taught Christianity, economics and history until he felt the calling to follow in the footsteps of his father.  After being licensed to preach, Rev. James Dickey was assigned to Grace Methodist Church in Atlanta, where he served from 1899 to 1902. 

Although Rev. Dickey only served a church for three years, his destiny to serve the  Methodist Church was permanently determined when he was named President of Emory College.    As the head of his alma mater, Dickey faced the daunting task of turning the falter  college , which despite its support by the Methodist Church, had woefully fallen on hard times.    Dickey would not accept the status quo.  He designed and built new and modern facilities.  More and more students enrolled.    More and more money began to flow into the school’s endowment fund.   President Dickey saw the need to improve the law school at Emory, currently ranked as the twenty-second best in the nation.  He did so.  And, he thought that a Methodist supported college should have a School of Theology, so he created one in 1914.  Named in honor of Rev. Warren Akin Candler, Chancellor of the College and Bishop of the Methodist Church, the Candler School of Theology was created in 1914 and is today one of thirteen seminaries of the world wide church.  At the time, the school was the only Methodist seminary east of the Mississippi River. 

Dickey was known across the state as an effective fund raiser.  In the spring of 1909  Dickey preached a sermon at the Methodist Church in Dublin.  He left the pulpit with $2500.00 in cash and pledges to further the growth of Emory. 

During his tenure at Emory, Rev. Dickey tried to resign twice to further his career.  In 1910, he yearned to leave the college to become the Secretary of the Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.  The college’s trustee refused to accept his resignation and convinced him to remain at Emory.    Five years later, Dickey tendered his resignation once again citing the fact that he could never be promoted as long as Bishop Candler was Chancellor of the College.  This time the trustees accepted his offer, but requested that he remain as a trustee of newly chartered Emory University in its new campus in Dekalb County.  Rev. Dickey was further honored by the bestowing upon him of an honorary Doctor of Laws Degree.

After leaving Emory, Rev. Dickey returned to preach, first at the First Methodist Church in Atlanta from 1915 to 1920 and at North Georgia College until 1921.  

As early as 1906, the Methodist hierarchy saw special qualities in James Dickey.  His name was often mentioned as a possible bishop at the General Conferences which he attended in 1910, 1914 and 1918.     

At the General Conference in 1922 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the delegates elected Dickey to serve as a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.  He was assigned to a district which encompassed Texas and New Mexico.  After four years in the Southwest, Dickey was transferred to Louisville, Kentucky, where he supervised Methodist churches in Illinois, Kentucky and West Virginia.

Bishop Dickey appropriately preached his last sermon on Easter Sunday in 1928.  He woke up the next morning in great pain.  His appendix had ruptured.  Surgeons attempted to repair the damage, but the failing minister lingered for one painful week before he died just before midnight on April 17, 1928 with his family beside his bed.  

And so ended the life of a man, whose faith carried him through a life of service of others before himself.  His abiding faith in himself and more importantly in God, became a driving force in the resurrection of one of Georgia’s most important institution of higher learning.

 08-39

JINGLE BELLS

A Look Back

Why in the world would I be writing about a Christmas Song, the most popular Christmas song ever and one of the most popular songs of all time, in the still hot month of September.  Just as the stores are getting ready to display their Christmas goods, it is time to celebrate the 151st anniversary of the publishing of Jingle Bells.  What you might not know it was written by a Georgia man, James Pierpont of Savannah, Georgia. To understand why a Georgian, who rarely sees snow at Christmas time, would write such a wintry worded tune, let's take a look back at its author.

James Pierpont was born in 1822 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, the Rev. John Pierpont, was a staunch abolitionist and somewhat noted poet of his day.  At the age of ten, James wrote a letter to his mother which contained a poem about riding in a sleigh.  As James grew older he became discontented with his life and ran away to sea.  After nine years aboard sailing ships, James returned home to New York, where his father was serving a Unitarian church in Troy.    Restless and determined to travel, Pierpont left his wife and family to get in on the California Gold Rush of 1849.  His business failed and he returned home to his family, who were then in Medford, Massachusetts.

In 1853, James, at the age of thirty one, made a life altering decision.  He decided to join his brother, John Pierpont, Jr., who had accepted the call to serve a Unitarian church in Savannah.  Once again his family remained in New England while James went off another adventure.  To earn his keep, James served as the organist and choir director of the church.  He taught music and singing lessons on the side as well.  

Following the death of his first wife in 1856, Pierpont married Eliza Purse, daughter of Savannah mayor Thomas Purse.  

Soon after his marriage, James Pierpont published the song, One Horse Open Sleigh, September 16, 1857 .  The instantly popular song, published by Oliver Ditson and Company of Boston, was re-released in 1859 with its new and permanent title of Jingle Bells.   Legend has it that Jingle Bells was first performed by a children's choir during a Thanksgiving program in Savannah and later it was requested to be performed during a Christmas program. 

Tensions began to mount between the Unitarians, who were in favor of the abolition of slavery, and local residents, Pierpont's church closed its doors.  His brother moved back home, but James remained in Savannah.  

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Pierpont, a true-blue Yankee, enlisted in the Isle of Hope Volunteers, a company of the First Georgia (later the Fifth) Cavalry.   As the company clerk, Pierpont saw little action.  He did however, continue to compose patriotic songs, which included Our Battle Flag and Strike For the South.

After the war, Pierpont, his wife and their four children moved to Valdosta.  In 1869, the Pierponts moved once again, this time to Quitman, Florida.  Pierpont taught music at the local academy as the head of the music department.  

In 1893, James Pierpont died at his home in Winter Haven, Florida in a land far far away from the snowy land of his birth.  At his request, his body was buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery next to his brother in law, Thomas Purse, who had been killed in Manassas, Virginia at the Battle of Bull Run, the first battle of the Civil War.

And now you know the origin of the world's most famous non-secular Christmas song.  What you might not know is that Jingle Bells was the first song to be sung in outer space.  On December 16, 1965, astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra played and sang the they reported observing a command module with a red suited pilot and eight smaller modules in front as they orbited the North Pole.  

The name Pierpont may also be familiar to you.  Pierpont's father, the Rev. John Pierpont, was the grandfather of John Pierpont Morgan, known simply as "J.P. Morgan," who was one of the richest men in America in the 19th Century.  James Pierpont never made much money on the song which has been played and performed millions and millions of times.  His family had to struggle just to keep his name as the writer of this timeless classic. 

But wait a minute, the story doesn't end here.  The people of Savannah were right proud of Pierpont and his famous song.  In 1985, they erected a marker under the water oaks of Troup Square commemorating Pierpont's serving as music director of the Unitarian Church which fronts on the square, but which originally fronted on Oglethorpe Square.  

The marker actually does not claim that Pierpont actually wrote the song while he was in Savannah, but many Savannahians do, and some adamantly so.  It is without issue that the song was copyrighted while Pierpont lived in Savannah.  

But the folks in Medford, Massachusetts are just as adamant that the song was first written in Simpson's Tavern in their town and not way down in the South.  Their argument has some merit in that snowfall in Savannah is extremely rare.  However, Pierpont was in California in 1850 and could not have written the song as the Medford residents so say.     

A second "War Between the States," still simmers.  Recently some historians, probably of the northern variety, have proffered evidence that the song was actually written and performed in Bedford in the 1840s.  It also seems reasonable to believe that the song, published by the Savannah resident, most likely underwent final revisions in the four years while James Pierpont was residing in the City of Savannah.  

I'll wager that anyone, including myself, and excluding those who just googled the lyrics knows the final verse of Jingle Bells; "Now the ground is white.  Go it while you're young.  Take the girls tonight and sing this sleighing song; Just get a bob tailed bay - two forty as his speed. Hitch him to an open sleigh and crack! you take the lead."

08-40

THE SUPREME COURT

Laurens Countians Before the Bench

Tomorrow is the anniversary of a day in which we could not live without.  On September 24, 1789, the Congress of the United States adopted the Judiciary Act.  In doing so, Congress created the Supreme Court of the United States, placing upon the court the power to hear cases involving Federal laws and to interpret them.  Many will argue that the court has become a super legislature in of its self.  Its decisions are often controversial and many are decided by a margin of a mere one vote.  Many more seem to be based on personal ideologies of the justices themselves and not upon established common laws and statutes.  A relative few lawyers in our country ever have the opportunity to argue their client's case before the panel of nine justices in the most hallowed, revered and chastised courtroom in America. This is the story of four Laurens Countians, all of whom at one time maintained homes in the Calhoun Street neighborhood.  

The first Laurens Countian to appear before the bench of the Supreme Court was the venerable, and somewhat controversial, Thomas B. Felder, Jr.   Felder, a former mayor of Dublin, gained a reputation as an outstanding trial lawyer in Atlanta.  In the early 1920s, Felder was one of the legal advisers to President Warren Harding.  Consequently, Felder became entangled in legal troubles of his own and died under mysterious circumstances, as did many other members of Harding's inner circle.

In 1906, Felder represented Armour Packing Company against the State of North Carolina, which had imposed a tax of $100.00 per county for the maintenance of a meat packing plant.  Felder argued before the justices that the tax constituted an interference with interstate commerce and that it was also violative of the 14th amendment.  Although the stipulated facts defined what a meat packing plant was and that the activities of Armour did not constitute a meat packing plant, but merely a cold storage facility, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision ruled in favor of the State of North Carolina. Felder's client lost another case to the other Carolina state in 1909 when the court sided with South Carolina's right to regulate and prohibit the sale of alcohol within her borders in the case of Murray v. Wilson Distribution.

Despite his success as an attorney, Felder lost in his third and final appearance before the court in the case of Crichton v. Wingfield, which involved a suit between an aunt and niece over ownership of promissory notes.  The case primarily dealt with which court, Mississippi or New York, had jurisdiction over the assets of the dear departed Mr. and Mrs. E.H. Lombard.  

Thomas Hardwick, a former congressman, senator and governor of Georgia, lived in Dublin in the mid 1920s.  During that time he practiced law and published the Dublin Courier Herald.  Hardwick's first appearance in the Supreme Court came in 1914, when he represented the widow  and four minor children of one Mr. Dicks of Augusta.  It seemed that Dicks petitioned the Federal court for a declaration that he was bankrupt.   Sadly, Dicks died three weeks later.  His family attempted to have some of his estate set aside to them for their support, a right unique to Georgia spouses and minor children. The bankruptcy trustee Hull disagreed and argued that Dicks's estate  solely belonged to his creditors.  The Supreme Court unanimously agrees with Hardwick and allowed the grieving family to have enough money and property to at least help them get back on their feet. In 1918, Hardwick's client, the Georgia Public Service Corporation, a forerunner of the Georgia Power Company, was successful in its argument that the company was entitled to raise utility rates with the authority of the Railroad Commission, despite the fact that it had agree to a fixed five-year rate with the Union Dry Goods Company. 

Hardwick became the only Laurens Countian to appear before the court as a resident of Dublin in 1926.  Hardwick, representing Fenner, a cotton futures dealer, was unsuccessful in his argument that state laws restricting the sale of commodities were violative of the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution.    Hardwick, a resident of Augusta in 1934, won the case of Gay v. Ruff in which the railroad  prevailed over the father who lost his son in an railroad accident.

Eugene Cook, a native of Wrightsville and a short time resident of Dublin while he served as Solicitor, was elected to serve as the Attorney General of Georgia in 1945.  As Attorney General, Cook's first case involving the Supreme Court came in 1946.  The case was one of the primary attempts to set aside Georgia's county unit system of voting in state wide elections.  The process allowed larger counties six votes to the top vote getters, while most of the smaller counties were allotted two votes.  Some Fulton County voters objected, primarily on racial grounds, asserting that their votes were diminished by the allocation of votes.  The Supreme Court disagreed and affirmed the process, though it would not be long before the process would be overturned by a more civil rights minded court. 

In 1955, Cook and the State of Georgia in Reece v. Georgia  were unable to persuade the justices of the court that the state's system of requiring a criminal defendant to challenge the composition of the grand jury before his indictment was valid.

Cook was on the losing side of the case of Georgia vs. the United States in 1958 when the court unanimously affirmed the case in favor of the Federal government without issuing an opinion.  A year later, Cook successfully defended the state in the case of N.A.A.C.P. v Williams which involved a technicality on a fine in a criminal matter.   

M.H. "Hardeman" Blackshear, Jr., an Assistant Attorney General under his former neighbor  Eugene Cook, made his first appearance before the Court in 1950 in the case of South v. Peters another suit involving the county unit system and which was also upheld by the court.  Blackshear represented the State of Georgia against the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company in 1952.  The bank claimed it was exempt from taxation under its state granted charter.  

Blackshear, who authored many briefs during his tenure with the Attorney General's office, made his final appearance before the Supreme Court in 1953 in the case of Avery v. Georgia.  Avery was convicted of rape and sentenced to death.  Avery's attorneys successfully argued that Avery was denied the right to a fair trial under the Constitution.  The court based its decision on the jury selection process where the names of white voters were written on white paper and black voters were written on yellow paper.  Despite the fact that the State claimed that blacks were included in the jury pool, the presiding judge drew sixty potential white jurors and not a single black juror.

Maybe some day, our county will once again be home to an attorney who will zealously argue the rights of his client before a court which was established two hundred and nineteen years ago. 

08-41

DR. BRAILSFORD BRAZEAL

A Man of Morehouse

When you think of Morehouse College, you think of tradition -a tradition of higher learning for African-American college students.  When you go back seventy-five years, you think of a day unlike today when a mere few, the lucky few, had the opportunity to attend an institution of higher learning, much less one with the honorable tradition as Morehouse.  For nearly four decades, one Laurens County native helped the school rise to the prominence it still retains today.

Brailsford Reese Brazeal was born in Dublin, Georgia on March 8, 1903.  The son of the Rev. George Reese Brazeal and Walton Troup Brazeal, young Brailsford attended Georgia State College and Ballard Normal School in Macon.    Late in his life Dr. Brazeal recalled that it was his Baptist preacher father's guidance and teachings that kindled his imagination as to what was beyond his neighborhood.  Brazeal recalled that his mother and his oldest aunt, Flora L. Troup pushed him to leave Dublin because he wouldn't be able to obtain anything but an elementary education in Dublin.  His uncle and namesake Brailsford Troup gave him a job during summers as a carpenter's helper.  Brazeal realized that the life of a laborer is not what he wanted and promised himself that he would do all that he could to break the barriers of race and segregation. 

He completed his studies  at Morehouse Academy, a high school, in 1923.  While at Morehouse College, Brazeal came to know Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, who served as his debate coach in college and would later serve as President of Morehouse.   After graduating from Morehouse in 1927, Brazeal continued his studies and obtained a master's degree in Economics  from the ultimately prestigious Columbia University in 1928.  

