PIECES OF OUR PAST - 2006

PIECES OF OUR PAST

Sketches of the History of Dublin and Laurens County, Georgia

and East Central Georgia Area

2006

Written by 

Scott B. Thompson, Sr.

Copyright 2008

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

The Emerald City History Company

Scott B. Thompson, Sr.

P.O. Box 1586

Dublin, GA 31040

scottbthompsonsr@yahoo.com

 06-01

THE REV. MOSES N. McCALL, C.S.A.

A Man of Two Swords

He was a man of two swords, the sword of a Confederate cavalryman and the sword of the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  Endeared by his comrades as “The Fighting Chaplain,” the Rev. Moses McCall fought valiantly in defense of his homeland and fought fervently to spread the word of God.  This former Laurens County minister and Cochran school teacher was hailed as one of the most revered Georgia Baptist ministers of the late 19th Century. 

Moses Nathaniel McCall, Jr. was born on January 6, 1831 in Screven County, Georgia.  A son of Moses Nathaniel McCall, Sr. and Caroline M. Griner, Moses became a minister at the age of sixteen in 1847 at Black Creek Church.  He was licensed to preach at Middleground Baptist Church(Screven County)  in1856, where his father has pastored in 1828.  McCall enrolled in Mercer University in Penfield, Georgia.   One the eve of the Civil War, Rev. McCall graduated second in his class.  He immediately accepted a position as minister in Sylvania.  Like most ministers of his day, Rev. McCall taught school in the local academy.

Just as Moses McCall was settling down into a quiet life in his homeland, violence erupted between the North and the South.  Moses, his father and four his brothers volunteered to serve the Confederacy.  Moses traveled to Savannah, where he enlisted as a private in Company B, 2nd Battalion, Georgia State Troops.  Because he was a minister, Rev. McCall was appointed by Georgia Governor Joseph Brown as a chaplain.  Following a re-organization of Georgia forces, Moses McCall was appointed Chaplain of the Fifth Georgia Cavalry. His brother Thomas was a 2nd Lieutenant and his brother Charles was a 2nd Corporal in the company.   His other brothers Daniel and Phillip also served for a time with their brother.  As Captain McCall, the young reverend took a leading role in organizing a company of cavalry soldiers in Screven County.  The company, known as Company F, became fully organized on January 20, 1863.   The regiment primarily saw action in the defense of coastal Georgia and South Carolina.  

On February 17, 1864, just three days before his company arrived the day after the critical Confederate victory at Olustee, Florida, Capt. McCall took the hand of Janie Warren Daniell.  The bride was a daughter of the Rev. David Garnto Daniell, a native of Laurens County, the first minister of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, and a Confederate chaplain himself.   Janie McCall was described by those who knew her as “ a woman of rare charm, of great faith and a strong Christian character.”  She spent a good deal of her time in Savannah during the war, aiding the defenders of the coastal city.  When Union arsonists destroyed her parent’s home, she fled for safety to Augusta.  

During the summer, McCall’s regiment took part in the defense of Georgia’s heartland during General William Tecumseh Sherman’s dastardly destructive “March to the Sea.”  His most acclaimed heroism came when he intrepidly lead a charge  in the Battle of Noonday Church on June 15, 1864. McCall and his company saw violent action in the Battle of Atlanta five weeks later. Following the fall of Savannah just before Christmas in 1864, the Georgia cavalry withdrew northward into the Carolinas trying to protect the rear of the retreating column of surviving remnants of the once proud Army of the Tennessee and the a host of militia, reserves and state troops. Captain McCall laid down his cavalry sword in surrender on May 3, 1865 in Hillsboro, North Carolina.  Captain McCall never lost sight of his higher duty.  He made it his mission to never sheath his other  sword.  During the trials and travails of death and suffering, McCall was accessible to those who sought the comforts of God. 

Rev. McCall rode his horse back home to Screven County.  The war had taken a devastating toll on this Christian soldier, who never lost his courage and faith in his religious beliefs.   Georgia and the South was a virtual wasteland.    Men of God realized that in order for the people to cope with the loss of family, friends and freedoms, the Church would have to play a guiding role.  Rev. McCall removed to Longstreet, Georgia in northern Pulaski (now Bleckley) County, Georgia.  It was in that ancient community that Rev. McCall began a seven-year tenure as a teacher.   During that time, Rev. McCall served local churches Evergreen, Friendship, Blue Spring, Harmony, Mt. Zion, Hayneville and Laurens Hill, the latter being located near the Laurens -Bleckley line in southwestern Laurens County, following in the footsteps of his also heralded brother, the Rev. George McCall who served Baptist Churches in Laurens, Dodge, Pulaski, Wilkinson  and Twiggs County County before, during and after  the war.  

In 1873, the Moses and Janie McCall and their sons, Howard Henry, George Daniell and Phillip Boardman, moved to Hawkinsville, Georgia.   After four years in Hawkinsville, Rev. McCall and his family moved to his family seat in Screven County. The rigors of his teaching duties and his widespread circuit of pulpit appearances adversely affected his health.  Howard became a successful businessman in Atlanta. His wife, Etta A. Tidwell McCall, compiled the definitive genealogy of the McCall families of Georgia and the South.  George died at the age of 34.  Phillip, a veteran of the Spanish American War, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.   

In Hawkinsville, Rev. McCall continued to preach the Gospel and teach the children of the community in the local high school.  The McCalls moved back to present day Bleckley County in 1880.  Janie Warren Daniell McCall died in Cochran on June 10, 1881.  Her body was taken to Savannah for burial in Laurel Grove Cemetery.  

In 1884, Rev. McCall accepted a position as President of Monroe Female College near Forsyth, Georgia.  Despite his unequaled ability as a minister and his efficient educational skills, once again McCall’s health forced him to cut down on  his activities.  After one year, Rev. McCall and his three sons moved to Dalton, Georgia, where he worked with his brother, Rev. William C. McCall in the Joseph E. Brown University.    Soon after his arrival in Dalton, Rev. Moses McCall preached his final sermon in Cave Springs, Georgia.  The cold Spring air and strain proved too much.  He contracted a fever and died a week later on May 9, 1985.   He was buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery beside his wife.

Rev. Moses McCall was eulogized as “one of Georgia’s most consecrated and efficient ministers.”  In his memorial sermon, the Rev. George A. Lofton summarized the life and character of Rev. McCall by saying: “ His mind is strong, original and active; his style is analytical, clear and pointed; his manner, impassioned and forcible.  He fell at his post. He died with the harness on.  Like the Spartan soldier, he never left his shield upon the field of battle, but bore it to his eternal home.”

06-02

A TIME OF CHANGE

A Dublin Man's Role in a Moment of History

Forty five years ago today the faces of students at the University of Georgia changed forever.  In the midst of a political turmoil and mercifully without the infliction of violent attacks, two African-American students entered the halls of the University of Georgia.  There to make sure the process was completed was a former Adrian and Dublin man, who was the Assistant Registrar of the University of Georgia.   This is the story of Paul Kea and his role in one of the most momentous moments in Georgia History, the integration of the University of Georgia.

For a hundred and sixty five years every student attending the University of Georgia was white.  For that matter, every educational institution in the entire state was segregated.  In the early years of the state, colleges and universities were segregated between the sexes.  With the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education, it was only a matter of time before admission to the University of Georgia could not be conditioned upon the race of the applicant.  Beginning in 1943 under a grant in aid program, Georgia paid the surpluses of out of state colleges and universities over state institutions to Negro students attending school outside the state.

The first attempt to integrate the University of Georgia came in 1957 when Horace Ward's law suit was thrown out of court.  Charlayne Hunter, an outstanding student at Atlanta's Turner High School, was approached by black Atlanta civic leaders to challenge the University of Georgia's ban on black students.  She joined classmate Hamilton Holmes in applying for admission for the year 1959-60.  Both were turned down.  Hunter enrolled in Wayne State College in Michigan and Holmes attended nearby Morehouse College.  

Beginning in 1959 the University hired Paul Kea as the Assistant Registrar and Assistant Director of Admissions.   Paul Randolph Kea was born on September 5, 1925 in Adrian, Georgia.  The youngest child of Fitzhugh Lillian Kea and Dora Vivian Proctor, Paul Kea attended school in Adrian.  His oldest half brother, Morris Dawson Kea, was Laurens County's longest serving attorney.  His family lived on Railroad Street.  His parents worked day and night to help the family through the depths of the depression.  Paul worked in his father's grocery store. The Kea house was always filled with music.  Mrs. Kea taught music to the kids of Adrian.  In the late spring and during the summer Paul enjoyed swimming in the refreshing waters of the Ohoopee River near Captain James's well.   He wrote passionate and reminiscent poems about his coming of age in the then sleepy village, once a bustling railroad center.

Paul Kea served his country in the U.S. Navy during World War II.  After the war, he returned home to Dublin, where he worked as a staff announcer at radio station WMLT.  While in Dublin, Kea, a talented writer in his own right, taught English in the Laurens County School system.  He later taught in Clarke and Oglethorpe counties as well as in the city system of Jefferson, Georgia.  

Both Hunter and Holmes continued to make applications for admission on a quarterly basis. Each time they were turned down.  Holmes underwent an oral interview by Registrar Walter Danner, Director of Admissions Morris Phelps and Kea.    On the basis of hearsay information transmitted to him through Danner, Kea quizzed Holmes about his criminal record.   Holmes denied any guilt and without proof of the allegation, Kea dropped the matter.   The officials asked Holmes if he had attended interracial parties or patronized beatnik joints.  Based on the results of their interview, Holmes was turned down again for admission in the fall of 1960.  The interview with Hunter went more smoothly.  Though declining her admission in the fall, Kea and Danner did not discount her possible acceptance at a later date as the student body had reached its limit.

With the aid of out of state attorneys, Hunter and Holmes filed a suit in Federal court seeking immediate admission to the university.  When Federal marshals could not find Registrar Danner to serve the lawsuit, Paul Kea was added as a defendant.  Kea was served as a university official and as an individual defendant.   A hearing on their claim was postponed from September to mid December.  State Attorney General Eugene Cook, a former resident of Dublin and Wrightsville and a proponent of segregation, represented the State of Georgia.   The matter was heard by Federal District Court Judge W.A. Bootle.

One of the first witnesses called to the stand was Paul Kea.  Kea was grilled by the plaintiff's attorneys on the standards for admission.  One letter after another and totaling near a hundred were shown to Kea for identification.  Many of them related to letters by white students, who were denied admission in 1960, but were instructed to reapply or were advised to enroll in other state colleges for later admission to the university.  Nearly three weeks later on January 6, 1961, Judge Bootle ordered university registrars to admit both Hunter and Holmes.

The university's first black students arrived in Athens on January 9, 1961.  As they entered the registrar's office they were taunted and jeered.  Inside the front door, they were met by Kea who processed their paperwork without delay.  Though their first days were violence free, a minor altercation arose two days later outside Hunter's dormitory.  Athens police restored order and both Hunter and Holmes were suspended from the school and escorted back to their homes in Atlanta for their own safety.  The duo were reinstated a few days later and seemingly all enmity died away.

Charlayne Hunter, who did build some lasting friendships with fellow students,  graduated in 1963 with a degree in journalism.  Hunter became a world renown journalist with the New York Times and a television journalist on the MacNeil Lehrer on PBS and a bureau chief for CNN.   Hamilton Holmes graduated the same year with a degree in science. He became the first African-American student to attend the medical school at Emory University. Holmes, an orthopedic surgeon, died in 1995.  At his death, he was the Associate Dean of the  Emory University School of Medicine.

In 1968, Paul Kea was promoted to the co-ordinator of Continuing Education Programs at the College of Education.  He served in that position for 27 years until his untimely death at the age of 58 on June 12, 1984.  He is buried in Northview Cemetery in Dublin.

06-03 

G.  HARROLD CARSWELL

A Victim of His Times

As the nation comes to the end of the nomination of a another member to a seat on the highest court in the nation, let us take a look back thirty-six years ago when one East Central Georgian underwent one of the first all out assaults upon a nominee to the Supreme Court.  This is the story of Judge G. Harrold Carswell, a native of Wilkinson County, Georgia, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Richard Nixon in the winter of 1970.

G. Harrold Carswell was born in Irwinton, Georgia on December 22, 1919.  His father, George Henry Carswell, was a former democratic stalwart and Secretary of State of Georgia from 1928 to 1931.  He attended local schools and also  in Bainbridge, Georgia before entering Duke University, from which he graduated in 1941.  Carswell served in the Navy in the Pacific Theater during World War II.  After the war, Carswell attended law school at Mercer University, graduating in 1948.

During his studies at Mercer, Carswell served as the editor of "The Irwinton Bulletin," a newspaper established by his father in 1895.  It was during the summer of 1948 when Carswell launched his first political campaign for the Georgia House of Representatives.  In the post war South, a political candidate could not expect to get elected without justifying the resolute, but overly misguided, essentials of segregation.  In editorials and public speeches, Carswell proclaimed the ideal of the principles of white supremacy.  In a speech in Gordon, he said "Segregation of the races is proper and only practical and correct way of life in our states. I have so believed and shall always act."  

Ironically, he would later be lambasted for a similar position taken ninety years earlier when an Illinois Republican candidate said, " I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races--that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will ever forbid the two races living together in terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior. I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."  The candidate proclaimed his position in his sixth debate with Stephen Douglas.  That candidate was the future president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

   Harrold Carswell married his high school sweetheart, Virginia Simmons of Bainbridge.  Her father, Jack W. Simmons, was the owner of the Elberta Box and Crate Company, one of the largest producers of wooden fruit and vegetable crates in the country and a company founded by her great grandfather John M. Simmons, a former Dublin lumber mill owner.  Another  great grandfather was the Rev. W.S. Ramsay, the beloved long time minister of the First Baptist Church of Dublin,  Laurens County's first school superintendent, and at Lt. Colonel in the 14th Georgia Infantry.  

Carswell lost the 1948 election.  Broken by his defeat, he moved to Tallahassee, Florida to begin the private practice of law.   Originally, a Democrat, Carswell supported Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 election.  Following Eisenhower's victory, Carswell was appointed by the new president as the U.S. Attorney for the Wester District of Florida.  He and his wife joined the Republican party in the early 1950s.  In 1958, President Eisenhower appointed Carswell as Federal District Court Judge.  At the age of 38, Judge Carswell was the youngest Federal Court judge in the nation.

During his eleven year tenure on the Federal bench, Judge Carswell heard a variety of cases dealing with the rapidly changing social conditions during the volatile decade of the 1960s.  In the spring of 1969, President Richard Nixon, in one of his first judicial appointments, nominated Judge Carswell to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, with no public objections.  

On January 19, 1970, President Nixon announced that he would nominate Judge Carswell to succeed Justice Abe Fortas on the Supreme Court.  His nomination of Clement Haynsworth was denied because of vigorous complaints from labor interests.  Almost immediately, Carswell's life was opened to a meticulous inspection by journalists and became ammunition of the President's critics.  

Primarily Judge Carswell was attacked for his segregationist views of the late 1940s, a position that he regretted in later life and one which he denounced.    Ironically, Justice Hugo Black, one of the court's most admired jurists, had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his younger years.  Despite the fact that he was branded as an avowed racist, Judge Carswell had ruled in favor of black defendants in many Federal cases.    Despite the attacks on his early political beliefs, Carswell's nomination was still on track for approval.  Minor detractors lambasted the nominee for failing to disclose his wife's interest in the Elberta Box and Crate Company, a mere seventy eight shares.  Still others attacked his credentials and legal ability as a result of the number of his decisions which were overturned by the district court.  One defender Sen. Roman Hruska tried to defend Carswell by saying, "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges, lawyers and people and they are entitled to a little representation and a chance."

In spite of the constant attacks on his moral character and legal ability, Judge Carswell was approved by the American Bar Association.  His nomination was approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee by a 13-4 vote.   Still objections to his confirmation continued.  His seat on the court seem assured in a late pre confirmation vote.  

On April 8, 1970, the nomination came up for a full vote before the United States Senate. Only two other Supreme Court justices in the 20th Century had their nominations rejected by the Senate.  With ninety six senators present and voting, Carswell's nomination was defeated by a margin of 51 to 45.  17 Democrats and 38 Republicans voted for Carswell. His defeat was sealed by 13 Republicans who broke from their party's leader and voted against the embattled nominee.  Had only four of his fellow Republicans voted for him, Carswell would have been approved by a margin of 49 to 47.

Obviously disappointed in his rejection by the Senate, Judge Carswell returned to his seat on the bench of the Court of Appeals.  After he lost a bid for a seat as a U.S. Senator from Florida later that summer, Judge Carswell returned to the private practice of law.

Judge Harold Carswell died on July 31, 1992 in a Tallahassee hospital following a struggle  with lung cancer.  His opportunity for judicial immortality in a more enlightened and tolerant world was quelled by the prevailing beliefs in the era in which he came into adulthood.  Ultimately it is up to all of us to treat everyone equally and fairly.   However, the onslaught of political castigations that condemned the judge makes many wonder if being subjected to the soul scrutinizing inquests of political antagonists is worth it.

06-04

AT THE MOVIES 

The Martin Theater and  The Theaters of Dublin

     More than a quarter of a century ago - I still can’t believe it’s been that long -  an historic era in the history of Dublin ended with the closing of the Martin Theater.  The competition of newer and multiplex theaters brought about the end of the downtown theater.  Motion pictures first came to Dublin around the turn of the century.  In those days a theater could be setup anywhere there was room for a projector and a screen.  Traveling tent shows came through Dublin and gave Dublin its first taste of motion pictures.  

The first theater in Dublin opened about 1905 and was known as "The Theatorium".  Mrs. R.H. "Miss Gennie" Hightower began showing pictures in the long building adjoining the Peppercorn Restaurant on the southwest.  Originally the building was used as piano and music store by Mrs. Hightower.  As her fascination with moving pictures escalated, Miss Genie removed the pianos and installed a primitive projection screen in the rear of the building.  Makeshift benches and folding chairs were placed about the room for an optimal view.  Admission was five cents for children and ten cents for adults.  Dublin’s top female entrepreneur opened the Emerald City Plaza in the Peppercorn building.  Her new establishment served the best in refreshments.  Her son Bob Hightower, Jr. remembered his mother calling the movie house by the more common name of “The Picture Show.”  Movies were shown only at night on those days because the town’s electric lights were not turned on until after sundown.  She had a phonograph beamed out of a window in the operating room and we’d play that to ballyhoo the show.”  “There was no accompanying music for the picture, which was run on a one-picture Edison machine, a “one-pin,” Hightower recalled. 

In March 1913, Mrs. Hightower and her son, Bob Hightower, Sr., re-opened their motion picture house under the new banner of the Crystal Palace or simply Crystal Theater.  The new building featured a common lobby with an arched ceiling separating the ice cream parlor on the right hand side of the complex. The 40 foot deep lobby was located in front of the enlarged auditorium, which was 205 fee deep.  New projectors and a plate glass screen were installed. The 30 foot ceiling provided ample ventilation.   Mrs. Hightower searched  Savannah, Atlanta, and Macon for ideas to improve the Crystal Theatre. A $2500.00 piano and pipe organ was been purchased.  Two new projectors to insure continuous operation have been purchased

Bob Hightower was the consummate showman.  To promote a the movie “Back to God’s Country,” Hightower painted white bear tracks leading to the entrance to the theater.  Police officer Charlie Mead cautiously followed the trail into the building where he found the amused trickster.  Officer Mead was not amused and cited the offender for violating the city code by defacing the city sidewalks, an offense which carried a fine of $25.00.  He once hired “Texas” Etheridge, a western entertainer, to perform on stage with a gun used by Frank James during the bank robberies by the James Gang.  The gun is said to have been the gun Jesse James had when he was shot, the performance followed a movie about the James Gang.   Leroy "The Dare Devil", a high wire walker, was hired to walk three times a day on a wire strung between the tops of the Brantley Building and the Churchwell’s to  promote "Flirting with Death."  During the mid 1910s, censorship in movies was a hot button issue. The Hightowers followed the lead of the Macon theaters and canceled the contracts for films produced by William Fox because of their sensuous content, especially those with Theda Bara and actresses of her kind 

The Crystal Theater operated well into the 1920s.   In my last visit the projector still remained in the ceiling. Unfortunately the stage area with its arch in the rear of the building were removed in the mid 1990s.   Movie theaters, should I say the equipment therein, were often combustible.    Smoothly operating projectors were not a regular part of the movie experience. “We kept a barrel of water under the operating room to which a cable was run from the rheostat, ending in a crow’s foot grounded in the water,” he continued.  “ Every time the picture dimmed, we’d throw in a handful of table salt which charged the water and the light would clear up.”

Films were rented from  Dan Holt, of Macon, who operated the Theatorium in that city, located across from  Danneberg’s Department Store.  Holt got his films delivered by rail from Chicago.  He often received a month’s worth of movies at one time and rented them out to other theaters in the area. Mrs.  Hightower rented her films from Holt at one dollar per reel. “During the  early days, Mother ran the first multiple reel picture ever made- “The Great Train Robbery” by Biograph.  The second ever produced was the “Murder of Stanford White by Harry K. Thaw and His Escape From Mattewaan,” independently produced, “ Hightower recalled. Bob Hightower had to leave  the theater when he enlisted for service in World War I.    She was assisted by Mrs. Foy Clark, who has been stayed with the Hightower family in the movie business for several decades. 

The first permanent theater was the Amusu Theater which was located in the old section of the Courier Herald Building next to the Hicks Building.  The theater operator Stacy J. Sams once hung a string of lights from the corner to the theater in an effort to attract movie goers. The Amusu's movies were supplemented with live singing by touring professionals.  The manager also sought business by announcing baseball scores and election results through special telegraph wires.  In 1911, Percy Speilman, a on stage performer, was thrown out of Amusu  for an offensive performance.  Theater managers would often do anything to attract a crowd. In 1912,Nellie  Greenwood and Frank Lamont married on the stage of the Amusu in the presence of a large gathering of friends and relatives.

      As the popularity of silent movies began to explode many new theaters sprang up.  The Gem, The Lyric, The Strand, The Star, The Oznola, The Electric Palace and The Bijou theaters featured movies with local singers and musicians accompanying the films.  The Lyric Theater was located in the Brantley Building or the Lovett and Tharpe Building on the corner of West Jackson and North Lawrence Streets.   Mrs. J.A. Peacock and her son Roderick Peacock, Sr. provided the soundtrack and musical interludes on the piano of the Gem Theater.   The Star and The Bijou were located in the Opera House on the corner of South Monroe and West Madison Streets.  In 1908, the  Star Theater was moved to the Chautaugua Auditorium after only a few weeks of operation in cramped quarters on Jackson Street. Harry F. Anderson, the manager of the Bijou featured shows of band music, vaudeville artists and a movie.   These theaters all went out of operation after the Crystal Theater went into full operation.

The first talking picture shown in Dublin was “Nursery Time Favorites” on October 15, 1913 at the old Bertha Theater.  The sound came from a record player played in synchronization with the film.  The Bertha Theater, located at the northeastern corner of the block just south of the courthouse,  originally started out as the store building of Stephen Lord and C.W. Brantley.  Mayor E.R. Orr asked the gentlemen to add another story and to convert it into an theater and auditorium to replace the Chautaugua Auditorium which burned in 1911.  The Bertha, which featured a variety of programs including traveling vaudeville shows, political events and even wrestling matches, had a short lived life.  It burned in 1918.

     These smaller theaters began to die out as the bigger theaters like the Crystal and the Rose began to squeeze out the low budget theaters.  During the Twenties the Rose Theater rose to prominence.  The Rose Theater overtook the Crystal and was the first theater to run true talking pictures. "The Jazz Singer" shown at the Rose was the first talkie shown in Dublin. In its early years, the Rose was located in the old Schaufele Building at 210 West Jackson Street.  Shortly thereafter the Rose moved next door to eastern end of Jackson Square.  The Rose Theater closed in 1938 and was reopened as a Friday and Saturday only theater in 1940.  The new Rose was under the management of R.H. Hightower and was owned by the Martin family.

     In 1934 J.W. Peck, the former operator of the Rose Theater, purchased a lot on Academy Avenue from the Hightower family.  The lot, nestled in between the Fred Roberts Hotel, the Library, and the High School, was a perfect location for a Theater.  Mr. Peck built the Dublin Theater as a big city theater.  It featured fabulous wall hangings, plush carpet, and one of the largest screens in Georgia.  The lobby was finished with Italian and Georgia marble and featured a fireplace with an elaborate mantle.  A lounge was set up for mothers to comfort their crying babies.  The theater opened on September 24, 1934 with the Warren William picture "The Match King."   

Shortly after the Dublin Theater was built, a flashy entrepenuer, Roy E. Martin, established the Ritz Theater in the old Robinson Hardware Building at the western end of Jackson Square.  Martin hired Bob Hightower, Sr. to manage his theaters in Dublin.  Martin took away some of Peck's business at the Dublin and the Rose and consequently both of Peck's theaters began to suffer financial problems.  The problems became so bad that Peck was tried for the arson of the Ritz Theater.  A mistrial freed Peck but he was forced to sell the Rose Theater.  Martin bought the Rose while the Dublin Theater closed.  Martin rebuilt the Ritz Theater but soon the Ritz was again destroyed by fire.  The Ritz Theater featured the fabulous films of 1939: "Gone With the Wind", "The Wizard of Oz", and "Stagecoach" among others.  Due to war restrictions Martin could not secure building materials to rebuild the Ritz.  Martin moved his "A" theater to the Rose Theater.  Meanwhile, the Dublin Theater was being used by Herschel Lovett as a cotton warehouse. 

     In 1943 R.E. Martin purchased the old Dublin Theater building and began to restore it to its original condition.  With the wartime restrictions still in effect legend has it that Martin's workers slipped in during the night to refurbish the abandoned theater.  New furnishings were added and a special floor was laid to prevent flooding from an underground spring.  The new theater would hold 1511 people in comfortable seats.  A coal burning heater and a modern air conditioner were installed.   A new feature which had been taboo in the past were Sunday shows.  Martin justified the Sunday shows since there were so many serviceman and hospital workers in town who were only off duty on Sundays.  Tickets were 35 cents for adults - 25 cents in the balcony.  Service men and women were admitted for a quarter while kids paid 9 cents.  

On July 10, 1944 the new Dublin Theater opened with "Meet the People" starring Lucille Ball and Dick Powell.  The staff on opening day were Bob Hightower, manager, Erwin Davis and Robert Beall, operators; Pickette Clark and Mary Newman, doormen; Lynnis Hinesly and Margaret Stephens, cashiers; May Roy Rogers Davis and Wynnelle Coleman, store employees; Barbara Bundy, Eugenia Rowe, June Beacham, and Margaret Smith, ushers; Jonas Jones, janitor; and Eloise Williams, maid. Robert Martin's sons changed the name of the theater to the Martin Theater in 1949.  The first picture shown in the renamed theater was "The Three Godfathers", a western starring John Wayne.   Shortly after the opening of Dublin's first radio station, WMLT, in January of 1945, the radio station and the theater sponsored a quiz program on Wednesday night in between features.  The contestants were picked from the audience and special nights were dedicated to the armed forces with the guards from the prisoner of war camp here competing against each other.   The newsreels gave Dubliners glimpses of the horrors of World War II every week.  One of the more popular highlights were the showing of pictures of local servicemen.  After the war pictures featuring children were often shown.  The Chamber of Commerce sponsored a 30 minute "documentary style" promotional film on Dublin in 1946 which was shown in the theater to large crowds.   Large crowds were also drawn to an occasional burlesque or vaudeville show at the Martin.

     Martin had his theater built to accommodate stage performances.  Through the forties and even into the early Fifties, Hollywood stars continued to tour the small towns of America.  The Martin Theater hosted performances by such cowboy stars as the singing cowboy, Tex Ritter (February, 1949) ; Gene Autry's sidekick, Smiley Burnette (March, 1945) ; Donald "Red" Barry, Republic Pictures Star; Lash LaRue (October, 1950) and Bob Steele, (January, 1948) one of the Three Mesquiteers and a veteran of over four hundred western films.  Country music legend, Eddy Arnold, performed on the Martin's stage in May of 1951.  Cowboy Copas and other lesser known Country and Western stars performed frequently during the period.  The last major performance at the Martin Theater was by George Morgan on May 1, 1953. 

     In 1963, Howard Cordell, Sr. purchased the Martin Theater along with the Drive In Theater in Dublin.  The Martin Theater featured all of the top films through the end of the Sixties.  The Martin ran pictures both day and night with Saturdays being the most popular days.  Kid's pictures and features ran in the morning with first run movies in the late afternoon and evening.  Especially popular movies during the Sixties were the Disney films, John Wayne and Elvis Presley movies, and romantic comedies.  The late show was a popular event on Saturdays.  Up until the closing of the High School and the elementary school now occupied by City Hall, the entire area was filled with kids after school. A soda shop was located two doors down at the Fred Roberts Hotel. 

The Martin theater was segregated until the mid 1960s.  Before then black patrons were required to sit upstairs and to use separate facilities, though in the 1920s, a “colored” theater was shown as being located in the “Sun Tec Paint” building in the D.C. Cummings Complex at the northwest corner of S. Lawrence and W.  Madison Streets.

     During the seventies two modern theaters were opened in the western part of Dublin.  The Village Theater and Westgate Multi Cinemas gradually cut into the Martin's business.  With rental costs continuing to mount and revenues declining the Martin Theater closed.  The last picture show and probably one of the worst shows  was an R rated film, "Teenage Seductress".  Thus ended the era of grand era of the movie palaces in Dublin.      The Cordell family donated the building to the Dublin Civic Theater.  After years of struggling to meet costs the group abandoned the building and the theater was purchased by the City of Dublin. In May of 1995, the City of Dublin re-opened the theater as Theater Dublin.  Since that time the building has hosted a wide variety of entertainment, educational and civic events.

I had many wonderful times at the Martin Theater, times with family and times with friends.  It was where my father saw his last theater movie, “True Grit,” in 1968 - he only went to John Wayne movies.  It was where I first felt embarrassed.  During the holidays the Martin’s manager came through the schools giving away free tickets.  I was about nine years old and my sister Janet was eight.  My parents were out of town.  When the vampire came out on the balcony at sunset behind the pretty girl, my sister went ballistic. I followed her as she screamed all the way up the aisle into the lobby. The manager managed to help me in calling my father’s secretary, who came over and picked us up and relieved me of my first most embarrassing moment.    I still smell the always appetizing aroma of popcorn, feel the sticky soda syrup on the floor and keeping one eye open for that marvelous man Charlie Traylor, who despite our misguided fears was always looking out for us.  The Martin was a place where we all felt at home and a place where no parent ever feared leaving their kids for an afternoon of fun and food. 

06-05

OTIS TROUPE

A Forgotten Football Hero?

Now that the seemingly - endless, overly - hyped hoopla of the Super Bowl is finally over, sit right back in your Lazy Boy chair and read the story of Otis Troupe, one of the best college football players you probably never heard of.  In the days before Jackie Robinson forever broke the color barrier in major sports, Troupe was denied the opportunity to play football in the National Football League.  No one will ever know the impact that this bruising runner and all around athlete would have made on the professional gridirons of the nation, but in his day and in his league he was generally regarded as one of the best black collegiate athletes in the nation and for a brief time was a star player of the fledgling Negro Professional Football League.

Otis Emanuel Troupe was born on August 29,  1911 in Laurens County.  His parents, Emanuel and Annie Hester Troupe, lived on the road leading from Dudley to Rebie, Georgia in 1920.  Otis was the grandson of Wallace and Charlotte Troupe, of the Hampton Mill District.    His family, including Quincy Trouppe, a legendary catcher and manager of the Negro Leagues,  descended from former slaves belonging to Governor George M. Troup, who maintained a plantation at Vallambrosa and at Thomas Crossroads north east of Dudley.    During the 1920s, the Troupe family moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where they  lived at 425 South Park Street in an ethnically diverse neighborhood.   Otis lettered in football, baseball, basketball and track and became somewhat of a legend in high school circles in New Jersey.

A talented singer, Otis received a music scholarship to attend Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland  which was at the time considered one of the finest black colleges in the nation. His athletic physique and strong bearing caught the eye of coaches Talmadge "Mars" Hill and Eddie Hurt.   Morgan State dominated black college football in the 1930s,  winning seven CIAA championships between 1930 and 1941.

Otis tried out for football as well as basketball and track.  He lettered in all three sports in his four years at Morgan State.  The Morgan State Bears captured the Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association title during Otis' entire career.  In 1935, team captain Troupe led his three-year unbeaten team to the Black College National Championship, earning All-American honors at full back in the process.  That same year, Otis was lead tenor of the famous Morgan State Choir, one of the country's premier collegiate choruses.  Under the leadership of Coach Hurt, Troupe's 1933 basketball team won the C.I.A.A. championship.  His track team won numerous championships.

Though he played in the shadows of Brutus Wilson and Tank Conrad, Richard Sorrell, a former teammate said of Otis, "he was one of the greatest all around running back  the game of football has ever had and I have seen them all."  He added, "Otis could not only run the football, but he could catch like a wide receiver, and he could be a devastating blocker for a team.  He also averaged 60 yards per punt."  Troupe also was the team's extremely accurate place kicker.

In 1936, Fritz Pollard of the Negro Football League's New York Brown Bombers selected the triple-threat Troupe to play in the backfield with Joe Lillard and Tank Conrad, two of the league's best backs.  The Bombers were named after the country's great boxer Joe Louis.  In the second year of the NFL's existence in 1921, Pollard became the league's first African-American head coach.  In 1933, the league banned the use of black players, denying Troupe, Lillard and Conrad the opportunity to play.  The ban lasted until 1946. 

Troupe played for the Bombers, the most successful professional Negro League team,  for two years.  In 1938, while a coach at Howard University, Otis played part time for the Bombers, who changed their name to the New York Black Yankees to avoid confusion with the Chicago Brown Bombers.  He was selected to play for an all star team in a preseason game against the Chicago Bears in 1938, but couldn't obtain a leave from his coaching duties at Howard.  

After his football days were over, Otis Troupe joined the District of Columbia Police Department.  He spent 18 years on the force before taking a job as an officer and counselor with the Federal government.    But Otis couldn't shake sports from his blood. He was a member of the Eastern Board of Officials and served as a referee for high school and college games in Washington and around the country. 

Otis married Carolyn Holloman, a daughter of Rev. John L.S. Holloman, a North Carolina circuit rider and pastor of the Second Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. for 53 years, and his wife Rosa.  Carolyn Troupe was a well-known Washington, D.C. high school principal.    

Their only child Otis Holloman Troupe, a former football player at Yale, held an impressive resume' with a bachelor's degree in English from Yale University, a master's degree in Business Administration from Columbia University, and a law degree from Boston College.  The younger Troupe was appointed Auditor of the District of Columbia for two terms, after serving as a market analyst with Exxon Corporation.   His zeal for exposing fraud in city government prevented the completion of his third term in office.  In 1994, he was an unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of Washington, D.C..  He died in 2001 and was considered a lonely voice for honesty in a hive of corrupt D.C. government officials.

Otis Troupe died on August 31, 1994 in Washington, D.C. just two days before his 83rd birthday.   For his outstanding exploits as a star and team player, Troupe was inducted into the Black All-American Hall of Fame, the Morgan State Varsity M Club Hall of Fame, Eastern Seaboard Officials Hall of Fame and the Inside Sports Hall of Fame.  And now you know the story of Otis Troupe.  Try not to forget him. 

06-06

SOUND OFF, ONE, TWO!

Sandersville Man Marched to A New Tune

Anyone whoever marched in a military unit in the last six decades, knows the chant that one Sandersville man created in the last year of World War II.  The lyrics have been changed over the last sixty years, but the quintessential cadence of American military personnel still remains intact.   For a century and a half, armies had marched to the sounds of "Yankee Doodle," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," "Over There" and "The Caisson Song."  This is the story of Private Willie Lee Duckworth and how a simple verse changed the style of the military marching for decades to come.

Willie Duckworth grew up like most African-Americans of the Great Depression in the South.    Earning only enough money to survive, he worked as a share cropper and sawmill worker until he was drafted away from his native Washington County and into the United States Army.  

It was a cold spring night in 1944.  Private Willie Lee Duckworth and two hundred of his buddies were tired, tired of marching and just plain tired, period.  The company had just left their bivouac at Ardsley, New York for the thirteen-mile march back to their camp at Fort Slocum in New Rochelle.  Private Duckworth noticed the men were dragging their feet.  He was too.  He thought that something should be done to invigorate the column to get them to pick up their stride to get back to the warmth of their barracks.

It all began in a meager way, quietly at first.  By the end of the march, the men were belting out the tune as they double-timed their pace and arrived back at the fort and on time.  The private's simple staccato cadence was "One, two, sound off; three, four, sound off; one, two, three, four; one, two, three-four."  Then the alternate verses began.  One of the most popular was "Ain't no use in going home. Jody's got your gal and gone. Ain't no use in feelin' blue. Jody's  got your sister, too! Sound off, one, two. Sound off, three, four."

A wave of excitement permeated every company at Fort Slocumb.  The post commander Col. Bernard Lentz, enjoyed it as well.  For a quarter of a century Col. Lentz had been working on a method to remove moil from the mundane forced marches and inspire his men to march with precision and vigor.  Col. Lentz, a recognized expert on close order drill, required that all of the men at the fort drill and work while chanting Willie's refrain.  Col. Lentz was astounded to see the instant and rapid improvement in morale and productivity.  Col. Lentz called Private Duckworth to his office to explain how he came to invent to the rhythm of the chant.  Duckworth simply responded, "I made it up in my head."  Fifty eight years later, Duckworth confessed to columnist Ed Grisamore of the Macon Telegraph, "I told him it came from calling hogs back home."  "I was scared and that was the only thing I could think of to say," he added.  

With the aid of post musicians, new arrangements of the song were composed, replete with a couple dozen new verses.   Since its origin, thousands of verses of the song have been sung, many of which are not printable.  Many of the verses reflect the complaints of the every day foot soldier, like "the captain rides in a jeep, the sergeant rides in a truck, the general rides in a limousine, but we're just out of luck" or "I don't mind to take a hike, if I could take along a bike.  If I get smacked in a combat zone, gimme a Wac to take me home."  Col. Lentz incorporated Willie's song into his revised version of "The Cadence System of Teaching Close Order Drill."  Then the brass at the Pentagon began to take notice.  The first copies of "Sound Off" were distributed to military installations around the world just before the end of World War II. 

Col. Lentz retired from the Army in 1946.  Boosted by the success of "Sound Off," the colonel began a song writer career of his own.  Willie Duckworth got out of the army and returned to Sandersville to await the torrent of royalty checks which kept flooding his mailbox.  Duckworth told Grisamore , "it made me famous for a while and put some money in my pocket." 

"Sound Off" became a hit with soldiers.  It  first appeared in the 1949 movie "Battleground" starring Van Johnson and Ricardo Montalban. The song has been used in countless movies including Scott Thompson's (not me) 2005 movie "The Pacifier" with Vin Diesel.  It was also featured in the 1992 hit "Wayne's World."   It also became a hit for bandleaders  Mickey Katz and Vaughn Monroe.  The chant became the theme song of the 1952 movie of the same name starring Mickey Rooney as an obnoxious night club owner who is abashed when he is drafted into the army.  Eventually Duckworth became a member of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. 

For his outstanding contribution to the military and to the legacy of African-American accomplishments, Willie Duckworth was honored as the first recipient of the George Washington Carver Monument Foundation's annual achievement award.   On January 5, 1952, a ceremony was held near Joplin, Missouri at the home of the noted American scientist and inventor.  Col. Lentz was invited to attend the award presentation, which featured a rousing rendition of the song performed by an all-black glee club from nearby Ft. Leonard Wood.  In addition to a plaque signifying this distinct honor, Duckworth was presented with a modest stipend of two hundred dollars.   

Willie Lee Duckworth spent the rest of his life in relative obscurity, hauling pulpwood and trying to make ends meet.   The royalty checks still came, though more infrequently in his last years.  The money he earned from that passing thought in his mind nearly a lifetime ago helped to support his family, who lived in a house on Highway 242 between Riddleville and Bartow.   His fame, known to a scant few of his fellow Washington Countians, was almost forgotten.  Just weeks past his 80th birthday, Willie Lee Duckworth died in February of 2004.   

06-07

FARISH CARTER

The Richest Man in Georgia

In his day Farish Carter was considered the richest man in Georgia.  Primarily considered a resident of Baldwin County, Georgia, Carter's wealth was spread across the state, including Laurens County,  in the form of land and personal property, including nearly two thousand slaves.  In this month of February when we salute the history of Georgia, let's travel back in time more than a century and a half to get a view of what life was like for the state's richest man.

Farish Carter was born on November 20, 1780 in South Carolina during the darkest days of the American Revolution.   His father, Major James Carter, was killed by British Redcoats during their siege of Augusta just two months before his birth.  His mother, the former Letitia Martin, struggled to raise her children without their father. She sent Farish to the academy of Reverend Hope Hull in Washington, Georgia, where he obtained the rudimentary educational skills of the day.

As he matured into manhood, Carter set out to make his fortune by opening a mercantile store in Sandersville in Washington County.   During the War of 1812, Carter served as a contractor for the State of Georgia, a position which resulted in a substantial income for this emerging entrepreneur.   Life was nice for Carter, though he longed for paternal guidance.

In 1818, Farish Carter purchased the home of Col. John Scott of Baldwin County.  Scott established a home and large plantation four miles south of Milledgeville.  His home still stands today.  It is located on Georgia Highway 243, just southwest of its intersection of U.S. Highway 441 in the community of Scottsboro, which was named for its earliest resident, Col. Scott.  The elegant home was centered on a large farm which stretched all the way down to and into Wilkinson County.  During the later decades of the 19th Century and the early decades of the 20th Century, much of his farm was used by the State of Georgia as the farm of the Georgia State Hospital.  The land, with its rich soils - residues of the remnants of Georgia's ancient coastline,  was unusually good for growing crops.

Carter relished the lavish life style of entertaining guests during the days when the state capital was located just to the north of his home in Milledgeville.   It was a time when life among the wealthy was slow and relaxed.  Carter enjoyed the company of his friends.  He often gave life estates in land for his friends to build homes nearby.    He went about expanding the porch, living room and library to accommodate cotillions and elegant parties.   

Carter was considered one of the largest slave owners in the state.  While at its peak in the 1830s,  his Baldwin County plantation was home to roughly one hundred and twenty enslaved inhabitants.   Some published articles report that he may have owned as many as 426 slaves which worked his 33,293 acres of land in Baldwin County alone.    Not satisfied with two homes in Baldwin, Farish Carter established a second home, "Bonavista," on the Oconee River.   Carter maintained 15,000 acres and a summer home he named, Rock Spring or Coosawattee, in North Georgia in Murray County.  He acquired the lands not occupied by grantees under the division of the Cherokee lands.  On the eve of the Civil War the 1860 census enumerated 370 slaves on his massive plantation in Murray County.  As an investor, Farish Carter was a partner in many real estate ventures and owned lands across the South from Georgia to Arkansas and Louisiana, as well in the northern state of Indiana.  

Farish Carter strongly believed in maintaining integrated business interests ranging from agriculture to mining to transportation. He owned grist mills, marble quarries and woolen mills, as well as the operation of river boats along the Oconee, Ocmulgee and Altamaha Rivers in Georgia and the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers.   Carter attempted a bold plan to operate river boats up the Oconee to Milledgeville in 1824.  The plan failed due to low water levels and the obstacle of the fall line which is located just below the former capital city.  The government of Georgia realized the importance of river transportation and frequently appropriated large sums of money to clear the river of obstructions.  An act was passed in 1826 to clear the river below Milledgeville.  Among those commissioners appointed to oversee the operation were Farish Carter of Baldwin County and David Blackshear of Laurens County. 

Carter held huge deposits in state banks and was a financier of gold mining operations in North Georgia and North Carolina.  Realizing that the future of Georgia and the South would depend upon the use of cotton mills powered by water, the foresighted investor established the first textile mill in Columbus, Georgia.    He invested heavily in railroads which he considered to be the prime method of transportation of goods and people in the future.  Deviating from the normal course of using slave labor in all enterprises, Carter used all available capital to increase his tremendous fortune.  Though he was considered one of the state's largest slave owners, Farish Carter reportedly once considered selling all of his slaves, but was advised not to by his friends and colleagues. 

Carter, well over six feet tall, carried a phobia of being buried in a coffin less than his gigantic height.  He instructed a craftsman to construct a specially designed coffin replete with silver handles and made out of cherry wood.  To ensure that he was buried in his custom crafted coffin, he stored it under his bed so if he died in bed, which most people of his time did, he would simply be removed from his mattress to his coffin. 

Farish Carter married Eliza McDonald, sister of Governor Charles McDonald (1839-1843.)    Their daughter Catherine married John H. Furman of South Carolina, for whom Furman University is named.  Their son, Farish Carter Furman, won fame by inventing a high grade which dramatically increased the productivity of cotton in Georgia and the South.

The era of elite Southern planters was coming to an end following the election of Abraham Lincoln.  On July 2, 1861, just eighteen days before the first major battle of the Civil War, Farish Carter died at his home in Milledgeville.  He is buried in Memory Hill Cemetery.   The longest lasting legacy of Farish Carter was the naming of Cartersville, Georgia in his memory  in 1854.

06-08

BOUND FOR DUBLIN

A Tale of One Flyer’s Misadventures

Doug dreamed of flying. Ever since he saw his first airplane, the young man longed for the day when he could soar through the sky to unreached heights and unmatched distances.  This is a story of a young man who in two of his most anomalous flights made critical miscalculations involving two Emerald cities.

Doug was born in 1907 in Galveston, Texas, just four years after the Wright Brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Then, on a Sunday afternoon in October 1925, Douglas decided to visit a local airfield. Corrigan watched a pilot take passengers for rides in a Curtiss "Jenny.” near his new home in Los Angeles.  In a matter of hours, the teenager made a life altering decision, the decision to fly a plane.  He came back the next Sunday and began taking flying lessons.  Five months later, Doug made his first solo flight.

Set on a career in aviation, Doug took a job in an airplane factory in San Diego.  A man came into the plant one day and asked Mahoney and Ryan, the company’s owners to construct a special aircraft for him.  Doug was assigned the job of assembling the plane’s wing and installing the instrument panel and gas tanks.  The pilot took off in May 1927 on a voyage unprecedented in the history of aviation.  The pilot was Charles Lindbergh. The plane was the Spirit of St. Louis. And the rest was history.  Right then and there Doug decided that it was his life’s mission to follow Lindbergh across the Atlantic.  Owing to the fact that he was the descendant of a long line of Irishmen, Doug established Dublin, the ancient capital of the Ireland, as his ultimate destination.   

Over the next eight years, Doug piloted small planes up and down the Atlantic coast.  He flew passengers from one town to another and often solicited air plane rides for anyone willing to plunk down a couple of coins.  Not satisfied with his life’s direction, he moved back to California to resume the pursuit of his dream.  In 1935 his application to make a trans. Atlantic, nonstop flight from New York to Ireland was denied because officials believed his plane was unsafe.   More applications were made.  All were denied.

Doug was determined he was going to fly to Ireland, with or without the approval of the U.S. government.  A 1937 trip was aborted when the weather conditions prevented long flight over the ocean.  It was on July 8, 1938 when the determined pilot set out to achieve his goal.  With only $69.00 in his jacket and two chocolate bars, two small boxes of fig crackers and a quart milk bottle of drinking water in his jerry-rigged once-wrecked nine hundred dollar plane, he landed in New York.  Airport officials suspected nothing of his deceitful plans.  There was nothing to indicate that he wouldn’t turn around an head back home to California.  He didn’t ask about the weather over the Atlantic.  The only navigational charts in his plane marked his return route back home.  Besides, no one ever expected that this clanky modified 1929 Jenny could make it across the ocean with its five extra gas tanks which blocked the pilot’s forward view.  

Given the option of taking off in all directions of west, which was in the path of several tall buildings, Doug took off in a thick fog.  Control tower personnel believed he would head east away from the obstructions and turn around and head west.  Much to their dismay, Doug disappeared into a bank of clouds and was never seen again, that is until he completed his journey.

Though he would never admit it, the young pilot maintained that he misread his instruments which led him on a course in the opposite direction of his approved flight plan.  Just twenty-six hours after he took off from New York, Doug’s plane dropped down out of the clouds.  According to Doug, he believed he would find the flat lands of Southern California.  Instead, he found he was flying above a large body of water.   Whether his destination was divine or devious, Doug landed at  Baldonnel Airport, in Dublin, after a 28-hour, 13-minute flight.

Maintaining that he intended to return to California at the time and for the rest of his life, the instant hero in the eyes of his native people and thousands of new admirers back in the United States was dubbed with the new name of Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan.  Not even slightly amused or delightfully amazed, federal officials immediately revoked his pilot’s license.   In the face of rising public outcries, officials restored his pilot’s status as his ship steamed back to New York.    More than one million New Yorkers showered their newest hero in a ticker tape parade which surpassed their welcome of Lindbergh eleven years earlier.  Adulating admirers swarmed their hero and hugged him so hard that they damaged portions of his chest cartilage.  His new found fame brought him the a vast fortune and a the satisfaction of reaching his life’s goal.  

At the age of thirty-one, “Wrong Way” Corrigan was at the top of the world in the eyes of the American people.   Though he could never surpass the high mark of his aviation career, Corrigan continued to fly throughout the 1940s, serving as a test pilot in World War II and as a freight pilot in the years before his retirement in the 1950s.  He died in seclusion in 1995, long forgotten by many.

Many have read about and some even remember the folly of Corrigan’s most famous flight. A few years before he made his most momentous miscalculation, “Wrong Way” Corrigan was barnstorming through Georgia trying to make a living showing off and taking country people for plane rides.  Heading west toward Columbus, Corrigan guided off the newly constructed Federal highway 80 which led from Savannah to Columbus.  As he approached Dublin, Georgia. He flew to the southwest down to Empire, Georgia which is situated near the Dodge and Bleckley County line along the Dublin and Southwestern Railroad leg of the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad.

Corrigan took off from Empire for an estimated 120-mile flight to Columbus.  Forgetting to allow for drifting winds, he found himself more than sixty miles away from his destination.  When asked my curious onlookers, Douglas Corrigan grinned and asked his interviewers wouldn’t they expect a man who made a mistake like that to get turned around on a long night.  Little did he and those who witnessed his first mistake near the Emerald City of Dublin realize the import of what his next mistake involving the city of Dublin would involve. And now you know the story of the first time Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan, took a wrong turn.

06-09

MRS. ANNIE ANDERSON

Juvenile Jurist

On August 19, 1920, the Congress of the United States ratified the 19th Amendment which guaranteed the right of women in the country to vote.  Sara Orr, a young Dublin woman, was honored to serve as secretary for three United States Senators from Georgia, Thomas E. Watson, Rebecca Lattimer Felton and Walter F. George.  Senator Felton, appointed by Georgia governor Thomas W. Hardwick who would later became a resident of Dublin, was the nation’s first female senator.    Though Laurens County women made rapid strides in the years following the adoption of the amendment, more than a half century elapsed before women began to make inroads into political offices across the state.  This is the story of Mrs. Annie Anderson who, with an appointment by Laurens County Superior Court Judge J.L. Kent, became the first female judge of any court in the State of Georgia.

In the years following World War I, the Georgia legislature provided that the eight most populous counties in Georgia establish juvenile courts to handle the rapidly increasing number of criminal cases involving juvenile offenders.  After two consecutive grand jury presentments,  the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, church organizations and the Women’s Community Association appointed Mrs. Frank Lawson, the state’s first female democratic district vice-chairman, to head a committee to seek a candidate to fill the office.    With the guidance of the sheriff and county officials Mrs. Lawson and her committee sought just the right candidate to deal with “the  good many” children who were confined to Laurens County jail in 1920.  

A number of candidates were considered.  Annie Anderson was not one of them.  The committee wanted some one who could hear cases against minors, who were often placed in jail with adult convicts, a situation which was undeniably not the place these children should be.    Officials were concerned after the November 1921 conviction of 14-year-old George Walker for murdering his playmate 17-year-old George Avery.   Walker was the youngest Laurens Countian ever tried and convicted of murder.

The committee made their recommendation to Judge J.L.  Kent and on the last day of 1921, Judge Kent signed an order appointing Mrs. Anderson as Juvenile Court Judge for the county of Laurens.  Much to her surprise, Judge Anderson was not aware of her appointment until contacted by Judge Kent.  Few people had given any thoughts to the creation of the court. Even fewer people speculated on who the newest judge might be. 

Annie Ogburn Anderson was born in 1877 in Wilkinson County, Georgia.   She was a daughter of Ellis and Missouri Ogburn.  The Ogburns moved to Dublin in 1898.  Shortly after they arrived, Annie caught the eye of the handsome young Oscar L. Anderson, the popular railroad agent of the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad.  The couple had five children, Oscar, who joined the Navy after high school, and Mattie, Milton, Frances and Emma, who were students at the time their mother was appointed to the bench.    

Annie Anderson was described by those who knew her as “a woman of striking personality and personal charm, with high educational qualifications and strong character.  Mrs. Anderson was president of the local Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and chairman of the Prison Committee of the Missionary Society of the First Baptist Church in Dublin.  

As a woman bound to rid the community of the  evil influence of spiritous liquors and intoxicating beer upon the youth of the town, Mrs. Anderson accumulated a vast knowledge of the depth of the problem which was increasingly injuring American youth. As a part of her duties as chairman of the prison committee,   Annie made weekly visits to prison camps scattered throughout the county.    Mrs. Anderson and the other ladies talked to the prisoners and tried to brighten the lives of those condemned to the chain gang.  

Mrs. Anderson attempted to take a personal interest in the lives of the prisoners she visited, especially any young women she may have found.    She was always ready and willing to provide guidance and comfort  to wayward young girls with her motherly advice and frank talks.  Deeply committed to the rehabilitation of troubled children, Judge Anderson held strong opinions against traditional forms of punishment.

Shortly after her appointment, the Judge told an Atlanta Constitution reporter “more harm than good can come from prison confinement and labors in a reformatory as a method of punishment of the young boy and girl.”  “Extreme measures should be resorted to only after probation, change of environment and living conditions have failed to accomplish their purposes,” she added.

Mrs. Anderson applied the same principles of kindness, positiveness and reasonableness with her own children in dealing with delinquent children.  She believed that with these ideals and a lot of understanding, long periods of confinement were unnecessary.    The judge believed that most youthful indiscretions were just that, improprieties which resulted from modern customs and usages and not from an intentional act of a child.  

Although she personally disliked the youthful customs of the day, dances, dyed and bobbed hair, Judge Anderson refused to pre judge those juveniles brought before her.  “She vowed to treat them “as kindly and with as such lenience and patience as it is possible under the circumstances.” “I am going to give them all a chance,” she promised.

After fondly seeing to the needs of her quintet of children and while her husband was frequently away from home tending to the rigorous schedule of his railroad duties, Judge Anderson made it her life’s goal of “aiding worthy boys and girls and influencing them toward the paths of righteousness and good citizenship.” 

Annie Anderson was a shining star in a galaxy of the grand women of the South.  The judicial search committee could not have made a better choice in nominating Judge Anderson.  What better judge to select than a person who committed their lives to loving and caring for all children as if they were her own.   In this month as we celebrate the history of American women, let us remember Georgia’s first judge who tempered justice with mercy, kindness and a firm belief that a loving hand soothed the troubled soul better than the ruthless whip.

06-10

THE 1966 SAINT PATRICK’S FESTIVAL

The Tradition Begins

It started out as a passing thought. Many great ideas do.  Forty years ago this month, the very first Dublin Georgia Saint Patrick’s Festival began.  Billed as the longest celebration of Irish heritage in the world, with the possible exception of the mother country of Irishmen everywhere, the festival has been a time when all Dubliners and Laurens Countians can enjoy the revelry, fun and festive atmosphere of the land of Erin.   The festival is all about traditions, traditions of heritage, harmony and merriment.

Though it is the oldest Dublin in the United States and in 1966, the largest Dublin in the country, Dublin, Georgia had no St. Patrick’s Festival.  Dick Killebrew, radio station W.M.L.T.’s morning radio personality celebrated St. Patrick’s day by playing Irish music and telling Irish stories and jokes.  Gradually it occurred to Killebrew that the city needed to have a celebration of its Irish heritage. After all he was in Dublin.   He enlisted the aid of Ed Hilliard, the station manager, and with the help of Anne Everly and other members of the station’s staff, the wheels were set in motion.  W.H. Champion, editor of the Dublin Courier Herald, was asked to join in the establishment of the festival.  Representatives of civic clubs were invited to join Killebrew, Hilliard, Champion and their staffs, and on January 31, 1966, the St. Patrick’s Festival was official born. 

The first event of the first St. Patrick’s Festival was Antique Show, sponsored by the Dublin Service League.  The fair in its second year hoped to draw a host of out of town visitors to the National Guard Armory on March 9th and 10th.  Next the Dublin Fine Arts Association sponsored  a sidewalk art contest which was held in front of the then empty Carnegie Library Building (now the Dublin-Laurens Museum.) Christine Monds, Ann Pelt and Mrs. Bush Perry led the event which drew thirty artists from around the state.   Both amateur and professional artists displayed their best works for all to see.   A square dance demonstration and dance was held at the V.A. Hospital for the public on 

The mothers and fathers of students of Susie Dasher School entertained a large crowd with a pick up basketball game at the Oconee High School gym.  The fifth event on the schedule was one of the most popular events in the 41-year history of the festival.  The Exchange Club of Dublin put on its first annual pancake supper in the cafeteria of Central Elementary School on Tuesday night.  After the pancake supper, came the forerunner of the Ball and Bash.  Band leader Ted Weems and his orchestra provided musical entertainment at a dance held at the Moose Club.  Weems became a popular band leader in the 1930s, primarily on radio with Jack Benny, Perry Como and Fibber McGee & Molly.  

On Wednesday, the Kiwanis Club sponsored the first Leprechaun Contest and a  movie at the Martin Theater where the admission was free - the popcorn, candy and cokes were not.    The mothers of Washington Street School sponsored a Fashion Show at the school.  As the festival progressed toward a climax, the first Joint Civic Luncheon was held at the Elks Club with music by the DHS Chorus led by Mrs. Edna Champion.  Merchants got in on the action and staged a city wide sale.  Now there’s a good idea for all us shoppers.  What happened?  St. Patrick’s Day ended with the first Irish Stew Supper, not at the traditional site at Christ Episcopal Church, but at the American Legion Hall, then located on North Jefferson Street in the shopping center anchored by Max Brown Pharmacy and Hank’s IGA.  During a lull before Super Saturday only one event was held.  The Dublin Jaycees sponsored the Miss Dublin Pageant at the Dublin High School Auditorium.   Beverly Young, a senior at Dublin High School,  was selected as the winner and awarded a $500.00 scholarship and a trip to the Miss Georgia Contest.  Joyce Grinstead was the first runner-up.  Gail Haskins, of Dudley High School, finished third. 

The festival culminated not on Sunday as it does today but on Super Saturday March 19th.  Precisely at 10:00 a.m., or somewhere close to that time, the first siren began to wail and the parade procession began along Telfair Street.  A pesky drizzling rain and cold March winds couldn’t deter the participants and parade goers.   Leading off the parade was a color guard and the Air Continental Band of Warner Robins with a compliment of bagpipes and kilted bandsmen.   The one-hour parade featured six bands, Dublin High, Dublin Junior High, Oconee High, Mary Fleming High, Millville High and Dodge County High.  Promoters billed the parade as the largest in the history of the city. Fifteen professional floats were entered.  Many local floats were entered.  There were the usual compliment of public officials, festival organizers and beauty queens.  I was there riding on a farm wagon trailer with the Youth Choir of the First Methodist Church. In those days they’d take any kid who showed up.  After all, this was a church and they didn’t have the heart to turn you down.   We sang “Onward Christian Soldiers” and worshipful version of “Londonderry Air,” or “Danny Boy.”   We actually won the award for the most original entry for carrying out the St. Patrick’s theme. They must not have heard my pitiful endeavors at singing which were thankfully disseminated by the howling gale.  The Laurens County Library was awarded the prize for the best non professional float.  The Civitan Club and Best Furniture received honorable mention for their entries.  

The last events came on Saturday evening.  The Civitan Club sponsored a teen dance at the American Legion.  Country Club members danced as well at their club house.   We did a lot more dancing back then.  It was the Sixties when most kids and adults danced, although at separate venues and to vastly different musical styles.   The younger kids were invited to a record hop sponsored by the Central P.T.A..  I’ll bet you some of them danced a little too.   A week long showing of special movies at Washington Street School ended the festival.

During the eleven-day festival other events were held.   Shamrocks were every where. Irish music filled the air.  The Citizens Band Radio Club sold St. Patrick’s tags to raise funds for their public service projects.    The parents and teachers of Hillcrest School sold popcorn and cup cakes  at the parade - another good idea that went astray.   All of the city’s garden clubs got in on the festivities and helped “green up” Dublin for locals and visitors.  Special religious services focused on the contributions and life of St. Patrick.   The V.A. Hospital staff also sponsored bulletin board decorating contests and a variety show put on by volunteer service workers.

The St. Patrick’s Festival has changed and grown over the years.  The classic events have been preserved and  are still celebrated and enjoyed forty years later.  Times have changed and new events come and go.  The festival designed to promote not only Dublin, but Laurens County as well.  It is a time when there is no North, South, East or West.  It is a time when there are no city dwellers or country folks.  It is a time when we are all green.  Now there’s a tradition worth preserving all year long. 

06-11

SELINA BURCH STANFORD

Warrior For the Dignity of Women

Long before the Women's Rights movement began in the 1960s and escalated in the 1970s, one Dublin woman was out there in the streets, inside board rooms and in the work place fighting for the rights of her fellow women workers, the right to be treated equal, the right to fair pay and the right of decent working conditions.   This is the story of a local young girl who took on the male establishment and accomplished her goals, winning a few important battles on the way.

Selina Burch Stanford was born in Laurens County, Georgia on September 24, 1927.  She was a daughter of Roger Burch and Jane Smith and grew up in the Burch District of Laurens County.  Selina attended Laurens County and Dublin schools.   At the age of seventeen, Selina went to work for Southern Bell Telephone Company as an operator.  Along with many of her fellow workers, Selina joined the Southern Federation of Telephone Workers.

Miss Burch's first true experience with labor relations came in 1947 when she and her fellow union members endured a strike which lasted nearly seven weeks.   That same year, telephone workers across the nation began the process of consolidating and forming a more powerful and unified single union organization under the banner of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.   Following the labor action, Selina was transferred to Charleston, South Carolina.  After five years she was elected Secretary of Local 3407 of the Communication Workers of America.   A year later in 1953, Selina was elected as the recording secretary of the Charleston CIO.

At the age of 27 in 1954, Selina Burch became the first woman to be elected president of her local union and any union in South Carolina.  She said, "I guess the rebel in me really began to come out somewhere between 1952 and 1954 when I discovered that I was doing all the work and a male was getting all the credit."    In 1955 she was chosen to serve on the staff of the Communication Workers of America as a representative and organizer. The satisfactory resolution of a violent strike that year by 50,000 employees led to her election to a leadership position on the district level when she became director of the North Louisiana division of the union.  

It was in the Creole State where Selina's interest in politics began to surface.  She spent tireless hours to build the state Democratic party.   She joined the campaign for Congressman Hale Boggs who served as majority leader of the United States House of Representatives and was a leader in establishing the Interstate Highway System and was also a member of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

In 1964, Selina was reassigned again.  This time, she came home, or close to it.  Miss Burch, still yet unmarried, enjoyed Christmas visits to her old home in Dublin.  Her brother J.B. Burch was a popular service station owner in downtown Dublin.   She was especially close to a close-knit group of aunts known to some as "The Burch Sisters."  These ladies, Ilah, Celestia and Emily, all school teachers, were also unmarried and lived together in their large two-story home on South Calhoun Street.  

Seen as a tough and demanding woman on the outside, away from her formidable duties as a labor union secretary and an advocate for the rights of women to work outside the home, Selina was described as a soft-spoken women who loved to bake.  She was described as a natty dresser and a woman who exuded intelligence and dignity  as she spoke.  Her  stepdaughter Margaret Pavey said of her cooking, "Her lemon pound cakes were legendary, and so was her generosity in giving them away."

The 1960s were a decade when women for the first time began to find their way into  the top echelons of governmental, religious and private organizations throughout the country.  Selina Burch was no exception.  With great honor, Selina held the position as Secretary of the 450,000 member Communication Workers of America union.  In 1969, she was  invited to Singapore, where she taught Asian telephone workers on different facets of the telephone industry.  

Burch saw her role in the union and in life as a protector of the dignity of women. She told a reporter from the Malay Mall, "In the past, a woman's only intention was to marry and settle down.  But now she is competing with man in every field - from engineering to electronics, and as she competes with man in his preserved fields, she must form unions or actively participate in the trade unions that will protect her rights and dignity as a human being."   Selina disavowed any special privileges on account of her being a woman.  "I will make sure I am not discriminated against because of my sex. Merit should be the only criterion - not sex," she said.

During the 1970s she allied herself with Atlanta mayors Maynard Jackson and Andrew Jackson, organizing phone banks of callers in their successful mayoral campaigns. In 1974, Selina was appointed director of Georgia-Florida District.   In 1976, she worked tirelessly for a fellow Georgian, Jimmy Carter, in his campaign for president.  It was during that same year that Selina accepted an appointment by  Governor George Busbee as the first female member of the Georgia Board of Offender Rehabilitation.  As a member of the board, Miss Burch began to see the disparity of vocational rehabilitation between male and female inmates.    With the aid of a friend, she instituted a program of instructing women on the skills of being a telephone operator.  Always a faithful member of the Democratic Party, Miss Burch served as a delegate to two National Democratic Party Conventions.

In 1978, Selina Burch was again transferred, this time to Washington, D.C., where she served as an administrative assistant to Glen Watts, President of the Communication Workers of America.  In 1980, she once again returned to Atlanta, where she served as an assistant to the vice-president of that organization.

In 1981, at the age of 53 , Selina finally began to settle down.  She married Morgan Callaway Stanford, a labor lawyer.  Ten years later in 1991, she finally settled down and retired from the Union after 44 years of service.  Selina Burch Stanford died on October 19, 2002.

Joseph Yablosnki, a Washington labor lawyer, eulogized Selina Burch by saying, "She was a pioneer in the women's labor movement.  She showed that women in the CWA were not only entitled to a place at the bargaining table, but could serve the union's members at the highest level of the union itself.  She could be as hard as nails when she had to be, but she was the sweetest friend and best client I ever had."    Former regional union director described Selina Stanford as "a tireless worker, dedicated to the CWA membership and a person with a brilliant mind."    

 

06-12

FAMILY TIES

Laurens County Connections

They are the children of the rich and famous.  They are the parents and grandparents of celebrities.   Beginning with this column and in future columns, I will tell the stories of some of our county's most famous family connections.  In the past I have written of Sugar Ray Robinson and Ty Cobb, Jr., but there are many, many more.  

Tall men seemed to run in one branch of the O'Neal family of Laurens County's Burgamy District.  Hilton O'Neal, a farmer, was between six feet eight inches and six feet nine inches tall.  His son Sirlester stood a imposing  six feet five inches above the ground.  The O'Neals were a farming family from way back.  Hilton's father George was a son of former slaves Freeman O'Neal and Charity Blackshear.  The progenitor of the O'Neal family in the county was Jack O'Neal, who was born about the year 1835 and may have been a slave of the family of William O'Neal, who maintained a plantation in northwestern Laurens County.

Lucille O'Neal was born to Sirlester and Odessa Perry O'Neal in the early 1950s.  It was time when the O'Neals and many other black families felt uncomfortable in the postwar South.  The family moved North in hopes of finding a better life.  On March 6, 1972, Lucille gave birth to a son.  The little boy didn't remain little very long.  He began to grow and grow and grow.  Carrying the genetic markers of his mother's paternal ancestors, the young man began to grow to a height of seven feet and one inch tall.  

Today you know that young man as Shaquille O'Neal, one of the most celebrated, dominating and talented basketball players in the history of the National Basketball Association.  Just think, had his grandparents not moved away, it is possible that this giant of a man would have played on the high school courts of Laurens County and with the right compliment of teammates might have dominated the ranks of Georgia high school basketball for four seasons.

Gertrude Johnson was born in 1843 in Jefferson County, Georgia.  Her father was a lawyer practicing primarily in Louisville.  When she was one, her father was chosen as a presidential elector. The Johnsons moved to Baldwin County.  He served for a short time as a U.S. Senator before returning to Georgia to serve as a Judge of the Superior Court.  As the nation rapidly sped toward Civil War, Gertrude's father found himself in the spotlight of political cataclysm which evolved in Georgia and throughout the nation.  Elected governor of Georgia in 1853, she moved to Milledgeville to live in the governor's mansion.  In the highly contested presidential election of 1860, her father was nominated by the democratic party as it's candidate for vice-president on the ticket with Stephen Douglas.   Democrats and Whigs split their votes among three candidates, all of whom lost to the eventual winner, Abraham Lincoln.  Ironically had Southern democrats not split their vote in refusing not to vote for the northern Douglas, Gertrude's father would have been elected.  Even more ironic was the fact that Stephen Douglas died of natural causes the following year and Gertrude's father, a native Georgian, would have become president of the United States changing the course of history of the nation and the world forever.  Her father served in the Confederate government and ended his public career on the bench of the Superior Court of the Middle District.  In 1857, the State of Georgia honored her father for his service to the state by naming one of it's newest counties, Johnson County, in honor of Herschel Vespian Johnson, the only judge in the history of the state to preside in a county court named for him.   