Brazeal was immediately hired as a Professor of Economics by Dr. John Hope, his alma mater's first black president.    By 1934, Brazeal was chosen to chair the Department of Economics and Business.  He was also selected to serve as the Dean of Men, a post which he held until 1936.  

In his early years at Morehouse, Brailsford met and married Ernestine Erskine of Jackson, Mississippi.  Mrs. Brazeal was a graduate of Spellman College in Atlanta.  An educator in her own right, Mrs. Brazeal held a Master's Degree in American History from the University of Chicago.  She taught at Spelman and served for many years as the Alumni Secretary.  To those who knew and loved her, Mrs. Brazeal was known to the be the superlative historian of Spelman History, though she never published the culmination of  her vast knowledge.   

The Brazeals were the parents of two daughters.  Aurelia Brazeal is a career diplomat and has recently served as the United States Ambassador to Ethopia, Kenya and Micronesia.  Ernestine Brazeal has long been an advocate for the Headstart Program.

The Brazeal home in Atlanta was often a home away from home for Morehouse students.  Especially present were the freshmen who inhabited the home on weekends and after supper for the fellowship and guidance from the Brazeals.  Among these students were the nation's greatest civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Maynard Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta.   It was Dr. Brazeal, who first recommended the young minister for acceptance at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.  Dr.  Brazeal wrote that King would mix well with the white race.   The Brazeal's bought the four square home near Morehouse in 1940.  Today, the home at 193 Ashby Street (now Joseph Lowery Boulevard) was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.  

Through scholarships, Brailsford Brazeal was named a Julius Rosenwald Fellow and in 1942, obtained his Ph. D. from Columbia University in economics.  As a part of his doctoral dissertation, Dr. Brazeal wrote about the formation of the of one of the first labor unions for black workers.  In 1946, Brazeal published his signature work The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.    For decades, labor researchers often cited Brazeal's writings  in his landmark work and other papers and journal articles.

During the 1950s, Brazeal worked in voter registration movements.  He wrote extensively about racial discrimination in voting, especially in his native state. He detailed many of the activities in his home county of Laurens.    In his Studies of Negro Voting in Eight Rural Counties in Georgia and One in South Carolina, Brazeal examined and wrote of the  efforts of H.H. Dudley and C.H. Harris to promote more black participation in voting in Laurens County.  He chronicled the wars between the well entrenched county sheriff Carlus Gay and State Representative Herschel Lovett and their desire and competition for the black vote.   He wrote of fair employment practices, desegregation of higher education, voter disfranchisement of black voters, voter registration, and many other civil rights matters. 

The members of the National Association of College Deans elected Dr. Brazeal as their president in 1947.   Brazeal a member of the Executive Committee of the American Conference of Academic Deans and as a vice-president of the American Baptist Educational Institutions. 

During his career Dr. Brazeal was a member of the American Economic Association, the Academy of Political Science, the Southern Sociological Society, the Advisory Council of Academic Freedom Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, the N.A.A.C.P., the Twenty Seven Club, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Sigma Pi Phil, Delta Sigma Rho and the Friendship Baptist Church.

In 1967, Dr. Brazeal was inducted into the prestigious national honor society, Phi Beta Kappa as an alumni member of Delta Chapter  of Columbia University.  He organized a chapter at Morehouse, known to many as one of the "Ivy League" schools for African Americans. 

Dr. Brazeal retired in 1972 after a career of more than forty years, many of which he served as Dean of the College.  At the age of seventy eight he died in Atlanta on April 22, 1981. His body lies next to that of his wife, who died in 1902, in Southview Cemetery in Atlanta.  

08-42

CHARLIE BRADSHAW

From Gridiron to Boardroom

Old time Dublin High football fans will tell you that he was the greatest player ever to wear the green and white.  With the possible exception of Tennyson Coleman, he is certainly the best Dublin player ever to play on the old Battle Field.  But Charlie Bradshaw's success as a football player, first in Lake City, Florida, Dublin and later at Wofford College, was eclipsed by his success as a businessman and entrepreneur.  Today, Charles J. Bradshaw, a former Dublin High quarterback, stands as a legend in the business community of South Carolina.   

Charlie Bradshaw, the fifth of six children of James W. and Florence Sanders Bradshaw, was born in Lake City, Florida on July 15, 1936.  Bradshaw grew up in the sleepy community of Lake City, where he played football for Columbia High School.  Bradshaw tells the story of how he was too young to work in the local tobacco warehouses.  With the help of his mother, Charlie sold snow cones to workers at a profit superior to that of his hard-sweatin' brothers.

When Charlie was a junior in high school, the Bradshaws made the 162-mile trip up U.S. Highway 441 to their new home in Dublin, where the elder Bradshaw worked at the V.A. Hospital.  In his first year at Dublin High, Charlie was instantly popular with his classmates, who elected him as Class Secretary and Representative on the Homecoming Court.  Charlie was a five-sport star in football, basketball, golf, tennis and track.  There were no other sports for him to star in.  In his senior season in 1953, Charlie was named the All Region quarterback and Mr.  Dublin High School.   But Charlie wasn't just a jock.  He was a member of the Beta Club and the Spanish Club.

Following his graduation from Dublin High School, Charlie went on to play football for the University of Georgia, the first Dubliner to play for the Bulldogs.  A preseason injury just before his sophomore season forced Charlie to contemplate his future in Athens.  After consulting with his coaches,  his father and friends, Charlie, a back up quarterback,  decided to transfer to a smaller school, Wofford College, in South Carolina.   As he was in Dublin, Charlie was popular with his classmates.   He was a member of the Kappa Alpha Fraternity and President of the Student Body.  It was at Wofford, where Charlie's destiny as a quarterback and a businessman was set.  With a fresh start in a new setting, Charlie, a member of the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame,  excelled on the football field.  In 1957, he was named to the All American Team for smaller colleges.  In his primary wide receiver Jerry Richardson, Charlie found a life long friend and business partner.

Charlie met his wife Judy Brewer on a wager with teammate Donnie Fowler.  That bet turned out to be another one of the pieces of puzzle which led to Charlie's future in business.   Fresh out of college with a degree in mathematics, Charlie married Judy in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.  They set up their home in Spartanburg, where Charlie took a job with a local Ford dealership.    At the request of his brother in law Joe Brewer, Charlie took a look at a hamburger stand in Rocky Mount.  Bradshaw doubted that he could ever get rich selling 15-cent hamburgers and cokes and fries for a dime.    But Charlie had a talent for business.  He analyzed the sales and dreamed of franchising the restaurant across the Carolinas.  So in October 1961,   Charlie and Jerry, with his earnings from the Baltimore Colts,  opened their first fast food restaurant at 431 Kenney Street in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  The restaurant, the first franchise in the chain, was the popular Hardee's Hamburgers.  

The business began to grow.  In 1969, Bradshaw and Richardson combined their business interests across the Carolinas and founded Spartan Food Systems, Inc., which went public and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1976.    In 1977, the company began to acquire numerous restaurants of the Quincy's restaurant chain and later a string of Denny's restaurants.  At the peak of the ownership, Bradshaw and Richardson owned more than 600 franchises in a company which oversaw fifteen hundred more restaurants. 

The Transworld Company purchased Spartan in 1979.  Charlie Bradshaw was named the company's senior vice-president in charge of food services, which included the Canteen Company, the largest food vending service in the world.    In 1984, Bradshaw was promoted to president of the company, which included among its holdings, Century 21, Hilton Hotels and Transworld Airlines.    When the company's stockholders and directors opted to get into the nursing home business, Bradshaw felt it was time for him to leave the company, although many had been grooming him to become the company's chief executive officer. 

After a quarter of a century in the food service business, Charlie Bradshaw decided to go home, back to his family.  He formed Bradshaw Enterprises to work with his children and teach them the business skills he had learned from the first day of the Hardee's in Spartanburg to the tactics of the boardrooms of one of the country's largest companies.  Bradshaw was active in the Junior Achievement as it epitomized everything America stands for.    Charlie believed in the program which followed the same ideals he used in his own business ventures and pushed it as a way of getting young people involved in business. More important, Bradshaw believes that they know the proper way to go into business and how to handle problems which inevitably arise. 

In 2001, Charlie took over the management of Team Sports Entertainment, which was the parent company of Team Racing Auto Circuit "TRAC."    Though he continues to work today at the age of seventy-two, Charlie spends more time with his family and grandchildren and playing golf every chance he gets. 

To his friends, Charlie has always been known as a hard worker and a generous man.

Charlie poured his efforts and his money into the Judy Bradshaw Children's Foundation for needy children.  He supported the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center Foundation and the Boys Clubs of America.  Charlie has been awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the South Carolina Jaycees, the Spartanburg Distinguished Citizen Award and Distinguished Alumni Award from his alma mater Wofford.    

In 2006, Charlie Bradshaw was inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame.  Bradshaw attributes his success toward those he worked with and those who worked for him by saying,  "I think the most important thing for any young person is picking his peer group, the persons he or she  surrounds himself with. I don't care if it's his teen age years.  I don't care if it's in his college years, business, or whatever it is.  You are not going to be more successful than the people around you."  

08-43

CAPTAIN HENRY WILL JONES

An American Hero

In the movie Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks portrays Captain John Miller, a fictional high school teacher from Pennsylvania.  After surviving D-day, Captain Miller is given the assignment to find Private James Ryan. Ryan lost two brothers in the invasion of Normandy and his only other brother was killed in the South Pacific a week before.  Army regulations required that the sole surviving brother be sent back home.  Along the way, Miller and his squad have to keep fighting the war.  In the end, Captain Miller achieved his mission. Private Ryan was saved.

In real life, Laurens County had its share of teachers serving their country.  At home, the female teachers led the Victory Corps programs.  They worked with other women, adults and students alike in making bandages, sponges, and surgical dressings by the tens of thousands.   Teachers supervised the selling of war bonds and worked with their students in a variety of activities to help the effort to win the war. The male teachers, those young enough and fit enough to join the service, enlisted.

Others, like Captain Miller,  didn't make it home.  This is story of a Dexter High teacher and how he gave the last full measure of devotion to save our country.

Henry Will Jones was born about 1917  in what became Lanier County just as our country was entering World War I.  After graduation from Lanier High in 1934, Jones continued his education at Georgia Military College (1935), Abraham Baldwin College, and the University of Georgia, where he graduated in 1940.  With his bachelor of science diploma in his hand, Jones accepted a position as the first vocational-agricultural teacher at Dexter High School on July 1, 1940.  The school, in need of a coach for their six-man football team, asked Jones to be the head football coach.  On Sunday, Jones attended the Dexter Baptist Church, where he taught the Intermediate Boys Sunday School classes.   When he needed to rest and eat a fine meal, he boarded with Mr. and Mrs. W.G. Smith.

The fateful day of December 7, 1941 came.  America was at war.  Jones left his teaching position to enter the United States Marine Corps.  Jones reported to the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, where he graduated as a second lieutenant on August 25, 1942.  From Quantico, Henry Will was sent to New River, North Carolina, where he completed his training as a paratrooper in October 1942.

Before he was transferred to San Diego, California, Jones spent a few days with his family and friends back in Georgia.  In December 1942, Henry Will was shipped from the west coast to the killing area of the South Pacific.  Holding the rank of first lieutenant, Jones was attached to the first Paratroop Division of the First Amphibious Division.  Lt. Jones was stationed at New Caledonia until September 1943.  He landed on Guadalcanal in September and from there went to Bougainville.  While in this zone, he saw service and suffered a slight wound.   Henry Will remained in Bougainville until January 12, 1944, when his paratrooper detachment was sent home to be organized into the 5th Marine Division.  As the war progressed, paratroopers were no longer needed.  Jones and his buddies were retrained to be regular infantry fighting Marines.

Captain Jones landed with his outfit at San Diego on February 7, 1942.  Ten days later, he was back home in Lakeland on a well-earned leave.  The following day, Lt. Jones became Captain Jones.  Before his return to the Marines, Captain Jones drove to Dexter for one last visit.

Captain Henry Will Jones returned to the West Coast and was assigned the Fifth Marine Division, which was stationed at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego, California.  The captain was given the chance to remain in the country for an indefinite time to participate in training of recruits.  Since he wasn't married and had no children, Henry Will decided to go into combat and let someone with a wife and kids stay in San Diego and train new Marines.

Captain Jones' first new assignment was as commander of Company I,  3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Division.  He led his company in the invasion of Peliliu Island, the main island of the Palau Islands.  His last two letters were dated October 12th and 13th.  On October 18th, 1944, Captain Henry Will Jones was reported killed in action.

In honor of his admirable valor, the Secretary of the Navy posthumously awarded the Silver State Medal to Jones' family.  On March 24, 1997, the State of Georgia honored Captain Henry Will Jones with the naming of a bridge in his home county of Lanier.   The resolution read:

WHEREAS, Captain Henry Will Jones of Lanier County was killed in action on October 18, 1944, while serving as a  commanding officer of a United States Marine Corps company in the South Pacific during World War II; and he was awarded  posthumously the Silver Star Medal by the Secretary of the  Navy in recognition of his exemplary valor; and 

WHEREAS, he had graduated from the University of Georgia and was an instructor in the Laurens County school system when he enlisted in the military following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; and he completed officers candidate school, paratrooper training, and advanced military training with  the Marine Corps and was recognized as a distinguished officer with considerable potential; and 

WHEREAS, his fearless leadership, great personal valor, and  unrelenting devotion to duty in the face of extreme danger  contributed substantially to the success of his division in  capturing a vital stronghold; and his courage and determination upheld the highest traditions of military service; and 

WHEREAS, he enjoyed nature and had a strong attachment to the region in which he had spent his youth exploring the rivers, forests, and wildlife; and he often expressed his dream of returning to the Alapaha River in his letters home to his family; and 

WHEREAS, it is most fitting and appropriate to honor this  outstanding young officer who so gallantly gave his life for  his country. 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF  GEORGIA that the bridge on Georgia Highway 37 that crosses  that portion of the Alapaha River in Lanier County be  designated the Captain Henry Will Jones Bridge. 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Commissioner of  Transportation is authorized and directed to place signs at  appropriate locations along the highway designating the  bridge over the Alapaha River as the Captain Henry Will  Jones Bridge.

08-44

FREDDY TAKES A TRIP

A Dream Trip to a Dream World

Freddy Crafton had already seen a little bit of the world.  As a young boy, he lived through the depression in Wrightsville and Vidalia, where his father worked as a  linotype operator.  So it seemed that Freddy would have be destined to have newsprint  in his blood and on his hands.  After he graduated from high school, Freddy joined the Army.  He was still in the Army, but worked during the week as a newspaper delivery boy.  When he submitted his name in a contest to win a trip to Ireland, he won.  And off to Dublin he went, not Dublin, Georgia, but her sister city and namesake of Dublin, Ireland.  He won the trip with along with other newspaper boys, though this newspaper boy was a grown man of thirty-one years of age.

In the early 1960s, Parade magazine and the Macon Telegraph sponsored the Young Columbus V "Anglo Gaelic Adventure," for newspaper boys to visit the British Isles.  The lucky winners were flown aboard what was then called a luxurious TWA Jetstream airliner.

Though several accounts of the trip described Freddy as a young man, Freddy, son of Mary W. Crafton of 100 West Moore Street in Dublin, had served in active duty with the  Army from 1949 to 1950.   At the time of the trip, Freddy was a Specialist Fourth Class with the 988th Ordinance Company under the command of John D. Adams.  During his spare time, Freddy loved to read historical and religious books, when he wasn't bowling.  He loved photography, which he would later take up as a profession.  

Freddy, who had always dreamed of going to  England,  told a reporter for the Macon Telegraph, "I am looking forward to visiting London.  I've always wanted to see England."  "When we are there," Freddy said, "I want to look up an old friend I have been writing."  "I'd also like to see Buckingham Palace," Freddy concluded.  

"I've felt like I have been in orbit ever since I won the contest," Freddy exclaimed.  He racked up 130 new subscribers to the Macon Telegraph and Macon News to win the spot reserved for subscribers outside the Macon metropolitan area.  

The newsboys from around the country left Idewild Airport in New York on the evening of March 31, 1961, arriving the next morning at Shannon Airport in Ireland.  The first stop on the trip was the fabled Bunratty Castle and the Lakes of Killarney before a  rickety jaunt through the ten thousand acre Muckross National Park.  After the day trip, the boys were treated to the hospitality of Irish colleens and Gaelic dances.  Most impressive were the Irish colleens themselves, who danced and danced for hours, going from traditional Irish jigs to modern rock 'n' roll dances.  Freddy's colleague Bill Parsons, of Macon, remarked, "They can dance forever. They wore us out just watching them dance."

Freddy Crafton had a wee bit of an advantage on the other boys.  Besides being more than a dozen years older than the rest of the boys, Freddy was appointed by J. Felton Pierce, Mayor of Dublin, Georgia, as the city's official ambassador in a letter of introduction to the Right Honorable Maurice E. Dockrell, Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ireland.    Crafton presented Mayor Dockrell with a golden key to his native home, personalized directly to the Lord Mayor himself, and a letter of friendship, which the Mayor graciously accepted as his bright Irish green eyes smiled.

Along the way, Freddy was greeted by John R. Beitz, a member of the staff of the United States Embassy in Dublin.  Mrs. Beitz began to make small talk with Freddy and asked him "Where are you from?"  Freddy proudly proclaimed, "I am from Dublin, Georgia!"  Much to his dismay, Mrs. Beitz equally pronounced, "So am I!"  They stood there in a long moment of absolute amazement.  You see, Mrs. Beitz, before her marriage was Ernestine Graub, daughter of Mrs. Dena Campbell Graub and granddaughter of Mrs. E.C. Campbell, a long time school teacher in Dublin.  

After meeting with the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, the boys played a friendly game of baseball with a group of young Irishmen, who introduced Freddy and his group to the game of hurley, the Irish forerunner of hockey.

The boys were treated to a visit to Leprechaun Forest near Dublin.  Impressing Freddy and his buddies the most was the curious and most fascinating growth of shrubbery, said to be the true home of real life leprechauns.  After that, the boys kissed the Blarney Stone at the Blarney Castle in hopes of receiving the legendary gift of a golden tongue.  

Freddy had always heard about Irish stew.  He got a chance to swallow some of the real stuff, which lived up to its advanced billing, though he cared not too much for the Irish coffee, commenting that he could never get use to that strong stuff.   Moreover, he was confounded to find that the Irish heat their cream to warm their cool coffee instead of cooling off their hot coffee with cool cream.  

The carrier boys got the chance to tour London, England, a place which many of them had only read about or seen in the movies.  Freddy was amazed by the music he heard in a British YMCA dance hall.  Commenting on the music Freddy said, "The English jazz band played such numbers as Birth of the Blues and St. Louis Blues as good as the best in the United States."  Before the dance, the boys shopped for souvenirs and saw the sights  in London's West End and Westminster Abbey.     At the urging of the literature buffs in the crowd, the boys attended a play in Stratford-on-Avon, the home of the legendary playwright, William Shakespeare.  

The last day of the ten-day trip began with free time in the streets and shops of London on a Sunday morning.  The boys stopped off to visit the royal ones in Windsor Castle on their way to the London Airport for a banquet, complete with awards and the finest in English cuisine.  

Freddy and the boys had a good time in the Old Country.  They didn't get into any mischief, at least none that their chaperones knew about.  Just to prove it to Mrs. Crafton and his sponsors at the Telegraph  how good Freddy was, his escort wrote, "Freddy conducted himself like gentlemen (which he actually was at the age of thirty-one) throughout the trip.  He was very cooperative and enthusiastic with his counselors and escorts."  Maybe that's because he had been a member of the U.S. Army for the last ten years or so.   

And so, the dream trip to the land of his ancestors was over.  Freddy came back to Dublin and opened a photography studio in his home on West Moore Street.  Freddy never forgot his trip to Ireland and England.  And to prove it, I have his scrapbook filled with clippings and photos of the near fortnight when  Freddy went back in time to the land of the kings, knights and castles of Merry Ol' England and the Emerald Isle.  

08-45

ROBERT C. HENRY

Captain of the Oconee River

Capt. Robert C. Henry, a native of North Carolina, could rightly be called the father of river boating in Laurens County.  Capt. Henry served in Company A of the Third North Carolina Cavalry during the Civil War.  At the age of forty, Captain Henry, for some unknown reason, left his North Carolina home for Dublin in 1878.  He brought "The Colville" and fellow captain, Samuel Skinner, along with him.  With the aid of Col. John Stubbs, Capt. Henry almost singlehandedly rejuvenated river transportation along the Oconee, albeit only for a quarter of a century. 

River transportation lived and died with the rain. The wet season usually ran from mid-fall to mid-spring.  The Colville, named for its builder John Colville,  set out for Raoul Station in June of 1878.  Its return depended on the amount of rainfall in the Oconee Basin. The owners of The Colville went to great expense in clearing the river upstream.  The dangers of the river were never more apparent than on November 20, 1878. The Colville set out for Raoul Station on the Central of Georgia Railroad with a load of cotton.  Three miles above Dublin the boat struck rocks which cut seven holes in her hull causing her to sink in five feet of water.  The boat hands set the cotton off on the banks and worked three days to set the damaged boat afloat.  Capt. Henry brought his boat back to Dublin to repair the remaining damage. 

Captain Henry joined forces with Dublin lawyer and newspaper owner, Col. John M. Stubbs to form the Oconee River Steamboat Company.  The Company purchased a site for their wharf from Hayden Hughes for $35.00 on February 5, 1879.  The one acre tract was located along the northern margin of Town Branch where it empties into the Oconee River.  The company secured an ideal site within a few feet of the Dublin Ferry. Today the site is just a few hundred feet north of Riverwalk Park in Dublin.  The Colville once again was grounded in the water with a cargo of 200 barrels of rosin in July of 1879. Captain Henry secured a flat boat, The Cyclone, to accompany his boat and to carry heavy loads of guano fertilizer.  Unfortunately the flat boat sunk on February 20, 1880 with twenty tons of T.H. Rowe's guano on board.   Captain Henry took advantage of the lull in business and went back home to marry his sweetheart Louisa. The company was granted a charter to navigate along the Oconee River by the Georgia legislature on September 17, 1879.  Other founders of the company were local merchants, William H. Tillery and William Burch.  Captain Skinner remained with the company only a few years before returning to Wilmington.  

With no railroad within 25 miles, river traffic was flourishing.  Henry, much to the dismay of Dubliners, was banned by federal regulations  from carrying kerosene on The Colville in 1882.  With Dock Anderson at the wheel, a round trip to Raoul Station still took the better part of a day.  Captain Henry began work on a new steamer in April of 1883.  The 100-foot gunnel boat was powered by two Crockett engines built in Macon.  A new flat was constructed to hold the bulk of the freight.  Henry's company put its second boat, The Laurens, on the river in August of 1883. 

R.L. Hicks, a Dublin school teacher, a partner in the firm of Hicks, Peacock, and Hicks, and rival newspaper editor, launched the William M. Wadley in August of 1883.  The boat was named for the president of the Central of Georgia Railroad.  The boat made only a few trips during its first six months of operation.  The Wadley soon became the fastest boat on the river, easily beating the fast Cumberland in a 111-mile race from Gray's Landing to Doctortown. In  March of 1884,  The Wadley brought a 150-ton load of groceries, hardware, cloth, and supplies into Dublin.  It was, at that time,  the largest load ever brought here.   In one year of service, The Wadley, after lying idle for three months, made 62 round trips covering twenty thousand miles.  She carried twelve million pounds of freight without a single accident.  Unlike many other boats, The Wadley only needed five dollars in repairs in her first year.  The Dublin Times, edited by Mr. Hicks often made snide remarks about The Colville, calling her "that North Carolina Tub."  Hicks cried foul about the Oconee River Steamboat Company's exclusive contract to haul freight to and from the Central Georgia Railroad.  When The Colville sunk in shallow water on September 19, 1883, Hicks lamented her return and regretted that she failed to commit suicide. The sinking was a mystery which resulted in the loss of three to four hundred dollars to the freight and furniture on the boat.  The Cyclone was tied to the Colville and soon met a similar fate.

Competition for the hauling of freight escalated.  The Dublin and Wrightsville Railroad was being constructed from Wrightsville to Dublin. Capt. Henry built a 16 by 80 foot barge to haul 100 bales of cotton during low water.  The railroad reached Dublin in September of 1886.  The Dublin and Wrightsville Railroad, which later merged with the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad, was owned by the Central of Georgia.  The use of Raoul Station on the Central was no longer necessary.  The railroad entered into an agreement with the Oconee River Steamboat Company that allowed the river boats to use the rail facilities in Dublin in exchange for agreeing to haul goods between Dublin and Mt. Vernon only.   When the W&T built its railroad bridge and the county its passenger bridge, the bridges were built to turn their center spans to allow the steamers to pass through. Boat landings were established at the present site of Riverwalk Park, the railroad bridge, and a block below the railroad bridge.

Changes were being made in the Oconee River Steamboat Company.  Captain Henry was succeeded by Jeff D. Roberson, who was followed by T.B. Hicks, George B. Pope and A.B. Jones. The Laurens sunk after a collision with a log raft  at a double bend in the river on June 9, 1887.  The company suffered a complete loss of $10,000.  Engineer John Graham and pilot Norman McCall were carrying 185 barrels of rosin.  Norman McCall, minister of the First African Baptist Church, was known to be a giant of a man.  McCall anchored a pole in the river and managed to save 150 barrels by retrieving the barrels and swimming to the surface while holding on to the pole.  The company temporarily secured a new boat. But, with the sale of the Colville and her transfer to the  Ocmulgee River, The Oconee River Steamboat Company went out of business, selling its wharf to Foster and McMillan, brick manufacturers, on July 15, 1887. 

Captain Henry turned his interests to timber and banking in the late 1880s.  In 1892, he  became the founding president of Dublin's first bank, The Dublin Banking Company.  Five years later he built an elegant two story building at 101 West Jackson Street in Dublin.  The building became the home to the bank, when it received its state charter in 1898.  Captain Henry and his wife, the former Miss Louisa Gibbs, were founding and faithful members of the Dublin Presbyterian Church.  Captain Henry was chosen as a director of the Dublin Cotton Mill in 1897.  Robert C. Henry died in 1900 and was buried in the old City Cemetery.  Years after his death his body was re-interred in the Burgaw Cemetery in North Carolina near his home.  In 1902, the members of the Dublin Presbyterian Church voted to change the name of their church to the Henry Memorial Presbyterian Church in honor of Captain Robert Henry. For years after Captain Henry's death, Louisa Henry was a faithful and ardent supporter of the church. 

With the coming of the railroads and the automobile, river transportation eventually died.  But for a quarter of a century, Captain Henry and his colleagues and competitors kept  our local economy going as their boats chugged up and down the Oconee River.  

08-46   

LOOKING FOR A HERO?

Where Do We Go From Here?

I love what I do.  Every week for the last six hundred and sixteen weeks, I have had the blessing to talk to and write about heroes.  Some of them have been witnesses to some of the greater moments in the history of our community, our state or even our world, but the vast majority of the heroes I write about are the ones who excel in what they do in everyday life.   Their admirable triumphs of the human spirit should be  guides to each of us.    

We are in trouble, but we are not dead.  There is hope.  Today, the voters of our country will elect a new president, and frankly a new Congress or at least one which will work together for the good of the majority of Americans.  We can only hope that the leaders we choose will be  great ones, dedicated to restoring all that is right with America.

Webster’s Dictionary primarily defines a hero as “a man (or a woman) admired for his achievements of noble qualities.”  A hero is usually defined as “one who shows great courage.”  Just about any soldier, sailor, airman, or marine whoever put on a uniform will tell you that they are not heroes.  “I was doing my job, my mission, my duty.  The real heroes don’t come home,” they will say.  Any of us who struggled through laboriously long epic novels in high school English will remember that a hero is also a central figure in a literary work, an event, a period, or a movement.  

Finally, a hero can be the object of extreme admiration and devotion.  These are our idols.  Too many times we look for our heroes on the gridirons and diamonds or on the screens of multiplex theaters. Please don’t get me wrong.  We need these idols.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with having or being idols.  I recommend that you seek them out and be one yourself.  But, we shouldn’t count all of our heroes as the ones who have numbers on their back, or those who have fat wallets from being good looking or having a good singing voice.

For centuries, the people of Laurens County have always come through for each other in times of crises.  Catastrophes come and go.  Our spirits bend, but they never break.  Whether in times of war or peace, storm or drought, or life or death, we are there.  We have to be.  It is the only thing we can do.

You don’t have to look on television or go on the Internet to find a hero.  They are not just featured in history books or on the walls of museums.  Many people  turn back the clock  or look far away for their heroes.  In point of fact, heroes are around us, every day and all the time.

When I was a boy, we were taught by our elementary school teachers who  our heroes were.  They showed us pictures of policemen in neat blue uniforms  and firemen with bright red helmets.   These are the men and women who walk  into incinerators and confront the bad man’s bullets.   They are still our heroes. And, they will always be.  

What we didn’t stop to realize is that the very ones teaching us who our heroes should be, were actually heroes themselves.  I direct you back to Noah Webster’s lexicographers, “A hero is one admired for his achievements of noble qualities.”   What could be more of a noble profession than that of a teacher?  A lawyer?  A doctor?  A minister? I think not.  Who taught the lawyer, the doctor and the minister  how to read and think in the first place?    