Gertrude, who had never married, met a dashing young widower from Dublin.  He was a former Confederate officer and an enterprising farmer, horticulturist, editor, railroad and river boat entrepreneur and lawyer.  They married in 1878. His name was John M. Stubbs, one of the city's most prominent leaders who brought Dublin from the depths of the post Civil War period. Gertrude and John Stubbs lived in their home "Liberty Hall," which was located across from the Piggly Wiggly grocery store on the site of the Claxton Hospital.  Gertrude Johnson Stubbs died on February 3, 1897 at her home in Dublin. Her body was buried in the Stubbs family plot in Macon.  

Stubbs, who had first married Ella Tucker, daughter of Dr. Nathan Tucker, a wealthy Laurens County planter and physician, once again re-married.  His new bride was Victorie Lowe.   Victorie was born in Maryland.  Her father Enoch Louis Lowe served as the Governor of Maryland from 1851 to 1854.  A staunch Democrat, Lowe served as a member of the Democratic National Convention in 1856 and was a presidential elector in the decisive 1860 Presidential election.   In the winter of 1861, Lowe was ready to take a seat in the United States Senate, but the beginning of the Civil War forced this  ardent secessionist into exile in Virginia during the war.  

Jesse Snellgrove and Elizabeth Howard, both natives of South Carolina, came with their families to Laurens County, Georgia during its  infancy.  They married here on July 29, 1815 and had a large family of children.  Some time in the early 1830s, the Snellgroves moved to Early County, Georgia where their daughter Nancy Ann Snellgrove was born in 1837.  Nancy married George W. Cassidy. Their son James M. was the father of James E. Cassidy.  James E.'s daughter Virginia was married several times.  Her first husband, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., died just three months before their son, William Jefferson Blythe, III, was born.  Virginia remarried Roger Clinton.  Clinton adopted his step son and gave him his last name. You know Jesse and Elizabeth Snellgrove's great great grandson as Bill Clinton, 43rd President of the United States.

John William Murray's parents, Drury Murray and Susan Champion Murray, moved to Laurens County in the latter half of the 1820s.    John William was born in Laurens County in 1833.  The Murrays lived along the present route of the Old Macon road at its intersection with Georgia Highway 338.  About the year 1834, the family followed a wave of migration to southwestern Georgia settling in the Bottsford District of Sumter County, Georgia.  John William married Alethea Josephine Parker, nine years his junior and a native of Lee County.   The Murrays were moderately wealthy land and slave owners in Sumter County.  Their son, John William Murray, Jr., married Rosa Nettie Wise.  Their daughter, Miss Frances Allethea Murray, married Wilburn Edgar Smith of Marion County.  On August 18, 1927, Frances Murray Smith gave birth to a daughter, which she named Eleanor.    Eleanor, or more completely Eleanor Rosalynn Smith, became a bride on July 7, 1946 when she married James Earl Carter of Plains, Georgia.  You know John William Murray's great grand daughter and her husband as Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter, the 40th President of the United States.

06-13

INGLEHURST PLANTATION

Old Times in the Old South

Once upon a time ours was a land of gallant gentlemen and fair ladies.  Gaiety and opulence were commonplace.  It was almost like another world, where the elite lived in luxury and the slave toiled to serve his master.  It was almost like a dream now. No one is alive who remembers the time before the war.   Few even survive who listened to  first hand  tales of the old South.  When the South collapsed following the Civil War, some memories endured, particularly on one Twiggs County plantation.

Inglehurst was built before the Civil War by Dr. Henry Bunn and his wife Nancy Thorp.  Their daughter Harriet Maria Bunn married first to General Hartwell Tarver, for whom the community of Tarversville is named.  Bunn was an early minister of Richland Baptist Church.  Harriet remarried to Frederick Davis Wimberly.

Bunn built his home in one of Georgia's wealthiest rural communities, one which was home to the Tarvers, Wimberlys, Slappeys, Faulks, Bunns, Solomons and Glovers.  Of typical colonial style ante bellum construction, this magnificent home featured a separate library, which housed many important books and manuscripts and was decorated with portraits of the Wimberly and Bunn families.  One striking feature of the interior of the main house was the mahogany paneling, which was taken from Dr. Bunn's ancestral home in Virginia along with pine and oak boards from his own plantation.

After the Civil War, the home was occupied by Frederick Davis Wimberly, Jr., a son of Frederick Davis Wimberly, but a step son of Harriet Bunn Tarver Wimberly.  Just after his graduation from Mercer University, Wimberly was elected a second lieutenant in the local company.  For gallantry in action at the cataclysmic battle of Sharpsburg, Lt. Wimberly was promoted to captain of his regiment.  Wimberly returned to a home which had escaped the torches of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's army but one which had not escaped the ravages of economic depression.  His bride of five years, Miss Isrelene Minter, was a daughter of Col. William F. Minter, who was killed in the last battle of the Civil War at the age of sixty.

The oldest child, William Minter Wimberly, was born just as his father's regiment was engaged in vicious fighting in Northern Virginia and Maryland.  Warren, the second son, was born at the end of the war.  Clara, the couple's first daughter, was born in 1868.  The second girl, Isrelene was born two years later.  The last Wimberly child, Frederick Davis Wimberly, III, was born in 1874.

Life on Inglehurst Plantation was tough, but not quite as tough as on the surrounding smaller plantations and farms.  Many of the family's slaves remained on the plantation, serving in the house and operating tenant farms surrounding the main house.  William Minter Wimberly went on to a successful political and legal career.  He was most well known as the counsel for the Macon, Dublin and Savannah railroad and for his service  in the Georgia legislature.

Clara Wimberly grew up in the hard times following the war.  Still surrounded by many of the plantation's former slaves,   Clara observed the customs of her family's servants and workers.  It was said the Clara inherited all of the charms and hospitality of the south's finest women.  

On a trip to New York to visit relatives, Clara attended a performance of Negro songs, which despite the distinctive nasal tones, fondly reminded her of the days of her youth.  Clara increasingly became interested in the customs of the Negro.  She told stories in their dialect adding a banjo to her monologues to capture their musical heritage.    She reminisced about the days of Inglehurst after the war.   One of her most well received skits was "Ole Miss and Sweetheart," in which she portrayed the stereotypical mammy of the old South.  Playing a mammy came easy to Clara, who drew upon her memories of her own mammies.  The "Ole Miss" in the story was her own mother.  During the war, Miss Isrelene  presided over Inglehurst.  She became President of the Soldier's Aid Society.  It was said that "no one, white or black, whatever his condition, was ever turned empty handed from her door, and at her board, where governors and senators have sat as honored guests, the wandering pilgrims of the road have received always an ever tendered courtesy."

Clara was fascinated with customs of the Negro, especially their dances like "The Cake Walk" and "The Holy Dance."  She began to develop artistic interpretations of poetry, prose and song.  Her interest became so intense that Clara packed her belongings and headed to New York where she planned to pursue a career as an impersonator of female Negroes.  

Just as she arrived in New York, she received word that her mother was gravely ill.  Clara rushed home and comforted her mother until her death in 1906.  Other relatives returned home for a brief period of mourning, only to hastily return to their own homes.  Clara loved Inglehurst.  She couldn't leave.  Just like her mother, it was her duty to maintain the home during times of trouble.  

But something was wrong.  As she walked through the dark house, it's windows shuttered with the pall of her mother's death. There was no joy and no music.  The house's dutiful servants stoically carried out their daily chores.   Clara soon realized that she had enough of gloom and depression, and with her gentle, but firm, voice, ordered all of the windows thrown open.  She restored the library and spent many fond times there.  The servants were revived "now that Miss Clara was carrying the keys to the house, just like her mother, whom they affectionately called "Ole Miss." Aided by her brother, Dr. Warren Wimberly, Clara restored the home to its ante bellum grandeur.   Her younger sister and an unnamed aunt also resided at Inglehurst.  

Tragically, just after Christmas in 1909, Inglehurst burned to the ground.  Not a single remnant of a memento of the family's heirlooms could be found among the ashes.   Minter and Warren died at relatively young ages.  Isrelene married Eugene Robbins and moved far away to Selma, Alabama.    With her days at Inglehurst behind her, Clara decided to settle down.  At the age of fifty-two, Clara married Mark Cooper Pope, a brother of her brother Minter's widow.  Today there are no traces of the stately Inglehurst, nothing there to remind us of the genial days of noble cavaliers and grand ladies of the Old South.

06-14

Scottsville

The Scottsville section of Dublin is located in the northeastern section of the city.  Named for a Rev. Darling, or Nathan, Scott, an early resident of the area and founding pastor of Scottsville Baptist Church, Scottsville is generally bounded on the southeast by East Gaines Street, southwest by North Decatur Street, northwest by East Mary Street and northeast by the Oconee River swamp.  The area first began to develop in 1898 when the Dublin Furniture Manufacturing Company establish a factory on the corner of Ohio and Georgia Streets.  Several cottages and a boarding house were constructed along with a factory building.  The company, headed by J.M. Simmons and several of Dublin's leading businessmen, specialized in medium-priced bedroom suites.  The location was chosen because of its proximity to the Oconee River.  Lumber was transported by river which lies within a half-mile of the factory.  The choice of the location turned out to be a poor one. The waters of the Oconee flooded the area when the river was high.  The owners of the factory subdivided the surrounding lands into tiny lots to accommodate "shot gun" style houses for factory workers.  After the factory went out of business about 1907, the factory and its out buildings were abandoned.

In 1909,  R.A. Carter, A.J. Cobb, and Lee O'Neal, all from the Atlanta area, purchased thirty  acres of land which included the former Dublin Furniture Factory on Ohio Street.  They sold one block  of the land to L.H. Holsey, G.L. Ward, J.H. White, P.W. Wesley, R.A. Carter, A.J. Cobb, Lee O'Neal, W.T. Moore, E. Horne, and C.L. Bonner as Trustees for the Harriett Holsey Industrial School.  The school provided education in agriculture, domestic science, and other technical skills and was open to all of the Negroes of Laurens County.  The school became known as the Harriet Holsey Industrial School, in honor of the wife of Bishop Lucius Holsey of the C.M.E. Church.  Today the city maintains a small park on the site of the school.  Throughout the mid-20th Century, M&M Packing Company maintained a slaughterhouse and abattoir on the site.  Today Roche Manufacturing Company maintains a cotton gin on the fringe of the old college campus. 

The subdivision around the homes was renamed  Holsey Park.  Streets in the subdivision were named after some of the United States.  The northern part of Scottsville was owned by Mary Wolfe and called North Dublin.  New streets in the southern part of Scottsville were named for several American states, including Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama and California, the latter of which was never apparently opened.  Northern streets in Scottsville were named for Republican presidents and in one case an unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, James G. Blaine.  Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, James Garfield, William McKinley and  Ulysses S. Grant had streets named in their honor.

The heart of the Scottsville community was on North Decatur Street where it takes a jog to the left.  Located at that spot was the Second African Baptist Church, the city cemetery and most likely Scottsville School.  The Second African Baptist Church was founded in 1900 as the Scottsville Baptist Church  The original sanctuary building was donated to the members of the church by members of the First Baptist Church who completed their present church building in 1907.   The cornerstone of the church was laid on November 22, 1908 by Pastor B.J. Parker and J.L. Cullens and J. Glenn as Trustees along with the Board of Deacons, which was composed of W.H. Hall, L. Lewis, J. Smith, L. Labinyard, A. Askew and V.B. Rozier. It  was used until May 1, 1934, when  it burned.  A second wooden church was dedicated on November 11, 1934 under the pastorate of Rev. C.H. Harris and is  still in use, but covered now by bricks.   A second Scottsville church  is was established as a Church of God in Christ in 1924 at 410 Alabama St..  It later became Fields Temple Church of God in Christ and finally Zion Hope Baptist Church in the late 1950s.  A third church, Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church was established at 806 N. Decatur Street in the 1920s.  

The city of Dublin maintained a school at 709 N. Decatur Street across the street from the church.   In 1909, the school was staffed by Principal E.L. Hall, First Assistant Pearl Simmons and Second Assistant E.B. Caldwell.   In 1926 Decatur Street school was located in the building that later became a missionary hall for Scottsville Baptist Church. The school burned and its students were sent to Washington Street School.

Across the street from Second Baptist Church is Dublin's first cemetery for blacks. Although the city purchased twelve acres of land in 1906 for a cemetery (Cross The Creek Cemetery) on the northern banks of Hunger and Hardship Creek, the city  cemetery was used for burials into the 1930s. Among the more famous persons to be buried in the cemetery were Rev. Norman McCall, a well known and revered minister of First African Baptist Church, and his wife, along with Susie Dasher, a dedicated teacher, who is the only person in Dublin to ever have a school named for them.   Though there are less than two dozen marked graves in the cemetery today, a 1936 obituary stated that the cemetery contained the remains of "hundreds of Dublin's finest Negroes."

H.H.  Dudley established a cemetery at the northern margin of Scottsville in the 1920s.  Dudley's land was also used as a ball field for the Dublin Athletics, a highly successful semi-pro Negro League team, which included Herbert Barnhill and Jimmie Reese, both of whom eventually made it into the Negro Leagues.

Among Scottsville's most prominent residents was Dr. Benjamin Daniel Perry.  Dr. Perry, a graduate of Meharry Medical College, was one of the city's first black physicians.  Perry was an educator, as well, and was prominent in the promotion of educational endeavors and a promoter of Colored Fairs for three decades.  

Though most signs of their existence are now gone, Scottsville was filled with small business such as groceries, dry goods stores, cafes and laundries.  Among the earliest businesses were Mattie Tinsley's grocery at 508 Alabama St. and M.H. Hall's grocery at 506 E. Mary St. in 1926.   Milo and Elizabeth Castleberry established a grocery and café at 501 N. Decatur in the 1930s.  Pearl Carroll operated a grocery on Ohio Street in the late 1930s.  In the late 1940s, Mattie Miller and Wilson Coley operated general merchandise  stores in Scottsville.  Minnie Stinson opened her grocery on Alabama St. about the same time.   The The new café in the area in the post World War II era was the Green Pastures at 401  Alabama St..   

The Scottsville neighborhood businesses were at their peak in the 1950s.  Mattie Mitchell operated a luncheon room at 403 Alabama St..  Down the street at 508 and 514 Alabama St. were the groceries of Mattie Miller and Doretha Miller.  May and George  Bell operated still another grocery store at 508 Georgia St..  Robert Trawick and his family operated a laundry and cleaners at 517 Alabama Street for several decades,  sometimes operating under the name East Side Cleaners.  In the mid 50s, Wiliam Redick opened another cleaning establishment at 507 Alabama St..  Rosa Moore operated a grocery at 700 N. Decatur for several years as did Susie Mallard at 319 McKinley St.. and James M. Jackson at 506 Ohio St..   In the late 1950s, Ervin and Idearest Jones took over the operation of the former Castleberry's place on North Decatur.   Amos Parks opened still another grocery at 1008 Ohio in the latter part of the decade.   Ruth May operated a grocery at 414 E. Mary St at its intersection with N. Decatur Street for many years in the 1960s and 70s.  

06-15

          LARRY FOSS

     All You Have To Do Is Dream

Every kid whoever picked up a baseball has dreamed that one day he would pitch in the major leagues.   Tens of millions of tried, only a dozen thousand or so have ever toed the rubber of a big league mound and thrown his best pitch toward an awaiting slugger.  This is the story of Larry Foss, a former Dublin Irish pitcher, and who he achieved his dream of becoming a major league pitcher and in the process winning his very first game against one of the game's most feared and revered pitchers, only to lose all of his remaining games on the worst team in professional baseball history.

Larry Curtis Foss was born in Castleton, Kansas on April 18, 1936, seventy years ago today.  Foss was drafted out of West High School in Wichita by the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Inthe summer before his senior year at West High, Foss grew an amazing eight inches to a height of six feet two inches, a stature which greatly helped the speed of his pitches.   The young pitcher was assigned to the Dublin Irish, the organization's Class D entry in the Georgia State League.   

During the 1955 season Foss appeared in 23 games posting an average record of four wins and four losses.  His earned run average of 5.51 runs per game was not good and his future in baseball was in doubt.  In eighty innings of pitching, he gave up 72 hits and 82 bases on balls.  His strikeout ratio of seven per game was not too bad for a 19-year-old hurler more than a thousand miles away from home.  There were no designated hitters in that era and Foss was expected to hit as well as pitch. In 28 at bats, he managed to bat a respectable .250 with seven runs batted in.  In a sign of times to come, Foss ended his first year in professional baseball playing on one of the worst minor league teams ever assembled in Dublin.  The Irish finished fifth out of six teams that season under the helm of George Kinnamon.  George Arent, the team's best offensive player that year, couldn't break the .300 mark, finishing with a batting average of .294.  Jim Hardison was one of the league's best pitchers, but couldn't help Foss from the bench.

Foss bounced around the minor leagues for six more seasons.  His first taste of being in the major leagues came on March 11, 1960 when he came in relief against the Baltimore Orioles.  He had control problems, but managed to give up only one run in two innings. Four days later he was brought in relief against the Kansas City Athletics.  The first eight Athletics batters reached base.  Ten runs scored.  Foss's teammates got him off the hook when they scored eleven more runs to win the game. A March 25th appearance wasn't much better.  He gave up four straight walks against the Senators before being pulled from the game.  But Larry Foss refused to give up. He worked hard and pitched well for the Asheville Pirates of the Sally League.  

Just when it looked as if he would never pitch in the majors, Larry got a call from the Pittsburgh Pirates in the last weeks of September 1961. He was numb and exhilarated at the same time.  Foss drove from Asheville, North Carolina to join the Pirates.  The Pirates, the 1960 World Series Champions, were in a slump.  With the memories of Bill Mazeroski's championship winning walk off home run against the Yankees still fresh in their minds, the Bucs lingered in sixth place in the eight team National League.

Foss remembered, "I get into the clubhouse and Danny Murtaugh, (the Pirates manager), says, "You're pitching tonight."   Not only was he pitching, but he was starting. What the young pitcher didn't realize was that his opponent that night was a another 25- year-old pitcher for the Cardinals, Bob Gibson.  Though he was still striving for his abominable hard driving style which catapulted him to the position as the National League's best pitcher and eventually into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Gibson was still an imposing opponent.  

It was a cool evening in Pittsburgh on September 18th.   As he took his warmup pitches, Foss peered around the vast confines of Forbes Field.  Tradition was all around him.  The pressure was on.  It must have seemed to Larry that it was now or never.   He walked Curt Flood, Julian Javier and Bill White to load the bases.  The first three pitches to the cleanup hitter Ken Boyer veered outside the strike zone.  Then somehow Larry gathered himself and managed to get out of the inning without a single Cardinal runner crossing the plate.  The Pirates took the lead, which they held until the fifth inning when Foss gave up the first run of his career.  The Pirates bounced back with two runs in the bottom of the inning and five more in the seventh stanza.  Foss pitched to two batters in the eight before being relieved by Harvey Haddix and Elroy Face, two of the game's best relievers.  The Pirates held on to win 8-6.  Foss gave up three runs, two of them earned.  He struck out five and walked six. Larry had done it. He won his very first major league game and beat Bob Gibson and held the legendary Stan Musial to one hit  in the process. He never won another regular season game.

Two weeks later, Larry took the mound against the Cincinnati Reds.  Foss gave up three runs in the first inning and three more in the sixth lowering his record to 1 and 1. A third start resulted in a no decision.  At the end of his first season, Larry Foss had accumulated a record of 1-1 with an ERA of 5.87.

After a stint in the winter Dominican League in 1961, Larry returned to the Pirates spring training camp in 1962 with high hopes of making the team's roster.  Larry returned to his superb form of his first start when he pitched three scoreless innings against the Mets. His blazing fastball caught the eye of the venerable Met manager Casey Stengel, who had led the New York Yankees to an unprecedented string of World Championships, but who was then managing the cross town Mets in their inaugural season.  Foss won his next game against the Twins.   Larry didn't make the roster, but enjoyed a good season at Asheville with a record of 10-5. He was placed on waivers by the Pirates.  Stengel, one of the game's greatest sages, remembered Foss, whom he called "Foos"  and convinced the team's general manager to pick up the promising rookie for the $20,000.00 wavier price.

Larry Foss pitched his first game for the 1962 Mets.  He lost to the Colt .45s on September 19th.    Larry pitched well in relief in a 3-2 loss to the Cubs 9 days later.  The Mets lost 120 of 160 games that year, the worst team record in the history of major league baseball.  He returned to training camp in 1963.  His last appearance for the Mets came on April 3, 1963, when he gave up one run in one inning against the Reds.  He was picked up by the Milwaukee Braves and assigned to their Denver AAA team.  Larry left professional baseball with arm problems, but pitched his hometown Service Auto Glass team to the 1964 National Baseball Congress World Series championship.   He worked in the oil and gas business for twenty plus years before moving to the mountains of Colorado, where he enjoyed fishing and hunting. Larry Foss returned to Wichita in 1993 to open a sporting goods store.     

Larry Foss loved baseball.   Despite his short major league career he fondly remembers his victory against Bob Gibson, his favorite pitcher, and being a member of  the hapless 1962 Mets.  He told a reporter from the Wichita Eagle, I had no idea that team would become as legendary as it has.  I would have grabbed a jersey or something or gotten some balls autographed."  All he has to remind him of being a member of baseball's worst team is his old cap.  But dreams do come true.  Hard work and determination can take you  to high places.   All you have to do is dream. Happy Birthday Larry!

06-16   

LONG LIVE GOVERNOR TROUP

The Death of an Icon

Exactly a one and one half centuries ago, the face of Laurens County changed forever. The date was April 26, 1856.  The news traveled slowly at first and then rapidly throughout the countryside and across the nation.  Governor George Michael Troup was dead!  No Georgian in the first half of the 19th Century was more revered and reviled at the same time.  Troup actively engaged in public service for three decades.  From his Laurens County home, which he called "Val d'osta" or simply "Valdosta," George Troup served his country as a senator and congressman and his state as one of its most popular governors.  His last two decades were spent in virtual isolation from the political world which he dominated with unwavering boldness and the conviction that the  states' inalienable rights to determine their laws.  Many of his last years were spent in ill health, which prevented him from serving his nation and state which he loved so well.

It was about the 19th of April that a message came from Governor Troup's plantation in the western portion of Montgomery which later became Wheeler County.  William Bridges, the plantation's overseer at what the Governor called the "Mitchell Place," summoned the venerable sage to come to the plantation to quell an acrimonious slave.   Troup, one of the richest men in Georgia, owned more than four hundred slaves, some of whom, were fathered by his brother R.L. Troup and some possibly by his son George and possibly by the governor himself.  It was a common practice in ante bellum days for slave owners to father children with slave women with the intention of improving the Negro race.

Troup called for Madison Moore, his trusted coachman, to prepare his coach for the thirty-five mile ride to the Mitchell Place.  Apparently order was restored with little or no violent punishment.  Troup was known as being a firm and deliberate master, and not one to flog his slaves.  The hasty trip was too much for the failing seventy five year old Troup.  Troup collapsed and was gingerly taken from his meager home at the Mitchell place to the home of overseer Bridges, where he lingered in pain and anguish for five days.  A local physician was summoned.  His efforts to save the dying Troup failed, and wise old gentleman quietly passed away.

Bridges ordered Smart Roberson to take a fine horse and race to Savannah to inform Thomas M. Foreman, the widower of Troup's recently deceased daughter Florida.  Before Roberson could reach Foreman, his horse gave out.  Undaunted and determined to deliver the dismaying news, Roberson set out on foot to reach the Foreman home.  On a separate course, Madison Moore sped his empty coach back to Valdosta, where the governor's daughter Oralie was unaware of her father's death.  The other child, George, Jr., his whereabout's unknown, seemed to have suffered from some malady, either physical or mental, which caused his untimely death in 1858.

Word quickly spread throughout the community.  The governor's corpse had to be prepared for burial immediately.  A coffin was made from the suitably wide and yet un-nailed  boards of Peter Morrison's front porch.  John Morrison, his son Daniel, and Duncan Buchanan  fashioned the lumber into a fitting coffin.   Peter Morrison, the village blacksmith, wrought the nails.    Troup was well known in the community.    In remembrance of their dear friend, the coffin makers carefully arranged a series of brass tacks forming the words "An Honest Heart" on the lid of the governor's primitive coffin.  Mrs. Elizabeth Morrison carefully unrolled a bolt of white linen cloth.  With the devotion of a caring mother, Mrs. Morrison formed a tightly fitting cloth to enshroud her beloved friend.

Originally it was intended that Governor Troup be brought back to Valdosta for a burial befitting the man he was.  But owing to the delay and the increasing temperatures it was decided to lay him to rest at his Rosemont plantation in present day Treutlen County.  Eight years before in 1848, the governor and his son had erected a handsome sandstone, granite  and marble  monument to his brother, Robert L. Troup.

In the center of the seventeen by twenty-five foot sandstone enclosure is a ten foot shaft, which had been formed in Augusta and bears the memorial "Erected by G.M. Troup, the Brother and G.M. Troup, Jun., the nephew, as a tribute of affection to the memory of R.L. Troup, who died September 23, 1848, aged 64 years. An honest man with a good mind and good heart."

Owing to the lack of space, the governor was laid to rest to the right of spire, carefully placed so as not to disturb its foundation.  Following his death, Troup's family had a marble slab, two feet by three feet, recessed into to the base of the shaft.  It reads " George Michael Troup.  Born Sptr 8th, 1780, Died April 26th, 1856.  No epitaph can tell his worth.  The history of Georgia must perpetuate his virtues and commemorate his patriotism. There he teaches us the argument being exhausted to stand by our arms." 

The walls of the enclosure were constructed from sandstone which was quarried from Berryhill's Bluff by slaves and hauled the short distance to Rosemont.  A beautiful iron door was furnished by D.W. Rose of Savannah at the entrance to the enclosure, which is set low to the ground forcing the visitor to stoop to enter the inside.  Just inside the entrance on the right is a wild climbing rose.  It was placed near the grave by a grateful slave woman in fond remembrance of her fallen master.  The rose still blooms even day, sometimes during the dead of winter in January.  

For decades after the Governor Troup's burial, the monument suffered from  a series of a attacks by miscreant vandals and the ignorance of apathetic citizens.  The State of Georgia, which had originally planned to make the monument the center piece of "George M. Troup State Park in the mid 1930s, restored it to its present state of acceptable repair.

It was in the early 1900s, that J. Tom White and a group of enterprising Dublin businessmen sought out and were granted permission by some of the governor's descendants to have his bodies of the governor and his brother disinterred, the enclosure disassembled and removed to the courthouse square in Dublin for a proper memorial in the bustling city as opposed to the remote regions west of Lothair in Treutlen County.   Obviously the movement never materialized.

To view this marvelous structure and pay homage to arguably the most important resident of our county and our state as well, follow Georgia Highway 199 from East Dublin south to Lothair, where you turn right and follow Spur 199 to the grave site which is situated on a one acre plot of land owned by the state of Georgia.

06-17

THE VORTEX OF DESTINY

The Impact of the Civil War on the 21st Century

On May 2, 1862, my life changed forever.  Yes, I said May 2, 1862, not 1962.  It was  a rather quiet day around Yorktown, Virginia, where just eight decades before the Revolutionary War was about to spiral to its climax.  Confederate forces were fanning outward from Richmond in a series of defensive positions across the peninsula of Virginia.  Union forces were engaging in their final troop movements to make what was believed to be the first, and hoped by Union generals to be the  last, offensive action of the Civil War.

Just how did that day change my life?  First let me point out that my story is personal, the subject of my story was my third great-grandfather.   His importance beyond his local community and family was of no consequence to the greater world.  I tell this story to illustrate  that during the Civil War, our lives and the lives of all generations to come were forever altered during the fifteen hundred day war in which more Americans were killed than in any other war in the history of our nation.

I first saw his name written in my grandmother Thompson’s tablet.    She had carried her pencil with her when she visited the grave of her great-grandfather.  It simply read, Asa Gordon Braswell, born January 13, 1827, died May 2, 1862.  Carefully written along the notations of the span of his life were the words, “Remember me as you pass by.  As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, soon you will be.  Prepare for death, and follow me."   I was still a young teenager, far from the time I would become enveloped into the quest for determining where I came from.  His name fascinated me.  Who was this man?  What did he look like?  What happened in the mere thirty-five years that he was alive.  My grandmother’s notes didn’t reveal who his parents were.  I only knew that his son John Arthur Braswell came to the area around Kea’s Church east of Adrian sometime after the war.  Through the genes of his son, his namesake grandson Asa Gordon Braswell, II, great granddaughter Claudie B. Thompson and great-great grandson H. Dale Thompson, I am here now writing what you are reading.

More than a quarter of a century ago I set out to discover the lives of the Braswell family, a name which I carry along with two other surnames of my heritage.  Asa was born in Washington County to Arthur and Patience Pearce Braswell.  The Braswells weren’t particularly wealthy, though they did have a moderately sized farm adjoining Piney Mount Methodist Church below Tennille along the Old Savannah Road.

Like many boys of his day he worked on the farm.  At the age of sixteen, he married Jane Ellen Bridges.   Many of the families in this area had migrated along a trek from eastern North Carolina to Georgia during the early 1800s.   Asa and Jane were founding members of Piney Mount Church when it was established in 1847.    When he was about to come of age, the Braswells and many other families in the community set out to go to Texas, where the lands were said to have been fertile and jack rabbits were as big as dogs.    After an arduous journey of several months, the caravan reached the Mississippi River.  Asa’s mother had become seriously ill.  She could go no further.  A few days later, she died and was buried.  The family, without the guidance and care of the mother, moved on. Asa and Jane’s two-year-old son George died as well.  The family made it to Texas, only to find it wasn’t the paradise they had been led to believe.  With the heart of their family  stolen away by the angel of death, Arthur and Asa decided to return home to Washington County.

     In the 1850's Asa began to serve his community.  Because of the lack of court records there is no direct evidence to prove that Asa was a lawyer.  His children always said that he did practice law.  In the days before certification by the state, a man could practice law by studying the law, apprenticing under a lawyer or judge, and appearing before three lawyers to prove his ability to practice law.     During the years 1853 through 1855 and possibly before that time, Asa G. Braswell operated a general store near his home.  He sold all types of dry goods and merchandise to Mary Peacock, Guardian of the minor children of Asa P. Peacock.  The goods were clothing, candles, postage stamps, eggs, fish hooks, hardware, pencils, cake, and pills.  Some of the more unusual items furnished for minor children were whiskey, tobacco, cigars, and snuff.  In 1856 his brother, William M. Braswell, took over the operation of the store. 

     In 1855 Asa G. Braswell was elected Tax Commissioner of Washington County.  The following year Asa was elected to represent the people of Washington County in the Georgia Legislature and  was appointed to the House Committees on Public Education, the State Penitentiary and the Committee on New Counties.  He also served as a trustee of Indian Hill School which  was located on the hill at the intersection of Highway 15 and Indian Hill Road and Road Commissioner of Washington County.

     Asa and Jane Braswell lived on a 600-acre farm , a fourth of which was cultivated,  place on the Old Savannah Road.  The farm implements and equipment were worth $200.00.  Asa's livestock, valued at $600.00, consisted of 15 cows, two horses, six mules, two milk cows, and 50 hogs.  During the 1859-60 crop year Asa produced 40 bushels of wheat, 500 bushels of corn, 4800 pounds of ginned cotton, 10 bushels of peas and beans, 100 bushels of sweet potatoes, 50 pounds of butter, and 2 tons of hay.  To help him work his farm, Asa used a 48-year-old male slave, a 24-year male and a woman, who was probably his wife.  A ten-year-old boy was the family’s only other slave.   His father employed a young slave couple and their child.   The low number of slaves was common among most farmers, who primarily used slaves to farm on a small scale and to help with household chores.   

All of our lives began to change on April 12, 1861 with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, S.C..  Though Washington Countians had favored remaining in the Union and seeking cooperation on the issue of slavery in the western states, the county produced more volunteers per capita than any other county in Georgia.   On April 29, 1861, Asa was appointed ensign of the Irwin Volunteers of the Georgia Militia, which was formed in defense of the state and named for  of Gov. Jared Irwin of Washington County. The Company prepared for battle  at their muster grounds at Langmade's Mill one mile south of Sandersville on July 17, 1861. They also trained at Camp Stephens near Griffin before going on to Richmond, Virginia.

    

    2nd Lt. Asa Braswell served as the Recruiting Officer and Assistant Quarter Master.  Asa Gordon Braswell died of disease in a military hospital on May 2, 1862 in the vicinity of Yorktown.  More of the deaths in Confederate ranks in the first year of the war came as a result of disease and not battlefield wounds.   Unlike many who died during the war, Asa’s body was returned by train and interred in the Peacock Cemetery near Peacock’s Cross Roads with full military and Masonic honors.   My family would never be the same again.  John Arthur was held out of service by his mother until he reached eighteen.  He joined the reserves and saw action in the defense of Macon.  He accompanied the retreating Confederate army after Gen. Sherman’s 60,000 man right wing marched ravaged through the heart of his homeland.  He stole a horse in South Carolina and returned home when he became sick of washing undigested grains of corns out of horse manure just to get something to eat.  

What would have happened had Asa Gordon Braswell lived?  Who knows?  No one ever will.  Though slightly different, whether you were a descendant of a soldier, a noncombatant or a slave, the story of 2nd Lt. Asa Gordon Braswell, C.S.A. and your stories are all the same.  They are all inextricably linked to those times more than fourteen decades ago when the deaths of more than a half million others and well as the lives and fates of tens of millions of other Americans were forever altered as they were funneled through the vortex of the Civil War.   

06-18

Laurens County Lynchings 

A Rarity in a Violent South 

Lynching was a horrible and unforgivable part of our past from the Civil War until the end of World War II. While lynching was not as rampant as some have led us to believe, the number of documented cases of lynching in Laurens County is amazingly very low. In only three cases were Laurens County men lynched by Laurens County vigilantes. In one case, the victim was hung by men of both races. In one of the rarest cases of lynching ever reported, the victim survived the lynching. In three other cases, the victims were executed by outside perpetrators.

 

Henry Burney was charged with the robbery of Dublin merchant J.M. Reinhart. Having been found innocent of the charges brought against their client, Burney's lawyers sought to charge the prosecuting party with false imprisonment. A mob of forty-two men took Burney from the jail, led him out of town, beat him with fence rails and sticks and stabbed him repeatedly. The lynchers asked Burney if he knew the way out of town. Burney nodded in the affirmative. He was given two days to leave and never came back. Burney traveled to Oconee, Georgia, where he exhibited knife wounds on his face and the rope used to lead him out of town. 

On or about May 23, 1894 Gus Thompson, a Negro, was caught in the bed room of a Mrs. W.E. Couey, who lived about 15 miles from Dublin. Mrs. Couey told law enforcement officials that she had retired to her bedroom when she felt a hand on her bed. She screamed and the person sprang through the window and escaped. Mrs. Couey alarmed her neighbors of the purported crime. After an all night torch light search and a nearly day long hunt, Thompson was arrested and charged with trespassing in a house with the intention of committing a rape or other sexual offense.

   

Following Thompson's admission that he was in the house, but not for the purpose that he was being charged with, the Justice of the Peace committed Thompson to the county jail after a brief commitment hearing. About midnight on the morning of June 3, 1894, without any disturbance or alarm, a band of twenty masked men approached the jail. Three men entered the jail under the pretense of bringing in a prisoner. When jailer J.M. Raffield came to the door, the trio struck him on the head, bound his hands and gagged his mouth. His son-in-law, J.M. Kelly

escaped through a window in the jail and tried to alarm the town. The lynchers bound and gagged a kicking and screaming Thompson and took him from the jail. Thompson's dead body was found later in the morning about ten feet from the roadside, bounded to a small tree with approximately twenty bullet holes in his head and chest. There was some speculation by reporters that the lynching would have occurred earlier had Mr. Couey been in town at the time of the alleged crime. 

In the most documented case of an apparent lynching, Andrew Green was killed by a mob composed of black and white men near Govett, Georgia on August 22, 1897. Andrew Green and his wife were having marital difficulties to say the least. It was said that they had lived "as a man and wife should" though he forbade Mrs. Green from coming to town. On Sunday evening, in direct disobedience to Green's commands, Mrs. Green traveled three miles from their home near Garbutt’s Mills to Lovett, Georgia. Finding that his wife was not a home, Green set out to ascertain her whereabouts. Upon his arrival at the Lovett depot, Green found his wife sitting on a pile of railroad cross ties and engaged in a conversation with a Negro couple. Mystifyingly enraged, Green drew his .44 caliber Colt pistol and fired three times in the direction of his wife. All three shots missed his intended target, though two of the shots struck and wounded Mrs. John George, who was sitting with her husband talking to Mrs. Green. Thinking that he had killed his wife, Green bolted into his mule driven cart and attempted to flee the scene. 

     Enter George Heath, a prominent Lovett merchant, husband and father of four. Realizing the depravity of the event which occurred before his eyes, Heath ran after Green, who was violently whipping his mule to sprint. Green drew his pistol again and fired at Heath, who was just a few feet away. The fatal shot struck Heath between his eyes. Heath slumped onto the tracks, just as the Wrightsville and Tennille passenger train was pulling into the station. The train engineers slammed on the brakes in order to avoid running over Heath's perishing body. News of the tragedy spread like a wild fire throughout the town. John George, husband of Green's first victim, joined a hastily formed posse composed of both black and white citizens. 

     Approximately fifty well armed and mounted men set out to the east toward Garbutt’s Mills in hot pursuit. An exhausted and justly terrified Green was captured in short order by his pursuers. In a matter of minutes, the murder of George Heath and the wounding of Mrs. George was avenged. Green's body was riddled with Winchester rifle bullets and pistol balls. 

     A series of fires galvanized the Caldwell area on August 26, 1919. Three Negro churches and a Negro lodge were simultaneously burned by a organized group of arsonists. There was a rumor circulating that the Negroes of the area were going to "start some kind of trouble" in the area. The normally quiet community in lower southwestern Laurens County was thrown into an uproar. Several white citizens made immediate announcements to help the citizens rebuild their buildings.

 

     In the sixth lynching in the triangle between Eastman, Caldwell and Yonkers, Eli Cooper was shot and incinerated by a mob of unknown origin and size. It was alleged that Cooper had been talking in a manner offensive to the white people of the area. The source of the remarks appear to have come from a Chicago newspaper, which had been circulating among the Negroes of the community. It was rumored that the Negroes of Caldwell would stage an uprising within the next thirty days. Cooper reportedly said, "the Negroes have been run over for fifty years, but this will all change in thirty days." The lynching occurred twenty-three days after an unidentified

Negro was lynched in Beckley County for similar utterances. 

     Eli Cooper was taken by fifteen to twenty men from his Laurens County home which was located two or three miles from Caldwell. As many as fifty bullets riddled Cooper's body, which was thrown into the flames which were engulfing Pathway's Gift Church sometime between one and two o'clock of the morning of August 28, 1919. When the smoke cleared, it was determined that Cooper's body was found among the ashes of the church, which had been given to the Negro people of the community by A.P. Pathway, whose plantation was located along the W&T Railroad between Caldwell and Plainfield. Dodge County Sheriff C.N. Mullis, Judge Joel F. Coleman, Dewey Mullis and John L. Crave visited the scene of the regrettable event. Sheriff Mullis was convinced that the lynchers were not from his county and promised to make an effort to determine the identity of the perpetrators. Eighty five years after the lynching, octogenarian residents of Caldwell were interviewed about what had happened. While some residents did not remember the story at all, others recalled that Cooper was lynched for making a pass at a white woman or actually raping the woman. 

06-19

OLD TIMES IN ORIANNA

Good Folks at Home 

  The community of Orianna is what was once called a line town.  Situated in both Laurens County and Treutlen County, the community was split by political boundaries, but in a united effort overcame its lawless reputation to become a home for good folks.  Orianna was established as a post office one hundred and seven years ago today on May 16, 1899.  Lucien Thigpen served as the first postmaster.  Dora (Mrs. John M.) Thigpen took over the duties of the postmaster on March 8, 1900 and served until December 15, 1904 when all mail was ordered to be sent to Adrian.  Postmasters had the privilege of naming their post offices.  Lucien Thigpen chose the name of Orianna, which was derived from the Latin word meaning "golden" or "dawning," a highly appropriate choice at the dawning of the 20th Century.

In the latter part of the 1890s, the Macon, Dublin, and Savannah Railroad, which had been completed into Dublin in 1891, began acquiring the necessary rights of way to continue its railroad to Vidalia, where the road would connect with another which lead to the port of Savannah.  At the same time, Thomas J. James was planning a railroad, known as the Wadley and Mt. Vernon, which would run from Wadley, in his home county of Jefferson, through Kite, Meeks, Adrian, Orianna, Rockledge, and onto Mt. Vernon, a commercial center of southeast Central Georgia.   The railroad continued to operate into the 1920s when it folded for lack of use.

At the end of the first decade of the 20th Century, Orianna was known as a den of wickedness cultivated by gambling and illegal liquor sales.  Good people had been staying away.  Orianna was so far out in the boondocks that once law enforcement officials arrived from Dublin or Mt. Vernon, the rogues had run away from the scene of their crimes.  Despite the evil influences, good people started to come to Orianna to farm her fertile lands.  Newcomers joined with old timers and drove the scoundrels away.

The centerpiece of the Orianna community was the local school.   A fine school was a necessity for attracting residents to the area.  Line schools, schools which were supported by two counties, were generally underfunded and consequently understaffed.  But the Orianna school was an exception.    Local residents supplemented state and county funding by hiring the best teachers they could afford.   Smaller area schools were consolidated into one large school.    The driving force at the school was teacher J..L. Poston, who later became the principal.  The project was a success, but area residents wanted an even better facility.

The original one room school became woefully inadequate to meet the needs of the burgeoning school population.  The school boards of Laurens and Montgomery counties appropriated a third of the cost toward the new school forcing the community to raise the remainder of the three thousand dollar price tag.   Nearly everyone responded resulting in one of the most modern and handsome schools in that section of the state.  Behind the leadership of school trustees J.E. Page, J.A. Youngblood and E.A. Avery of Laurens County, and B.B. Thigpen, J.A. Curry and R.B. Avery of Montgomery County, the new facility became the envy of schools everywhere.

The new school, completed in the summer of 1913,  was well finished with four large classrooms, each of which was equipped with a blackboard, teacher's desk, heater and modern desks.  Two of the rooms were separated by a folding wall, which when thrown open, converted the rooms into the school auditorium.  Each of the teachers enforced the lessons of morality and principles of everyday life.  Normally teachers were forced to obtain quarters from area residents either for free or pay from a portion of their relatively pitiful salary.  But the school trustees arranged for erection of an adequate dormitory for the teachers, which was placed on the edge of the expansive four acre school yard.  The new venture was so successful that within the first term after its construction, the trustees considered adding a second floor to the building.

Equally important as the school to Orianna were her two churches, one Baptist and one Methodist.  The Baptist Church, through its trustees J.M. Hattaway and J.A. Curry, acquired its first church property from P.M. Johnson on August 21, 1903.  The land adjoined Rose Hill School.   W.H. Toler and his wife Elmina Rebecca Braswell Toler donated the land for the Methodist Church in the northern part of town on October 11, 1910.  Most of the two hundred fifty citizens of the community were church going people.    The prohibitionists in the community decided that a temperance union was the best weapon to fight the abundance of "blind tigers," a name given to establishments which illegally sold spiritous liquors.  Leading the fight was a young man by the name of L.O. Mosely.   In a short decade, Mosely's star soared when he became the secretary to Congressman W.W. Larsen of Dublin and later as a writer for the Atlanta Constitution and as manager of the finest hotels in Atlanta.  Moseley obtained the written pledges of every member of the community to refrain from the use of tobacco, whiskey and profanity.

Some of the early families who lived in the environs of Orianna were the families of Jonathan and Julia Smith, John M.  And Dora Thigpen, Lucien and Sarah Thigpen, Willis and Mary Beckworth, Richard and Elsey Thigpen, Thomas and Pearcy Frost, Jordan and Julia Norris, Howard and Orley Courson, Andrew and Laura Thigpen, James and Sallie Hammons, Walter and Pansy Thigpen, A.L. and Kate Thigpen, Sol and Wannie White, John W. and Trudie Greenway, Mack and Elene Foskey, J.S. and Mary McDaniel, William and Minnie Pope and Lewis and Mary Pope, as well as the families of W.H. Toler, J.A. Youngblood, W.F. Avery, E.A. Avery, G.W. Spivey, J.D. Wilson, W.W. Dent, J.A. Curry, John Gillis, Ben Gillis, J.T. Blankenship, Emmett Thipgen, J.J. Leach, J.T. May, J.R. Clements, F.M. Youngblood, J.H. Bailey, W.V. Thigpen, J.B. Ricks, H.L. Hicks, J.C. Flanders and Hardee Thigpen.

One of the area's most famous residents was the venerable Methodist minister, the Rev. Bascom Anthony, who lived northeast of Orianna on the Thigpen Trail and Wadley Southern Railroad where it crossed the southern bank of Pendleton Creek.

Today, the Orianna community is only a faint shadow of its past nearly a century ago, but one thing remains constant.   The Methodist Church is gone, but the Baptists still gather on Sundays.  And the good folks, they're still there.

06-20

JUDGE JOHN C. HART

The Great Equalizer

Judge John C. Hart served as Judge of Laurens County Superior Court from January 1, 1895 to July 1, 1902.    In the 19th Century, Georgia's court system was divided into judicial circuits more vast than in today's world.    Though he lived nearly his entire life in Greene County, Judge Hart was one of Laurens County's most imminent and intelligent judges, much like the county's first judge, Judge Peter Early, who was also a resident of Greene County.  In his forty-three-year career John C. Hart brought above new and revolutionary practices which equalized the way property taxes were levied in Georgia.  As one of the state's first conservationists, Hart encouraged the development of practices which stabilized the erosion of soils and farm lands. 

John Collier Hart was born in Greene County on July 1, 1854 near Union Point, Georgia.  He saw the ravages of the war first hand.  His mother, Maria Collier Hart, operated a wayside home for travelers in Union Point.  During the Civil War, thousands of soldiers from both sides of the battle lines, along with  politicians and travelers, partook of her graciousness. His father was a farmer and the owner of a small country store.  The Harts lived in the celebrated "Jefferson Hall," a colonial home in Greene County.  His father, James Hart, was a successful farmer with vast farming interests.   When he wasn't in school, John worked as a day laborer. 

John Hart attended law school at the nearby University of Georgia.  He graduated in 1875, along with Andrew Cobb, son of Howell Cobb; Samuel Guyton McLendon, William H. Fleming and Hamilton McWhorter.  While in school, Hart excelled in the literary fields.  He edited the Georgia University magazine.  An outstanding debater, Hart was a Junior medalist in the Demosthenian Society. 

Following his graduation and admission to the bar, John C. Hart located his law office in his hometown of Union Point.  His father's untimely death that same year, which left the young attorney with a burdensome debt, forced Hart  into apportioning his time between the family farm and his law practice.   The young lawyer had two choices - sell the farm or start  farming.  James Hart never forced John to work on the farm. There was no financial need to do so.  Unaccustomed to the daily rigors of farming, Hart devoted his soul to duplicating the success of his father.  John Hart utilized his university training and, after a careful analysis of the farm's accounts and hiring practices, radically changed his father's unprofitable practices.  

Hart devised a scheme to prevent the erosion of the precious top soil on his farm.  He planted Bermuda grass to block the flow of alluvial soils causing the formation of terraces where drainage ditches once evolved into gullies.  The reluctant farmer knew that the success of farming depended on diversification.  He maintained moderate herds of cattle, swine and sheep as well as the staple crops of cotton, corn, beans and potatoes.  Discounting his skills as an inventive farmer, Hart credited his success to divine providence. 

At the age of thirty, Hart was elected by his fellow Greene Countians to represent them in the Georgia legislature.  He served from 1884 to 1885.   In 1887, at the ripe old age of thirty-three Rep. Hart took the hand of Miss Irene Horton of Augusta.  The Harts have five children; Henry John C. Jr., George, Annette and  Irene "Dolly."    John Hart returned to Atlanta for the 1888-1889 session to end his legislative career.

In 1890, John Hart led the thirty-four-mile extension of the Union Point and White Plains Railroad south from Union Point through Sparta and down to Tennille, where it joined the arterial railroad of the Central of Georgia.  Hart worked on the extension of the Gainesville, Jefferson and Southern Railroad from Jefferson to Athens, giving the city a standard gauge railroad connection with Savannah.    

At the age of forty, John C. Hart was elected judge of the Ocmulgee Judicial District of Georgia.  The eight-county district was composed of Wilkinson, Baldwin, Jasper, Greene, Jones, Putnam and Morgan counties.  Laurens County was a part of that district from 1891 to 1907.

After an eight-year term in office, Judge Hart conducted a successful campaign for the post of Attorney General of Georgia in 1902.    The Harts removed to Atlanta, where they lived in a handsome home at 761 Peachtree Street.   He won the Democratic nomination without opposition and was elected to office in the 1902 general election.   He opened his  campaign for governor in 1910 in his hometown.  He vowed not to spend a single dollar in the race.  Hart dropped out of the race in favor of his friend Governor Joe Brown. 

Judge Hart was a leader in the conservation of the state's natural resources.  He was elected president of the Georgia Conservation Association in October 1910.  He joined a committee headed by Georgia governors Joseph Brown, Joseph Terrell and Hoke Smith. The organization was designed to foster discussion of the resources, their utilization as well as their conservation.  Though he had become a public official, Hart maintained a successful cattle farm back in Greene County.   The Association formulated a plan which created a state board of conservation, composed of the governor, the state geologist, state entomologist and a state commissioner, all charged with the responsibility to conserve, manage and preserve the lands of Georgia. 

Inequity and cronyism in the taxation of property in the state was a vital issue during the 1912 campaign.  The legislature passed sweeping reforms which were intended to equalize the way land was taxed in Georgia.  Hart's superior knowledge of tax laws led to his appointment by Gov. Slaton as the state's first tax commissioner on August 14, 1913.  As tax commissioner, Hart successfully led the state through a series of highly controversial litigations against Georgia's most powerful railroads.  Hart set out to end a long used and abused process of unequal taxation among Georgia's counties.  In some counties, political favoritism and virtual incompetence led to the non taxation of many  thousands of acres. Hart was so successful in his endeavors that wealthy businessmen across the state lobbied their representatives for a repeal of the equalization law.    

On December 7, 1918, while on a hunting trip near his home, Judge Hart's gun accidentally discharged as the judge stumbled while crossing a stream.  The round entered his head causing near instantaneous death.  Gov. Hugh M. Dorsey ordered that all state flags fly at half-mast for thirty days after his death.  In one of the state's largest funerals, Judge Hart was mourned by nearly a hundred of the state's most prominent government officials, jurists, attorneys and physicians.  His eulogies praised his judicial work, but hailed his work as tax commissioner as his most valuable contribution to Georgia.    At the time of his death, Hart was still considered as one of the state's most promising candidates for the highly coveted office of governor.

06-21 

THE STRUGGLE FOR IWO JIMA

The Gallant Class of  ’43

When teenagers go to the beach, it is supposed to be in the summertime, not the dead of winter.  They are supposed to sun on subtropical beaches, not die on the sands and volcanic lava flows of  north Pacific island shores.  This is the story of two Dublin teenagers whose promising lives ended more than sixty years ago in a conflagration, which will forever be known as the Battle for Iwo Jima.

American military leaders believed that to end the war in the Pacific, it was critical that the Japanese island of Iwo Jima be secured.  Though the capture of the wasteland of the volcanic island was considered inconsequential by some modern historians, at the time it was critical for a base for the launching of the inevitable invasion of the main island of Japan.

Randall Robertson was the youngest son of J.W. Robertson and his wife Nettie Couey Robinson.  Randall was born on June 29, 1926.  Randall’s father was well known about town and was always addressed as “Chief Robertson” during and after his long service as Chief of the Dublin Police Department.    The Robertsons lived in the second block of North Elm Street, a short distance from Calhoun Street School.  Moffett Kendrick remembered that in the neighborhood lived himself, Randall and his older brother Rudolph, Frarie and Derrell Smalley, Burke Combs, Frank Hodges, Charles and George English, and Cecil and David Walters. 

Randall was big for his age,  the biggest boy  in his class.  His large frame made him the ideal football player.  At six feet six inches tall and weighing 250 pounds, Randall was the anchor of the offensive line.  Coach Wally Butts, of the University of Georgia, showed an interest in Randall, but the Dublin lineman wasn’t interested.  There was a war going on, and playing football wasn’t what the gentle giant wanted to do.   The red-headed titan wanted to be a Marine just like his older brother Rudolph.

Randall graduated Dublin High School in May of 1943.  He had been the Vice President of his Senior class and head of the Victory Corps at Dublin High School.  Students in the Victory Corps participated in a variety of activities to promote the war effort.   In those days, students graduated after completion of the eleventh grade.  Though he went to work with the Atlantic Ice Company after graduation, his classmates predicted he would join the Marine Corps like his brother Rudolph had done a year earlier. Rudolph joined the Marines and participate in the horrific battles of Bougainville and Guadalcanal.

The war in the Pacific was drudging toward the epic battles of 1944 and 1945.  Randall and his good friend Bill Shuman turned eighteen in the late spring of 1944.  They had only two choices.  One was to join the armed forces and select their branch of service.  The other was to sit back and be drafted and end up who knows where.  Bill chose the Naval Hospital Corps and was assigned to Jacksonville, Florida.  Randall, following in the footsteps of Rudolph, joined the Marines and headed off to intensive training at Paris Island, South Carolina and Camp Lejune, North Carolina. Bill and Randall both wound up in the Pacific.  They exchanged letters a few times.  Randall’s last letter to Bill came while he was enjoying an all too brief R&R.   After telling his father than he wanted to join the Marines like Rudolph, Chief Robertson instructed Rudolph to “take care of the kid.”  Rudolph nodded and agreed to his assignment. 

Rudolph Robertson, who emerged from his twenty-six month hitch in the Marine Corps with only a few cuts, scrapes and bruises,  was a member  of the 3rd Marine Division.  The 4th Division, to which I believe Randall was attached, launched the main offensive of the invasion of Iwo Jima on the morning of February 19, 1945.  Four days later the American flag was raised atop Mount Suribachi.  But the fighting didn’t stop there.  Rudolph looked for Randall among the pandemonium on Iwo Jima.  He never found him alive.  Following an early morning Marine artillery and Navy ships off shore, the 3rd, 4th and 5th attacked northward on February 25 . All day long the Marines and the entrenched Japanese fighters slugged it out along the  East-West runway of the Central Iwo field and about two-thirds of the North-South runway.

They say it was a sniper that fired the shot that killed Randall.   His height and size, which led to success on football fields, made him an easy target on the dying fields of Iwo Jima.  The shocking news reached Dublin on March 13th.  Randall Robertson, described by his neighborhood friend Moffett Kendrick as a “big, slow-footed jovial kid,” was dead.  He was only eighteen years old.  But then again, wars are frequently started by men and fought by boys.  His body was brought home and laid to rest in Northview Cemetery.  His family never overcame their sorrows. Their dreams weren’t supposed to end this way.

James Boyd Hutchinson was not a standout athlete like Randall.  He was a quiet, shy young man who played the trombone in the high school band.  His classmates voted him the cutest boy in the Class of 1943.  James was born on February 26, 1926 in Dublin.  His father Perry Hutchinson operated a barber shop on South Jefferson Street. His mother Etta kept house at the Hutchinson home at North Franklin Street.  James attended elementary school at Johnson Street School.  

             On March 14, 1945, the 5th Marine Division made it’s final push to drive out enemy soldiers who had been hiding in caves for nearly a month.  The United States flag was formally raised to effectively end the fighting.  But the dying continued.  That same day, just two days before the U.S. Marine Corps officially took control of Iwo Jima, James B. Hutchinson was killed in action,  just three weeks after his 19th birthday. His body was returned home and buried in Northview Cemetery within a short distance of his classmate and fellow Marine, Randall Robertson.

There is an old myth that bad things come in threes.  That maxim nearly came true on Iwo Jima.  Joel Robert Fountain was at the top of the Class of 1943.  He was Senior Class President and an honor graduate.  His classmates voted him the most popular, most studious and most industrious.  Joel enlisted in the United States Navy Medical Corps.  As a Pharmacist’s Mate, Third Class, Fountain was assigned to a Marine unit for the invasion of Iwo Jima.  As the action heated up, the 18 year old Fountain was frantically trying to evacuate the wounded back to the rear of the battle.  As he was carrying a wounded Marine to safety, a Japanese sniper’s bullet struck Joel in the right shoulder.  He fell to the ground and was one of thirteen hundred wounded soldiers who were evacuated by air to safety. 

 

On this Memorial Day and all days to come, let us pause to remember the gallantry of the teenagers like Randall Robertson and James Hutchinson who sacrificed their promising lives so that we could enjoy the freedoms we enjoy.  This column is dedicated to Randall Robertson, James Hutchinson, Joel Fountain and all the members of the Dublin High School Class of 1943 for their service to our community during times of war and times of peace.

06-22

FERRIES ’CROSS THE OCONEE 

Laurens County was without a river bridge for the first eight and half decades of its existence.   Just prior to the formation of Laurens County, the first ferries were established in what is now Laurens County. Other travelers had to cross on horseback or swim across in shallow spots.    The new lands west of the Oconee were just beginning to open up to settlers.  Ferry boats were nothing more than a floating platform.  In the days before the motor driven ferries, the ferryman and his helpers  would pull the boat across the river.  Ropes were tied to a series of pulleys.  Accidents did happen. Ropes broke and  often.  When the water was high and the currents swift, many ferries shut down.  Men and livestock fell into the river, some losing their lives.  One could not always rely upon the ferry as a means of crossing the river.  

William Neel established Dublin's first ferry in what became the most extreme southeastern part of Dublin.  The ferry was established in 1804 or before, three years before the formation of Laurens County.  Neel's ferry is shown on the land grant maps of 1804 opposite Land Lot 235 of the 1st Land District.  This places the ferry at the mouth of Long Branch.  This may be the same spot where a ferry was established by Neil Munroe and Richard Ricks in the 1820's.  Neel and Jonathan Sawyer, were the first settlers of the community known as Sandbar, which later became East Dublin.  

In 1806 or 1807, George G. Gaines placed his ferry at the point where the Old Savannah Road crossed the Oconee River.  The ferry was put under the same rates as other county ferries in August 1810.  Gaines later purchased one thousand acres along the eastern side of the ferry.  The street which ran to the ferry was named in honor of Gaines who left this area around the time of the War of 1812.   Gaines sold his ferry possibly to Henry C. Fuqua.  Fuqua sold the ferry to wealthy landowner Jeremiah Yopp in 1831.  

In 1832, Yopp petitioned the Justices of the Inferior Court for the right to charge for passage over the river.  The county approved the rates of fifty  cents for loaded wagons, twenty-five cents for jersey wagons and carts, six and one-quarter cents for man and horse or footman and cattle, two cents for hogs, and one and one-half cents for sheep.  Yopp operated the ferry until his death in 1852.  His son-in-law sold the property to a Dublin lawyer, Young Anderson.   During Anderson's ownership, the most famous visitor to Dublin may have crossed at the ferry then known as Dublin Ferry.  On May 7, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis crossed the Oconee River near Dublin, possibly at the ferry.  

In 1870 ,John Jones was hired to build a new boat for the Dublin Ferry.  The flat boat was fifty feet long and twelve feet wide.  The main boat was constructed from 5" by 8" timbers with two inch planks along the bottom and one and one quarter inch plank flooring. The boat was to be ready by February.  William Madison, a former slave, was awarded the contract to keep the ferry in 1871.  Madison kept the ferry for fifteen consecutive years.  The end of the Dublin ferry was near when talk of a bridge began to surface.   

Passage on the ferry was made free to the public on June 26, 1878. Laurens County condemned the property in 1884.  The area around the ferry was soon developed.  The resurgent river boat companies tied their boats to docks on both sides of the ferry.  Rev. W.S. Ramsay of First Baptist conducted baptismal services there in the early eighties.  Dr. R.H. Hightower built warehouses and a steam mill near the ferry site.  Traffic became so heavy that in 1880 the ferryman Madison called for the hiring of an additional man to handle the increasing load.  Some citizens were irate when they had to wait six hours to cross the river following a meeting of the Baptist Association at Shady Grove in eastern Laurens County.  Bridge proponents used the inadequate ferry as the primary reason for a bridge.  

The Dublin Ferry would serve one last purpose.  For the five years following the completion of the Dublin and Wrightsville Railroad to the eastern banks of the river, the ferry was used to carry passengers and freight on into Dublin.  When the first permanent passenger bridge was completed in 1891, the ferry was discontinued.  

Bill Madison, the black ferryman, was a popular figure in the community.  Mrs. E.C. Campbell remembered that when she was a little girl all roads to the ferry were crowded on Sunday afternoons.  "Uncle Bill" was known as a masterful dancer and was loved by all the children whom he would give free rides.  

One incident on a cold December Saturday night in 1879 typified the skill and dedication of ferryman Madison.   John B. and Russell Holmes arrived at the ferry around 10:00 in the evening.  After a long day at his post, Bill was asleep in the ferryman’s quarters.  The gentlemen decided that they could make it across the river and not get ol’ Bill up from his slumber.   Russell grabbed the ferry chain and began pulling the ferry flat toward the opposite bank.  Suddenly, he lost his balance and fell into the frigid waters.  Without Russell holding the chain, the flat was set adrift.  Russell screamed at the top of his lungs awakening Madison, who dashed into the darkness.  Madison jumped into his bateau and rowed as hard as he could toward the rapidly moving craft and its blunderous operator.  About a mile down river, Bill caught up with Holmes and the boat.  He managed to jump from his bateau onto the ferry boat, bringing it under his control by wedging it against a cypress stump on the bank.   With the assistance of a couple of onlookers, Madison was able to thaw out the would be  ferryman.    

For a few months in 1921 the ferry returned to Dublin.  During the time while the river bridge was being refitted, Laurens County purchased the necessary boats and equipment and operated the ferry until the bridge was reopened to auto traffic.  Today when the river is shallow, you can see the remnants of the ferry at the northern end of the riverwalk park at the mouth of Town Branch. 

Ephraim Green was granted permission to establish a ferry in northern Laurens County on August 1, 1808.  His rates were to be the same as Blackshear's.   Another ferry was established in the same area by William Livingston.  William Diamond was granted permission to establish a ferry at the place known as Spear's Ferry on Aug. 7, 1810.  The area came to be known as Diamond Landing.  It was here near Wilkes Spring in southern Laurens County where a third county ferry was sought to be established by Laurens County.  Jacob Robinson was granted permission to establish a ferry on August 7, 1815.  Robinson was granted permission to double the rates when the river overflowed its banks.  While ferries were usually run across rivers, Maddox's Ferry was running across Big Creek before 1812.  

The most famous ferry in the annals of Laurens County History is Blackshear's Ferry.  Today the last remnants of the ferry are located at the end of Country Club Road three miles north of the city limits.  The area around Blackshear's Ferry may have encompassed a series of ferries.  A survey of Gen. David Blackshear's estate shows an old ferry about a half mile northwest of last ferry site.  

The first mention of a ferry in the records of Laurens County appeared on February 2, 1808.  The Justices of the Inferior Court ordered the establishment of a ferry at Blackshear's Landing.  The rates approved were 50 cents for loaded wagon, 37.5  cents for empty wagons, 25 cents for loaded carts, 18.75 cents for empty carts, 37.5 cents for pleasure carriages and horses, 6.25 cents for man and horse, led horse and footman, black cattle two cents per head, and all other stock was a penny per head.  The second and possibly the first site was located about a half mile southeast of the last ferry site.  That ferry, known as Trammel's Ferry, was established by Jared Trammel and James Beatty at the point where the ancient Lower Uchee Indian Trail crossed the Oconee River at Carr's Bluff.  It may have been established prior to the formation of the county.  In 1812 orders for new roads by the Inferior Court indicated that Beatty's and Trammel's Ferries were separate ferries in the area.   

The Georgia Legislature in 1819 authorized a public ferry across the Oconee River at the place formerly known as Trammel's Ferry with the same rates as previously charged, subject to modification by the Inferior Court.  The law provided that all of the profits from the ferry would go to the estate of Trammel for those passengers leaving from the northeast side of the ferry landing and to James Beatty for all those passengers leaving from the southwest side of the ferry landing. 

In 1823 after Beatty's death the ferry was purchased by General David Blackshear. Thereafter the third and last ferry was established by the General or his son Elijah in the 1820s.  It was at this point where the 4000 cavalrymen of Gen. Joseph Wheeler, C.S.A. crossed the river in November of 1864.  Wheeler's men were riding down the flanks of Gen. W.T. Sherman's right wing in an attempt to get in front of "The March to the Sea."

Laurens County purchased the ferry during the May Term of Ordinary Court in 1874.  At the ferry site a small house was constructed as a home for the ferryman.  The job called for long days from sunup to sundown.  A shelter was built to shield passengers during periods of heavy rain and a well dug to provide drinking water for the ferryman and thirsty passengers.  The Laurens County commissioners had a new problem to deal with around the turn of this century. On December 5, 1910, the commissioners voted to discontinue the practice of allowing automobiles to ride on the boat with livestock.  Those doing so would have to cross at their own risk.   

Laurens County's property taxes included a levy for ferry operations.  In 1887, the tax was seven cents for every hundred dollars of taxable property and represented 10 percent of the county's total budget.  During periods of high water, the county hired additional ferry men to help guide the boat across the raging waters.  Some of the ferry boats sunk on a regular basis.  At other times the boats broke away and floated down river. Frank Smith was rewarded with eleven dollars for bringing back a runaway ferry boat in 1887.  At times boats had to be rented until new ones could be constructed.

In their final meeting of 1931, the Laurens County Commissioners voted to close the ferry in January 15, 1932.  One week later responding to a large public outcry, the ferry was reopened.  Two lawyers, M.H. Blackshear, a descendant of the ferry's founder, and Joseph Chappell convinced the board of the ferry's historic value.   The effort to keep the ferry open was also led by Clerk of Courts, E.S. Baldwin, Ordinary Court Judge E.D. White, and dairy farmer, Duren I. Parker.  A new flat was placed in service later that spring.  

The ferry continued to operate even through the lean years of the depression. On January 8, 1937, the commissioners voted to sell the ferry.  Their decision again resulted in a public outcry and the matter was put on hold.  The issue came up for a vote in 1939 when the commission voted to continue the operation on a month to month basis as long as it was profitable.   

The ferry shut down on a Sunday in January 1940 for one day.    It was the first time in the known history of the county ferry that ice floes prevented its operation.  Rawls Watson, the ferry keeper, reported in the February 1, 1940 issue of “The Courier Herald” that the ice floes nearly filled the river.   Rawls made one attempt to cross the river, breaking and chopping ice with his poles.  The ice kept coming down the river for parts of three days.  Watson said that the chunks of ice were as big as 30 feet long and 15 feet wide and having a thickness of 1 ½ inches thick.  

The issue of the operation of the ferry came up for a final determination in May of 1947.  The ferry boat had been out of service for some time.  M.H. Blackshear, county attorney at the time, led the effort to keep the ferry open.  The commissioners found that the ferry was only necessary for the Route 2 postman.  The secretary was directed to work out an alternative route.  The commissioners never officially closed Blackshear's Ferry, choosing instead to not appropriate the funds to repair the damaged ferry boat.   

The coming of the automobile signaled the end of the ferry.  The old boats were slow and simply couldn't handle the weight of the cars.  When the river was up, one had to go down to Dublin to cross.  The ferry, the last vestige of 19th century transportation, was gone, never to return.

During the years in which the county operated the ferry ,the right to run the ferry was put up for public auction to the highest bidder.  Usually the residents of the area surrounding the ferry were the successful bidders.  Rawls A. Watson, the last ferry keeper,  kept the ferry longer than any other man.  Irwin Calhoun, known as the "singing ferryman,” was said to have sang all day without repeating a song.  Other ferry men at Blackshear's Ferry were S.L. Weaver, E.M. Lake, Joseph T. Watson, David M. Watson, J.C. Jones, J.L. Bostwick, and D.W. Skipper.  

FERRY KEEPERS 1871-1947: Dublin, William Madison, 1871-1891.  Blackshear’s Ferry,  Irwin Calhoun, 1875; Noah Anderson, 1876-7; Robert Hightower, 1878-9, Daniel Skipper, 1880, David M. Watson, 1881, 1890-2; D.W. Skipper, 1884, 1886; S.L. Weaver, 1885; David M. Watson and July Donaldson, 1887-1888; E.M. Lake, 1889; Joseph T. Watson, 1893-5, 1901, 1904-1908; John C. Jones, 1896-8; J.L. Bostick, 1899; E.F. Hagin and L.F. Hagin, 1902; Green Brantley, 1903; and Rawls A. Watson, 1911-1947.

06-23

FUGITIVES FROM A GEORGIA CHAIN GANG

The Wyatts Return to Justice

If you were a convict in the first half of the Twentieth Century, you would not want to be sentenced to hard labor in a chain gang.  They were designed that way.  The sometimes atrocious, often brutal and to many deserved punishment tactics were intended as a deterrent to men behaving badly.   But when passion and greed swell in the minds of men, thoughts of punishment for their acts is all but forgotten.  This is the story of two men, convicted of a heinous crime in lower Laurens County, who were  sent to a chain gang, only to escape, and as they began to grow old, surrendered themselves to face the punishment they so richly deserved.