Today’s teachers are vastly underpaid and woefully underappreciated.  They are forced to endure the ridicule of the indifferent and endless, senseless, and useless  government mandates which keep them out of the classroom and sitting at their desks filling out reports.  Yet, every day they show up for work - many with a smile and the bulldogged determination to reach the mind of a child.  They are there every day, sometimes mustering their courage not to scream and walk away, but always with one thing in mind: the children, and yes, even the heroes of our future.

When I was a child, boys played cowboys and Indians and army.    They are your heroes they said.  We shot the bad guys just like our heroes did on our black and white televisions and on the big screen at the Martin Theater. We pretended we got shot and died.  

Then the pretending stopped and real boys were being in killed in Vietnam.  All of sudden we had a whole new group of heroes, but somewhere along the way, too many people forgot to thank them and welcome them home.  It’s not too late; when you see a Vietnam vet, shake his hand, hug him and say “thank you.”  

Today, boys are still marching off to fight wars started by men.  It seems as if it was only yesterday when Thomy Foskey and Brian Palen were marching with the Fighting Irish Band during the half time shows.  They are our heroes, fighting a war halfway around the Earth. There are many, many more.  Let us pray that they all come back home, soon and safely.

A month ago, I had a conversation with singer Gary Puckett, who sold more records than Elvis and the Beatles in 1968.  Puckett closes his show by shaking the hand of every veteran in the audience and singing one of  his signature songs Hero.  He told me that he has to sing that song, which he wrote praying for the safe return of the guys in Vietnam back to their homes, their families and their momma’s chocolate cake.  “They deserve to be thanked,” said Puckett, whose own father suffered profoundly from his time in a German POW camp.  

Laurens County is blessed with more than its share of organizations who care about those who can’t help themselves.  There are groups and clubs out there who band together to give others a boost with money, food, clothing, or if nothing else, a shoulder to cry on and great big hug.  Give what you can to these people who care.  With inflated gas and grocery prices and skyrocketing costs of just staying healthy and alive, their donations have decreased.  Give, if only a little.  If every person in this county gave one dollar to twenty-five organizations, more than a million dollars could be distributed to the needy every year. That only amounts to drinking about twenty fewer bottles of soft drinks  and drinking water instead.  It won’t hurt.  You won’t miss it, but your waistline will.  

Everyone has had a hero.  Many of you have been heroes.   You know a hero when you see one.  When we see them, we stand up and cheer.  Sometimes we  smile and wave in admiration.  But, the real heroes are the ones who make you and me cry.  They are the ones who triumph over adversity, the ones who reach for the unreachable star, and the ones who never give up on their dreams. 

Trouble is, we need more heroes.  But you can’t just go through life looking for a hero.  Are you looking for a hero?  If so, go to a mirror, take a look, and see the best hero of all.  Then, just go out and be one.

Put these on your “to do” list.  Feed the hungry.  Comfort the sick. Pray for those who suffer.  Teach. Give. Volunteer.  Serve.  Hug your child.   Don’t ask yourselves, “Do I have the time?”  Don’t say, “I don’t have the money.”  Just do it. 

Being a hero is not very hard.   You don’t have to hit a walk off home run, score the winning touchdown or get killed in a battle.  It is actually very simple.  All you have to do is to give all of yourself to someone else, just when they need it most.

08-47

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

Death in the Trenches

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, ninety years ago today, Ferdinand Foch of France, commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces and Matthias Erzberger, a civilian representative of the German government,  came together in the Marshal Foch's railcar in the Compiegne Forest and signed an armistice agreement ending more than four years of what up to that time had been the deadliest war in history of man.  Though the war wouldn't officially end until June 28, 1919 with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the 11th of November would forever been known as Armistice Day, that is until 1954, when the name was changed to Veteran's Day in recognition of all veterans.

Considering the relative short period of American involvement, the nineteen-month war cost the lives of fifty four Laurens County men, making it the deadliest war in the county's history by fatalities per month at nearly three.  Though the vast majority of the deaths suffered by local men were a result of disease, and in particular pneumonia, the deadliest month came in July 1918, when the Allied armies began their final push across the trenches of France in deadly trench to trench and hand to hand combat.

Before America's involvement in the war, a large segment of the military force of the Army was composed of citizen soldiers of the National Guard.  For the previous quarter of a century, Laurens County citizens participated in local guard troops under the umbrella of a state guard.    In 1916, after returning from duties in Mexico, the unit in Macon formed the 151st Machine Gun Battalion.  Over the next ninety years, the unit would be known as the 121st Infantry and now under it's current designation as the 48th Infantry Brigade.

Seven  men from Laurens County decided to go to Macon to Camp Harris and enlist.  Many of them, already veterans of the Mexico campaign, knew that their country would soon become involved in the fighting in Europe, which had been raging for two years.  Cecil Adams, Alexander Davis, Clarence Fordham, Lewis Gordie, Daniel P. Hudson, Delmar W. Howard and James Mason all joined up to go over there and fight the Huns.  

In the first days of July in 1918, the Allied Expeditionary Forces began an all out offensive on the German lines in eastern France.   The 151st was assigned to support the 84th Infantry Brigade, composed of two regiments, the 167th from Alabama  and the 168th from Iowa.  The 84th was one of two brigades of the 42nd Rainbow Division, so named by their future commander General Douglas McArthur because his men represented the entire spectrum of America.  

The 42nd,s commander devised an ingenious plan to mix the companies of his four brigades into three lines, the front line having only a few men to fool the Germans into believing that they were being opposed by an inferior force.  The 151st companies were positioned in support of the brigades, who were occupying a line in front of a forest which, despite its bareness, afforded sufficient cover to conceal the German advance, one which was made with lightning quickness and efficiency.

Just after midnight of the 15th, the German army opened their attack.  High explosives and mustard gas was heaved upon the entrenched American boys.  Father Duffy, a bystander, compared the barrage of artillery and its resulting flashes of light to the Aurora Borealis.  Most of the German artillery fell harmlessly on the front trench, which had been manned by a meager sacrificial force.  The bombardment continued until the early light of dawn. 

When the sunrise illuminated the allied front, the Germans poured into the trenches expecting to find dead Americans.  Instead, they found only a few bodies and shattered equipment.  They plunged forward, only to find themselves right in the middle of a mine field and in full view of the machine gunners of the 151st.   The Alabamians in the trenches expected a fight and they got one, despite the fact that Germans were slaughtered by relentless American artillery fire.  The Iowa boys readied for battle, fixing their bayonets as the Germans came out of the woods.  

Then the second line opened up.  The 151st mutilated the Germans as they approached the infantry.  The 167th and French viciously counter attacked to hold the line.  The combat turned to hand to hand.  The Americans and the French banded together to defeat their common enemies.  It was said that the Americans developed an intense hatred of their German enemies.    Elmer Sherwood, a machine gunner from Indiana, reported that the Alabamians took their Bowie knives and cleaned up the enemy.  "It was no surprise to any of us, they were a wild bunch, not knowing what fear was."   Lt. Van Dolsen agreed and stated that the Alabamians did not take any prisoners.

Cecil Adams (Co. C) of Dublin was gassed and was forced to retire from the field.  Dexter resident Daniel P. Hudson (Co. B) was killed during the fighting.  The next day, the German air force bombed the Americans.  To make matters worse, the Georgians had to keep their heads down from a withering artillery barrage.  This was the day that Delmar Howard fell dead on the field.  

On the 18th of July, the Allied Forces launched the first great offensive of the war. During the fighting, Walter Martin, of the Hospital Department of the 6th Field Artillery, was severely wounded.   The initial attacks were directed to both sides and the point of Chateau-Theirry salient.   Six days later the 151st and the Rainbow Division moved by camion from La Ferte sous jouarre to the outskirts of Epieds.  In front of them was the beautiful valley of the Marne.  They were there to relieve the advance troops.

This new battlefield was unlike any other the men had experienced.  They knew the fighting would be more intense, unlike their relatively tranquil assignments in the Luneville and Baccarat sectors or the "old-fashioned doggedness" of the Champagne.  There were no rusty camouflage screens, old trenches and barbed wire.  Their mission was not to hold ground, but to take more.  They were there to beat the Germans both physically and mentally.  

Their objective was the La Croix Rouge Farm, described as one of the finest little nests of the Boche in France.  The combat zone was surrounded on the forests on four sides with a road cutting across the field in a southeasterly direction.  The far side of the road was lined with deadly machine gun posts.   Beyond the road, the tree lines on three sides of the field were filled with more battle hardened machine gunners, perhaps as many as a thousand.

By the end of the day on the 25th, the American forces were in place.  At daylight on the morning of the 26th , the attack began.  With the Alabamians on the left and the Iowans on the right, the Americans pressed forward across the field, falling left and right to withering machine gun fire from their front and along both flanks.    By the end of the day, the field was strewn with corpses of the farm boys from Jayhawk and Yellowhammer states, along with those from the Empire State of the South.  Among them was Clarence Fordham, the 17-year-old son of Dublin residents Mr. and Mrs. J.D. Fordham.  At the age of fifteen, Fordham left his home and family to see action along the Mexican border.  He briefly returned home before he went over there.  The Fordhams never saw their son alive again.

             The Americans pulled back to the safety near their original line of departure.  They soon realized that gaining open ground did little good when German machine gunners would be ready to descend upon them in their moment of victory.  Though their morale was high, the Germans evacuated the area and retreated from a key position on the line back to the Ourcq River and a natural fortress surrounding the village of Sergy.  

The Rainbow Division encountered the enemy once again on the night of the 27th.  At dawn, the surge to cross the Ourcg, swollen with rain water,  began.  German machine gunners opened with a vicious enfilade from three directions.   Lewis Gordie, of Dublin, was severely wounded in the early fighting.  The Alabamians, supported by the guns of the 151st, rushed to take Sergy, only to lose it as they retreated back to the river bank.    A second rally was met by the powerful Fourth Prussian Guards, who fell before the surging Americans, albeit at a high cost of young men.   The seesaw battle continued throughout the next day.  With no air support, the American infantrymen had little chance against the entrenched German army, which had superior air support.    By dusk on the evening of the 28th, the Alabamians once again rushed toward Sergy.  This time, they took it and held it at least for a while,  despite an intense overnight artillery barrage.

On the morning of the 29th,   the powerful Prussians poured into the hastily set up American fortifications, driving the Americans back to the river for the seventh time in just two days.   The boys of the Rainbow Division had to do something. Sitting still meant sheer suicide.  A general attack on three fronts was launched.  But, there was no charge.  Machine gunners strafed the wheat fields in hopes of hitting the crawlers.   

Finally, the Alabamians routed out the last German resistance in Sergy.  The Iowans took the plateau.  By the end of the 30th, the grim casualty reports were reported to be 3,276 wounded and a countless number of dead.  Among the dead was James Mason of Dublin. 

Albert MacLellan of Company B described the eight brutal days of fighting in a letter to his mother, "It is just about the hardest eight days I have ever lived.  They have been in the hardest fighting, and have seen men fall right at my side, but could not help them.  Had to push right on to have a chance myself.  It was surely bad.  We have lost almost a hundred men out of our company, but all of them are not dead.  We are a sad worn out bunch.  We have fought in the rain, worn wet clothes and slept in little holes in the open until I feel like a groundhog and am just as dirty as one." 

The war would go on for another hundred or so  days before the German government surrendered.  A special memorial service was held at Henry Memorial Presbyterian Church to honor Mason and other members of his battalion, who were killed in the fighting in the Rheims-Soissons salient.  The congregation also honored the memory of Leonard T. Bostick, of Dexter, who was killed near Mason while serving in the Rainbow Division.  

It wasn't until the 9th day of May in 1919, when the boys of the 151st made it back from over there to their homes in Middle Georgia.    The train carrying the survivors pulled out of the Vidalia station along the Macon, Dublin and Savannah Railroad.  But not before the men enjoyed a breakfast cooked during the night by the kind women of "the Onion City."  All along the way, in towns and hamlets, people cheered and waved to the returning heroes.  Fifty fathers from Macon couldn't wait for the eight-hour trip, so they chartered a special train and road east to meet their homecoming sons.  

When the train pulled into Dublin, the men were treated to a banquet of fresh fruits, sandwiches, soft drinks and coffee by a Red Cross Committee chaired by Miss Helen Baum.  The reception was headed by Mayor Pro Tem J.R. Broadhurst, substituting for Mayor Peter S. Twitty, who was on duty in France.  

Standing off to the side, but not in a cheering mood, were the mother, sister and brother of James Mason.  Mason wasn't aboard.  In fact, his body was never found.  His name appears on a cenotaph tablet at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, France.  They were there to cheer the return of their loved one's squad.

As the train pulled up to the depot and the crowd rushed toward the cars, tears began streaming down the face of Mason's sister, who turned to her mother and said, "Mother, don't we wish we could the face of our Jim looking out one of those windows?"  Mrs. Mason turned to comfort her daughter and instructed her, "We must welcome his comrades, for they did their part as well."

Mrs. Mason and her children were introduced to Robert Windall, who was with Mason when he was killed.  Other members of his squad, including Cecil Chappell, Jack Peavy and Ed Isaacs,  came up to greet and comfort the Masons.  The men convinced  them  to board the train and ride with them to Macon, so that along the way, they could privately share their memories of the slain comrade, whom they affectionately dubbed the "war boss."  They especially wanted to share private thoughts about the last moments of his life.  

Lake Proctor, Lawton Davis, L.C. Cobb, R.O. Poole, and Cecil Adams were mobbed by their families as well.  As the trained pulled away,   Mrs. C.C. Jordan cried out "Sorry, we could not do as much for you as Macon can do, but everybody here loves you just the same."  The soldiers, as they headed out of town,  answered in a loud chorus, "We'll say you do!"  

It is not known whether or not the families of Clarence Fordham, Delma Howard and  Daniel P. Hudson were present.  Hudson's body still remains in France in the Meuse -Argonne American Cemetery in Romagne, France.  Fordham's remains lie in the shade of an oak in Northview Cemetery.   The final resting place of Howard's remains are unknown.

Of the eight Laurens County men of Companies B and C of the 151st Machine Gun Battalion, four were killed in action and two were wounded for a casualty rate of seventy five percent.  Only Privates Cobb and Davis survived unscathed, or should I say somewhat unscathed.  Laurens Countians accounted for twenty seven percent of the fifteen combat deaths of the two companies.  

The City of Macon erected a monument to the men of the 151st Battalion who gave their lives in defense of their country.  On this Veteran's Day, ninety years after the end of "The War to End All Wars," let us take the time to remember all of the veterans who have served us and those who will serve us in the years to come.  