It was around the end of June 1918, when Frank Wyatt, Mitch Wyatt and Jim Fulford, with killing on their minds, set out to find their victim .  The three Wheeler County men, forcefully enlisted the aid of three Negro accomplices as they sought out one Howard  Snell, a man of limited mental ability,  had just moved to Wheeler County and lived below Glenwood.  From time to time, he did some work for the twenty-four year old Fulford.   The Wyatts and Fulford drove their car to Snell’s house, where they duped him out of his house and then forcibly kidnaped him.  The culprits drove under the cover of darkness to the sparsely populated lower edge of Laurens County before performing their despicable deed.

The assailants drove off the main road and made their way to a small swamp near Ed Evans’ store.  Snell’s hands were bound, probably by the unwilling members of the party.  Snell, knowing that his mortal fate was eminent, begged for permission to pray.  As he knelt down, Snell placed his head on a fallen log and committed his soul to his Savior.  Suddenly, the base of his skull was smashed and Snell rolled over.  Not satisfied with such a vicious blow, another of the assailants placed a gun to the dead, or dying, man’s head and pulled the trigger sending the bullet clean through the victim’s skull.  The corpse was dragged into a creek and left to the scavengers of the swamp.

Several days later a trusty convict working with a road crew found the grossly decomposed remains.   Investigators could not determine the identity of the victim, but were able to find a lodge card on his body.  They traced the card to a fraternal lodge in Waycross.  Lodge officials told the lawmen that Snell had recently moved to Glenwood.  Snell’s wife was contacted and confirmed that her husband had been missing for some time.  Eventually one of the accomplices was arrested.   Upon an intense interrogation, the man revealed that it was Frank and Mitch Wyatt along with Fulford who were the main participants in the murder.

Laurens County coroner J.C. Donaldson held an inquest to the determine the circumstances of death of Howard Snell.    The jury found that Snell had met death at the hands of Frank Wyatt, Mitch Wyatt and Jim Fulford.  The trio was brought before Judge Jule B. Greene for a commitment trial.  Judge Green bound them over for trial along with two of their Negro accessories George Royal and George Wyatt.    When a turmoil began to arise a week before the trial, the men were taken to the jail in Macon for safekeeping.  

A the trial on August 31, 1918, the Negroes confessed and became the state’s prime witnesses against the three white defendants.   In what was described as “one of the most sensational cases in Laurens County history,” the defendants were convicted by the all white male jury.  Their life in prison convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court without a formal opinion on their attorney’s  enumerations of error on the part of the trial court.  The Wyatts and Fulford were sent back to their home county and placed in the hands of the Wheeler County convict camp.

Nearly two years after the murder on June 17, 1920, the convicted felons managed to procure some files and filed off their chains.  Once they were free to move about normally, they stole the convict boss’s clothes, grabbed some rifles and ammunition and vanished into the night.    A large posse was formed, but no trace of the fugitives was ever found, that is until seventeen years later.

Jim Fulford, aka Jim Tompkins,  met his mortal fate in 1923, when he was killed, allegedly by Frank Wyatt, aka Frank Jackson,  in Louisiana. After three bitterly contested trials, Wyatt was found not guilty of killing one of his coconspirators.   Prosecutors in Louisiana had no knowledge that Wyatt and the victim were fugitives from Georgia. Wyatt was released to resume a normal life as a carpenter.  

By 1937 Frank Wyatt was seventy three years old.   With his conscience tormenting his mind, the elder Wyatt surrendered to the Monroe sheriff.  The younger Wyatt, resisting a voluntary confession, had to be forcibly arrested.  Eventually both men expressed their willingness to return to Georgia to prove their innocence.  The men maintained they were framed by “a Negro moonshiner and a white man” for the crime and that it was actually Fulford who did the killing. 

Laurens County sheriff I.F. Coleman was in his office when a long distance phone call came in on July 18, 1937.  It was the sheriff in Monroe, Louisiana telling the startled lawman that he had two of his  fugitives in his jail.  Sheriff Coleman contacted the governor’s office to initiate extradition proceedings.  The Wyatts assented to the request and hired an attorney to prove their innocence.   

But too much time had elapsed and the fugitives were never able to prove their innocence.  The duo spent the rest of their lives in the penal system, paying the price for their crimes.

06-24

THE BATTLE OF KENNESAW MOUNTAIN

Synopsis of a Fiasco

Dateline: June 27, 1864, Kennesaw Mountain, west of Atlanta, 9:00 a.m.

The participants:    The United States Army, composed of the Army of the Tennessee, The Army of the Cumberland and The Army of the Ohio, 100,000 effectives; Gen. William T. Sherman, Commanding.  The Confederate States Army, The Army of Tennessee, Gen. Joseph J. Johnston Commanding, 50,000 effectives  including Laurens County companies: Company B, Company C, 57th Georgia Infantry, and portions of Co. H, 63rd Georgia Infantry.

Foreword:  In order to bring a quicker end to the Civil War, which had ravaged our nation for more than three years, the Union Army believed that a force of nearly a quarter of a million soldiers from the hills of North Georgia to the seaport of Savannah would split the South in half and hasten the end of the bitter epic struggle.   General Sherman's forces had moved with relative through Resaca, Adairsville, New Hope Church, Pickett's Mill, Dallas and Kolb's Farm with relative ease, primarily because of their overwhelming force but equally because of General Johnston's willingness to put up a half-hearted fight, fall back and  allow the Union armies to flank around his positions, only to fight again with the same results.  But at Kennesaw Mountain, the Confederates held a distinct advantage.  Torrential rains had slowed the advance of Union infantrymen giving Confederate scouts ample opportunities to view their movements.  Meanwhile, Confederate forces positioned themselves in heavily fortified entrenchments along the crest of the mountain and strategic points along the slopes.  

The Attack:    The 57th and 63rd Georgia regiments, under the command of Brigadier General Hugh Mercer, were placed along the steep southwestern slopes of Pigeon Hill just south of Burnt Hickory Road.  From this commanding viewpoint, the brigade had an unimpeded view of a rolling meadow below them.  General Sherman ordered the primary attack on General Cleburne's and General Cheatam's brigades.  The secondary attack was to be directed along Burnt Hickory Road and squarely at the 57th and 63rd regiments.  General Mercer assigned the companies of the 63rd to act as pickets, or advance guards.  The men entrenched themselves along the projected line of the Union advance about a quarter of a mile in front the main Confederate line.  

Union batteries opened up with a heavy volley of artillery fire directed toward the Confederate entrenchments. The Army of the Cumberland, under Gen. George H. Thomas, conducted the main attack against the Confederate Center.  The Army of the Tennessee, under Gen. James B. McPherson, attacked Little Kennesaw Mountain.  Held in reserve was the Army of the Ohio, commanded by Gen. John Schofield, whose mission it was to guard against flank assaults by Gen.  John B. Hood's Corps, which was positioned at the southern end of the mountain.

Union General Andrew Lightburn directed his troops to the right of the road toward the anxiously awaiting Confederate pickets.  The "blue boys" charged from the edge of the woods and easily overran the green older men and young boys of the 63rd.  There were two choices for the embattled sentinels, retreat and face friendly fire, or remain and face certain death.  As Union and Confederate artillery joined in enfilading the meadow, the "Johnny Rebs" chose the former course of action and fled toward the hills.  

Hoping to be able to hide their advance on the coat tails of the Confederate retreat, Union artillery unites opened severe volleys against the entrenched rebels on Pigeon Hill, a mile south of the summit of Big Kennesaw Mountain.  Most of the casualties of the 57th Georgia that day were likely a result of artillery barrages and possibly lucky shots by the advance elements of Gen. Lightburn's brigade.

In just a matter of minutes, the Union advance collapsed.  Mercer's brigade occupied the high ground and any further attacks would be fruitless and fatal.    Lightburn ordered a retreat to the cover of the wood line, leaving his dead, dying and wounded on the green meadow, stained with the blood of hundreds of fine young men.   

The main attack was quashed by Confederate sharpshooters and artillerymen firing from the commanding heights. The heaviest fighting occurred at a place the southern boys called "Dead Angle."  In one dogged wave after another the attackers were slaughtered as the climbed the side of the mountain.  

Approximately 1 percent of the Confederate casualties were Laurens Countians.  Nathan Maddox (Co. C, 57th Ga.), Blackshear Smith (Co. B, 57th Ga.)  and John Mimbs (Co. H, 63rd, Ga.)  were killed during the fighting.  Cinncinatus Alligood (Co. C, 57th, Ga.), Dudley Keen (Co. B, 57th, Ga.), James Arthur Smith (Co. B, 57th Ga.), Wesley W. Smith (Co. B, 57th, Ga.), Thomas Warren White (Co. B, 57th Ga.) and Kinson Wright (Co. A, 66th Ga.) suffered wounds ranging from moderate to severe. 

The Result:   Though he could have easily flanked around the mountain, General William Tecumseh Sherman obstinately pressed the a futile frontal attack.  Bad weather, terrible terrain and superior defensive positions foiled his plans.  After losing nearly three thousand men, Sherman retreated back down the mountain, reassessed his positions and moved around the flank, as he should have done in the beginning.  Johnston ordered his forces, which suffered a thousand casualties,  to abandon their positions five days after their victory and move back to block the advancing hoard.  

The Aftermath:   The Union behemoth advanced toward their main objective of Atlanta.  Thousands more were killed and wounded along the way.  The Battle for Atlanta erupted on July 22, 1864.  The 57th Georgia, under the command of Lt. Col. Cinncinatus Saxon Guyton of Laurens County, took part in the forefront of the initial skirmishes of the opponents south of the city.  After a five-week siege, the city of Atlanta was abandoned and left to the ravenous desires of soldiers, looters, and assorted scores of miscreants.   From Atlanta, General Sherman launched his devastating "March to the Sea," which ended in Savannah just before Christmas.  After having its underbelly mortally sliced open, it was only a matter of time before the bedraggled Confederates would succumb to the vastly equipped and manned Union army.  For Mary Maddox and Nancy Mimbs, the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain was a perpetual nightmare.  As for Mahala, Reuben and Martha Mimbs, they would never see their daddy again.  

 

 

06-25 

PATRICK MARTIN STEVENS, II

A Dandy of A Yankee Doodle 

Patrick Martin Stevens II was born on the 17th day of April in 1874 in Bairdstown, Georgia.  He was a son of Capt. Patrick M. Stevens, C.S.A. and Martha Brooks Stevens.  Patrick attended Georgia Tech before working intermediately  for his brother-in-law William Shackleford as a printer’s devil in the newspaper office of the “Oglethorpe Echo” in Lexington.  

But Patrick Stevens was destined for a military career.  He descended from a long line of Stevens, Stewart and Bufords, who were 18th Century military officers.  One of his ancestors, Colonel John Floyd, served in the southern theater of the American Revolution before being captured in Charleston and imprisoned in England.  He managed to escape and was aided in his return to America by Benjamin Franklin.  After the war, Floyd became a close associate of Daniel Boone.  His son, John became a governor of Virginia and his grandson, John Buchanan Floyd, was Secretary of War under James Buchanan and a general in the Confederate Army.  His father William Floyd,  my fifth great-grandfather, enlisted as a drummer in the Colonial militia at the age of fifty after serving in the French and Indian Wars. 

In the summer of 1898, the United States of America declared war on Spain.  The war was fought on two fronts, in Cuba and throughout the Philippine Islands.   It was during that time that Pat moved from his native home of Maxeys  to Dublin, where he served in the office of the Dublin Dispatch.  Despite the relative shortness of the conflict in Cuba, calls were sent out for more volunteers to preserve the peace in the volatile Pacific island chain. 

Stevens answered his country’s call, and in September 1899  traveled to Framingham, Massachusetts, where he enlisted in the 46th U.S. Volunteer Infantry, which was assigned to duty in the Philippines.  Private Stevens was quickly promoted to corporal.  In the fall of 1900, he wrote a letter back to his friends in Dublin.  “No, the war in the Philippines isn’t over,” Stevens said in contradiction to the opinions of leading American newspapers.  American generals returned home to tell the nation that the fighting had ended, but Stevens retorted, “I think they are sadly mistaken.”    The young corporal attributed the adversities which American troops had endured in the Philippines were a result of “mismanagement that began two years ago and hasn’t yet ended.”   Stevens believed that insurgent attacks had only grown worse since his arrival eleven months earlier in December 1899.  “The attacks are more determined and bolder than ever,”   said Stevens, who believed more troops were necessary to suppress the fighting.

In the winter of 1901, the highly efficient Stevens was promoted to Company G of the Forty-sixth infantry regiment.  His excellence in the performance of his duties, led his superiors to recommend him for a commission as an officer.  President McKinley issued an order appointing Pat M. Stevens (his military name) as a second lieutenant.  The notice was sent  to his former home in Dublin, but lay unclaimed until a friend found it and forwarded it to the emerging officer.   

2nd Lt. Stevens was assigned to the 23rd Infantry, which served in the Pacific and stateside.  The young officer took the hand in marriage of Hattie Mitchell.  Hattie was a daughter of Nancy Ann and Robert David Mitchell, a prominent businessman and three-time mayor of Gainesville.  Hattie, a graduate of Brenau College, was an accomplished musician and music teacher.    

Their first child, Patrick III, was conceived while the couple was stationed in the Pacific, but was born in Gainesville after Hattie endured a long and arduous, but exciting, journey through the Suez Canal and Europe.  Their second son, Robert, was born in Fort Logan in 1914.  After serving in various locations around the country, Mrs. Stevens and the boys returned to Gainesville when it appeared that the United States would enter World War I.

As the climax of World War I approached,  Capt. Stevens was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre for extraordinary heroism for his action south Spitaal Bosschen, Belgium on Halloween Day in 1918.  Capt. Stevens was also awarded the Purple Heart for a battlefield wound.  Capt. Stevens’ acts of bravery were so outstanding that he was nominated for the Silver Star Medal for gallantry and intrepidity in action.

After the war, the Stevens lived primarily in Georgia and Florida.   In 1933, Patrick M. Stevens, II retired as a colonel in the United States Army.  The couple returned to the Stevens’ family seat of Oak Hill in Oglethorpe County, where they lived until the late summer.  At the age of ninety-two, Col. Stevens was badly burned while burning a pile of leaves.  He died on September 5, 1966 after lingering for several days in a nearby hospital.  Hattie lived a decade longer before she died on September 20, 1976.  They are both buried in the Stevens’ family cemetery at Oak Hill.

The name of Pat M. Stevens continued to be recognized for the remainder of the 20th Century.  Pat and Hattie’s son, Pat III, served in World War II and afterwards served in the United States, London and Okinawa.  Like his father, Pat Stevens III, retired from the army as a colonel.  Pat Stevens III and his wife Grace Marshall Stevens, were the parents of Pat M. Stevens, IV, a graduate of the United States Military Academy, who recently retired as a Major General in the army.

One never knows what the future holds for those among us.  A century of dedicated and outstanding military service all began when a twenty-five-year-old printer’s devil working in a Dublin newspaper office answered the call of his country and followed the traditions of duty to his country. 

06-26

ROBERT AUGUSTUS BEALL

"The Prentiss of Georgia"

Considered a genius by everyone who heard him speak, Robert Augustus Beall, Jr.  a former Twiggs County lawyer, was enumerated among the most celebrated members of the Georgia bar during the first half of the 19th Century.  He was described by W.H. Sparks as "a genius of a higher nature," ambitious and partisan his beliefs.  

Robert Beall was born in Prince George County, Maryland on November 16, 1800. His parents removed to Georgia in 1808 and settled in Warren County during one of numerous migratory waves of which characterized the early decades of the 1800s.   When Robert was fifteen years old, his father sent him to North Carolina to attend a more challenging elementary school in Raleigh.  Upon reaching the end of his primary education, Beall returned to Georgia to study law under Judges Montgomery and Reid in Augusta.  Just after attaining the age of majority, Beall took the oath and was admitted to the bar of Superior Court and set out to practice law.

The enterprising Beall chose the burgeoning county of seat of Marion, Georgia to establish a meager law office.  Situated in the geographical center of the state in Twiggs County, Marion was an ideal location for the base of his practice in the surrounding courthouses in Central Georgia.  Beall formed a successful law partnership with Thaddeus Goode Holt.  When  Holt accepted an appointment as Judge of the Southern Circuit in 1824, Beall was appointed by Governor George M. Troup, of Laurens County, to the position Solicitor General of the circuit, which included the counties of Laurens, Montgomery, Pulaski, Telfair, Twiggs and Houston.  Beall served in that position for a short time, from December 23, 1824 until the first of the following summer.

A challenge, a common occurrence when political opinions clashed in those days, arose between Beall and Thomas D. Mitchell, who had succeeded Beall's successor James Bethune in November 1825 as Solicitor General.  The affair arose when disparaging comments were made at the dinner table of Martin Hardin, Esquire.  The combatants, through their duly appointed agents, arranged a duel on the Carolina side of the Savannah River, opposite the city of Augusta, where such duels were allowed.  Dr. Ambrose Baber, a former Laurens County physician and a resident of the new town of Macon, was standing by to tend to any wounds Beall might suffer.   Two shots were fired. Neither struck their intended targets.  Major Pace mediated the dispute and the men went home, much to the delight of their friends and family.  Thomas Mitchell's volatile temper led to another duel. A year after his abruptly ended gunfight with Beall, Mitchell lay dying on the dueling ground, the result of a well-placed pistol ball in his abdomen. 

Though dueling was frowned upon as a means of settling disputes, Beall enjoyed a renewed admiration for standing up for his beliefs.  Supporters of the Troup party encouraged the twenty five-year-old Beall to offer himself as a candidate for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives.  The Clark party candidate managed to win the election over Beall, though only by a small margin of votes.    When Moses Fort resigned his seat in the House, Beall, a Major in the Georgia Militia, once again competed for the post.  He won the election, defeating Robert Glenn, the county's most ardent Clark party member.   Beall's eloquent orations drew the admiration of the members of the House and the audience of the gallery.  He was modest and self respecting, courteous in debate and extremely affable in his manner.  A larger majority of the voters of Twiggs County reelected him in the election of the fall of 1826 in his last House election contest.

Rep. Beall represented his friend Judge Moses Fort before a  committee hearing in the House of Representatives.  Col. Joseph Blackshear, of Laurens County, had charged the judge with irregularities in the handling of his case against Archibald Ridley and his wife byt the estate of his brother, Joseph Blackshear.  The Blackshear vs. Ridley case was one of Laurens County's most celebrated cases ever, drawing the most prominent and highly paid squads of attorneys as could be employed with the fruits of the Blackshear's fortunes.  Though a rebuke was passed by the house, it failed for the lack of a necessary majority in the Senate.

Beall developed a friendship and working relationship with Stephen F. Miller, another prominent attorney of the county.  He was the author of "Bench and Bar of Georgia," a landmark biographical work on the early lawyers of Georgia.  In 1828 Beall lost his  passionately sought after election for Brigadier General of the Georgia Militia, to Lott Warren, of Laurens County.   Beall married Caroline Smith, daughter of the wealthy Richard Smith of Twiggs County.  After the marriage, Beall entered into a partnership with Miller and returned to the private practice.

Governor George Gilmer appointed Beall to his staff of aides-de-camp in 1830 and continued his service as a Lt. Colonel in the Georgia Militia, which continued to train in defense of the state.  In the winter of 1832, Col. Beall moved to Macon, which had become the commercial center of the western regions of Georgia.  He purchased an interest in the local newspaper, The Georgia Messenger, and began proclaiming his staunch opinions of the national issues of the day as the paper's chief editor.    His beliefs were warmly accepted by members of the State Rights party, who encouraged him to run against Gen. Glascock for a vacancy in the national House of Representatives.  Beall lost by a slim margin in a bitterly contested vote.    Beall continued to represent the voters of his district in the Anti-Tariff Convention of 1832 and the State Rights Convention of 1833.  When Macon's Wesleyan College became the world's first chartered university for women in 1835, Beall was named one of its first trustees.   

 

Though hailed as a brilliant orator and a man without fear, Beall never enjoyed perfect health. Prone to debilitating and often severe attacks of colic, Beall frequently was prevented from his attendance in court and military functions.  Near the end of his all too short life, Beall joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in Macon.  He was dying.  By the spring of 1836, when his friends and fellow citizens of Bibb and Twiggs County were off to war with the Indians and southwestern Georgia and the pernicious Mexicans in the Republic of Texas, his will to life succumbed to his mortal illness.   

Robert Beall lingered for months and died in his sleep on July 16, 1836 at the age of thirty-five. His dedicated life of public service had come to an end.  Honors were bestowed upon the memory of this man, possessing gifts of extraordinary talent and marked character.  In summing up Beall's character, Sparks wrote, "he was man of rare genius, ardent in his temperament and fearlessly brave, and of course had positive friends and implacable enemies."

06-27

CLIPPINGS FROM OUR SCRAPBOOKS

Saving Our Past One Piece at a Time

Scrapbooks have been around for just a little more than two hundred years.  President Thomas Jefferson was one of the more notable early scrap bookers.  Jefferson clipped newspaper articles pertaining to his presidency for future compilation into a book.  Today, scrap booking is undergoing a revival.  It has become an art.  Entire stores are devoted to its most passionate participants.  The greatest compliment I receive from my readers is that they “cut my column out of the paper and saved it.”  No other blessing justifies the fruits of my passion for the past.  Let’s take a look at some pieces of scrap paper assembled by a foresighted ladies, who clipped previous pieces of our past so that we can remember them today.

Corporal punishment, brutally severe by today’s standards, was the order of the day in the early years of Laurens County.  In1812 a cattle thief was found guilty by a Laurens County judge.  The judge ordered  the convicted man be taken immediately to the public square and that his shirt be stripped off his back and his hands tied to a tree.  Thereupon the officer of the court administered thirty-nine lashes across his bare back.   The process was to be repeated the following day and the day after that.  After the third round of lashings, the court ordered that the thief be branded, much like the cattle he stole, with the letter “R” on his shoulder.  There was a way out.  The defendant could escape the lashings and the branding  if he paid the court costs, the sheriff’s fee and the charges of those who popped the whip and pressed the branding iron against his naked, bruised and slashed back.  Though “cruel and unusual” punishment was banned by both the Federal and Georgia constitutions, the practice of lashing wasn’t terminated until years later.

In order to protect escapes between lashings and other punishments, the Inferior Court of Laurens County ordered improvements to the jail in 1832.  The justices ordered that a ditch, five feet deep, be constructed around the perimeter of the jail.  The ditch would be of sufficient width to hold a vertical line of one-foot-thick timbers, which were to protrude from the ground to a height of three feet along the exterior walls.  The interior walls, also to be made of the finest heart pine timbers, were constructed of timbers laid in  horizontal positions to a height of one foot above the surface, to prevent tunneling by those who feared the whip.

In one of the most unusual cases of grand theft ever reported in Laurens County was the actual theft of a church. No, I did not say a theft of something in the church. I said the entire church building.  On September 12, 1952, the Deacons of Ebenezer Baptist Church appeared before Justice of the Peace Hill G. Thomas to swear out a warrant for the thief, or should I say the alleged thief, whom they accused of stealing their church building.  Deacon Ivey Stanley testified that when he was ill during the month of August when he abandoned his work on repairing the church.  Upon his return to the job, he found, much to his dismay, that the church building was gone.  Stanley formed his own one member posse and scoured the countryside for the missed church.  He found the transformed structure in the southern part of the county.   After an intense interrogation, the deacon found that Belle Coley sold the building to a Jab Haynes.  Haynes then dismantled the structure, moved the materials to a remote location and assembled them into his personal residence.  The duo was convicted of the theft and receiving stolen goods respectively.

In the days before our country became cognizant of our homeland security, airplane hijacks were fairly common events, especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  A Delta Airlines Super DC-9, carrying a crew of five and seventy-seven paying passengers, was headed to Savannah.  The flight, which originated out of Chicago, was about halfway from the Atlanta airport and its destination when an armed male passenger in the rear seat informed a stewardess that he was armed and wanted to go to Havana, Cuba.  At the time the plane was flying in a southeasterly direction directly above Laurens County.  The pilot of Flight 435 radioed F.A.A. officials and reported that the plane was being hijacked.  He yielded to the hijacker, who was carrying a bomb, and turned the plane in a southerly direction toward Havana, where the aircraft  landed at 10:34 p.m., some seven hours after it took off from Chicago.  The hijacking, which occurred on August 20, 1970, was the first of four hijacking of American planes in a five-day period.

It was a hot Sunday in 1950 when a Cuban army plane was forced to land at the Laurens County Airport.  For three days and over the July 4th holiday, the Cubans endured the hot heat of Georgia in July and enjoyed the warm hospitality of Dubliners while their plane was being repaired.  In his haste to leave Dublin and return to Cuba, Dr. Sanchez Arranga, the country’s Minister of Education, left a thousand dollars in cash in American money and considerably more in Cuban currency, along with his passport in his room at the Fred Robert’s Hotel.    Alberta Quilchey was cleaning Dr. Sanchez’s recently vacated room when she found the minister’s valuables.  She sprightly ran downstairs and reported her find to the hotel manager.  The astounded manager, recognizing the urgency of the situation, jumped in his car and dashed to the airport, just in time to present the grateful leader of a group of Cubans who were returning from a vacation in the North Carolina mountains.

Some hotel guests in Dublin didn’t receive such royal treatment.  Georgia governor Hugh Dorsey was the antithesis of ostentatiousness.  He was a plainly dressed man and looked like any other gentleman traveler of his day.  Governor Dorsey was due in Dublin on the day after Christmas in 1919.  The governor was in town at the invitation of the Chamber of Commerce to address the county’s businessmen on his plan for the Georgia Cotton Bank.  When the governor arrived at the depot on South Jefferson Street, he noticed the large crowd gathering on the piazza of the New Dublin Hotel anxiously awaiting his arrival.  He stepped from the rear of the train and decided to walk the short distance up the street to the hotel at the end of the block.  Hotel manager Stubbs Hooks noticed the visitor coming up the street.  The thought that he might be the eagerly awaited dignitary never crossed his mind. He expected only an exalted entourage would be accompanying the governor of Georgia.    In a matter of respect to the guest he told the man that he better go ahead and eat because a large banquet was about to take place.  The governor, not wanting to embarrass Hooks, told the anxious manager that he would wait and eat with everyone else.  As the governor began to mill around in the crowd, someone approached Hooks and informed him that the man he had just talked to was the man the reception committee had been waiting on.  Stunned and stymied, Hooks recovered from his blunder and greeted the governor in the appropriate manner, all the time thinking to himself, “how could I be so stupid.”

06-29

THE FIRST NEWSPAPER

The Beginning of a Tradition

As you read one of the thirty thousand plus newspapers ever printed in Laurens County, have you ever wondered when the first periodical came off the press?  This is the story of the premiere edition of "The Student," a student newspaper published by the students and teachers of a Dublin Academy in the middle of the 1870s.

To get news from the outside world, a Laurens Countian used to have to subscribe by mail to newspapers from Milledgeville, Macon, Sandersville, or as far away as Augusta and Savannah.  Since there were no trains coming into the county until 1886, delivery of newspapers was expensive.  Papers were generally read by the elite business and professional men of the day.  Many of them came preprinted on one side with news of national and world events.  On the blank side publishers would print local news and advertisements.  The first traditional paper in Dublin was known to be the Dublin Gazette, which was published by Col. John M. Stubbs in 1876.  Issues of the Dublin Post hit the streets in 1878.  The Post evolved into the Dublin Courier Herald, which is in its ninety third year of operation.

But the first newspaper ever printed in Dublin was not your traditional daily or weekly paper.   It was published by the students of Lee Academy and its headmaster, Richard "Dick" Lowery Hicks.  Hicks was a son of James Hicks, who wrote a Geometry textbook and furnished the first academy in Wrightsville.  Richard Hicks was born in 1848 and came into manhood just as the Civil War ended.  He attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.  The president of the university during those years was none other than General Robert E. Lee.

Hicks returned to Georgia and moved to Dublin with his brothers, Henry and Charles, both of whom were doctors.    The Hicks were ingrained by their parents to believe that education and public service were paramount. In the early 1870s, Dick Hicks decided to open an academy in Dublin for boys.  Public schools were considered inadequate for the needs of the sons of the town's most prominent and erudite families.    The school, a meager two-room building, was known to have been located on Bellevue Avenue, about where the radio station offices are now located.  Hicks promoted his school where the courses were composed of thorough philosophical instruction.

Volume 1, Issue 1 of "The Student" was published in February 1875.  The monthly paper carried a subscription price of fifty cents per session, payable in advance.  The editors were C.J. Hicks and J.R. Fuqua.  All articles were solicited from the students and friends of the academy and could not be submitted under any anonymous or pen names. The smallest ad cost five dollars per inch per session, while an entire column cost the advertiser a healthy sum of fifty dollars.  Under the banner on the front page was the phrase "Excelsior" a reference to higher education.  Gymnastics and music were also an integral part of school day activities. 

The front page of the premier issue carried articles entitled "Desultory Reading" from The Saturday Review, "The Follies of Great Men," "Early Rising" from Hall's Journal of Health and "Reflections in Westminister Abbey," from Addison.

In greeting their readers for the first time, editors Hicks and Fuqua acknowledged their youthful faith and enthusiasm but promised to afford the students of Lee Academy  with pleasant and profitable recreation.  The editors saw the venture as a way of giving the students an opportunity to write a newspaper of their own.  They believed that writing a single article for the paper would encompass more thinking power than an entire session of regular school writing assignments.  The primary goal of the paper was to encourage the establishment of an adequate library.

The paper's editors realized that they were publishing the only newspaper in the county, but vowed to maintain the paper as a student paper, though items of local interest would be highlighted.    The first edition carried the news that the road in front of Captain Smith's (Gaines Street) had been put in good condition and requested that the same be done for the other streets in the city.  The river was up and the time for boating was right.  Rounding out the items of local interest was the tidbit that Col. Stubbs' ram was the only sheep in Dublin.

Advertising was and still is essential for the profitable operation of any newspaper. The editors praised their main advertisers.  L.C. Perry & Company was saluted as one of the best establishments outside of Georgia's main cities.  The same was said of dry goods merchant M.L. Burch.    Other advertisers were Dr. R.H. Hightower, Lawyer J.A. King, buggy dealer R.M. Arnau, liquor dealer O.J. Beale, and Richard A. Odom, the proprietor of the Troup House, the town's only hotel.

The paper carried the news that Dr. J.T. Chappel, Laurens County's representative in the Georgia legislature, had introduced a bill to abolish the County Court.  The editorial praised the act which would rid the county of a court which was established only in the interest of a few office seekers and pettifoggers. 

Of utmost importance to the county in the 1870s was the rejuvenation of steamboat traffic along the Oconee River.  With no railroads even in the planning stages, river transportation was essential to the future of the local economy.    It was reported that Capt. Day had raised his boat "The Clyde" from her watery grave along the coast line between Darien and Savannah and had her rebuilt so that she could continue to serve the needs of Dubliners.  

There were greetings to old students and news of their life after leaving the academy. J.G. Wright, Jr. had "gone west." Weaver, the medalist of the class of '73, was studying medicine, while Jack was shooting rabbits in Texas and Holmes was fiddling and farming. "Toob" was selling goods.  "Little Peacock" had no particular employment, but it was reported that he intended to return to school soon.  J.H. Hightower was teaching the "young ideas how to shoot," and W.J. Hightower was teaching "the shoots how to idea."

After the closing of Lee Academy, Richard Hicks joined the firm of H. Hicks & C0mpany, which operated a drug store on the southwest corner of the courthouse square and maintained a profitable river boat company.  Dick joined forces with J.W. Peacock & Company in 1878 to publish the Dublin Post, which in 1887 was absorbed by the Dublin Courier, which evolved into the Dublin Courier Herald and which is today published by Dubose Porter, Dick Hicks' great-great-great-nephew. And the stories, they go on and on.

06-30

MULLIS, GEORGIA

A Centennial History

A century ago today, Mullis, Georgia was officially put on the map.  One of Laurens County's most obscure towns, Mullis enjoyed a brief, but successful, life before it was enveloped by her neighbor and chief rival, Cadwell.  

The community of Mullis evolved around the lands of J.M. Mullis.  Mullis was also the  home of William Henry Mullis.  Mullis, one the county's most prolific men, was the father of twenty-two children.  Eighteen of his offspring lived until adulthood.  His brother Eli was the father of twenty.  Mullis, a leading citizen of the Reedy Springs Militia District, served a one of the county's commissioners of Roads and Revenue.  He amassed a relatively large fortune of twenty thousand dollars, which obviously  was diminished by the number of mouths he fed.  

The community of Mullis was located at the northern end of a region virtually covered by virgin pine trees.  The Williams Lumber Company built a tram road from Eastman through Mullis to Rentz where the mill of the Georgia Shingle Company was located.  Local entrepreneurs sought to establish a permanent railroad from Dublin to Eastman.  

Grading of the Dublin and Southwestern Railroad began on March 2, 1904 near the cotton mills in Dublin under the supervision of E.P. Rentz and superintendent, Frank S. Battle. Battle's crews began laying rails.  Construction was delayed by legal actions by some Eastman citizens.  Conductor B.W. Hightower guided the first freight train out of Eastman on May 5, 1905.   Within in a week the first load of freight was received in Eastman.  President E.P. Rentz arranged the inaugural passenger service to coincide with the May term of Dodge County Superior Court.    A stop was established at Mullis where passengers could board the train for either of the terminal cities and beyond.

A post office at Mullis was established on June 17, 1905.  Hiram Mullis,  one of W.H. Mullis's nineteen-year-old twins, launched an all out effort to get a post office for the community and was named its first postmaster.  He was succeeded by his cousin Arthur W. Mullis on July 14, 1908.  The town began to grow rapidly.  J.J. Mullis began erecting a handsome home and a commodious storehouse.  J.M. Mullis erected a mercantile store.  Henry Tate operated a third store, one which housed the town's barber shop.  Any town needed a cotton gin to capitalize on the county's main cash crop.  W.H. Mullis and his sons erected a sufficient gin in short order.  A fourth store was operated by W.H. Mullis, first with D.E. Mullis, and then with his twin sons, Hiram and Homer under the banner of W.H. Mullis & Sons.  Later Buchan & Smith and W.F. Jackson would go into the mercantile business in Mullis.  The Bedingfield Mercantile Company was forced into bankruptcy after less than six months of business. 

The town of Mullis was officially chartered as a town on August 1, 1906.  The law provided that J.P. Barrs would be the first mayor.  W.H. Tate, W.H. Mullis and D.E. Mullis were named the first councilmen to serve in office until a regular election could be held on the first Monday in January 1908. A.R. Barrs was named to the board in 1907.  Hiram Mullis served as the city clerk and W.F. Jackson was the town's first policeman.   Mullis was a very small town, encompassing 275 acres and  extending six hundred and fifty yards in each direction from the town well. 