08-48

DR. ANNELLA BROWN

Connoisseur of the Exquisite

Annella Brown, according to some, was well ahead of her time.   From her earliest days, Annella knew that she wanted a career in medicine.  The problem was that in her day, most doctors were men and very few women in the country were doctors.  Obviously, there were rarely any women doctors in Georgia.  Still, Annella achieved her goal and more.  In her later life, her success as a physician allowed her to  pursue her perpetual passion for art, jewelry and antiques, especially the rare and exquisite.

Annella Brown, the oldest child of Moody Brown and Eunice P. Brown, was born in Dublin, Georgia on September 13, 1919.    Annella first lived in her parents home at 109 Columbia Street and later at 210 Ramsey Street.   Annella was determined to become a doctor.  She entered high school at the age of eleven and took college preparatory classes in lieu of the normal business and domestic classes usually reserved for the young girls.   The young miss  graduated from Dublin High School in 1935 before she was sixteen years old.  Despite her heavy load of honors classes, Annella finished college in three years and graduated from Georgia College for Women in 1938.  Thirteen years later, she would be the first alumnus to win the college's Distinguished Alumni Award.   She won the award for the second time in 1975, making her the only graduate to win the prestigious award on two occasions.  

Annella had to delay her entrance into medical school because of the minimum age requirement of twenty-one.  To keep her mind sharp and to pay the bills, Annella taught English and math in a high school.    Miss Brown began her medical studies at the University of Georgia Medical School in 1941.  Two years later, she transferred to the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania.    Annella's dogged determination paid off in 1944, when she became Annella Brown, M.D.  Not only did Annella achieve her goal, but she achieved it with distinction, being one of only two graduates to graduate Summa Cum Laude.

After graduation came the normal practice of interning at a hospital.  Annella chose to do her internship at Philadelphia General Hospital, where she scored the highest grade among her colleagues on the surgery test given by the National Board of Examiners.  After three years of residency as the first woman surgeon  in the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Brown came back to Philadelphia General to practice medicine.  Her dream came true.  But, bigger and better things were in store for the young physician.

At the age of thirty, Annella was recruited by and signed by the New England Hospital where she served as Surgical Educational Director in charge of training surgical residents, a high honor considering that she had herself recently been a resident in training.  In 1950, Dr. Brown was named the hospital's Surgeon-in Chief, a position which she held for a decade.       During her tenure, Dr. Brown reversed the hospital's long standing policy of female leadership and the service of only women and children to a practice of serving all patients with both male and female physicians.

Dr. Brown's brilliant surgical skills led her to become only the nation's fifth female certified surgeon and the first woman surgeon to be accredited by the American Surgical Board in the states of New England. While in Boston, Dr. Brown was a fellow in the American College of Surgeons, an Assistant Surgeon at Massachusetts Memorial Hospital, and Instructor of Surgery at Boston University as well as a published author of medical journal articles.

After a relatively brief career in Boston, Dr. Brown left the Bay State to practice in Pennsylvania at  the Milton Hospital in 1961.    For nearly three decades, Dr. Brown served on the staff of the Hospital, where she was President of the Medical Staff from 1985 to 1986.  She specialized in cancer surgery of the breast, colon and thyroid.   Dr. Brown was one of the first surgeons to use the practice of chemotherapy in treating her patients.

In an obituary written by her niece, who also contributed much of the information about Dr. Brown's life to the Laurens County Historical Society,  Deborah Travers wrote "Throughout her life, Dr. Brown pursued both knowledge and beauty."    Annella seemed to be enchanted with poetry, history, art, antique furniture and fine jewelry.  

Poetry was an early love.  Annella's poetry was published in the Modern Yearbook of Poetry and she was an author of several songs.    But her prime passion was art and antique furniture, especially 18th Century French furniture and pieces from the Art Deco era.   Travers stated, "She also possessed a keen eye for design, quality and the extraordinary pieces." Her extensive knowledge of art led to her invitation as a guest lecturer at Harvard University.   

Auction houses loved Annella Brown.  She rarely failed to frequent the sales of fine antiques and art.    "By nature, she was a self made competitive woman," her niece Deborah remembered.  In explaining her passion for collecting, Brown was once quoted as saying of herself, "I want what I want when I want it.  I'm known for standing in the aisle with my paddle up until I get it."  

Dr. Brown's captivation for having the most exquisite items for her home and collection was never more apparent than in 1977, when she arrived in a helicopter to attend the auction of the estate of the Earl of Rosebury in Mentmore, England.

Eventually, Annella developed a enchantment for jewelry, which "came in part from her attraction to jewelry boxes," her niece stated.  Though she rarely wore any of her best jewelry,  she amassed a fortune in  some of the world's most exquisite items, including her favorite Cartier necklace, which she sold and bought three times.  Her collection of Art Deco jewelry was reputed to be one of the finest in the nation.  

Dr. Brown's loves extended to architecture.  She restored three homes in the Dordogne Valley of France and  an 1859 sixteen-horse stall barn in Sherborn, Massachusetts, which she converted into a ten-room colonial home.  Her collection of restored homes included five houses in Beacon Hill and a Boston town house.   In 1980, Dr. Brown discovered an Art Deco home in Miami Beach.  Though it was not for sale, Dr. Brown got what she wanted and began the lengthy, detailed and expensive process of restoring the 1935 house to its original grandeur.  

A few years before her death, Dr. Brown's collection of art, jewelry, furniture and an eclectic amalgamation of the elegant was sold by Skinner Auction Company.  At the age of 88, Dr. Brown died of heart failure at her home in Miami on April 13, 2008.  Those who knew her would say that ,  "She loved laughter, singing, originality, challenges, meeting new people, and learning something new."  Her niece simply said, "She was a Renaissance woman."

08-49  

ED WHITE

"The End of a Long Voyage"

Every day as Ed White goes to work, he is reminded of all of the lives given in service to our country.  As he passes by the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Commander White imagines what happened there on December 7, 1941.  He envisions the terror of the defenseless sailors aboard their ships as the Japanese zeros came diving toward them, streaking through the smoke filled skies, and igniting the world around them.  His emotions are mixed.  He grieves for the lives of the lost and their families, but at the same time remains proud knowing that in his own way, he and others have taken over where they left off in the honorable service of our country.

Commander Ed White, his friends still call him "Ed," remembers first learning about Pearl Harbor in his textbooks at Moore Street School, a block or so down the street from his Mimosa Street home.  His first true experience with the infamy of that fateful December Sunday morning  sixty seven years ago came while he was standing on the bridge of the USS Holland as she passed by the various memorials.  His desire to find out what really happened that notorious day drove White to study what happened, why it happened and the lessons he and others can learn from the attack.  "Once into port, I toured just about every memorial, and each has their own story to tell. Although tragic, this event united Americans, as did the 9-11 attacks," said White as he complimented the American people for their ability to navigate through the bad times with the help of God to serve his purpose. 

Every morning as he drives down the Kamehameha Highway from his McGrew Point home, he observes bus loads of tourists, who come from all over the world and stand in line for hours, just to pay homage to the crew of the USS Arizona and the more than 3000 souls who lost their lives on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu.   

As a young boy in Dublin, Ed White loved to play basketball - being taller than most of the boys in his class helped a lot.  After he graduated from Dublin High School in 1977, Ed had planned a career in the grocery and dry goods business, much like his paternal grandfather of the same name.  While working and going to college in Brunswick, Ed began to notice the big ships as they appeared and disappeared over the horizon near St. Simons and Jekyll Islands.  He wondered to himself, "What is beyond the horizon?"  He remembered visiting with his uncle Sibley White, an old navy man.  "Uncle Sibley used to show me pictures of the exotic places he had visited while he was in the Navy.  I can remember sitting with him on the white sandy beaches as a child and looking out over the water," White fondly remembered as he thought about those days and what the people aboard those ships were going to see after they disappeared below the sky.  

Suddenly the thought of selling groceries drifted out of his head and Ed found himself enlisting in the U.S. Navy.  "I started out as a Seaman Recruit, at the bottom of the totem pole in 1977, " Ed commented.     Over the next dozen years, White, the youngest son of Judge William H. White and his bride, the former Melrose Coleman of Dexter, climbed the ladder in rank up to Senior Chief Petty Officer.  In 1990, he was commissioned an ensign.  Over the last eighteen years, White has risen in the ranks up to the position of Commander.  He credits his success as an officer to his time as an enlisted man and learning how they think and how they tick. "I feel it has made me a better leader as an officer," the Commander said.

As an enlisted officer, Ed served aboard the USS Mount Whitney and the USS Edison. He lived around the country in such places as Norfolk, Austin, Nashville, Newport and Galveston.  His first assignment as an officer came when he served aboard the USS Holland as the ship's Secretary, Personnel Officer and Administrative Officer.  His next post was aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which saw duty in the Mediterranean Sea.  After a three-year stint as Operations Coordinator for the U.S. Defense Attache Office in Australia, White returned to the states as Personnel Officer at Pensacola, Florida.  From July 2000 to June 2003, Ed served as the Executive Officer of the U.S. Navy Personnel Support activity for the Far East/Pacific.  While serving as Administrative Department Head aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, White was awarded the Stennis Straight Furrow Leadership Award for 2004.  In March 2005, White was once again honored by being given the position of Executive Officer of the Naval base at San Diego, California, the largest of its kind in the Pacific and the Navy's second largest around the world.  

Today, White serves as Staff Enlisted Personnel and Fleet Personnel Distribution Officer for the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet under the command of Admiral Bob Willard.  Among the numerous medals ribbons which enhance his uniform are the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, two Navy Meritorious Service Medals, six Navy Commendation Medals, three Navy Achievement Awards, along with campaign medals from Southwest Asia (bronze star,) Armed Forces Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal, three Sea Service Deployment Ribbons, six Overseas Service Awards, and the Kuwait Liberation Medal.  

Now, just three months shy of his scheduled retirement after thirty-one years of service, Commander White is preparing to pull into port for the last time in his naval career, giving up a sure promotion to Captain and even a possible one to Admiral.  He is retiring, not because he is tired of being in the Navy.  "The Navy has meant everything to me.  It has helped me to mature and given me opportunities that would I have never received, especially my education,"  White, the holder of a Master's Degree in Human Relations from the University of Oklahoma,  remarked.  He will miss talking with the President, congressmen, and ambassadors.  He will miss conversing with celebrities and sports stars before they perform.  And he will miss visiting the exotic places he saw in his uncle's photo album.  He will always remember the thrill of piloting several of the Navy's largest ships as some kid stares as them with his mouth wide open.

No, the real reason Ed White will never go to work again in his blue uniform is some things he doesn't want to miss.  For thirty years, Ed's wife Kim has supported him.  "I feel it's time to settle  down.  I am away from home for up to a year and I have constantly moved from place to place," White lamented.  "Now it is time for me to support and be there for her now that the kids are out on their own."  His eldest child, William Douglas White, has just graduated from Wake Forest University.  His youngest, Meredith Lynn White, is a freshman at the state university in San Diego, California, the place where White hopes he can retire, perhaps as a civilian worker while maintaining his ties with the Navy.  He wants to be there when his daughter graduates.  He wants to be there for the birth of his grandchildren. He simply wants to be home when he wants to be home.    

When he came into the Navy, Ed White never thought he would have the honor of serving at a place like Pearl Harbor with its roots deep in Naval history.  Ed, like many others, joined the Navy for the travel around the world, the free education and a new life.  It didn't take but a few moments after he first stepped into Boot Camp and later aboard his first ship, for Ed to realize that it was his purpose in life to serve his country.  

"I have many people to thank, starting with God above, for what He has provided.   I 've been truly blessed, and I couldn't think of a better place to close my Naval career than here in Pearl Harbor."  Commander White's retirement ceremony, scheduled for next February,  will be aboard the Battleship USS Missouri, the same ship on which the Japanese surrender was signed. "Pearl Harbor will always have a special place in my heart," Commander White concluded.

Commander White sees the Navy's role as a peace keeper through a strong presence around the world.  He adds that the Navy is always training to fight when called upon, not only on the seas, but in the air and on the ground in support of the Global War Against Terrorism.  As a military man and an American, White believes that it is important to support our new leaders, despite what differences you may have with them.  White asks everyone to "Pray that God will guide them while they hold the most important positions in the world."   He adds, "I encourage all the people of Dublin and Laurens County to take the time to pray for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines and their families." Lastly, to all his friends and family, his mother Melrose and his brothers Herschel White and Bill Fennell back home in Dublin and his sister Lavonne Ennis in Talbotton, Ed wishes "a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year."

The new year will bring a new life and new opportunities for Ed, Kim and their family.  Just for a change, Ed and Kim can then take a stroll through the neighborhood or a long drive through the country and see the wonders of this side of the horizon.   As you cast your anchors aweigh and sail at the break of day, and until you reach the shore, may we  all wish you a happy voyage home.

08-50

JOHNSON COUNTY

A Semisequintennial Look Back

On next Wednesday, December 10, 2008, Johnson Countians will celebrate the founding of Johnson County, Georgia.  This is the story of the early years of Johnson County and some of the most important events and persons in her history.  

Although the county celebrates its 150th anniversary, the land which it encompasses was inhabited first by American Indians and for seventy years by residents of Emanuel, Washington and Laurens Counties until the formation of the new county, named in honor of Georgia governor Herschel V. Johnson of Jefferson County.  

The bill to establish Johnson County was introduced in the Georgia Senate by Senator Swain M. Fortner, who lived just northwest of present day Kite, Georgia.   The  new county was created from sparsely populated regions with no municipalities within her bounds. The enabling law fixed the site of the county seat at Wrightsville, named in honor of John B. Wright, one of the infant county's wealthiest planters, slave owners and a resident of the Buckeye community.  His house still stands on the New Buckeye Road just above the Laurens County line.  

The initial county officers appointed by the legislature were Sheriff Joshua Hightower, Tax Collector Jacob T. Snell, Tax Receiver Madison Mason, Clerk of Superior Court James W. Walker, Clerk of Inferior Court Richard Walker, County Surveyor William B. Snell and Coroner George W. Hammock.  The county was managed in those days by a quintet of Justices of the Inferior Court.  The first court was composed of M. C. Williamson, Solomon Page, Lott Walker, Joseph C. Smith and George Smith.

A commission of five men met at Cedar Creek Church on Christmas Eve in 1858 to begin the process of laying out the formal foundation of the county.  John B. Wright, Thomas A. Parsons and James Hicks, all from the western part of the new county, joined James M. Tapley and Daniel Tison from the southeastern part of Johnson County in determining the location of the courthouse and beginning the arrangements for the court system.

William P. Hicks offered to donate a 78.75 acre tract on the road running from Mason's Bridge, just below where the current U.S. Highway 319 crosses the Ohoopee River, down to Cedar Creek Church as the site for the new courthouse.  The committee decided that the new county seat would be named for the person who donated the most money to its organization.  Though Hicks' generation was overly generous, monetarily it was inferior to the one thousand donation of John B. Wright, the county's wealthiest man and the first Johnson Countian to represent his county in the Georgia Senate during the early years of the Civil War.  And so, with Wright's donation to the formation of the county seat, the new town was named Wrightsville, instead of Hicksville.  In hindsight, had William Hicks donated more land, the city would have borne more than its share of jokes about it's the nativity of her inhabitants.

James M. Tapley was elected as the first state representative of Johnson County during the 1858 legislative session.  He was succeeded by George Washington Wesley Snell, Thomas A. Parsons, James Hicks, J.W. Meadows, W.H.  Martin, Robert J. Hightower, J. Christian, Swain M. Fortner, William L. Johnson, M.H. Mason, E.F. Fortner, E. Jenkins, Silas Meeks, L.L. Deal, Richard T. Lovett, C.S. Meadows and James C. Snell, most of whom were veterans of the Confederate Army.

Just years into her infancy, Johnson County and her citizens were confronted with a political issue that would change the history of the county forever.  Although the county's two delegates to the Secession Convention of 1860 voted to remain in the Union, a meeting of the citizens of Johnson County was held on May 15, 1861 in the Courthouse for the purpose of organizing a volunteer militia unit.  Upon a motion by  Dr. T.A. Parsons, the  Hon. Jethro Arline was called to the chair the formation committee.  M.C. Williamson and W.A. Sutherland volunteered to act as secretaries.  Committees of three men from each militia district were responsible for the uniforming of the volunteers and supporting their families. The committees were composed of Wiley Mayo, James M. Tapley, J.T. Riner, Durrant Foskey, W. Riner, George W. Snell, Theopholus Christian, B.J. Wood, M.H. Mason, John B.. Wright, J.R. Smith, and T.A. Parsons, H. Sumly (Lumley), L. Price, and Solomon Page.

The Johnson Grays were officially organized on July 11, 1861.  The company elected the following officers:  Robert P. Harmon, Captain, Swain M. Fortner, 1st Lieutenant, William O. Clegg, 2nd Lieutenant, Thomas W. Kent, Jr. 2nd Lieutenant, Amos A. Jordan, 1st Sergeant, George C. Davis, 2nd Sergeant, John W. Crawford, 3rd Sergeant, Charles Duggan, 4th Sergeant, Henry B. Sharp, 1st Corporal, John Tapley, 2nd Corporal, James Norris, 3rd Corporal and Andrew McDaniel, 4th Corporal.

The Grays were assigned to the 14th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment.  The company was first sent to Atlanta and thence to Lynchburg just before the Battle of First Manassas.  During the war, the Johnson Grays participated in the  Battles of the Seven Days and the battles at Second Manassas, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvannia and the siege of Petersburg.  The company surrendered with General Lee at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.   There the Grays' strength was less than ten percent of its original force.  A mere ten men survived until the end.  Only W.T. McVay, James Lumley, Henry Kight, Leroy Lumley, Joel Mason, Asa Mayo, I.N. Stephens and Wm. J. Stephens men were reported unscathed during the war.  Only fourteen of the original hundred plus members of the company surrendered at Appomattox.  

Johnson County's second company was organized on March 4, 1862 as Company F of the 48th Regiment of the Georgia Volunteer Infantry.  The men chose their company name from Battleground Creek in eastern Johnson County.  The following officers were elected;  Thomas W. Kent, Captain, William A. Southerland, 1st Lt., Charles H. Colston, Jr., and Francis Parker, Junior Lts., William Ricks, Neal Young, Ancel Paul, Adam Benton, and Daniel Meeks, Sergeants, and Francis M. Tapley, Thomas J. Rowland, William Riner, and Ebenezer Fortner, Corporals.

The Battleground Guards participated in the Battles of The Seven Days, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg/Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, The Wilderness, Spotsylvannia, and the siege of Petersburg.  It was Gettysburg where near the end of the second day of the three-day battle that the company was nearly wiped out.  As a part of Wright's Brigade, the Guards and the 48th Georgia breached the Union center at Cemetery Ridge, only to be slaughtered when their flanks were overrun by Union defenders.

Less than ten percent of the company survived to see the end of the war. Sixteen soldiers limped into Appomattox.  Joel Anderson, Obediah Fortner, William Hadden, J.M. Meadows, and Bennett Meeks were the only men to have been reported unscathed, or somewhat unscathed, during the war.  James K.P. Mixon, Cicero Perry, Sampson Powell, and James M. Tapley also seemed to have survived unharmed during their one year of service.  

After the war was over, it seems that the problems of Johnson Countains were only beginning to threaten the still infant county.  With little or no food around and even less money, times were hard, as hard as they had been before or since.  Johnson County's nine hundred  or so slaves had been freed.  Some left the county while most remained on the farms of their former masters as sharecroppers.

The town of Wrightsville began to grow in the late 1860s.  Among the first property owners were C. Wessolosky, M.C. Williamson, Alex Sumner, John New, B.W. Holt, and W.B. Hall.  T.A. Parsons, John B. Wright and James Hicks oversaw the sale of lots, half of which had been given by W.P. Hicks.  

The town was officially chartered on February 23, 1866 by the Georgia legislature.  Jeremiah Parker, Morgan Outlaw, N.L. Boswick, Charles W. Linder and Frederick P. Reins were selected by the legislature as commissioners of the town.  It would be another two decades before the town was governed by a mayor and a town council.  W.W. Mixon was Wrightsville's first mayor and its first postmaster.  He was succeeded by Richard Walker, Jeremiah W. Brinson, Jr., B.B. Blount, Dr. T.L. Harris, and J.M. Cooke until the end of  the 19th Century.  The first council was composed of W.B. Bales, Jeremiah W. Brinson, Jr., T.W. Kent, V.B. Robinson and Richard Walker. 

It was in the year of 1870 when Johnson County made history.  The Superior Court of the County was assigned to the Middle District of Georgia.    During that year a new judge was elected to office.  His name was Herschel V. Johnson, the same Herschel Johnson for whom the county was named.  It was the first and perhaps the only time that a sitting Superior Court was holding court in the county named for him.  The rarity of this occurrence  is easily understood when you consider the fact that few counties are ever named for living persons and few if any counties were actually named for judges.

When the county was created in 1858, some churches, which had theretofore been located in Laurens, Emanuel and Washington Counties, were all at once located in Johnson County.  Among the counties earliest churches were Cedar Creek Baptist Church, Bethel Baptist  Church, Maple Springs Methodist, and Oaky Grove Primitive Baptist.  Among the Baptist county churches founded in the first quarter of a century of the county's history were: Arline Chapel, Bay Springs, Buckeye,  Gum Log "Mt. Pleasant," Pleasant Grove, and  Philadelphia. Outside the town of Wrightsville, the early Methodist churches were Corinth, Poplar Springs, and Wesley Chapel.

The citizens of Wrightsville wasted little time in establishing churches of their own, once they somewhat recovered from the cataclysm of the war and its tumultuous reconstruction era which followed.  The town's first church, the Wrightsville Baptist Church was organized at the Courthouse in 1871 with sixteen charter members led by the Rev. J.M. Donaldson.  In 1910, Mr. and Mrs. Ardis  Brown gave their life's accumulation of property to the church.  A new church was built and named Brown Memorial in their memory.

The members of the Christian faith began their services in the courthouse in 1881 under the leadership of the Reverend  Thomas M. Harris, M.D., Esquire, a local minister, doctor, lawyer, architect, judge,  mayor, councilman, storekeeper and philanthropist.   The members erected their first building in 1884 on the site of the present church building.

Despite the fact that the Methodists were the last of three major denominations to organize as a church, they built the first church building in the town in 1882.  However, Methodist services were held in the area beginning in 1870 under the leadership of Rev. C.C. Hines.

Just a quarter of a century after the end of the devastating war, the fortunes of Johnson Countians began to take a turn for the better.   The Tennille and Wrightsville Railroad was incorporated by an act of the Georgia Legislature on September 19, 1881.  The enabling law provided that citizens of Johnson, Washington and Laurens oversee the construction of the railroad.  Representing Johnson County on the board of directors were W.B. Bales, W.A. Tompkins, W.L. Johnson, J.A. McAfee, T.W. Kent, and W.W. Mixon.  The new road  ran from Tennille to Wrightsville.  That company failed and on November 7, 1883 the Wrightsville and Sun Hill Railroad Company was organized to operate a seventeen-mile railroad line from Wrightsville to the Sun Hill community east of Tennille.  Tennille's  businessmen were quick to purchase subscriptions and move the terminus of the railroad to Tennille.  The charter was amended to  reflect the new terminus of the road and on December 28, 1883, the name was changed to the  Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad Company.  The company's directors authorized an extension to Dublin and in the summer of 1886, the railroad reached the eastern banks of the Oconee River opposite Dublin.  Several years later, the railroad was extended all the way to Empire in Dodge County, but the name of the company never changed.  Today, the tracks from Dublin to Wrightsville have been all but abandoned.   One of the lasting reminders of the old W&T is the pavilion at Idylwild on the Ohoopee River south of Wrightsville.  It was a grand ol' place, where swimmers, ball players and socializers came from miles around to enjoy the merriment and frolicking of days long ago and gone forever.  

A second railroad came to Johnson County in the early 1890s when Capt. Thomas Jefferson James completed the Wadley and Mt. Vernon Railroad through the communities  of Tom, Kite,  Ethel,  Odomville and Adrian.  The road was eventually extended to Rockledge in Laurens County, but never reached its projected terminus in Mt. Vernon.  

The Brewton and Pineora Railroad was completed from Brewton to Pineora, which lies northwest of Savannah in the late 1890s.  It ran from Brewton in Laurens County in a southeasterly direction through Scott and Adrian, where it intersected the Wadley and Mt. Vernon and led to Adrian's explosive growth at the end of the 19th Century.

Along the routes of these railroads, new towns appeared.  Kite was incorporated in 1887.  The following year, Meeks was officially made a town.  In 1890, Scott became a town.  The last Johnson County town  created in the late 1800s was Adrian, which was chartered in 1899.

The end of the 19th Century saw one of the crowning jewels of Wrightsville and Johnson County.   In 1888, the South Georgia Conference of the Methodist Church approved the establishment of the Nannie Lou Warthen Institute as a district high school.  Rev. R.B. Bryan was the school's first president.  His sons, Paul and Walter, were superior students and were selected to receive the prestigious designation as Rhodes' Scholars.   College courses were added in 1891, but the name was not changed until 1907 when the school became Warthen College.  The facility was moved to the southern part of town and used until 1917, when the Wrightsville Board of Education took over the duties of educating the city's children.  The building, which was located on the site of the old High School, burned in 1934.  

Please join me in saluting the good folks of Johnson County in congratulating them for a century and a half of service and good deeds.  May their hard work and dedication to their communities never falter and may their legacies continue for a thousand years.

08-51

GRADY WRIGHT

He Brought Beauty to Our World

Grady Wright and Douglas Wells were known in Laurens County and around the state for their remarkable abilities of creating beautiful objects of art.  Whether floral arrangements, nativity scenes, landscaping or water color depictions, these two Laurens County men were especially known for their creations of Christmas decorations.  I call them, "the Men of Christmas."  In the next two weeks, I will tell their story.  But to really appreciate these men, you can not read just my words, you must look at the creations that arose from their keen minds and skilled hands.  The two men weren't related by blood, but Grady Wright's brother Eugene Wright did marry Douglas Wells' sister Eva Wells.

Grady Wright, son of Drewery Dobbins Wright and Mary Eunice Campbell Wright,  was born on February 10, 1911 in Cleveland County, North Carolina.   The Wrights moved to the Richland Church community in Twiggs County in 1919.  They moved to Dublin in 1923 and two years later, they established their home on the Irwinton Road.   Grady graduated from the University of Georgia in the early 1930s and  came to Dublin in the 1930s to begin his career as a horticulturist and nurseryman.   While he was in school, Grady studied flower arranging in the first school of its kind in the country.  

Grady helped the women of Dublin to organize the Dublin Garden Club, the city's first and oldest women's beautification club.  Martha Hooks, a long time gardener, recalled, "In 1939, he put a notice in Dublin newspaper asking women interested in organizing a garden club to meet him at the drug store."  Miss Hooks declared that Grady Wright was responsible for changing the face of Dublin, by making it a beautiful city with camellias, azaleas and other plants and shrubs.     Before his life was over, Grady Wright would work with nearly every club in the city to make Dublin the beautiful place it is to live.

Grady Wright answered his country's call and joined the United States Navy during World War II.  The Navy decided that Grady's talents at gardening should be utilized.  So, he was assigned to be the captain's gardener at the naval base at Norfolk, Virginia.  He was mostly in charge of maintaining the grounds around the captain's quarters, but he was once called upon to decorate for the wedding of the captain's daughter.  

When Grady received his discharged from the Navy, he took the money he had and began his horticulture business.  Within thirty years, he was growing sixty thousand azaleas for distribution around the South.  

Wright's love of flowers and plants led him into making floral arrangements of dried corn shucks, pine cones and sweet gum balls accented with plastic fruits and greenery.  He started working on his hobby in his barn across the highway from his four columned home. But those who saw his work just had to have one of his creations.  So, soon his barn was engulfed with his works.  He expanded it, painted it a bright red color and naturally dubbed it, "The Christmas Barn."  

Ladies from the age of thirty to the age of eighty traveled many miles to purchase one of his highly coveted  Christmas wreaths.  On other occasions, Grady Wright traveled to meet and greet his hoards of fans, teaching each of them how they could themselves make  objects of art from materials from their yards and the ten-cent stores.  They often came by the hundreds to watch Grady demonstrate his crafts, which he turned out in rapid succession during his seminars.

Of his forty or fifty creations, Wright was most famous for his wreaths, table decorations, and baskets of fruits and flowers.  He even built a early American nut tree out of real nuts he found lying on the ground.  "Every piece of material I use in wreaths is fabricated by high school kids who work for me in the summertime under the shade of a pecan tree or in my barn," Wright told a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine in 1968.  "When I started years ago, I used mostly rabbit tobacco, corn shucks, pine cones, and sweet gum balls - things everybody had - but now I use a lot of cheap polyethylene, which is lot easier for the average woman to get.  I spray fake foliage and fruits with paint and dip them in a solution of water and glue and pour on the glitter while they are still wet," Wright said.

Wright recalled that his career as a decorator originated after a local home economics teacher asked him to help her in a flower arranging class.  Before he knew it, Wright was in demand at local clubs.  Then the women he spoke to wanted more and more craft supplies, so he began a business to sell them all they wanted.  Within ten years, Grady Wright's wreaths were shipped to all fifty of the United States.