The council were given the standard powers and duties which Georgia's laws provided.  Liquor sales were banned.  The mayor presided over the police court with the authority to try offenders for ordinance violations and levy fines of up to fifty dollars or thirty days in jail. 

Among the early residents of Mullis were J.J. Mullis, D.E. Mullis, J.P. Barrs, A.R. Barrs, J.W. Bass, W.H. Mullis, W.H. Mullis,Jr., W.H. Tate, A.W. Smith and A. McCook.  In 1907, the town boasted not one, but two, boarding houses for travelers.  These homes away from home were operated by J.J. Mullis and J.W. Bass.  While not tending to guests, Bass operated a barber shop.  J.P. Barrs maintained the town's livery stable.   Hutton and Barrs were the town blacksmiths.  Doctor Buhan moved his practice from Eastman and established the first drug store.  

There was a town, or more aptly a community, school in Mullis.  The school, attended by more than 180 pupils, thrived under the direction of Principal J.B. McMahan, who was assisted by his wife and Professor Heard S. Lowery. 

Just down the railroad, Rebecca Lowery Burch Cadwell was rapidly attempting to establish her own town of Cadwell, named after her second husband, the name of her first husband already being taken by another town in Georgia.  For three years, the towns of Mullis and Cadwell competed with each other.  The first salvo in the war came in the fall of 1906.  Mrs. Burch sought and was granted an injunction against the mayor and council of Mullis.  Mrs. Cadwell owned the land between the two towns and had no desire to allow Mullis to expand through her lands toward Cadwell.

A year after Mullis was created, the Georgia legislature amended its charter to allow the mayor and council the power of eminent domain to enlarge the boundaries of the town, but in no event could any lands lying in land lots 11 and 20 of the 17th Land District of Laurens County could be included, apparently a result of a prominent citizens desire to be excluded from the town.  The new law appeared to be a compromise between the competing towns.

The great prize in the battle for supremacy in lower Laurens County was the establishment of a railroad depot.  Each size promised railroad officials with incentives to locate in their towns.  Mrs. Burch promised just a little more and Cadwell eventually won the battle.  Mullis was eventually absorbed by the victorious Cadwell.  Actually the battling did not end until a major skirmish occurred between the leaders of both towns engaged in a "shoot 'em up" street gunfight, an affray which resulted in the death of Mayor H.L. Jenkins of Cadwell in 1920.  

 

If you want to visit the town of Mullis, travel on Georgia Highway 117 South toward Eastman.  Just as you are about to enter Cadwell, Georgia Highway 338 will enter from the right.  Then, you are in downtown Mullis.  

06-31

METEORS OVER MIDDLE GEORGIA 

Lighting Up The Night 

On any clear night if you look long enough, you will probably see a streak of light flashing across the sky. From time to time, especially in mid August, mid November and mid December, the Earth travels through zones of meteoroids in a perpetual orbit around the Sun. These stony and iron objects strike the Earth's atmosphere at tremendous speeds. Most of these extra terrestrial objects are vaporized before they strike the ground, but a few survive the impact with our atmosphere. 

Perhaps the most remarkable year for meteors over Middle Georgia came one hundred and twenty six years ago in 1880. It was a quiet night in Macon as the month of June was about to come to an end. A small gathering of men was standing on the corner of Second and Cherry Streets when an intense light illuminated the city. One of the men, a reporter for the Macon Telegraph, described the light as "not like the sun, the moon nor a gas light. It was nearer the electric light, yet a thousand times more powerful." The light was so bright that trees cast shadows on the ground and all heavenly stars were dimmed. Moving from directly overhead in the direction of Milledgeville, the "shooting star" changed to a brilliant red light at 45 degrees from the horizon and then into various shades of green. The whole spectacle only lasted five seconds and was undoubtedly witnessed by late nighters in Laurens County. As the meteor began to change shades, it began to emit sparks and then vapors of smoke. At thirty degrees above the horizon, the light disappeared. 

After three minutes, of silence a thunderous boom reverberated for at least thirty seconds. Witnesses described the sound as metallic and not like the normal sound of thunder. Many reported that the Earth shook. About five days later, the meteorite, said to be the size of a man's head, was found in the forks of a tree some distance from town. If it was indeed the actual meteorite, it is strange that the object has not been documented by scientists. Furthermore, the report of the meteor was probably similar to the sound of a sonic boom caused by an airplane - not by an impact on the ground. If that was the case, it corroborates the belief the meteorite landed about 40 miles away from Macon. Officials in Eatonton reported that the meteor struck south of the town along the southwestern horizon. Coming in the heat of the 1880 presidential election, the meteor was dubbed "The Hancock Meteor," in honor of Winfield Scott Hancock, the former Union hero of the Battle of Gettysburg, but a man who had been embraced by Southern Democrats who were seeking to be relieved of the shackles of Northern Republican policies and politicians. 

Nearly two months later, at ten minutes until ten o'clock on the evening of August 26th, a meteor appeared in the southwestern sky. Witnesses in Brunswick reported that the meteor broke into two equal fireballs, each appearing to be the size of a man's head. The phenomenon lasted for just over a minute. Maconites reported that the meteor threw off brilliant fireballs of red, blue and yellow as it disappeared into the northeastern sky. Witnesses in Columbus reported three distinct balls, the first one sporting a long luminous tail. There were no reports of impact as the meteor faded out of sight. 

One of the most remarkable celestial events in the recorded history of Middle Georgia came on the late autumn afternoon of December 9, 1880. It was about 5:30 when citizens over Central Georgia and as far north as Atlanta observed a brilliant streak of light following the usual northeasterly course. Observers in the capital city described the fireball as the size of a common cannon ball. When it passed directly overhead, Atlantans saw the meteor break into several fragments until they disappeared from sight. The event lasted only a minute. The resulting trail of smoke remained in the twilight sky for a full five minutes. While viewers in Macon reported that the smoke lasted ten minutes, those gazing upon the rare phenomenon in Dublin stated that they saw the smoke trail for at least twenty minutes before the Sun set. There were no reported sounds of impact, though some residents of Macon reported that their windows were slightly jarred by the passage of the fireball. 

Less than forty hours later on the following Saturday, another day light meteor was seen in Savannah. Witnesses reported that the meteor streaked seemingly just about the tree tops from the direction of Dublin toward the Atlantic Ocean. Those who saw the light repeated the same description as the Hancock meteorite over Macon. When the meteor passed over the city, a group of men saw it explode as if it were a sky rocket. A policeman, walking his early morning beat on Bryan Street, watched the meteor for nearly a minute in "the most dazzling sight I have ever seen." No sounds were audible and no impact site was observed. 

If you want to catch the best glimpse of a meteor shower, go outside this Friday and Saturday nights, late, or early in the morning I should say. Look toward the constellation Perseus in the northeastern sky. Unfortunately, a nearly full moon will diminish the brilliance of the shooting stars, which have been numbered as much as a hundred per hour. For nearly two thousand years, humans have observed what has become known as the Perseides meteor shower. The bright streaks of light you will see come from dust from the Comet Swift-Tuttle. These dust particles, traveling at more than 132,000 miles per hour, illuminate the entire sky with nature's greatest summertime fireworks show. 

The most famous and magnificent meteor shower ever recorded in Georgia came on the evening of November 12, 1833. As the Earth entered the path of an ancient comet, hundreds and hundreds of meteors radiated out of the constellation Leo every hour. The superstitious and the uneducated believed the world was coming to an end. From the skies above Laurens County and all around the world, people were sent into a frenzy. The Leonids meteor shower returns every year on the evenings of November 12 and 13. Approximately every thirty-three years, the shower reaches peak intervals, the last ones being in 1999 and 2000. 

For thousands of years meteors have become a fascination and a consternation for observers of the nighttime sky. Composed of particles of iron, stone and comet dust, these spectacles have come and gone, like clockwork literally reigning down pieces of the solar system's most distant past. 

06-32

DOG DAYS AND SNAKE TALES

The Facts and the Legends

To many people the mere mention of crawling live poisonous snakes sends shivers up their spines.  Most snakes are of the nonpoisonous and harmless variety.  Since mammals and reptilian snakes have coexisted, mammals have developed ways of surviving their venomous antagonists.  For centuries, during the period of “dog days,” people have observed correlations between the location of the heaven’s  brightest star and the behavior of the feared serpents.

On July 3 of each year, Sirius comes in conjunction with the Sun.  Sirius, the primary star in the constellation Canis Major “The Great Dog,” is also known as the “dog star.”  During the next 40 days, while the temperatures  in Georgia and around the country swell to their greatest magnitude, this intense heat was thought to have been caused by the combined heat of the Sun and Sirius.  The ancient people named this period “Dog Days.”

Over the years, various superstitions and beliefs have arisen concerning the activities of snakes during “dog days.”  Some believe that snakes actually go blind during this time.  Actually, many snakes shed their skins during “dog days.”  When a snake begins to shed its skin, its body secretes a milky substance to aid in the skin’s removal.  Some of this cloudy liquid covers the snake’s eyes and does contribute to its ability to see.  Many people believed that without his skin the snake was more apt to bite people and was even more venomous.  Others swore that dogs themselves were bitten more often and with more fatal results during “dog days.”  

Now that “dog days” officially ended last Saturday, do all of us who suffer from Ophidiophobia feel safe?  I don’t think  so.  Here are some of the stories and tales of snakes in our past which I know won’t make you feel any less afraid of these fearsome reptiles than you already are.   If you have recently eaten, come back a few hours later and resume reading.  Trust me.

In the category of getting the worst over with first,  the most revolting snake story was published in 1885.  It seems that Jake Moorman, a Negro school teacher, had been suffering from a severe and violent case of vomiting.  Moorman threw up a six-inch snake and what was described as a “very large” bug.  Any size of either would be very large.   The bug ran into a fire and committed suicide. The snake, well, was dead on arrival.  Moorman, who was being treated for consumption, believed that he had other “live things” in his stomach.  Seems like I would have found a stomach pump somewhere.

Another case of a parasitic snake was published in1883.  Mrs. Bryant Gay asked Cass Abbott to butcher a four-year-old cow.    In the course of his operation, Captain Abbott found  a coach whip snake in the cow’s large intestine.  If that wasn’t enough, when the butcher opened the cow’s lungs, he found thirty-seven offspring “holding on to the walls of the lungs to secure their lives.”  Next time maybe we should ask for a chicken sandwich instead of a burger. 

It was in the early summer of 1891, when a young woman, who had being hoeing cotton in the blistering sun, found a shady spot to rest.  The barefooted woman awoke to find a huge blacksnake attempting to swallow her toe.  Apparently the snake thought the woman’s toe was a small reptile or was very ambitious one.  Within an instant the woman was dashing at the rate of “a mile a minute” until the snake relinquished its grip.  If you are outside and take a nap, maybe you should at least sleep with your shoes on. 

Snake stories always made good “filler” material.   The Dublin Post reported in 1887 that a five-foot four-inch thick snake with a dozen rattles had been killed at Blackshear’s Ferry. Good! As reported in The Dublin Gazette in 1883, Coroner James Wyatt killed a rattle snake measuring “about eighteen inches” in circumference and not length. Even better!     Earlier that year in the dead of winter, a young boy was walking along Turkey Creek on the old Troup plantation looking for some hogs.  He found a large rattlesnake atop a large pile of rocks.  The young boy did what most boys would do. He threw a rock at it and then ran for his life. After securing reinforcements, the boy and his friends dismantled the rock pile to find seventeen rattles, several water moccasins and an assortment of chicken snakes.  The lesson here is to stay away from a pile of rocks whether its “dog days” or not.  

These old stories remind us to be careful when we are outdoors. John Jones was out his field nearly a month after “dog days” had ended in 1883 when he happened upon a very large snake, the dimensions of which were lost in the calamity of the moment.  Inside he found sixteen infants, all measuring thirteen inches in length.   T.B. Felder was taking off a load of fodder when he discovered seven two-foot long rattlers.  Mrs. W.A. Brack laid a load of dirty clothes down in her smokehouse.  Upon her return, she picked up the bundle only to discover a large snake coiled up inside.   So it was no wonder that two days later her husband massacred a brood of nine little snakes which were aggravating his dog.  Of all the reported snake killings I have read, Virgil Lewis’s killing of a seven-foot nine-long snake in 1885 seems to be  the county’s longest rattler ever.  In 1902,  Nannie Ruston came in second place with the  killing of a  seven-foot long rattler, which sported eighteen rattles.  When you are looking at the eyes of a rattler, all snakes are large. J.C. Jones seemed to have a passion for killing rattlers. In the year of 1884, he reportedly killed twenty-six rattle snakes. 

One day in 1883, a little daughter of J.C. Williams was out playing.  When she tired, she climbed atop a stump to rest.  Her dog began to bark, alerting a male member of her family.  Upon his arrival, the man found the dog engaged in a battle with a large female rattler.  Attempting to divert the snake away from the little girl, the man prodded the snake with a long stick.    The agitated snake unwound from her coiled position and prepared to strike back.  At that instant, her brood of sixteen neonates darted down the snake’s mouth.  Their attempt to find refuge was fruitless as the man killed the entire family. 

Snakes haven’t been killed only to protect the safety of humans.  In 1932, Millard Hall was plowing a field when he noticed his dog in a bout with a snake.  He reached down and  picked up the nearest rock.  He quickly pulled out his slingshot, took careful aim and mortally wounded the six-foot-long snake with his first shot.  He skinned his prey and transformed it into a belt as a trophy of his expert marksmanship.  W.B. Smith found a snake attacking one of his goldfish in his garden pool. He quickly grasped the attacker by the tail, slung him into the road, and executed him on the spot.  These folks and many others always believed the saying “the only good snake is a dead snake.” 

Snakes, like all other animals, have a purpose of the Earth.  Treat them with respect, remembering the old adage “that they are more afraid of you than you are of them.”  Be aware of their potential presence when you are in the outdoors.  When you encounter one, I recommend you back away slowly and run away until it hurts.

06-33

DEXTER. GEORGIA

The First Twenty-five Years

The Town of Dexter was officially incorporated 115 years ago today.   Formerly known as Barnes, the town enjoyed a population surpassed only by Dublin.  Located in heart of some of the county’s most fertile lands, Dexter drew settlers from Laurens and Wilkinson and Washington Counties, who rushed to the area to plant cotton and other crops where trees once stood.

Surrounded by communities such as Springhaven, Mt. Carmel, Musgrove, Alcorn,  Kewanee and even Nameless, Dexter is more of a community than a town.  Any attempt to  chronicle a history of these communities, as well as history of the town beyond it’s first twenty-five years of its existence and within the confines of this column would be impossible.  I refer you to a definitive history of Dexter and its environs, which  was published in the 1990s by former Dexter resident Amy Holland Alderman.

  Dexter, like all other towns in the county, owed its  existence to the coming of the railroad, in this case the Empire and Dublin or the Oconee and Western Railroad.  The site where Dexter is located was first settled by John W. Green.  Rev. Green, one of Laurens County’s longest surviving Confederate soldiers, built the first dwelling. The Oconee and Western Railroad had its beginnings in the mid 1880's as a tram road from Yonkers to Empire to Hawkinsville.  

The Empire Lumber Company applied for a charter as the Empire and Dublin Railroad in 1888.  The incorporators were J.C. Anderson, J.W. Hightower, R.A. Anderson, W.A. Heath, N.E. Harris and Y.H. Morgan.   Mr. Hatfield of New York supplied much of the capital and served as the first president.  Capt. J.W. Hightower was general manager.  A.T. Bowers served as the first superintendent.  The road ran from Empire in western Dodge County to Dublin.  The principal office was established in Empire.  Eventually a western leg would be constructed to Hawkinsville.  Within a short time the company changed its name to reflect its future.  

The new Oconee and Western railroad headquartered its offices and shops in Empire at the junction of the Oconee and Western with the Georgia Railway.  The tracks reached Dublin in 1891 - the same year as the W. & T. and the M.D. and S. railroads completed their tracks into the heart of Dublin.  The Hawkinsville leg was completed the next year connecting the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers.

The 40-mile railroad ran from Hawkinsville northeast through Cypress to the headquarters at Empire.  From Empire the road ran on through Alcorn's, Dexter, Springhaven, Vincent,  Hutchins, and Harlow before reaching Dublin.  The railroad was primarily a freight carrier because of the vast agricultural and timber resources in the area.  New markets were opened for the towns on the line and those at each end of the railroad as well.  

From the beginning of the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad, there were plans for westward expansion to Hawkinsville.  President and General  A.F. Daley announced the purchase of the Oconee and Western Railroad on November 9, 1898.  The sale was completed on February 1, 1899.  J.W. Hightower of Empire was elected as Vice President, E.J. Henry of Hawkinsville as treasurer, and W.N. Parson of Hawkinsville as secretary.  Other directors were W.A. Heath, J.E. Smith, Jr. and R.C. Henry, the latter two being from Dublin.  Master machinist Winter, Auditor Beaumas, General Manager England and Conductor Williams lost their jobs.  Gen. Freight and Passenger agent, M.V. Mahoney, was retained by the new owner. 

A post office was established at Dexter on January 31, 1890.  It has been said that when Dr. T.A. Wood was looking for the right name of the new town, he used his knowledge of Latin and chose the only right name for the town - Dexter - which is a derivation of the Latin word for right.   James H. Witherington was the first postmaster.  In the town’s first quarter of century, it was served by postmasters John White, John A. Clark, William C. Crubbs, Henry F. Maund and Herbert King.   King served the longest term (1905-1935) as a postmaster of Dexter. 

Dexter was incorporated on August 22, 1891.    Dr. T.A. Wood was appointed by the Georgia legislature as the town’s first mayor.  J.H. Witherington, W.W. Wynn, W.L. Herndon, J.H. Smith and T.H. Shepard were named as the town’s first council until a formal election could be held on the first Thursday in January of 1892.  Lurking, loitering, gambling, cursing, disturbing, fighting, quarreling, wrangling and drinking were all banned as acceptable behavior within the limits of the town.  A.H. Hobbs, J.E. New, H.F. Maund, C.A. Shepard, T.C. Methvin, Peyton R. Shy, Jerome Kennedy and H.I. King were the mayors during this period.  

Fires were the scourge of Dexter and many other towns.  A devastating fire swept through the town in early May 1901.  Many buildings were lost, but valuable stocks of goods were saved primarily through the efforts of the black citizens of the town.  Just two weeks later a fire completely gutted the store of Currell and Taylor.  A late Friday night fire in January 1913 destroyed Home Furniture Company, a three-store complex and the largest of its kind in the area. 

The Dexter Banking Company was granted a charter on January 18, 1904.  With relatively little information available about the bank, one can assume that its assets were small and its customers were residents of the community.  Among its early officers were Dr. J.E. New, the first president, W.H. Mullis, the first vice president,   H.F. Maund, the first cashier,  and W.B. Taylor.   The bank, which evolved into today’s First Laurens Bank, opened for business on February 22, 1904.  The initial board of directors was composed of J.E. New, W.H. Mullis, H.F. Maund, W.B. Taylor, John E. Lord, W.H. Lee, T.J. Taylor, W.A. Bedingfield and R.C. Hogan.  The bank voluntarily liquidated itself at the end of the depth of the depression.  The Farmers State Bank opened in Dexter on August 19, 1911.  F.M. Daniel was the first president.   Jerome Kennedy was elected the vice-president. John D. Walker served as the financial agent.  J.W. Strange was the bank’s cashier.    This bank merged with the Dexter Banking Company in 1913 under the leadership of R.C. Hogan. 

At the turn of the Twentieth Century, some of the residents of Dexter included Dr. T.A. Wood, Dr. W.B. Taylor, Dr. J.E. New, Rev. Edward Tucker, William L. Currell (merchant), George Walker (grocer), Allen Hobbs (farmer), William Bryan (blacksmith), Seth Bryan (farmer), Raymond Shepard (grocer), Andrew J. Southerland (farmer), Peyton Shy (farmer), Thomas Faircloth (farmer), William Mullis (railroad), George Shepard (carpenter), Alford Gay (merchant), Benjamin Green (farmer), James Rowland (barber),  Henry Maund (railroad agents), Lewis Long (farmer), Benjamin Coleman (laborer), Robert Braswell (farmer), Robert Phelps (laborer) and Amos Harris (the teacher at the colored school).

Laurens County’s second Masonic Lodge, Dexter Lodge No. 340, was founded in 1892.  The first lodge officers were Worshipful Master W.A. Witherington, Secretary J.H. Witherington along with R.E. Grinstead, W.B. Rodgers, J.W. Green, John H. Smith.   Other members were J.A. Clark, B.C. Green, W.T. Linder, J. Rawls, J.P. Rawls, J.G. Thomas, J.S. Thomas, Jerry Ussery, J.M. Witherington, T.A. Wood and Lee Hardy.   J.A. Clark, P.E. Grinstead, T.A. Wood, A.M. Jessup, E.W. Stuckey, J.A. Warren, and  E.L. Faircloth served as Worshipful Master during the first twenty-five years of the lodge’s history.  Today, one hundred and fourteen years later, the lodge is still in existence.

 

The town’s second lodge, the Dexter Odd Fellows Lodge, was established in 1905.  The initial officers were Noble Grand - J.R. Harvey, Vice Grand - H.F. Maund, Recording Secretary - W.T. Scarborough, Financial Secretary - W.O. McDaniel, Treasurer - H.I. King, Trustees - F.M. Daniel, T.C. Methvin, E.W. Stuckey.

The ladies of Dexter organized the Magnolia Chapter of the Order of The Eastern Star, an auxiliary unit of the Masonic Lodge.  The first officers of the chapter were Viola Daniel, Worthy Matron; Dr. L.W. Wiggins, Worthy Patron; Mary Ussery, Associate Matron; Dr. Floyd Rackley, Secretary; Jennie W. Wiggins, Treasurer and Myrtle Tutt, Associate Conductress. 

Among the new citizens of town enumerated in the 1910 Census were Henry Shepard (laborer), William P. English (postman), Elbert Davis (carpenter), James Beasley (farmer), J.M. Benford (farmer), Rodger Walden (railroad foreman), Benjamin Tutt (merchant), L.A. Hobbs (farmer), Julian Horne (farmer), Julian Shepard (barber), George Shepard (postman), William J. Thomas (farmer), Hollie Hooks (farmer), Herbert Womack (railroad hand), Wash McLeod (brick mason), Joe McRae (laborer), Rev. James Wilson (minister, colored church), Sidney Hamp (cook), R.C. Shepard (salesman), William Jordan (railroad foreman), John J. Bryan (laborer), George Malone (salesman), Charley Butts (salesman), John Warren (farmer), John Faircloth (laborer), Virgil Crumpton (photographer), Trad Pennington (ice dealer), Charley Evans (laborer), Clarence Duffy (blacksmith), Thomas C. Methvin (merchant), John W. Bass (policeman), Charley Shepard (bookkeeper), John G. Thomas (farmer), Lovett Fann (farmer), Otho Warren( farmer), Solomon Mason (barber), Joseph Joiner (farmer), John Warren (farmer), Rev. John Bridges, Thomas J. Hunnicutt (merchant), Ben M. Daniel (bailiff), Sam Beasley (railroad hand), Lee Rowland (railroad hand), James A. Attaway (liveryman), Roscoe C. Hogan (merchant), Jerome Kennedy (telegraph operator), Robert M. Benford (farmer), Herbert King (postmaster), John A. McClelland (salesman), William P. McClelland (fruit tree agent), John T. Thompson (merchant), John D. Bass (lumber mill), Dr. Lee Wiggins, Herbert Chadwick (merchant), John J. Phillips, John J. Harvey (book agent), William Watson (farmer), Fletcher Warren (laborer), John W. Johnston (farmer), William Stripling (merchant), Joseph Daniel (planing mill), Jeremiah Ussery (salesman), William Tripp (laborer), Thomas Register (farmer), James T. Register (postman), Robert Manning (merchant), Hardy F. McDaniel (farmer), John Mullis (farmer), Joe Cherry (laborer), Benjamin Green (postman), Amos L. Register (farmer), William B. Daniel (laborer), Erastus P. Warren (merchant), Eddie Faircloth (music teacher), David Payne (carpenter), Nathan Bostic (lumber mill), B. Wynn (carpenter), James W. Jones (carpenter), Evia G. Currell (boarding house), and U.G.B. Hogan (farmer).  Not included in this list are the hundreds of fine women and bright children who called Dexter home. 

Church life in Dexter has always been of preeminent importance.  Though many rural churches surrounded the town, there were two main churches, the Baptist and the Methodist.  On the fourth Sunday in July 1893, Elders B.C. Green J.W. Green and J.A. Clark constituted the Dexter Baptist Church.  Among the first members were Nettie Clark, R.M. Green, Viny Green, Cilla Mullis, Anna Smith, Jeany Smith, Nancy Smith, Sarena Smith, J.G. Thomas and J.S. Thomas.  The church’s presbytery was composed of B.A. Bacon, P.A. Jessup and the Rev. N.F. Gay.  Reverends P.A. Jessup, J.T. Rogers, J.A. Clark, J.T. Smith, S.F. Simms, E.F. Dye, F.B. Asbell, George W. Tharpe and Q.J. Pinson served the church in the town’s first twenty five years.  Initial services were held in the two-story school house until a permanent structure could be erected about the year 1903.  This wooden building was used until 1960.  

The Methodists began to organize before Dexter came into it formal existence.  In 1893, J.W. Warren gave the land and Jake Rawls gave the lumber to build a church building, which was destroyed by winter storms in 1904 and 1905.  According to Dexter historian Amy Holland Alderman, the current church building is thought to be the third structure on the site.  Among the ministers serving the Methodist church in the town’s first  quarter of a century were Reverends C.C. Hines, E.M. Wright, Guyton Fisher, H.C. Fontress, E.L. Tucker, M. L. Watkins, W.O. Davis, L.A. Snow, H.E. Ewing, J.P. Dickenson, J.P. Bross, C.C. Lowe, J.W. Bridges, Claude S. Bridges, Silas Johnson, L.E. Braddy and George R.  Stephens.   

During the second decade of this century there were movements to slice off pieces of the larger counties of Georgia.  Wheeler and Treutlen Counties were formed from Montgomery County.  Bleckley County was cut off from Pulaski County.  There were at least three movements in Laurens County to form new counties.  The citizens of Dexter proposed to take the southwestern portion of Laurens County and the northern part of Dodge County, including the towns of Dexter (the proposed county seat), Cadwell, Rentz and Chester to form Northern County.  The new county was to be named in honor of Gov. William J. Northern of Georgia, but the movement fizzled when opposed by Laurens county’s representatives and senators in the state legislature. 

Though the railroad is gone and farming is no longer the major occupation of Dexter residents, the town of Dexter still lives.  It is a fine place to live.  It is a place where the residents can look along their streets and still see many remnants of why the town’s founding fathers believed that it was only right to live in Dexter. 

06-34

OUR FIRST AIRPORTS

Runways to the Skies

Ever since the first Laurens Countians read about the Wright Brothers they dreamed of flying.   In the middle of the second decade of the 20th Century, daredevil pilots barnstormed across the nation, entertaining crowds of people in large cities and small cities like Dublin.  This is the story of the first airports in Dublin.   They were primitive by today’s standards.  Most of them were just long narrow cleared strips of land located at various locations on the edge of town.  It would be 1944 before Dublin would acquire a first class airport.  It was in the middle of World War II that the United States Navy constructed the present Laurens County Airport in preparation for the transportation of patients to and from the Naval Hospital in Dublin.

It was in the spring of 1919, just six months after the end of World War I, when the first true aviation activities began in Dublin.  Three men from Dublin traveled to Souther Field in Americus to enlist in the Air Service.  It should be remembered that it was at Souther Field where Charles Lindbergh made his first flight in an airplane.  Sergeant Ruff, the recruiting officer in Macon, flew to Dublin to secure even more recruits.  While in the city, Sergeant Ruff found a frenzy of activity surrounding the construction of a city airport, which was being  rushed to completion just in time for his visit.   Businessmen were anxious to solicit flyers to come to the city and performing aerial circuses.  It was suggested that all in the roofs in the business section be painted with the word “Dublin” to make it easier for pilots to know where they were.

Though no official Dublin airport existed in the 1920s, there were flights in and out of the city.  The members of the Lions Club met in May 1928 to discuss the location of an airport on “the pulp mill site,” now occupied by Riverview Golf Course.  A party of airline officials of the Dixie and Northern airline stopped in Dublin on a tour of the state in 1928.  Beeler Bevins and C.F. Dieter flew into Dublin on July 2, 1929 during their “All Georgia Air Tour,” which was sponsored by Georgia Power Company. The fliers were entertained with a luncheon at the Fred Roberts Hotel.  The men urged those in attendance to build an airport. 

The flight spurred city officials to construct a first class airport in Dublin.  Negotiations began immediately for an ideal site, one which was near the heart of the city and one which was close to the existing electrical lines serving the city.  On July 17, 1929, the Dublin City Council voted to enter into a lease to construct an airport on 42 acres across from the W.T. Phelps place on what would become Claxton Dairy Road.    The mayor and council suggested that arrows be painted on top of the city hall, the First National Bank building and the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad depot indicating the direction to the airport.    Mayor T.E. Hightower urged that “Dublin be put on the air map of the United States Aeronautical Association as soon as possible.”  “All the world has taken wings and Dublin must take to the air, too, or be left behind,” Hightower added.    City officials hoped that Dublin would become a regular stop on the Atlanta to Savannah air mail route, since the city was located at the midpoint of the two cities.  The site was an ideal one since the ground was virtually level and only needed slight grading to put it in shape for landings. The work of clearing the field and putting it in compliance with the specifications of the National Aeronautic Association was apparently never fully  completed.  L.G. Clarke, an experienced airplane builder, came to Dublin in hopes of advancing the building of an airport.  

Another landing strip was on the west side of town on the E.T. Barnes place on the Macon Road.  This primitive landing strip, probably located near the Dublin Mall, accommodated a Ford Tri Motor plane which carried P.M. Watson, Marshall Chapman, B.J. Daley, Blue Holleman, Lehman Keen, Charles E. Baggett and George T. Morris on a flight to Macon in February 1931.   The road was lined with cars filled with spectators hoping to get a glance of the largest plane ever seen in Dublin until that time.  It was revealed that George T. Morris was actually afraid to fly, but didn’t want to back out since he sponsored the flight.  Morris wrote a letter to his wife informing her of the secret location of a cache of money hidden under a stump - just in case he didn’t make it back home safely.   Upon its safe return, the pilot solicited all those who desired to ride in the giant airplane.  Five hundred and ten people took him up on the offer, including twenty-five young boys who were the guests of Jim Kendrick.   Herbert Moffett took his entire family for a ride and commented that “the plowed fields were the best view.”    

The pilot, Ray Loomis, urged Dublin citizens to build a better airport.  Loomis said, “the field you have now is very good and should be enlarged and stumped to allow two runways. Engineers from the CWA came to Dublin in the spring of 1934 to survey the site on Highway 80 West as a permanent site for a municipal airport.    Morris Motor company continued to sponsor Ford Tri-Motor plane rides through 1935.  

The kids of Dublin formed a Junior Birdmen Club in February 1935.  Emory Beckham was elected the wing commander, while Jack Baggett was chosen as the club captain.  Billy Keith served as the secretary-treasurer.  Other members of the club were Earle Beckham, Luther Word, Owen Word and Jimmie Sanders.  The club, organized to promote an interest in aviation, was the only club between Macon and Savannah.

The enthusiasm of the Junior Birdmen inspired city officials to begin construction of a municipal airport two miles south of town on the Dublin-Eastman Highway south of  the present site of Mullis’ Junkyard.  With the support of Monson Barron, the city’s oldest aviation afficionado, Clafton Barron, and Ellison Pritchett, who had worked for Boeing, Lockheed, and Douglas, a four plane hangar was constructed on the site.  Local officials continued to push the Barnes site on Highway 80 West, as well as the Cullens site in East Dublin on Highway 80 East.  Neither of the three sites ever attained the status of a first class airport. 

By the end of 1930s, aviation fever had reached its peak.  Thirteen young pilots had earned their pilot’s license and six more were in training.  Though still without adequate landing facilities, these young men landed and took off in pastures on flights no longer than fifty miles.  Among the first to obtain licenses were Emory Beckham, Earl Beckham, Emmett Black,  L.A. Mitchell, W.H. Barron, Jr., Izzie Lease, Nat Lease, Lenwood Hodges, Ross Moore and Robert Werden.  Ed Hobbs, Claxton Edenfield, Bill Sanders, Sterling Lovett, H.C. Coleman and Joe Lord were working diligently in obtaining their licenses.  These men shared two airports, mere pastures, with two Piper Cubs owned by Ross Moore and Izzie Lease and a Avon two-passenger open type plane owned by W.H. “Bud” Barron, Jr.

It would take the political power of Congressman Carl Vinson to bring a permanent and high class aviation facility to Dublin.  Built by the U.S. Navy in 1943 in connection with the establishment of the U.S. Naval Hospital, the airport, renamed the W.H. Barron Airport after its greatest promoter, was turned over to Laurens County.  The airport continues to maintain one of the longest runways in Georgia.  

 06-35

FAREWELL TO THE OLD 988TH 

Goodbye to a Part of the Team 

Just when Lieutenant Colonel David Johnson was asking around for a copy of the company's lineage of military service, the lineage came walking through the door. One by one, grayer and somewhat heavier than they were decades ago, a column of former members of the 988th Supply Company filed in through the door marked "authorized personnel only." Today, on Sunday, September 10, 2006, they were not only authorized, but welcomed as well. They came to be with the current members of their old company, now the "988th Quartermaster Company," on its last day of existence. As they met, they hugged, smiled, and cried just a tear or two. Memories of old friends, good times and doing good things erupted, just like they happened last weekend. They were citizen soldiers, regular men who gave up their weekends and families to serve their country. 

The foyer of the Army Reserve building on Martin Luther King Drive is filled with plaques of the unit's outstanding service to the Army. As the 988th Service and Supply Company, they were the Most Improved Unit in 1981. They were the Supply Unit of the Year. The 988th was presented a plaque for their outstanding service in providing hurricane relief in El Salvador in 1999. Among the honors on the wall is a Supply Excellence Award for Category C, Level II. The 988th Supply Company was activated in 1957 in Dublin.

A descendant of the all black 988th Supply Company in World War II, the 988th was located first in the old Coca Cola Building on South Jefferson Street which later housed the distribution facilities of Royal Crown Cola. The first company commander was Captain John Q. Adams. J.C. Lord was the company's initial first sergeant. Many of those present at the inactivation ceremony joined the company in the 1960s. They were responsible for providing spare parts and supplies to nearly two hundred army units in Georgia and Florida. 

Among those present at the ceremony were former company commanders, John Griffin and Gene Carr, both of Chester, Georgia. One of the company's most popular commanders was the late Major Paul Wilkes, who served in the reserve in his spare time and taught thousands of Dublin High School kids the elements of chemistry and physics in his day job. Another popular commander of the unit was Bill Roberts of Dublin. Ernie Fultz and some of the others joined the company in January 1966 when the McRae company and other smaller units merged to form a consolidated unit. With a larger force, the company relocated to an armory on Central Drive in East Dublin in 1967. In 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, the 988th Supply Company was on the list to be activated for duty in Vietnam. There were C-105 aircraft dispatched, ready to ferry the men across the Pacific for the company's first truly hazardous duty. After a careful scrutiny of the cost involved, Army officials decided to keep the 988th in Dublin. 

Ralph Page, who served in the company from 1974 to 1993, remembered that some of the members helped build roads in Panama during the 1980s. The crowning achievement of the units service came during Operation Desert Storm in 1990-1991, when the company was awarded a Meritorious Unit Commendation for extraordinary meritorious service. 

The 988th was called to active duty in the first Gulf War in 1991. David Bell remembered that they flew to New York, where they joined other units from across the country. From New York, they flew to England, where they made a short stop before flying on to Saudi Arabia. They arrived in the middle of the night. There was no one there to greet them. "There were no buses. No one had expected us to arrive," Bell said. He fondly remembered the next afternoon turning on the radio and listening to the Atlanta Falcons game. "On the 22nd day of December we headed north into the desert. We spent our Christmas there in the desert. We had plenty of Claxton fruitcake to eat, maybe 200,000 pounds of it," Bell added. 

During the ceremonies, Billy Harrell rose to speak on behalf of the guys from the past. Harrell spent twenty-six years in the Army Reserve, twenty one of them in the 988th. He thanked Ernie Fultz for "being a daddy to all of us." Harrell proclaimed that if they had enough trenching tools and enough liquid refreshments they could have conquered the world back in the 1960s. Harrell emotionally expressed his pride in being a member of the company. 

Private Wright, the newest member of the company, opened the ceremonies with a stirring rendition of the "National Anthem." First Sergeant Henry James, the temporary commander of the 988th in the absence of Captain Beverly Rackston, explained the mission of the unit. James read a letter from Captain Rackston, now stationed in Kuwait, which saluted the men and women of the company and stated that "Every soldier must realize that they are part of the team." 

Lieutenant Colonel David Johnson, commander of the 352nd CSB in Macon, rose to speak next. Colonel Johnson, who drove down from his Marietta home at six o'clock this morning, spoke of his love for command. His love for being a commander is derived from the appreciation he has for his soldiers. Finding it hard to believe, Johnson told the audience that the Army is transforming itself into a more modular expeditionary force to fight terrorism. "This does not end your careers," he told the soldiers. Some of the soldiers will stay in Dublin as a part of the 803rd QM company , based in Opelika, Alabama. Others will be sent to Macon to join Colonel Johnson's command. Still others will join units across South Georgia. Johnson concluded his comments by saying that in his travels around the world, the supply units and the American soldiers are truly appreciated. 

The guest speaker for the day was Laurens County Sheriff Bill Harrell. Sheriff Harrell thanked the soldiers for their willingness to answer the call. He said that many don't realize the commitments that these soldiers make. In wishing the new and old members of the company well and applauding them for their sacrifices, Harrell concluded by saying that these men sacrifice themselves and their families to help a country realize their freedoms, which we, in this country, too often take for granted. 

After the colors were officially retired, the ceremony was completed. Someone finally found two stacks of old pictures of the company back in the good old days. Memories began to flow again. For as long as there is a member of the 988th Supply Company, the memories, well, they will always be there. 

The Army is not leaving Dublin; the 988th Supply Company is being transformed from a company to a platoon, which will from now forward be under the command of the 803rd Quartermaster Company. Many of the company's soldiers are now deployed overseas in support of Operations Endurance and Iraqi Freedom as a part of the team protecting the world from terrorism. 

06-36

 THE CHAUTAUQUA AUDITORIUM

                 If You Build It, He Will Come

                                

     Chautauqua fever was spreading across the country around the turn of the 20th

Century.  No, Chautauqua fever wasn't some rare and deadly tropical disease, a Chautauqua was a summer festival which featured a week of educational, scientific, social, and musical programs.  The City of Dublin presented its first Chautauqua festival in 1901.  Every year the planning committee struggled with ideas and the necessary funds to secure the most popular performers and speakers on the Chautauqua circuit.  The most sought after speaker was William Jennings Bryan.  But Bryan didn't perform in just any one-horse town and any shoddy lecture hall. To lure the country's most famous orator to its festival, the committee had to build an impressive auditorium designed to hold hundreds if not more than a thousand paying patrons.

     When the committee on entertainment met in the winter of 1904, those who believed strongly in the future of the festival knew that a permanent home for the festival must be built and to ensure that the festival would grow into a profitable event, the appearance of William Jennings Bryan was critical.  At first, the committee believed that the hall should seat at least three thousand.  To save money, it was decided that the building be rough on the exterior, but comfortable on the inside.   The dreamers knew that the building could also house a large number of other attractions throughout the year.

     At a meeting at the jewelry store of Dr. Charles H. Kittrell, those present appointed Hal M. Stanley, H.G. Stevens, Herman Hesse, T.L. Griner, C. Grier and Dr. Kittrell to a fund-raising committee.  The committee hoped to have "some of the brainiest, most entertaining lecturers on the American platform appear before Dublin audiences" in time for the festival in the summer of 1904.   Despite the untiring efforts of Dr. Kittrell and Messers Hesse and Stevens, the building could not be readied in time.  After a profitable return was paid to the festival's investors, interest in building an auditorium swelled.  

     After two years of planning, plans to build an auditorium began in earnest in the

spring of 1906.  Dublin tycoon J.D. Smith, the first person outside of the organizing

committee to be solicited about the endeavor, pledged $200.00 of the estimated $2500.00 cost of construction.    H.G. Stevens, Hal M. Stanley and W.L. Mason were appointed to the building committee.  Local contractor John A. Kelley was awarded the contract to build the auditorium in time for the festival in June.  

     Many who doubted the feasibility of the project believed that the building would be nothing more than an outdoor pavilion.  The architect designed the building to be one of the coolest in town. Remember central air conditioning was decades away.  To alleviate the accumulation of hot air in the building, Kelley and his crew built an unbroken series of five- foot tall windows around the perimeter of the building, which faced and abutted the western side of South Monroe Street, across from the former location of the studios of TV-35.  The building went back for a short distance before turning in a fan shape to the right in the main auditorium area.  

     After the remaining roofing materials arrived in late May, the contractors began to complete the major portions of the building by  the first of June.  The first  major portion of the building to be completed was the stage.  With the dimensions of twenty-four by forty-eight feet, it was proclaimed that it would be the best in this section of the state.  The stage would accommodate one hundred seated musicians.  The dressing rooms, first intended to be placed adjoining the stage floor, were moved to the rear of the building instead.  In the interest of time, the committee decided to install a temporary dirt floor covered with sawdust and line with primitive benches.   Reserved seats, no better than any other seat except for their proximity to the stage, were sold for $3.00 per seat during the Chautauqua. Once the stage and floor were completed, Kelley and his men began installing the fifty windows, which opened in transform form to create a breeze throughout the facility.   Kelley installed the windows as high as possible to allow the hot air to flow out and the cooler air to flow in from as close to ground level as possible.

     Though one-third smaller than originally planned, the completed building could

house nearly two thousand patrons.  The well-ventilated building was illuminated at night by ten dozen electric lights.  All of the window sash was not installed in time for the opening night of the festival.  Contractor Kelley improvised and installed a canvas above the windows which ran down at a 45-degree angle to prevent any rain from coming inside, but at the same time allowing the hot air to leave the building and the cooler air in. 

     Season tickets for the week were sold for $3 for the 508 reserved seats and $2 for

the 1114 regular seats.  Chautauqua times were always busy ones in town for the innkeepers as well as the merchants. Thousands of persons came into town by foot, wagon and train to see the shows.  The musicians were housed in the Patillo House on East Gaines Street and the rest of the performers stayed at the more luxurious New Dublin Hotel, just two blocks away from the auditorium on the corner of North Jefferson and East Madison streets.   Special trains hauling hundreds of customers came from Eastman, Tennille and Hawkinsville.  

     The fifth annual session, billed as the best ever, was held from June 17 through June 22, 1906.   The session opened with the sermon "Seeing Him Who is Invisible" by Dr. L.G. Herbert on Sunday morning.  Dr. Herbert, a relative newcomer to the Chautauqua circuit, was known as a forceful orator, a humorist of rare ability and a lecturer of power.  Edward Amherst Ott, of Chicago, Illinois, opened the first full day with his lecture "The Spenders." Dr. Herbert returned to the podium on Monday night with his lecture "A Man Among Men" and again on Wednesday morning with his most popular lecture "A Trinity of Power."

  

     A large crowd attended the Tuesday morning session to listen to the return of Prof. Kaler to Dublin.  Kaler, a former popular music teacher in Dublin, had to leave the city on account of his ill health.  After his recovery, Kaler assembled some of the state's best musicians to form Kaler's Orchestra out of Macon.  The orchestra was joined by The Royal Male Quartette of Des Moines, Iowa and the Star Entertainers of Danville, Michigan.  The members of the quartette also entertained the audiences with solos, duos and trios playing the trombone and the piano as they performed.   The Star Entertainers, led by C.L. Abbott and H.G. Morris, featured players playing twenty musical instruments and musical comedy skits.  Encore performances were held on Wednesday morning and Thursday night. Professor Ott, at the request of those who attended the 1905 lecture,  returned for an repeat of his lecture "The Haunted House" on Tuesday night.  

The highlight of the festival came on Wednesday night with the appearance of Congressman Richard Pearson Hobson.  Congressman Hobson, of Alabama, was one of the country's greatest heroes of the Spanish-American War in 1898.  Hobson risked his own life in sinking the Merrimac in an effort to bottle up Spanish admiral Cevera's fleet.  He was arrested and placed in a Spanish prison but was soon released on account of his bravery. Upon his return to civilian life, Hobson entered the political ring and defeated long time Alabama congressman Bankhead.  Nearly fifteen hundred people paid to hear one of the most popular lecturers in the history of the Chautauqua in Dublin. 

     Herbert L. Cope, the well-known humorist from Chicago, entertained a large audience on Thursday morning with his monologue, "The Smile That Won't Come Off."   At the appointed time, Cope was a no show and nervous directors kept the orchestra on the stage while anxious audience members wanted to stop the music and get on with the fun.  But just as the orchestra ended its first number, the whistle of the M.D. & S train signaled the arrival of the main act.   The final day of the festival featured an old-fashioned song service led by J.A. Warren.  Singers from all church choirs were invited to participate.  Mr. Warren was assisted by C.C. Hutto, E.W. McDaniel, J.R. Daniel and G.N. McLeod.  The afternoon session featured an inter-public school declamation contest by students in the city  and county systems as well as those from Washington, Johnson and Bulloch Counties.  Medals were awarded to the best boy and best girl in the 6-11and 12-20 year old categories.  Mr. Cope returned to close the festival with his hilarious program "The Religion of Laughter."

     By design the annual convention of the Georgia County Officer's Association was held in conjunction with the festival.  Mayor A.R. Arnau, along with L.Q. Stubbs, John M. Williams, R.H. Stanley and Dr. C.H. Kittrell, entertained the visitors with a boat ride on "The Louisa"  down the Oconee River and a barbecue  at the picnic grounds at Wilkes Springs, one of the usual destinations for prominent guests in Dublin.  

     The festival was a critical, as well as a financial success. Investors enjoyed a return of 42 cents on every dollar invested.   After the last person left the building and all the profits were calculated, it was time to finish the project.  On September 12, 1906, the directors of the Chautauqua voted to contract with the Garing Scenic Company to improve the stage.   Scenery, totaling forty-five pieces,  for a street, a garden, a parlor and a kitchen was ordered.  A new drop curtain was purchased.  The old one was retained for scenery. It was said that the new curtain was the second largest in the state, only smaller than the one used in the Grand Opera House in Atlanta.  Mr. Garing suggested that the sides of the building be clothed and painted. The supports and the roof were painted a white or light color.  Two large stoves were put in to keep the customers warm in the winter months. 

     Dr. C.H. Kittrell, the guiding force behind the auditorium, wasted no time and booked a variety of acts for the fall season.  The first show, "A Trip to Atlantic City," was performed by the John B. Willis Company.  Next up was the "The Denver Express."  During the rest of the season, there were performances of "The King of Tramps"  and one by the Edwin Weeks Company.      More improvements were made in 1908. Two thousand dollars was spent on a new floor.  Five hundred opera seats were placed near the stage.  A vestibule was installed in the front of the building.  A

twelve-man orchestra pit was improved to enhance the view of the stage.  The number of lights was increased three fold. The stage was enlarged by twenty feet to the rear.  Two large dressing rooms were added.  

     The results of the democratic primary in Georgia were announced in the auditorium in the spring of 1908.  Musical entertainment filled the intermissions between the announcements of vote totals.  In the fall of that year there were performances of "At the Village Post Office," "La Pooh," and "The Other Woman."   Manager Schiff announced that the Star Theater relocated to the building after its facility on Jackson Street became too small.  To boost business some suggested that the management install a roller skating rink in the building. 

     The successes of the Chautauqua festivals finally came to an end.  The first five sessions were profitable, but after the auditorium was constructed, the profits decreased slowly, then rapidly.   The property was sold for $5,500.00, but the levy and sale was invalidated as being too excessive.   In December of 1909, the Chautauqua Association was forced into receivership.  Dr. Kittrell and J.E. Burch

were named as receivers to gather up and dispose all of the assets of the association.  On the first Tuesday in January 1910, the receivers sold the building and all of its contents to Thomas W. Hooks for $3,377.50, a figure which represented half of its original cost.  Hooks, a public minded man, resisted suggestions that he convert the building into a warehouse and sell the furnishings.  

     Hooks might have asked himself, what about Bryan?  In the beginning, it was believed that if the city built a large building, Bryan would come.   The dream was still alive, but barely.    The convention of the Laymen's Missionary and Christian Workers Association was held in the auditorium in March. It was enough to pay the bills and keep the building in operation.

     A year went by and still no Bryan.  And then it happened.  Bryan had agreed to the terms of an appearance during his tour of Georgia in June 1911.   With the Chautauqua Association out of business, it was decided to name the program "The Summer Festival."  The program was composed of a concert by the Dublin Concert Band, a performance by the DeKoven Male Quartette and a solo presentation by Mrs. William C. Chilton.  There was also a stage performance by the Porter-Johnson Company and arousing performance by Tom Corwine, billed as the greatest one man act in America.   The festival ended with a program of local actors, led by Maggie Rawls.  Among those participating were Teddie Grier, Candler Brooks, William Brandon, Leah Kittrell, John Shewmake, Elizabeth Garrett, Freeman Deese, Joe Mahoney, Florence Simmons, Harrison Fuller, Saralyn Peacock, Elizabeth Arnau, Frederica Wade, Ethel Pritchett, Vince Mahoney, Pickette Bush, Maud Powell, Pauline Brigham and Ray Ballard, the pianist. 

     But the highlight of the festival and the highlight of the existence of the auditorium came on the evening of June 12, 1911.  Bryan, a four-time presidential candidate, was the country's most famous orator. Five special trains from Macon, Hawkinsville, Tennille, Eastman and Vidalia were scheduled.   Bryan spoke to the largest crowd in the history of the city.  His subject was "The Prince of Peace," which was well received by the throng in attendance.  After spending the night in Dublin, Bryan traveled east on the Central of Georgia railroad for appearances in Claxton and Statesboro the following day.  

     He was here! William Jennings Bryan, the ultimate oratory master, admired by millions actually came.  Then in a matter of weeks, perhaps months, the auditorium fell silent.  At some unknown date the auditorium burned.  Whether it met its death by arson or accident, the dreams of Bryan had come true.  So now, when you attend outdoor concerts at the new Farmers Market and sit in your lawn chairs as you listen to the music coming from the stage, turn back your thoughts to a century ago when the country's greatest performers entertained thousands and thousands of us a century ago.

06-37

CAPTAIN WILLIAM B. RICE

A Distinguished Innovator

William B. Rice was arguably the most important farmer, naval stores operator, businessman and financier that Laurens County has ever known.  Known simply as "Captain Rice," he was one of the most respected men of his day.  Never one to seek political office, he served his community by pursuing his business interests.  In  building his own substantial fortune  in the process, Rice pumped the economic engine which catapulted Dublin and Laurens County to become one of the most preeminent economic markets in Georgia in the first two decades of the 20th Century.

William Brooks Rice, son of Benjamin F. Rice,  was born on Edisto Island, South Carolina on October 2, 1856, one hundred and fifty years ago yesterday.  His mother, Rebecca Sauls Rice,  died when he was  only two years old. The young William was sent to live with his aunt.  His early years were spent in the maelstrom of South Carolina's secession from the Union and the resulting turbulence of the Civil War which nearly consumed Charleston.

Toward the end of the 19th Century, William and his brothers Dan G. Rice and Samuel Percy Rice, migrated from Florida to the western end of Emanuel County, Georgia.  The Rice brothers established a highly successful naval stores operation near Rixville, located  at the far limits of the county below Adrian.  Pine trees in the area were highly suitable for the production of gum turpentine, especially in the forests  between Adrian, Rockledge and Soperton.    It was during this time when William Rice earned the title of "Captain Rice."  Turpentining was a labor intensive operation requiring the employment of many men, usually black men, who worked for humble wages just to survive.   The title of captain was usually bestowed as an honorary title to a man who was the boss of a group of laborers.

Captain Rice began to diversify his interests by engaging in farming.  In 1901, he made the headlines in the Atlanta Constitution by earning nearly two thousand dollars on a 40-acre hay field.  By 1902, as Captain Rice's fortunes began to mount, it became apparent that he needed to move to Dublin to keep up with his station in life.   Though he was no longer a resident of Adrian, Captain Rice offered his services to the movement to establish the new county of James surrounding the town of Adrian.  Rice served as vice president of the organization along with Captain T.J. James, Adrian's most influential and powerful businessman.

Captain Rice and his family moved to Dublin in the summer of 1904.  He moved to a fine home which he called "Brookwood" on the western outskirts of Dublin along the Macon Road.  His  home was located on the site of the Carl Vinson V.A. Medical Center.  Following the resignation of J.E. "Banjo" Smith as vice president of the First National Bank of Dublin, Captain Rice and his business partner, William S. Phillips, were appointed as co-vice presidents of the bank.  The First National was Dublin's largest and most prosperous bank and was known as the largest country bank in Georgia.

One of Captain Rice's greatest contributions to Dublin and Laurens County was his leadership in the establishment of the Twelfth Congressional District Fair in 1911.  Rice chairmaned the 1913 event.  Perhaps the greatest in the fair's brief history, the exposition recorded twelve thousand admissions in a single day. 

Always a strong spiritual and monetary supporter of business interests in Dublin and Laurens County, Captain Rice joined his colleagues J.M. Finn, R.M. Arnau, R.F. Deese, Izzie Bashinski and D.S. Brandon in incorporating the Dublin Chamber of Commerce in 1914.  Rice was involved in other business ventures as a director of the Dublin Buggy Company, the Chamber of Commerce Warehouse Company, the Citizen Loan and Guaranty Company (the region's largest insurance company,) and the Thompson Horse and Mule Powder Company.  Rice partnered with W.S. Phillips and W.T. Phelps in a stable business on the north side of the courthouse square in the first decade of the 20th Century.  Known as a man with great foresight, Rice purchased one of the first automobiles in Dublin, a thirty horsepower Cadillac from the Miller Brothers in 1907. 

But without any doubt, W.B. Rice's greatest contribution to Laurens County came in the field of agriculture.  He sought out and studied new methods of farming to improve crop production and profits.    Within five years of cotton farming in the county, Rice boasted that he could harvest 800 bales of cotton on an 800-acre farm.  In 1913, he studied the use of new irrigation techniques.  Rice believed that a network of terra cotta pipes delivering water evenly throughout his fields would greatly increase profits.  During World War I, Captain Rice urged his fellow farmers to plan a more diversified array of foodstuffs to support the war effort.   On his Brookwood plantation, he maintained one of this section's finest herd of cattle, many of them registered Herefords.  He annually maintained a passel of hogs weighing more than fifty thousand pounds.    A kine of a hundred dairy cattle grazed on his farm supplying his dairy, bringing him an annual profit of more than twelve thousand dollars.

In the disastrous years following World War I, Georgia's agricultural economy began to collapse.   The near annihilation of the cotton crop and the beginning of a vast migration of Negro farm workers to the North forced farmers to diversify their crops and livestock operations by banding together to take advantage of farm cooperatives.  One of the first national organizations to form in Georgia after the war was the American Association of Farm Bureaus.    The Farm Bureau was formed to provide opportunities for information on production, conservation, distribution and better living conditions  for farmers.  Captain Rice was selected as the initial 12th Congressional District member of the Georgia Farm Bureau Advisory Board in 1920.  

Captain Rice was a fervent leader of the Baptist church.   He moved his membership from the Adrian Baptist Church to the First Baptist Church of Dublin in 1905.   A century ago, Rice was one of the leading contributors to the erection of the present church in Dublin.

Captain William Brooks Rice died on the morning of December 9, 1929.  He was buried with his family in a vault in the Mausoleum in Northview Cemetery in a funeral attended by hundreds of friends, family and admirers.   He was described by a biographer as one of those people you like the first time you meet them.  He always spoke what was on his mind, without shuffling or evasion.  Able to converse with any person on his level, Rice was a bright blue-eyed man, frequently humorous and habitually smiling, except when being photographed.   Perhaps these words in his obituary aptly symbolized his character:  superb strength of character, most generous helpfulness of hand and great kindness of heart. 

06-38 

DUDLEY MAYS HUGHES

A Beacon of Agriculture and Education

No other resident of a county surrounding Laurens County has had more of a lasting impact on the history of Laurens County than Congressman Dudley Mays Hughes of Danville, Twiggs County, Georgia.  Though his grandfather was a resident of Laurens, Dudley Hughes lived most of his life on his plantation in Danville, Georgia.  As a railroad baron, agriculturalist and congressman, Hughes led the citizens between Dublin and Macon out of the abyss of Reconstruction through the zenith of the cotton boom, which prematurely ended with the coming of the boll weevil and the resulting bank failures and worker migration to the North. 

Dudley Mays Hughes was born on October 10, 1848 in Jeffersonville, Georgia.  His parents, Daniel G. Hughes and Mary Moore Hughes, were prominent residents of the county. His father  represented Twiggs County in the Georgia legislature.  His grandfather Hayden Hughes, of Laurens County,  was one of Central Georgia’s largest slave owners.  Hughes received most of his primary education at private schools, primarily at Oakland Academy.  Though he never formally completed his studies at the University of Georgia, Dudley was made an honorary graduate.  While in college, Dudley developed life time friendships with many of Georgia’s future leaders, including Henry W. Grady, Governor Nat Harris and University of Georgia Chancellor Walter B. Hill.  

Dudley Hughes’ station in life was set in 1870 when he left college in the middle of his senior year to try his hand at agriculture.  Though very adept in his academic faculties, Dudley was also masterful the modern methods of agricultural principles.  After a trial run on his grandfather’s farm in Laurens County,  Hayden Hughes rewarded the young man with a bounty of a thousand dollars for his excellent work.  Hughes used his grant to purchase and establish his Danville farm into one of the section’s most profitable operations.  

Hughes realized that in order for agricultural operations to prosper, that railroads were an absolute necessity.  The closest railroad to his home was the Central of Georgia Railroad in Wilkinson County.   Hughes  represented Twiggs County in the Georgia Senate from 1882-1883.  With his enhanced political power and support,  Hughes consulted with his father and his  contemporaries John M. Stubbs of Dublin, Ashley Vickers of Montrose  and Joshua Walker of Laurens Hill in the creation of a railroad from Macon to Savannah through Dublin temporarily  under the name of the Macon and Dublin Railroad then officially as  the Savannah, Dublin and Western Shortline Railroad, which eventually became the Macon, Dublin and Savannah Railroad.  In July 1891 near the end of his six-year term as the railroad’s first president, Hughes and a host of dignitaries rode the inaugural train from Macon to Dublin.  Hughes remained active in the railroad’s operation as its vice-president for several more years until northern investors took over its management from its local progenitors.

After subordinating his railroad interests to his passion for farming, Hughes concentrated on the development of his plantation and the promotion of agriculture and horticultural interests across the state.  Along with his close friend John M. Stubbs, Hughes was active in the establishment of orchards around Montrose and Dublin.  He served for four years as president of the Georgia State Agricultural Society and ten years  as a founding member and first president of the Georgia Fruit Grower’s Association.  As president of the Agricultural Society, Hughes pledged to do all in his power to work for the society as a beacon light for the farmers to look to for guidance and encouragement.  In 1977, Dudley Hughes was named to the National Agricultural Hall of Fame along with Eli Whitney as the sixth and seventh members of the most honored agriculturalists in American history, joining George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington Carver,  Cyrus McCormick and Justin Morrill.  Hughes maintained a large naval stores operation and a 90,000 tree orchard in Laurens County.  Hughes was one of the first farmers to use telephones to coordinate his diverse farming operations at various locations in Twiggs and Laurens County.   He took a personal and active interest in farming, riding a thoroughbred horse from farm to farm to make sure everything was going smoothly. 

Hughes was a fervent conservationist, historian and Christian.  He was a Mason, Elk and member of the Georgia Historical Society.  Hughes was a leader in experimentation of agricultural theories and promoted the establishment of three hundred experiment stations around the state.  Despite his iconic stature, Hughes remained loyal to his local church, serving as a deacon and Sunday school superintendent.  His expertise and leadership were always in demand.  Gov. Joseph Terrell appointed Hughes as Commissioner General of Georgia for the St.  Louis World’s Fair.

Though he disdained politics in his early life, he answered the call of his colleagues for political office on a higher scale.  After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 1906, Hughes was elected to represent the 3rd Congressional District of Georgia in 1908.  He served two terms before transferring to the 12th Congressional District in 1912, easily winning reelection for two more terms.  He won coveted seats on the House Military, Agriculture and Education committees.  Always a  zealot of education, Hughes served as a trustee of the University of Georgia, the University of Georgia School of Agriculture, South Georgia Normal School and Georgia Normal and Industrial College, now Georgia College an State University.   

    

One of Congressman Hughes’ most lasting contributions on a national basis came  in1914, when Democratic president Woodrow Wilson appointed him to a presidential commission to explore the viability of federal funding of vocational and agricultural education in public schools.  As the Democratic Chairman of the House Committee on Education, Hughes worked with fellow Georgian, Senator Hoke Smith, in developing a bill, which became known as the Smith-Hughes Act.  Adopted by Congress in 1917, the Smith-Hughes Act provided matching federal funding for vocational education.

Dudley Hughes married Mary Frances Dennard in 1873.  Their children were Hugh Lawson Dennard Hughes, Henrietta Louise Hughes and Daniel Greenwood Hughes. Dan G. Hughes followed in his father’s footsteps by serving as Georgia’s Commissioner of Agriculture.   Hugh, a successful Twiggs County businessman, served as a Trustee of the University of Georgia and Middle Georgia College.  Henrietta Louise, known affectionately as “Miss Hennilu” outlived her brothers and lived in her father’s Magnolia Plantation until her death  at the age of 102.  Magnolia Plantation was restored about two decades ago and stands a monument to the Hughes’ legacy of his contributions to the agricultural and education progress of Georgia.  Dudley Hughes died on January 20, 1927 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Perry.

Dudley Hughes was considered a man of high integrity, always sympathetic and interested in those with whom he conversed.  He was always erect in his in his carriage and looked everyone straight in the eye.  He was known to have loved children and animals, always grateful for their presence in the midst of his hurried world.   Though some people may disagree, the founders of the Town of Dudley named their town in his honor.  Many also think that Montrose was his middle name and therefore he was the name sake of that town as well.  “Colonel Hughes,” as he was known to most of his friends, was honored when the citizens of Montrose, Allentown and Danville attempted to form their own county named in his honor.  The city of Macon did name a vocational school for him and his hometown of Danville was named for his father, Daniel G. Hughes. 

 

06-39

JOHN J. MCDONOUGH

A Citizen Wherever He Served

From time to time, exceptional people pass through our midst.  Some are only here for a short time, while others are here for all of our lives.  This is the story of a gridiron star of the Roaring Twenties, who climbed his way from the locker room of a powerful college football team to the board room of one of Georgia's largest corporations.  During his celebrated lifetime, this young man sojourned in Dublin for a brief while on the first rung of the ladder to the board chairmanship of Georgia Power Corporation.

John Joseph McDonough was born in Savannah, Georgia on January 26, 1901.  John, or "Jack" as his friends called him, entered the Georgia Institute of Technology after his graduation from high school in Savannah.  While pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Jack became the quarterback of the football team at Georgia Tech under Coach William Alexander.  One Atlanta sportswriter commented that he had the complexion of an Indian, albeit that his tan came from the sunshine of his native home.  His greatest season was his last season when he helped the Tech team to garner the co-championship of the Southern Conference in 1922.  

Jack, known as "Gooch" to his teammates,  was compared to Brer Rabbit.  In the 1921 season, he led the Yellow Jackets to a defeat of a great Rutgers team.  "He always ran the right thing at the right time and helped to put drive into every play.  He was always there when we needed a yard or two for a first down.  That's the best thing about Jack, he can always slip through a hole for the necessary gain when it is needed," commented Tech end John Staton.   In one of his greatest games, his Yellow Jackets smashed the Crimson Tide of Alabama by the score of 33-7.  Forty decades later, McDonough was elected to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.  Because of his prowess on the football field, he was offered a position as football coach and mathematics teacher at Savannah High School.  After four years in his hometown, McDonough was approached by Georgia Southern Power Corporation for a position with the company. 

In a 1925 referendum, the voters of Dublin overwhelmingly voted in favor of selling the municipal power plant to Georgia Southern Power primarily in reliance upon the company's promise to make Dublin a distribution point for Middle Georgia.  Company officials sent McDonough to Dublin as an assistant manager in the Dublin office in his first regular assignment.  Then, after only thirteen months, Jack McDonough was promoted again, this time as district manager in Athens, home of his intra-state collegiate rivals.  After only four months in Athens, he was again transferred, this time to Brunswick where he served the remainder of 1928.  Jack McDonough returned to Dublin in January of 1929 where, as district manager, he supervised the Dublin, McRae and Vidalia districts.  McDonough continued his nomadic career by returning to Brunswick after only five months in Dublin.

Jack McDonough was working as the district manager of the Douglas office when the company became the Georgia Power Company in 1930.    He worked as division commercial and sales manager in Augusta in 1937, when he moved to Atlanta.  After another short stint, McDonough moved to Rome, Georgia, where finally he began a thirteen-year stable period of employment, first as division manager and then as division manager and vice-president of the company.

His superiors in the company felt that Jack's rightful place was in the main office in Atlanta.  For a half year, McDonough  served as the district manager of the Atlanta office.  In May 1951, the board of directors elected McDonough as executive vice president of Georgia Power, the number two position in the company.  For six years, McDonough served under President Harlee Branch, Jr.  providing invaluable services wherever the need arose.  In January 1957, McDonough became the sixth president of Georgia Power Company.  After another six years of outstanding service to the company, the stockholders and directors of the company elevated Jack McDonough to position of chairman of the board. 

During his administration, McDonough oversaw tremendous growth in the company's service to the rapidly expanding post war city scapes and country sides of Georgia.  Through his efforts and thousands of outstanding employees, Georgia Power Company became the nation's tenth largest publicly owned utility company.   McDonough served until his retirement in 1966, when he took a seat as a director on Georgia Power's parent company, the Southern Company. 

During his forty years at Georgia Power Company, Jack McDonough accumulated a remarkable array of accolades and honors.   He was the first native Georgian ever to be nominated as "Engineer of the Year."  A general plant on the Chattahoochee River near Atlanta was named his honor.  As a business man, John J. McDonough was much in demand as a corporate director.  He served on the boards of the Central of Georgia Railway, Pepperill Manufacturing Company, Mead Corporation, Edison Electric Institute, Southern Research Institute, Georgia Future Homemakers of America, Georgia Future Farmers of America, and Georgia International Life Insurance Company.

In summing up his philosophies of business and life, McDonough was said to have firmly believed that the company should get things done, serving as a citizen of the state whenever and wherever necessary, never in fear of the future nor scorning the past.  He encouraged his employees to take a look at everything and never making anything permanent, except progress.

Jack McDonough incorporated his business philosophy as a citizen servant into his personal civic and philanthropic service to the state.  He was vice chairman of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia from 1947 to 1957.  A supporter of the arts, McDonough served on boards which included the Atlanta Music Festival, Atlanta Arts Alliance and Atlanta Symphony Guild.  Children, youth and the unfortunate were of paramount importance to Jack.  He served on the Georgia Tech Foundation, the YMCA, Metropolitan Atlanta Community Services, the Georgia Society for Crippled Children and Adults, the Red Cross and Easter Seals, serving as state chairman of the latter from 1955 to 1957.   He served on countless boards and committees on Chamber of Commerce boards, the Atlanta Athletic Club, the Commerce Club, the Piedmont Driving Club, and the Peachtree Golf Club and numerous other organizations.  

John J. McDonough was recognized as one of the most influential figures in the industrial and commercial life of Georgia.  He died on April 1, 1983 in Atlanta after a lengthy illness. 

 

     06-40     

STILL MORE SNIPPETS

More than Trivial Pieces of our Past

During the 1930s, more and more political and military leaders foresaw a great war being fought in Europe.  In 1919, one Dublin man, S.M. Alsup, predicted  another world war, twenty years before it happened.  S.M. Alsup was a clerk with the American Forces in Treves, Germany.  On February 2, 1919, Alsup wrote a letter to his wife.  Alsup talked with German citizens and observed what was going on around him.  Alsup predicted "that if Germany is allowed to run her manufacturing plants and other industries to the extent of making it possible for her to pay the huge debt that she is supposed to pay, she will be on top again before we know it; at which time the war of all wars will be fought."  Alsup went on to write, "I certainly hope I am wrong, but my opinion is that in 1940 there will be another great war, if not earlier."  Alsup's prediction was right on the money - twenty years before Great Britain declared war against Germany and World War II began.  Dublin Courier Herald, June 20, 1940. 