But Grady Wright was more than just a nurseryman and maker of crafts.  He decorated countless numbers of church sanctuaries and homes for weddings and parties.  When Don Lamb led the effort to build the Shamrock Bowl for the Dublin High School football team in 1962,   Wright donated the box woods, which outlined the top of the bowl until the stadium's renovation in 2006.    Wright was also responsible for the stadium's signature symbol.  He outlined and planted a large shamrock composed of hundreds of Liriope plants, which were sadly replaced by a concrete slab.   

When Grady suffered a heart attack in the late 1960s, his business never faltered.  Friends and family stepped in and kept the place going.  

Grady Wright died on December 22, 1976.  His friends and admirers erected a monument in Stubbs Park to honor one of the first accredited flower judges in the state.   Inscribed on the bronze plaque is the phrase, "He is a portion of the loveliness which once he made more lovely."  His niece Mrs. Ray Scarborough believed he was a natural because when Grady was a young boy, his mother was always cleaning out his room of a multitude of plants growing in tin cans.  

It was said of the man Grady Wright that he was a character.  "He spoke his mind when he felt like it and he wasn't above showing up at formal reception in his khaki work clothes, and that what may have endeared him to most of his friends," wrote Courier Herald editor W.H. Champion. 

For decades after his death, his Christmas decorations adorn houses in the Middle Georgia area.  They still do.  I have three in my home.  And every time I see them, I think of my grandmother Scott and how she loved the glittery golden hand crafted decorations of Grady Wright, a man of Christmas.  

    

08-52

   

DOUGLAS WELLS

A Story Teller Through His Art

There is an old Chinese proverb which says that "a picture is worth a thousand words."  Douglas Wells believed that wise old maxim and made it his life's mission.  This is the story of one Dublin artist who believed that there was a story behind every one of his artistic works.  And if you were lucky, he would tell you the story in person.

Douglas Lawson Wells was born in 1904.  He was a son of James Henry Wells II and Emma Ruth Jones Wells,  a middle kid of nine children.  Douglas grew up on his family's farm off the Country Club Road in a large family.     Douglas attended school and worked on the family farm during most of his free time.  But there was something inside Douglas, something that drove him to draw.  He drew on everything he could get his hands on.   Douglas sought out a job with the Dublin Courier Herald.  Editor Frank Lawson sensed the youngster's talent and gave him odd jobs around the office.   The determined young artist set out to be a newspaper cartoonist.  Douglas confided in Lawson, who advised the aspiring artist to finish his education as a prerequisite for his life's goal.  At the age of twenty, Douglas Wells graduated from High School, not in Dublin, but in Powder Springs.  He returned to Dublin from time to time.  Some of his earliest surviving sketches were found in the 1927 issues of the Dublin High school newspaper, The Campus Hurricane.  After accumulating enough money, Douglas moved to Chicago to attend an Art Institute in 1928.  But times in Dublin and Laurens County were bad and the country fell into the depths of the Great Depression.  

Many lives were altered by the economic despair which enveloped the country.  The life of Douglas Wells was no exception.  In a rural community, an artist's position was not listed on the help wanted pages.  Atlanta was his only choice.  There was more money in Atlanta and more opportunities to further his career.  

In the 1930 census, Douglas was listed as an interior decorator living in the boarding house of Edwin and Mildred B. Smith at 683 Lawton Street in the southwestern quadrant of the city.  Douglas took night courses in art and spent most of his non sleeping hours painting signs for businesses and theaters, including the Fabulous Fox Theater, as well as a brief stint as an artist with the Atlanta Constitution.   During his short time with the newspaper, Douglas worked under the supervision of Mrs. John Marsh. You know her better as Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With The Wind.

Douglas was happy with his career at the South's most prestigious paper, but his dream was to become an artist for Georgia Power Company.    In 1930, his dream came true. It lasted for the next twenty eight  years.  While at Georgia Power Company, Douglas worked closely with the husband of his former supervisor at the Constitution.    John Marsh became Douglas' mentor in his early years with Georgia Power.  With the hoopla of the publishing of the book Gone With The Wind and the unparalleled success of the movie, he found himself nearly in the middle of one of greatest moments in Georgia history.  In 1938, Douglas married the love of his life, Miss Mary Frances Freeman. 

Most lovers of local art know Douglas Wells as strictly a water color artist.  Few ever saw his early work.  Many never realized that his most widely heralded work came in the creation of manger scenes throughout Georgia, the nation and even as far away as Canada and Australia. His first manger scene was developed at the request of Patterson's Funeral Home in Atlanta.   Douglas used an empty room in the basement of the Kimball House to assemble his creation.  He used the talents of his artist friends to help in the construction of the figures.  

The owners of the funeral home and thousands of adoring viewers made Douglas' creche a regular Christmas attraction for more than thirty five years.  Thousands relied on it as an essential ritual of the Christmas season.    The manger scene was featured in a magazine article in the Atlanta Constitution in 1947.  The story's author stated that the scene was so popular that three Atlanta policemen had to be stationed on the grounds on Spring Street to handle snarling traffic and massive crowds, including a bus load of Sunday School children all the way from Chattanooga, Tennessee.    

The word of Wells' grand manger scenes spread and the artist was inundated with orders from around the South.  Other funeral homes wanted a duplicate or better scene for their lawns.  His hobby became so successful that he retired early from Georgia Power and went to work full time on what Douglas called "his sideline business."What distinguished the characters of Douglas' manager scenes were that they were done in the full around or bas relief, not simply on a painted piece of plywood.  

In 1970, Douglas retired from his hobby, turned vocation, of building manger scenes and returned to Dublin with Mary.  It was about 1977 when Douglas began a new career as a water color artist, a medium for which he is most well known.  His most well known works were recollections of his life on the farm.  As a child, he would pick up a stick and draw things around him.  Well into his seventies, Wells painted things in his mind and things around him.  The Stallworth Barn on Country Club Road just beyond Parker's Dairy Road was one of his most popular paintings.

Most of his water color paintings and sketches portrayed a rural theme, depicting scenes of ordinary life in a time long ago.   Others captured family life, his homes, but most of all, life in general.  One of his most enduring qualities was the desire to share the stories behind his works with any visitor to his home or anyone willing to listen to marvelous tales of days gone by.  

In the mid 1980s, many of his sketches were featured in the calendars of the Clean Community Association.  The Dublin-Laurens Museum features many of Douglas Wells' most classic depictions of local historic places.  During the 1980s, Wells fulfilled his promise to Frank Lawson and provided periodic cartoons for the Dublin Courier Herald. 

  

In 1992, the Laurens County Historical Society saluted Douglas Wells as he retired from his seventy years of artistic endeavors.  In his last contribution to the Dublin Courier Herald in the paper's last edition of the 1980s, Wells saluted the birth of a new decade and the end of an old decade consumed by the desire for money.  He urged all to remember that good work and good living by men, women and children live on.  Not differentiating between the national significance of tremendous deeds or simplest of little acts of kindness, he urged all to remember that "it is all very important."

08-53

1908    

A Centennial Look Back 

     The year 1908 was another good year for Dublin and Laurens County.  The city and her surrounding sister towns were still growing after a decade and a half of prosperity. Though times were good, the best years were yet to come. 

     The first news of the new year was good. Passengers could leave Atlanta at midday and arrive home in Dublin just in time for supper. Train riding was a popular pastime. At least a thousand Sunday School picnickers boarded trains in Dublin for the short ride over to Idylwild in Johnson County for a day of food, fun and frolicking. 

     But the iron horse was soon to be replaced by the horseless carriage.  And, L.W. Miller was going to prove it. Miller pulled his prize auto up next to a locomotive of the W&T Railroad in Tennille. Though he had to slow down over the bad spots in the dirt roads, Miller beat the train back to Dublin by ten minutes. Six months later, the bicycle dealer, would better his time and set a new record in the race between the Cadillac and the locomotive. 

     Streets in the city were being paved for the first time. First around the courthouse square and then throughout the residential neighborhoods, paved streets were suddenly in demand.  The residents of Bellevue offered to pay two-thirds of the cost if the city would pave their avenue. Mayor L.Q. Stubbs was so anxious that he personally offered to pay the share of any property owner who was unable or unwilling to contribute. Without the paving, the dust from the busy street could only be suppressed by pouring diesel fuel and kerosene on it. 

     The forward-looking folks of Dublin called for a bond election, an early version of the SPLOST sales tax, to provide for improvements to the city's infrastructure, including the construction of Stubbs Park and a new school on Saxon Street.  To meet the needs of the burgeoning city, the voters approved the construction of a half-million-gallon water reservoir at the water plant. In February, the voters, in a landslide election, approved the project by a margin of 10 to 1. 

     Just as it would be a century later in 2008, the campaigns of '08 were hotly contested. Since Laurens County, with its record registered voter total of 4,000 voters, was one of the state's most populous counties, politicians descended upon Dublin to promise what they would do if elected. Gov. Hoke Smith attracted a near overflow crowd of 1500 at the Chautauqua Auditorium, which underwent a massive expansion and renovation. Georgia's next governor, Joseph M. Brown was a dinner guest of his friend Izzie Bashinski at his Bellevue home. Former governor William Northern spent a day in town gathering information for the government on cotton production. 

     Three trains left Dublin to travel over to Idylwild.  They were  filled with people who wanted to hear Thomas E. Watson, a perennial political favorite in the area, as he campaigned for President of the United States. Just three weeks before the election, Watson, Georgia's favorite son candidate, came to Dublin in mid-October to speak at the auditorium. While in Dublin, Watson was a house guest of his close friend, Dr. C.H. Kittrell. Though William Howard Taft, the Republican candidate, won the election, William Jennings Bryan, who would speak in the auditorium two years later, carried Laurens County over Taft, who was supported by black voters. Watson came in a distant third. Election returns were received by Western Union telegraph and projected on the wall of the auditorium with a stereopticon device. 

     Dublin's population, which had increased 50 percent  since the beginning of the decade, was estimated at 4500, sixty percent of whom were white and forty percent of whom were black. More than one quarter of the city's residents were students. Out in the county, there were more than ten thousand students, a much higher figure than today. The county's student population had increased at the unbelievable, but highly gratifying, rate of twenty five percent in five years. 

     1908 was the year when plans were being made for the erection of the Confederate Monument on the grounds of the Carnegie Library and the erection of a new and permanent brick post office in Dublin. Fourteen sites were offered for the new building. Most Dubliners wanted it to be  located at the corner of Bellevue and Monroe Streets or on the northwest corner of the Courthouse Square.  After much controversy, the committee decided to locate the Federal building at the southwest corner of East Madison and South Franklin streets in the heart of the cotton related businesses and a block from the railroad depots. 

     P.J. Berckmans of Augusta began his design of Stubbs Park.  His original conception called for a lake and lots of fountains, but when the appropriated and donated funds fell short, the horticulturalist, whose gardens became the famous Augusta National Golf Course, scaled back his plans. The concrete causeway between the river bridge and the road on the East Dublin side was completed to allow more reliable crossings. 

     Alderman G.H. Williams proposed a $5000.00 annual tax on the sellers of Coca Cola, which he believed was injuring the people. He proposed the same tax on retailers of cigarettes and near beer. 

     Workers found the remains of the Laurens County jail while paving the street between the Brantley Building (old Lovett & Tharpe building) and the First National Bank (old F&M Bank building). The walls of the cells were found five feet below the surface and were twenty-four feet apart.  The discovery reminded Hardy Smith of an older jail that  was located on the old bus station site at the corner of South Franklin and East Jackson streets. 

Professor Paul Verpoest reorganized the Dublin Military Band.   Over the next seven years, the band would be recognized as one of the best city bands around.  The boys from Dublin would later represent the state of Georgia in the national reunions of the United Confederate Veterans on many occasions. 

More than a thousand people attended the tent show production of the play, Jesse James. The Star was the new silent movie theater in town. When its quarters became too small, it was moved to the auditorium. 

As I complete my twelfth year of chronicling the events of our past, I remind you all to look to the future, for there is where our most important history lies.   I leave with you with one of my favorite quotations.  It comes from a frustrated history teacher.  He actually wanted to be a piano player, but would have been gratified to have taught the history of the country he loved.    In his most famous vocation, he believed that knowledge of his country's past was vital.  His name was Harry S. Truman and he said, "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know."     So, study your past, document the present, and live for the future.  

08-54

BLACKSHEAR’S FERRY

Legends and Mysteries

For Laurens Now Magazine

The first of a series of ferries owned by War of 1812 General David Blackshear and his sons came into operation in 1808.  Two centuries later, eroded by rushing waters,  remnants of this mystical place still remain.  Most of the people who ever rode across the cascading waters on the rickety ferry boat are gone now.    For those who did, their recollections of their youth have now faded.  Like the ancient proverb says, “Blackshear’s Ferry never gives its secrets.”  So, let us take a look at some of the ancient mysteries and legends which surround Blackshear’s Ferry, some four crow fly miles north of Dublin on the Oconee River. 

One of the most enduring mysteries goes back more than four centuries.  English colonists under John White settled on Roanoke Island along the coast of North Carolina in 1587.  When White returned three years later, he found the colony completely deserted, except for a small sign on which was carved the word “Croatoan.”  One of the myriads of theories as to what happened to the lost colonists was that they traveled south into what would become Georgia some century and a half later.    Legend tellers would swear to you that these wanderers made their way across the Oconee River at the shoals, some quarter of a mile down the river.  While the legend sounds good, like many legends do, you decide for yourself, though logically this legend is probably not true.

Even more cryptic is the legend of the “Indian Spring Rock.”    Julia Thweatt Blackshear saw the rock.  She described it as four feet high and seven feet long.  One of the sides of the rock, which lies about a mile north of the ferry, has been carved as smooth as if it were cut by a marble cutter.  Mrs. Blackshear reported that across the face there are written, or carved, mysterious hieroglyphic letters.    Likened to Egyptian characters, these letters have been said to form a long line across the entire surface of the rock.  This legend is true.  What remains a mystery is where the rock is.  Did Mrs. Blackshear mean true north, which would put the rock somewhere in the vicinity of Springfield, the home of General David Blackshear?  Or did she mean, north along the river near where Blackshear’s original ferry once was located?  If so, on which bank did she mean?    For all you mystery solvers, this is one you can solve.  The trouble is, with the ever changing course of the river, the legendary “Indian Spring Rock,” may now be submerged waiting for millennia before someone deciphers its ancient message.

Interestingly just down the river from the ferry on the eastern bank of the river is another mysterious rock.  Lying on the steep slope of Carr’s Bluff is a limestone rock similar in size, but not in shape.  Lying on its side, the rock resembles half of a perfectly split  elongated heart.    While there are no markings on this rock,  it is puzzling how this massive rock came to rest some fifty feet up the side of a near cliff.     This rock does exist. The question remains, “How did it get there?”  Was it rolled down the cliff as an anchor  by Jarred  Trammel and James Beatty, who established their own ferry there at the point where the ancient Lower Uchee Trail crossed the Oconee River on its way from the Creek Indian lands in southern Alabama northeasterly to the area around present day Augusta on the Savannah River?      

If you walk down the western bank of the Oconee you will find a ditch which runs parallel with the river and at times sinks to a depth of more than twenty feet from the top of the river bank.  The trench, which spans out as wide as a hundred feet, runs in a southerly direction from the ferry down to the point where the Lower Uchee Trail intersects with the river bank at a tall near vertical  bluff at Carr’s Shoals.  

This is a mystery solved.  In the early decades of the 20th Century when river traffic was beginning to wind down, but when electric power needs were begin to swell, some thinkers proposed the idea of a canal from the area around the ferry down to Dublin.  The canal would be filled with water.   The proponents believed that since water flowed downhill  the resulting drop in elevation along the route could be utilized to generate electricity at the southern end of the canal.    They also believed that in times of raging high waters and rocky low waters,  flat boats, loaded with cotton and other valuable commodities, could be carried by horse and mule teams along a tow path.  To increase and diminish the flow of water along the canal, the builders erected gates, one of which can still be seen about half way down the path.  The project failed for the lack of money and utility.  

Dr. Arthur Kelly, esteemed archaeologist of the Smithsonian Institution, called them “the most exciting and wonderful Indian mounds that he had seen on his exploration of the Oconee River.”  Situated near the river crossing was the ancient Indian village of Ocute.  It was here in 1934, where Dr. Kelly and his party found an old Indian burying ground with at least eighty to one hundred graves.  Strewn and scattered across the ground were arrowheads and pottery deemed by Kelley as “entirely different from any others found in Indian mounds across the state.”

But just where were these mounds?  Were they at the crossing site, which to his dying day, Kelly and his colleagues  believed was where the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto crossed the Oconee during his journey in 1540? Were they further upstream or downstream nearer the Country Club?    Dr. Kelly warned Dubliners about commercial exploitation of the site and challenged them to raise a mere two hundred dollars to help establish a fund to explore and document the site.  Although there was an offer of Federal help with the labor and volunteer help by the ladies of the John Laurens Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, nothing was ever done.  Alas, Dr. Kelly went off to Macon to survey what became the Ocmulgee National Monument.  The legendary village of Ocute, or whatever it may have been called, is still there, just waiting for the time when the next archaeologist comes along to reveal the truth about what was really there.   

Julia Blackshear in her  article in The History of Laurens County, 1807-1941, names the village as Kitchee, which according to her description would have been located just to the north of the Dublin Country Club.  She tells the story of the time when the final council of the inhabitants of Kitchee was held.  Three aged Indians appeared before the great white chief, General David Blackshear, and asked his permission to allow them to remain on the lands of their ancestors and to guard their graves until their deaths.  The General graciously granted their requests and allowed the ancient and honorable  scions to live there in peace.  When the last of the trio died, the residents of the community buried him along the side of the other two.    Just where this ancient burial ground lies  remains a mystery, perhaps for the remainder of time.  

The area around Blackshear’s Ferry remains an ancient and mysterious place.  Please remember that the area is privately owned and to ask permission before visitation.  Despite the thoughtless efforts of the apathetic, the river, thanks to conscientious sportsmen and devoted river keepers, remains virtually pristine. And keeping it that way along with respecting the remains of a long ago people should always be our goal.   

08-55

JORDAN HAMPTON

Bound for Success

Look out New York, Jordan is coming!  With her portfolio in one hand and her bag in the other, Jordan Hampton of Dublin is headed for the Big Apple.   This seventeen-year-old model, with a classic model figure, is determined to be a successful model through hard work, determination, and the support of her family and a vast network of hometown friends, whom she graciously acknowledges and appreciates.

For all of her walking years, Jordan has loved to dance.  She still dances four to six times a week as a way of staying in shape for her modeling career.    Her diet usually includes chicken, fish, fruits and vegetables in moderate amounts.  Though she will occasionally eats some junk food, Jordan typically prefers fruits to fries and chips.

Jordan’s dancing career began at the age of two at the Fancy Dancer School in Dublin.  Her dancing skills have led to her being more graceful as a model and having her a more athletic body, which helped her to recover faster than normal after a recent surgery on her knee. 

“She is a ham, like her Daddy,” her mother says.  “When she is on stage, she lights up!” Both of her parents are singers.  Jordan actually has a good voice, but she never took up signing. She also inherited her father’s ability to pick out a tune on a piano.

As a young girl, Hampton never aspired to be a model.  At the age of thirteen, Jordan was attending a beauty pageant in Atlanta, when a representative of the Elite Modeling Agency approached Jordan and her mother and asked her if she was interested in a career in modeling. The Hamptons were skeptical at first, but when they learned that the Elite Agency was one of the top three agencies in the world, the offer seemed not only interesting, but extremely  exciting.  It was then that Jordan and Hamptons were introduced to Victoria Duruh, of Elite, who ever since then has been very helpful to Jordan, almost as if she were her big sister.  Just before her fourteenth birthday, Jordan signed a contract with the New York Elite Agency.  During her four-year career, she has worked with the agency in Atlanta, New York, Miami, Chicago, and Barcelona, Spain.

During the last four years, Jordan has traveled around the world.  She spent ten weeks in Singapore, Malaysia and five more weeks in Paris, France.  Her brief stay in the French capital, one of the world capitals of modeling, was as a major stepping stone in her young career.  Another highlight was working on eleven shoots in a single year as one of the “New Faces” of models around the world.

“I travel with Jordan everywhere she goes,” her mother said.  As her “traveling buddy,” Roxanne Hampton helped her daughter meet the not only her rigorous work schedule, but kept her on track in her high school studies.  Through the aid of online courses and home schooling,   Jordan could have easily taken the bare minimum courses required for graduation.  But instead, she chose to take as many honor courses as she could, including extensive foreign language courses.  Despite her demanding course  and work schedule, Jordan finished high school in three years and with a 4.0 grade point average - an accomplishment to be applauded for any high school student.

As she prepares to move her home to New York, Jordan is financially set to work as a model without the need of a second job to pay the bills.  Thanks to careful financial planning by her father, Dr. Derrick Hampton, who encouraged her to put aside a large portion of her earnings early on, so that her savings would support her in a career once she got out on her own.

Modeling is hard work, more than just posing and smiling.  Jordan often works from eight to nine o’clock in the morning to seven o’clock in the evening.   All day long, Monday through Friday, Jordan, when she is not on shoot,  goes through castings with interviews, sometimes with six models and sometimes with two hundred all competing against each other.  Sometimes when the photographer needs a background in a busy metropolitan areas, Jordan has been called upon the pose for pictures in the middle of the night, from the rooftops of skyscrapers to the deserted predawn streets of Times Square in New York.   Feeling bad or being sick is rarely an excuse to miss work.  She once had to be a work with a temperature of 102 degrees. 

The agency has high expectations for Jordan.  Many who see her photographs think that she looks exotic and that she couldn’t be a good ole’ country girl from Georgia.  Her grandmother sometimes doesn’t recognize and refuses to believe that the girl in the pictures is Jordan, but Roxanne affirms that it is, because she was there with her daughter on every shoot.

Jordan possesses a natural ability as a model, she is comfortable in front of the camera, and photogenic. She sees modeling as her calling.  

With all of the confidence in the world, confidence that she will need to succeed in the highly competitive world of modeling, Jordan said, “ I  intend to take New York by storm and I want to be the next super model.”  Another requirement to become successful in the business is a strong work ethic, and Jordan possesses just that.  Each night, she plans and schedules all of her activities for the next day, and then thoroughly exhausted, she  goes to bed.

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  Realizing that the average career of a model is a mere ten years, Jordan is already busy planning her career after her modeling days are over.  After the day long shoots are over,  she wants to go into the modeling business, perhaps in design or in management, or maybe, just maybe, she might try her hand as a gourmet pastry chef.   She also wants to go to college and take a few dance classes, but not as long as it interferes with her modeling career. 

Her last year has been a difficult one, trying to graduate.  Being between a junior and senior model - which involves a whole different world of clothing and poses, Jordan has struggled to persevere.  But she stands tall in stature and tall in her determination to succeed.    Confident and secure that she will be ready to move away from the comforts of home and go to the fifth largest city in the world, Jordan warns all New Yorkers, “ I hope y’all are ready, here I come!”

Life on the Farm

From its inception as a county and for every day of the last two hundred years and for two thousand years before, Laurens County has been home to the farmer.  A love of the land and its bounty coupled with a desire to just survive made farming the main occupation of Laurens Countians for most of our two hundred years.  Nearly every one of us descend from a dirt farmer, which is a good thing.  Farming, often seen by non-farmers as  somewhat mundane lifestyle, is quite the opposite.  It is an occupation that involves faith, in yourself and nature, good agricultural skills, unabated determination and a whole lot of pure old fashioned luck.

Just a few more centuries than two thousand years ago, the Native Americans who lived in this area abandoned their hunting and gathering methods of acquiring foodstuffs and established a more sedentary lifestyle.  They established somewhat permanent villages under the governance of a chief.  New methods of planting and nurturing native plants supplemented the wild game and randomly gathered fruits in their diets.

When the first white settlers came to our area in the mid 1780s, the most highly sought after lands were located on the eastern banks of the Oconee River and its major tributaries.    Once Laurens County was created and more lands were added to the western side of the river, large plantations began to prosper among the smaller farms.  These plantations were officially run by the owners, often given the title of “planter,” a moniker  which designated that their economic status was more higher than their agrarian skills.  Most of the actual plowing, planting, weeding and harvesting was done by slave labor or by middle and lower economic class whites.

The plantations and farms primarily produced enough products to become self sufficient.  When less common items were needed, farmers would trade with the neighbors  or visit a nearby general store.  

Actual farm production figures were revealed for the first time with the compilation of the 1850 Agricultural Census.  Though Laurens County was third among Georgia counties  in land area, only 18 percent of her lands were improved with farms and buildings.  A substantial portion of the southern half of the county and many creek side lands were covered with trees.  

The livestock population was composed of  twenty thousand cows, eight thousand sheep and twenty four thousand pigs and hogs.  While milk cows, working oxen and sheep were maintained to produce replenishable products, much of the other cows and swine were slaughtered for food.  Chickens were not counted and obviously there was a vast consumption of wild fowl and game.    On average, each sheep produced less than two pounds of wool a year.   The main produce crops were Indian corn (32.76 bushels per capita less what was fed to livestock), about eight thousand bushels of both wheat and oats and surprisingly  nearly nine thousand pounds of rice.   Potatoes, in particular sweet potatoes, were the staple of the average Laurens countian’s diet, with each person consuming an average of twenty four bushels a year.  Very little tobacco was harvested.  With a relatively large slave population of 45%, ginned cotton bales numbered less than 4000 bales, a small fraction of the amount produced during the cotton boom at the turn of the 20th Century.

  

The third quarter of the Twentieth Century saw many radical changes in the ways farms and plantations were operated.   Before the war began, cotton and wool production was rapidly increasing.  The coming of the Civil War caused a virtual halt in  farming, except of course for growing enough food to keep the people alive.  With nearly all of the available young farm hands off at war and very little cash available to operate with, farmers had to curtail their acreage.   The end of the war saw a slow but moderate recovery.  Those had been slaves before the war, then became tenant farmers.  By the 1870s, a few former slaves became property owners and operated their own farms.  Cotton production plummeted in 1869, though the wool industry continued to surge.

The period after the war saw the first organizations composed of farmers.   James Chappel, John M. Stubbs and C.S.  Guyton led Laurens County farmers in the Georgia Agricultural Society and Farmer’s Granges.    The revitalization of river boat traffic allowed the transportation of farm products outside of the county to become more economical.  Likewise, the importation of fertilizers and implements led to more increases in farm production.    The coming of the railroads in the 1880s and 1890s was the final impetus which would begin to propel Laurens County to the forefront of cotton and field crop production in the state.  In 1870, there were 520 farms in Laurens County.  Forty years later, Laurens County farms totaled 4,923, the second highest number in the state.  The total number of farms peaked at more than 5,500 in the early 1920s.

In the  1880s, a new and more powerful farmer’s organization began to spread across the South and the farm belts of the Mid-West.  The Farmer’s Alliance, locally led by John W. Green, never really caught on.  The Georgia Alliance actually disbanded after it’s annual meeting in Dublin in 1891.

Over the next several decades, farmers organized under various names.  The Farmer’s Union was the main organization for most of the first two decades of the 20th Century.   Capt. W.B. Rice of Dublin was one of the founding board members of the Georgia Farm Bureau in 1920.

Laurens County has been home to two commissioners of the Georgia Department of Agriculture.  James J. Connor, a former Mayor of Dublin, served as Georgia’s Agricultural Commissioner  from 1912 to 1913   As a member of the Georgia Legislature, Connor sponsored the bill to establish the agricultural education department at the University of Georgia.   Thomas “Tom” Linder led the Department of Agriculture from 1935 to 1937.  Re-elected in 1941 and serving three four-year  terms, Linder is the second longest head of the Agriculture Department and the only person ever elected to statewide office who lost a statewide election and then was re-elected. 

The explosion of cotton production in the last quarter of the 19th Century and the first  sixteen years of the 20th Century was fueled by the clearing of the virgin timberlands across the southern part of the county to make room for massive fields, fertilized by guano fertilizer and the coming of six railroads to the county, which allowed cotton farmers to ship their “white gold” to all parts of the world. 

Agra-businesses flourished.  A cotton compress was built in Dublin in 1895.  The compress allowed a farmer to deliver his cotton on Monday morning and have it on an ocean bound cargo ship the following afternoon.  By 1911, Laurens County produced more than three million pounds of cotton, compressed into more than sixty thousand bales.  That state record stood for nearly ninety years until it was eclipsed in the late 1990s by large counties in South Georgia where more modern and technological methods of agriculture 

were used.

The villainous boll weevil invaded the county in the years before World War I. By the end of the 1910s, cotton production plummeted.  Tenant farmers gave up farming or moved away.  Throughout the 20th Century, farming and farms have practically disappeared.  Unable to compete with corporate farmers and endless assets, cheap labor and hefty government programs, the traditional farmer as we know him has virtually disappeared.  When all of the results of the 2007 Agricultural Census are tabulated, it is estimated that there will be no more than six hundred farms left in Laurens County.  

Sandy fields which once yielded some of the most bountiful crops of cotton, corn and sweet potatoes are now planted in trees or covered by new homes.  The profound impact of agriculture is still present and will always remain so for centuries to come.  Everything we are as a county - our heritage of who we are and who we will be - we owe to the men and women, who plant the seeds, gather the crops, feed the livestock, sweat in the sun, break their backs and take the risks many of us could never take.  Progress is fine, but  let us take heed of the words of the great Populist orator William Jennings Bryan, “If you destroy your cities, they will grow back, but if you destroy your farms, then the grass will grow in every city street in the country.”