When producers of "Return to Macon County Line" began looking for a town in which to film the movie, they chose Forsyth, Georgia because of its resemblance to a 1950s town.  Back in the 1960s, Dublin businessman Earl Cannon told TV star Dan Blocker, of Bonanza fame, about his 1956 pink Eldorado Cadillac.  Blocker told the producers who contracted with Cannon to rent his car for the movie.  The producers paid Cannon $40.00 per day for the use of the car and its driver, Earl Cannon, Jr.  The car appeared in a scene early in the movie when co-star Don Johnson meets a car load of cheerleaders, who are driving the classic pink car.   Although the movie's stars, Don Johnson and Nick Nolte went on to bigger and better films, the movie, like most sequels, was not a big hit and can now be found on the clearance rack in video tape stores for about the cost of one blank video tape.

The Dublin High Tip Off Club sponsored a pair of basketball games to raise funds for Dublin High basketball on January 2, 1971.   The first game was between current Irishette players and former Irishette stars, a usual type of game for fund raising.  The second game was not so usual.  The nightcap was a game between the Atlanta All-Pros and Irish coaches and alumni.  Tom Perry, one of Dublin's greatest all time players, led the Dublin team with 22 points, followed by Lawrence Davis with 21 points.  Also playing for the Dublin team were Marvin Tarpley, Ben Snipes, Bill Roberts, Tal Fuqua, Earl Farmer, Ray Toole, Jim Richardson, Roy Hammond, and Louie Blue.  The Atlanta All Pros were a ten man team composed of non-basketball players.  Although they didn't play basketball for a living, they were among the better athletes in the country.  The All Pros were a team composed mainly of players from the Atlanta Braves.  The Atlanta All Pros lead all the way.  Bob Didier, a 21-year-old catcher for the Braves, shot two long range bombs and the baseball players never looked back.  Didier's 28 points were only exceeded by his battery mate, Ron Reed, a 6' 6" tall pitcher, who pumped in 34 points.  Sonny Jackson, the Braves shortstop, scored 11 points.  Also playing for the All Pros were pitcher, Jim Nash, Earl Williams, who would become the National League Rookie of the Year in 1971, and last but not least, Bob  Uecker, who managed to score four points.  Uecker, whose exploits on the field have been eclipsed by his unique brand of humor as a television and movie star, as well as a long time Milwaukee Brewer announcer.  The Atlanta All Pros were coached by Clete Boyer, an all-star third baseman who played for the Braves and the last great Yankee teams of the 1960s.  The Atlanta All Pros led by six at half-time by the score 45 to 39.  The Pros pulled away to win by the final score of 95 to 78.  The game was played in the old Dublin High gym, now known as the Junior High gym. Dublin Courier Herald, Jan. 4, 1971.

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 bell was dubbed "Big John."  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.  A 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.  Boardman's garden, known as Austrian Valley, was a 47-acre tract with lakes, fountains, terraces, and a hillside lodge.  Dogwoods, azaleas, and other varieties of plants adorned the Boardman home, which was modeled on an Austrian village.    Dublin Courier Herald, Feb. 2, 1967.

It looked like a scene out of World War II.  A B-26 bomber with flames coming out of it was falling to the earth.  The plane, a part of an outfit known as the Confederate Air Force, developed trouble on a flight from Louisville, Georgia to its home base of San Marcos, Texas.  The pilots jettisoned the cockpit and crash landed the bomber into a field belonging to M.O. Darsey.  Both pilots survived.  Dublin Courier Herald, May 13, 1976

She was not your typical southern police officer.   Kathy Hogan worked in the Dublin police department as a dispatcher.  That position was normally held by a female.  There were no female cops.  Many said that they couldn't handle the demands of the job.   Kathy, a resident of Dudley,  began to train for a position as police officer.  Within twelve days, she had completed the requisite courses and was sworn in as a officer of the Dublin police department on August 27, 1979.  Hogan's training would continue during her first year of duty.   Officer Henderson later advanced her career.  She has served on the Georgia State Patrol for nearly twenty-five years.   Dublin Courier Herald, August 28. 1979.

06-41

REAL ESTATE TO DIE FOR

An Altering Altercation

For thousands of years men have fought and died for real estate, the right to live on it, the right to own it and the right to control it.  A century ago one such battle took place. It was all over the right to own six hundred acres of land valued at a mere three dollars an acre. This is a story of one such fight, which resulted in two deaths and the alteration of a county line.

J. Letcher Tyre was a prominent Laurens County timberman and saw mill operator. Herschel Tarbutton, Gus Tarbutton and Joe Fluker were all prominent young men in Washington County and were well known in Johnson County, which upon his creation divided Laurens and Washington counties.

During the early decades of the 20th Century, prime timberlands were much in demand, especially tracts with a mixture of hardwoods and pines.  Letcher Tyre had contracted with a Mr. Young to purchase a six hundred acre tract at the far limits of the northern end of Laurens County on the eastern side of the Oconee River.  Tyre executed what was once called a "bond for title," whereby he would pay Young on an installment basis and take fee simple title only upon the completion of all payments due.    According to Young, Tyre defaulted in the payment schedule.  Owing to his desire to remove to South Georgia, Young sought out another buyer, one Herschel Tarbutton of Washington County.

That's when the trouble began.

Tyre maintained that he had a superior right to ownership and possession of the land and  proceeded to conduct logging operations. He hired a crew of hands to erect a saw mill on the site.  Gus Tarbutton had three of Tyre's men arrested for trespassing.   The trial was continued until the November term of court.   Tyre set out to do a little squirrel hunting on a fair skied cool November Saturday morning.  

A Mr. Waters' son rode to Joe Fluker's house and told Fluker that Tyre and his men were building shacks on the land and were going to move in a boiler later in the day.  Tarbutton called for his brother Gus and brother-in-law Fluker to ride out to investigate the goings on.  When the trio arrived on the scene, Lee Woodum, one of Tyre's saw mill hands, was sent to find Tyre.  Tyre rushed back to the saw mill site and promptly asked the horsemen, "What can I do for you?"   According to some  witnesses, Herschel Tarbutton began to move around Tyre in a counterclockwise direction, while Gus and Joe moved clockwise to Tyre's right.   "I would not do that on my own premises," Tyre warned.  "That's a damned lie!  You are not on your own place," Herschel Tarbutton retorted.   Tarbutton pulled his .44 caliber pistol and fired it directly into Tyre's abdomen.  Gus Tarbutton got down off his horse.  Some of those present testified that both Gus and Joe fired.  But, it was Herschel's shot that hit the mark, entering his stomach and traveling completely through Tyre's body.  Tyre managed to grab his squirrel gun and get off one shot, a direct hit in Herschel Tarbutton's right eye.  Gus Tarbutton ran off into the woods. 

Letcher Tyre, with the aid of his crew, struggled and made it to the neighboring Waters' house, while Gus and Joe begged Tyre's men to take their wounded comrade to a doctor.  Tyre's brother, J.B. Tyre, was summoned to his brother's side.  He found his dying brother in a conscious condition.  Letcher began to speak to those around.  Realizing that his death was eminent, Tyre issued a dying declaration that the Tarbuttons and Fluker refused his demands for mercy and instead showed absolute determination to kill him.  Tyre died later in the evening. His body lies buried in the old section of the cemetery at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

Herschel Tarbutton was carried to the sanitarium of Dr. Rawlings in Sandersville, where he died the next day.  Tarbutton also told his doctors and interrogators that he was the first to be shot.  In the midst of the excitement following the incident, many Laurens Countians believed that Tarbutton had not actually died.  Rumor had it that a dummy was inserted into his coffin and that Tarbutton was secreted to a hiding place.  To contradict the rampant rumors, Sandersville police chief L.J. Blount issued a sworn statement in the presence of Laurens County Judge of the Court of Ordinary W.A. Wood declaring that he had observed Tarbutton's death, helped to dress his body and watched as it was buried in the Sandersville cemetery.  Other reputable Sandersville citizens came forward to sustain Blount's statement, including two physicians, the chief nurse of the hospital, both the Baptist and Methodist ministers, the clerk of court and the postmaster. 

News of the affair spread rapidly throughout the home counties of the participants. Laurens County Sheriff John D. Prince rode over to Sandersville to arrest Gus Tarbutton and Joe Fluker.  The two surrendered and were taken back to Laurens County to stand trial.

With the aid of C.G. Rawlings, Tarbutton and Fluker assembled perhaps the greatest league of defense attorneys ever to appear in a Laurens County courtroom.  His leading attorneys were A.F. Daley and J.L. Kent of Wrightsville, both of whom would become judges of the Dublin Judicial Circuit.  G.H. Howard and J.E. Hyman of Sandersville were also brought in on the case.  T.L. Griner and J.S. Adams of Dublin joined the defense team to handle matters in the courts in Dublin.  The heaviest hitter of all was Thomas W. Hardwick.  Hardwick was serving in the United States Congress and was one of Georgia's most popular young politicians.  Hardwick later went on to become a United States Senator and Governor of Georgia.  He lived for a few short years in Dublin, where he owned and edited the Dublin Courier Herald.   Representing the State of Georgia was a smaller, but equally impressive lineup of barristers.  Led by solicitor-general Joseph Pottle, the prosecution team was led by Thomas E. Watson, former Populist congressman and future Democratic Senator from Georgia, along with Peyton Wade, future Chief Justice of the Georgia Court of Appeals and J.B. Hicks of Dublin.  The chief assistant defense counsel in the early stages of the court proceedings was Kenrick J. Hawkins, of Dublin.  Seven years later Hawkins became the first judge of the Dublin Judicial Circuit.

Tarbutton and Fluker's initial court appearance came before Dublin District Justice of the Peace, Judge John B. Wolfe.  The defense attorneys objected to the case being heard by Judge Wolfe, who was deferred to a three-justice panel composed of Nathan Gilbert (Burgamy District), P.E. Grinstead (Reedy Springs District) and John S. Drew, Jr. (Oconee District).  With an army of lawyers in place, the legal wrangling began. 

Part 2 of 2

On November 26, a commitment trial was held in the Laurens County Courthouse. Dr. W.R. Brigham took the stand first and testified that the fatal shot was fired from an elevated position.  The justices found there was sufficient evidence to bind Messers Tarbutton and Fluker over for a trial on murder charges.  T.L. Griner attempted to discredit Lee Woodum's testimony concerning the Tarbutton's instigation of the violence by showing that B.B. Linder, the deceased brother-in-law, gave Woodum a script to testify from.  The attorneys clashed in a bitter battle over the issue of whether or not Tyre's field hand's testimony had been rehearsed or even paid for.

From the very beginning, defense attorneys attempted to show that the venue of the trial should not be in Laurens County, but in Johnson County where the crime actually happened.  W.D. Howell testified that he had lived in the Kittrell community for forty years and Tyre was indeed shot in Laurens County.    J.B. Tyre took the stand next and testified that his brother told him that the defendants had killed him.  Defense attorney Griner was able to get Tyre to admit that Dr. Brigham was not present and that he was alone at the time of his accusation.  He concluded his testimony by relating what his brother told him about the events of that fateful afternoon.  He told the justices that his brother told his antagonists that they could settle the matter without trouble.   Tyre, under an intense cross-examination, finally admitted that his brother never told him that Gus or Joe shot him. C.S. Pope's testimony of a conspiracy was ruled inadmissable.

After the prosecution rested, Gus Tarbutton took the stand in his own defense. He testified that as he and Herschel  rode up, Tyre, with his shotgun in his hand, declared, "Who do you want to see?"  Gus told the justices that Tyre fired at him, striking his horse.  He went on to say that Tyre then fired six or seven shots at his brother Herschel, eventually striking him.  He said that Herschel moved back behind them and the gut shot Tyre asked him for a drink of water.  Gus said that he told Tyre if he would put down his gun that he would get him something to drink.  He then said that his uncle Joe told him that "your brother is shot all to pieces."  Joe Fluker repeated, almost exactly, the testimony of his nephew Gus.  After the Tarbutton's left the scene, Fluker told the court that he went back and retrieved Herschel's bloodstained hat, which he described as having twenty shot holes in it. 

J.J. Lord rebutted Tarbutton and Fluker's testimony by stating that he heard two or three pistol shots and then the report of a shotgun, followed by ten to twelve more pistol shots from his position about a half mile away.  He continued to state that he rode to the site of the shooting on Sunday morning and found multiple bullets all over the place and only two empty shot gun shells.  On cross examination Lord admitted he found only one empty pistol shell and the two shot gun shells he found were loaded.  Lord's brother, H.H. Lord, repeated his testimony.  James Brown told the justices that he was a mile away and heard two pistol shots, then a shot gun blast and then seven or eight more shots.

Believing that the justices would grant them bail, they never introduced any evidence on their part.  The justices denied a bond for bail.  On the following Monday, Judge Lewis granted a bond of twenty thousand dollars, which was immediately posted by a group of their friends with a combined net worth of more than a million dollars.  The freed men took the first train out of town to Wrightsville.

A trial was set for February 4, 1907.  Defense attorneys moved for a continuance on multiple grounds.  It was asserted that E.P. Woods could testify that it was only Herschel Tarbutton who fired the fatal shot. The defense lawyers maintained they could not locate a crucial prosecution witness, Lee Woodum.  The state's attorneys maintained that he was available and had been in the presence of the parties just days before the trial.  With such a large number of attorneys involved in the case, their entire presence was almost impossible.   Congressman T.W. Hardwick was in attendance of a session of Congress. A.F. Daley maintained he had a severe cold and could not last a day, much less the length of an entire trial.  The court granted the delay based on the continuance more on the fact that there was a reasonable ground to allow the defense to move forward with its contention that the killing actually occurred in Johnson County.

Governor Joseph M. Terrell appointed L.W. Roberts, an Atlanta Civil Engineer, who was hired to determine the true location of the line dividing Laurens and Johnson counties.  With very scant evidence at hand, Roberts, considered one of the best surveyors in Georgia, set out to mark the line which had been established by the Georgia legislature in 1857, some fifty years earlier.  The act creating Johnson County provided that the county line would begin on the eastern bank of the Oconee River, opposite the mouth of Big Sandy Creek and then in an easterly direction to the ford at Fort's Creek on the Buckeye Road. From that point the line was to turn in a southeasterly direction to a point a mile south of Snell's Bridge on the Little Ohoopee River.  The initial map of Johnson County was of no value.  The official map of Laurens County was not much better.    Roberts did manage to locate seventy-year-old J.F. Mixon of Johnson County, who was one of the men who carried the surveyor's chains back in 1857.  Mixon accompanied him to the area and pointed out the old lines.  

In mid July, Georgia Secretary of State Phil Cook upheld Robert's report.  Roberts calculated that the line in the Kittrell community was a little further south than where it was thought to have been and consequently, Tyre was shot in Johnson, and not Laurens County.  But more changes were found.  When all was said and done, Johnson County gained eight hundred acres and lost three hundred acres and ten families to Laurens County for a net gain of five hundred acres.    Laurens County hired attorney M.H. Blackshear to  protest the surveyor's findings, but to no avail.    Ironically, questions over the true location of the county line continued for at least six more decades.

The case was removed to Johnson County for trial. But with a more sympathetic Solicitor General, no trial of Gus Tarbutton or Joe Fluker ever took place.  Nearly two decades later, an interesting postscript took place in Johnson County.   On February 17, 1925, Gus Tarbutton was walking through the woods along the Oconee River, not too far from the location where he, his brother and his uncle had confronted Letcher Tyre.  In his company was one J.J. Tanner, the overseer of Mr. C.G. Rawlings.   Tarbutton and Rawlings were business partners in a mineral rights venture in the area. Each took out life insurance policies on their partner's lives.  Based primarily on the testimony of my great-great uncle Noah Covington, Jr., Tanner was convicted of killing Tarbutton.  His conviction was upheld and Tanner was sentenced to life in prison.  In a sense, Letcher Tyre reached out of his grave and got the revenge his brother so desperately sought.  This time a man had to die over money, albeit the massive sum of two hundred thousand dollars.   The Apostle Paul was right, "the love of money is the root of all evil."

06-42

THE DUBLIN HIGH SCHOOL BAND

Seventy Seasons of Superior Sounds

For the last seventy football seasons the Dublin High School Band has supplied the sounds which epitomize the atmosphere of football on Friday nights.   As one of the oldest high school bands in the state, the Irish musicians have proved themselves to be champions on the football fields, the parade avenues and concert halls throughout the state and nation.  The tradition of superior sounds  all began on an autumn evening seventy years ago this week.

Actually Dublin’s first marching band was organized in 1901.  Local sponsors would hire band directors to a one year contract to mold young men into a band of talented troubadours, who would entertain during local parades and concerts.  In reality some of the musicians were students, while many were adults.  The Dublin Military Band was organized under the direction of Professor Carl Leake of Jackson, Mississippi.    The band dissolved, only to be resurrected in 1908 by conductor Paul Verpoest.    Verpoest built the organization into one of the state’s finest marching bands.  The Dublin band represented the State of Georgia at the reunions of the United Confederate Veterans in Little Rock, Arkansas, Macon, Georgia and Richmond, Virginia in 1911, 1912 and 1914.

In 1936, the Dublin Green Hurricane was enjoying a resurgence.  School officials decided that what the team needed was a band to spur the football team on toward greater success.  The first unofficial marching band performance occurred on October 23, 1936 during a football game with Eastman High School.  During a football game in Vidalia on  November 20, 1936,  the first uniformed Dublin High School Band took to the field  under the director of James Wilhelm Wiggins.  

The first to join the band were alto saxophonists Anthony Lewis,  James Hamilton, Charles Horton, and James Carroll; tenor saxophonist McGrath Keen, trumpeters Luther Word, Pat Roche, Isadore Bashinski,  Clifford Harbour, Bill Jones and Frank Hancock; trombonists  Menzo Barron and Joe Grier, Trombone; percussionists Billy Keith, Edith Mae Tindol (Allgood) and Alma Grace Harbour.  Thomas Curry, Jr. played the French horn, while J.L. Perry carried the bass line on tubas.  Other early members of the band were Paul Watson, Cecil Waters, James Carroll, Ivan Prim, Jimmie Burnam, Ed Thomas, Mary Jean Jernigan, Charles Horton, Moffett Kendrick, Milo Smith, Gene Scarboro, Barbara Bedingfield (Shuler), Lester Porter, Clarence Burch, Majeed Jepeway, Blanche Coleman, Robert Thompson,  Cliff Prince, Jr., Hymie Stinson, Buford Page, Betty Page, John Griffin, James B. Hutchinson, Blakely Parrott and Zeke Etheridge. Tragically Luther Word, James B. Hutchinson and Blakely Parrott would all be killed in World War II. 

Money for uniforms was scant at best in the last years of the Great Depression. The Dublin band’s uniform consisted of white trousers and shirts, adorned with a green tie,  draped with a green cape and topped with a white military style hat with a green band and shamrock on top.   The girls wore white dresses.   Moffett Kendrick and his fellow band members paid ten dollars for the hat and cape.  The band mothers sowed two-inch green stripes down the side of the band to top off the outfit.  “We thought we were hot stuff,” Kendrick said.    These uniforms were used until after World War II when the traditional military style green and white uniforms were worn.

Bands were high in demand for almost any occasion.  Moffett Kendrick remembered traveling over to Bartow to play in a parade.  The festivity was organized to salute the first planting of Sea Island cotton in Middle Georgia.  “There was great fanfare, high-sounding speeches and much jubilation.  Politicians were everywhere,” he said.  The effort proved to be fruitless as the much heralded variety of cotton never thrived in the area.  

During the late 1930s and early 1940s, music was a big part of teenage life.  Billy Keith, a veteran swing musician, joined Kendrick, Paul Watson and Zeke Etheridge in a quartet which played popular favorites along with special versions of New Orleans style ragtime selections before the morning chapel programs.  Like many of us Kendrick put down his instrument after high school.  His first trombone was an “el cheapo,” costing him a relatively high price of $30.00.  Later he bought a Bundy trombone for which he paid $110.00.  In 1947, he hocked it for $20.00 to buy a tuxedo for a fraternity dance.  To this day, he regrets that mistake.  Thirty-two years ago I laid my tenor saxophone down.  Oh how I wish I still could play the instrument that my father deemed to be , “the best $350.00 he ever spent.”  

  Jack Powell and James Townsend  took over for J.W. Wiggins in the early 1940s.  After Powell left for military service, Florence Stapleton Flanders became the band’s first female director in her first year of teaching.   Trumpet player Johnny Floyd still remembers the 1942 6th District Concert in Milledgeville.    District rules required that each band have an oboe player, “which we didn’t have.”  Mr. Powell got Dorothy Brown, one of the clarinet players, to fake playing the oboe, a trick which worked, despite the fact that one of the judges was an excellent oboist.  “Jack said the judge told him she did a very good job on the oboe,” Floyd  chuckled.    Floyd, a first year player, was also instructed to “fake it,” an order which he partially obeyed, playing the notes he knew “every now and then.”  Cliff Prince remembered “we always got a superior rating in Milledgeville.”

During the latter years of World War II, the band program was put on hold.  The following directors have led the Dublin band since the early 1950s;  Henry Tate (1949-50), Brett Hope (1950-1952), A.M. Adkinson (1952-53), B. Sinkus (1953-54), John Huxford (1954-1957) John Hambrick (1957-1966), Ruth Odom (1963-65 ),  Jim Willoughby (1965-1969), Paul Carpenter (1966-1969), Robert Dowdy (1969-1970), Gary Dawson (1969-1970), Johnny Williams (1970-1972), Charles Molnar (1972-73), Boston Harrell (1973-1985), John Boles (1973-74), Cecil Pollock (1975-1991), Stuart Stanley (1985-94), Carlos Hand (1987-1991), Sammy Hawkins (1989-1990), Kerry Rittenhouse (1991-2004), Bob Clardy (1994-1997), Johnny Shumans (1991-2004), John Richard (1998-99 ),James Nuss (1999-2007), Greg Minter (2000-  2002) , Roger Etheridge (2002-2003), Lewis Foster (2003-2007) and Reginald Ferguson (2004-2007).   

It was during the term of John Hambrick that the Dublin band rose to the vanguard of high school bands in Georgia and throughout the nation.  Known as “The Dixie Irish Band,” the band was cited as one of the best bands in the South, performing in bowl games and parades and festivals throughout the Southeast.  The band performed its signature song “Dixie” as it took the field.  With the consolidation of Dublin High School and Oconee High School, the song which once thrilled everyone in the stands, was dropped in consideration of the feelings of new members of the band and the student body.

For the last seventy years many of Dublin’s finest young people have joined the band.  Many former band members have gone to achieve many remarkable accomplishments after they left the marching fields and concert halls.  Musical programs in the schools help to encourage and foster the attributes of dedication,  competition, leadership and teamwork. In the words of novelist Pat Conroy, “life without music is a journey through a desert.”  So support the band and music programs in your local schools, now, frequently and forever.

06-43

MAX BYRD

A Wizard of Words

     The kids of the Dublin High School classes of 1960 and 1961 knew Max Byrd was smart. They all knew that he could write well and speak well.  But somehow they lost touch with their classmate when his father was transferred to a new job.  This is the story of a young man who left Dublin in 1959.  With the lessons he learned in halls of old Dublin High School ingrained in his brain, he graduated from one of the nation's top universities and taught at two more of the country's most well respected institutions of higher learning. Along the way, this affable man has written more than a dozen books on subjects ranging from literature to mysteries to historical novels and many more essays and articles.  

     Max Byrd, son of Allan and Rubye Byrd, was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1942.  His father was an accountant for the Veteran's Administration.   The Byrd family transferred to Dublin in 1954 and lived in a home on the hospital grounds.  Max, like most of the kids of his day rode his bicycle to school, a fairly long ride to the old high school on North Calhoun Street.  While Max was in school at Dublin, he was a member of the Latin Club, and in his final year as a junior in Dublin, he represented

the school in the boy's declamation competition. He was a member of the debate team and garnered a medal at the state competition. Nearly fifty years later, he still retains vivid memories of "Board of Education," a large wooden paddle wielded by the very stern principal, D.R. Davis.   Max and most every one of his era remember the iconic, stern, but excellent,  math teacher, Woodrow Rumble.  "The class I remember best from Dublin High was Latin. "The study of Latin set me on the right track for learning to write English," Byrd said.  In his junior year, Max was president of the Latin Club.

     Just before the beginning of his senior year, Max and his family moved to Arlington, Virginia.  A scholarship from Harvard University was all Max needed to embark on an outstanding career in education and journalism.  Excelling in his studies at Harvard, Max was awarded a fellowship to continue his studies  at Cambridge University, Kings College in England.  Max returned to Harvard, where he obtained his Ph.D. in English.  

     While he was at Harvard, Max developed a life long friendship with classmate and fellow writer, Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, among many other best selling novels.  Byrd owes a lot to Crichton, whom he considers as a writer "who arranges facts into fiction better than just anybody else."  Chrichton, who began writing his novels at Harvard, encouraged Max to write.  He admired his friend's dedication, energy and willingness to take risks.    Gore Vidal

influenced Byrd in his historic fiction novels.  Max owes a personal debt to Oakley Hall, the founder of the Squaw Valley Writers Conference, an organization now headed by Max.  "I wish I could say that I was influenced by John Updike," Byrd said, "but he is so wonderful a writer of English prose that I can only look up and marvel."

     Dr. Byrd crossed the long-standing crevice between Harvard and the nation's third oldest university, Yale University, where he was offered a position as Associate Professor.  Max was awarded the Younger Humanist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities  and an award from the A. Whitney Griswold Fund for the academic year 1974-75.  His first book, Visits to Bedlam: Madness and Literature in the Eighteenth Century, won him many accolades.  In 1976, Byrd edited and published Daniel DeFoe, A Collection of Critical Essays. 

     In 1976, after six years as an associate professor  at Yale, Max made the life altering decision to leave the hallowed halls of the Ivy League and seek his life's goals out west in California, the native home of his wife.  While serving as an associate professor at the University of California at Davis, Max began publishing books on English literature.   His second work, London Transformed: Images of the City in the Eighteenth Century,  a study of English writers he dedicated to Walter Jackson Bate, who inspired him as a beginning writer.  From 1977 to 1988, he served as editor of Eighteenth Century Studies.  In 1985, Dr. Byrd wrote and compiled Tristram Shandy, a scholarly analysis of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne. 

  

     In 1981, Max Byrd was promoted to a full professorship at UC Davis.  He taught 18th-century British literature and occasionally freshman English.    Byrd struggled with the concept of teaching college students to write fiction.  He sees the greatest obstacle to teaching writing is that so many students don't read anything.  It was in that same year when Max began to publish a divergent genre of books than his usual scholarly, literary writings.   He began writing detective novels back at Yale in 1973.  His first published novel, California Thriller, was the first in a series of Mike Haller mysteries.  The Private Eye Writers of America awarded him their first ever Shamus award for the Best Paperback Original Novel.  

     The success of his first novel led to the follow up Haller mystery Fly Away Jill in the fall of 1981.  A third novel, Finder Weepers debuted on book stands in 1983.  Target of Opportunity, a suspenseful novel set in World War II, was a "Book of the Month" selection in 1988.   His final mystery novel, Fuse Time, was published in 1991 and deals with a terrorist bomber in Los Angeles.   

      At the suggestion of his publisher, Bantam Books, Max began to write historical novels.  His first novel dealt with Thomas Jefferson and the years he spent in France, years which changed Jefferson and the United States as well.  Max felt at ease writing about Jefferson and his second subject Andrew Jackson because of his undergraduate studies at Harvard in American History and Literature.  Byrd grew to admire Jackson, whom he sees as "routinely underestimated and misunderstood by historians."  His third historical work novelizes the life of Ulysses S. Grant, who Byrd believes to have been "a remarkable man, remarkably rich and a man who lived a dramatic life." His latest book, Shooting the Sun, (2004) traces the life of the eccentric 19th-century English genius Charles Babbage and the Santa Fe Trail.  

     During his years of active writing, Max spent five or six mornings and evenings writing seeking to write a minimum of three to five pages.   Byrd sees writing as a lonely business and one which you have to be obsessed to succeed.  

     In 2004, Max Byrd quit teaching. He told an interviewer with the Sacramento Bee that "retired" seemed so old and that he planned to keep on writing.  Max is a frequent reviewer of history books for the New York Times.  He also writes for American Heritage magazine and the Woodrow Wilson Quarterly.   He plans to be the Carnochan Lecturer in Humanities at Stanford University next spring.

     

     Max and his wife Brookes live in California. They have two children, Kate and  David.  His most vivid recollection of Dublin is the Carnegie library (Dublin-Laurens Museum), the Martin Theater and the beginning of Bellevue Avenue.  He enjoyed the football games on Friday nights as well. Max Byrd hasn't been back to Dublin since he left more than forty-seven years ago.  

P.S. Max, if you read this, you are always welcome to come back.  The library and the theater are still there.  And yes, the football games are still as exciting as they were when you left.   I hope you gave me a good grade on this article.

          

06-44

1906

Looking Back a Century Ago

The year 1906 represented another year of progress in Dublin and Laurens County.  Primarily marked by extensive infra structural improvements, the sixth year of the Twentieth Century marked the end of railroad construction in the county, an event which in hindsight may have been an indication of the looming economic depression, an unlucky thirteen years in the future.

The railroads were still king in Laurens County, but several factors indicated that they were beginning to reach the peak of their utility.    On the plus side, the M.D. & S. RR added more freight trains to their schedules.  Locals asked the railroad to add another passenger train to allow for short visits to Macon.   An attempt by the City Board of Trade to erect a Union Depot in Dublin to accommodate four rail lines coming into town resulted in a bitter controversy, which killed the worthy idea.  Plans to extend the Dublin and Southwestern Railroad to Cordele fizzled.  The construction of a railroad from McRae to Dublin through Cedar Grove also never came to fruition.  

The year was highlighted by extensive improvements to Dublin’s infrastructure.  Congressmen W.G. Brantley and Thomas W. Hardwick and U.S. Senator A.S. Clay came to Dublin to confer with the Oconee River Improvement Association to make plans to secure a $110,000.00 grant to make improvements to the Oconee River.  River traffic came to a near screeching halt when both the R.C. Henry and the Rover both sunk, leaving the Louisa Steamboat Company without a boat.  The loss of the two boats sustained the need for more funds to clear the numerous and treacherous snags in the river.  Izzie Bashinski,  J.E. Smith, Jr., E.R. Orr, D.S. Brandon and W.W. Ward formed a new company, the Dublin Navigation Company. 

Years of planning culminated in the construction of a large auditorium on South Monroe Street for Chautaugua and other entertainment and political events.  The City of Dublin completed renovations to the old Hilton Hotel to become the city’s first brick city hall building.   The city purchased a tract of land across Hunger and Hardship Creek as a second cemetery for its black citizens.  The cemetery, known as the “Cross the Creek” cemetery, was established to alleviate the crowded Scottsville cemetery on North Decatur Street. 

Perhaps the most lasting improvement to the city began in 1906.  City officials first began to discuss the idea of a public park of the city.  Through the generosity of the Stubbs family, the construction of Stubbs’ Park would become a reality within the next two years.  The first granite sidewalks were laid in Dublin, replacing the old wooden sidewalks which had served the city for more than a half century.  Several of Dublin’s streets were ditched to provide a healthier environment.   Andrew Carnegie continued his generous  support of the city of Dublin.  Mrs. J.A. Peacock wrote to the philanthropist requesting a contribution of $750.00 to aid in the purchase of a new organ for the Methodist Church.  Carnegie granted the request, but when Mrs. Peacock found herself on the wrong side of the minister’s wife, she was asked to leave the church.  Mrs. Peacock was graciously welcomed at the Episcopal Church until a new minister came to the Methodist church.    The beloved lady was promptly invited to return to the church she loved so dearly and remained in the organist’s pit until her retirement.

Dreamers were busy coming up with new ideas to improve the city.   With the increased automobile traffic in the city, a plan was promoted to establish a street car system along the main traffic arteries of the city.  The plan, boosted by fourteen of Dublin’s wealthiest businessmen drew little support and quickly failed.  Another plan to capitalize on the increasing popularity of the automobile involved a proposed sixty-feet-wide and five-mile-long speedway beginning on Robertson Street and running across the northern extremities of the city to the Oconee River.  H.H. Smith and Clark Grier’s dream failed to materialize for lack of financial support.

Many new businesses began in 1906.   Several such as the Dublin Brokerage Company and  H.K. Stanford Brokerage were organized a result of the increased cotton trade.  Ironically, weather conditions that summer were so devastating that many farmers simply abandoned their fields.   Harvesting of timber in the county began to soar.  The Dublin Brick and Lumber Company,  The Yellow Pine Lumber Company, Southland Lumber Company  and The Laurens Lumber Company were established to profit from the abundance of pine timber reserves in Laurens County.  

Other new business to open were the Rentz Trading Company, David &  Grinstead Grocery, W.W. Bradley Grocery, T.J. Taylor Mercantile Company  and Lovett Mercantile Company.   Middle Georgia Fertilizer, The Jackson Stores, Dublin Printing Company were started and flourished throughout the next decade.  Two stalwart mercantile businesses, The Sam Weiscelbaum Company, under the management of N.B. Baum  and the Four Seasons Department Stores, under the management of J.E. Smith, Jr.,  expanded their operations as the town’s most dominant department stores.  The Citizens Bank became the city’s second national bank and changed it’s name to the City National Bank.  

Among the highlights of the year were the marriage of soon M.J. Guyton of Dublin and Leila Vinson, a native of Milledgeville and a Dublin school teacher.  Mrs. Guyton’s brother Carl Vinson, would later be responsible for major contributions to Laurens County including the Naval Hospital, the county airport, the Laurens County Courthouse, the Laurens County Library and the location of Interstate Highway 16 near Dublin.     Plans were being made to establish the Harriett Holsey Industrial College.   The institution for black children became the city’s first college.   The Georgia Association of County Commissioner’s met in Dublin in June.  The meeting feature a visit to the Chautaugua and a ride aboard the steamboat Louisa down to Wilkes Springs for a barbeque.  The Dublin Rifles, a local militia company under the leadership of Captain W.C. Davis and lieutenants L.C. Pope and Douglas Smith, traveled to summer camp at Fort Oglethorpe in North Georgia.

As I come near the end of my ten years of writing and penning some five hundred columns, I again want to thank all of my readers for their encouragement.  Your appreciation of my work keeps me going when compiling my columns after a long day’s or week’s work.  Thank you all and remember as we as a county approach our two hundredth anniversary that our most important history is not the history of our past, but the history of our future.

06-45

MORE THAN JUST A FOOTBALL GAME

     For the last 517 Tuesdays I have chronicled the events of the past which have shaped our lives and guided us through the uncertainty of the future.  Today, just for

once, I ask leave to explain what the game of football means to the community of Dublin and what some of our senior players have meant to me personally.  Football is more than a game.  It is molded around many of the basic essentials of a successful life. Among these are teamwork, finishing a job, achieving a goal, perseverance, honor, dedication, contributing, problem solving and admittedly, having a great time.  A friend of mine, Pete Tyre, was a member of two of Dublin's state championship teams.  He was at every practice and every game but never played a down.  When asked about the impact that football had on his life, Pete said that "football and Boy Scouts got me through the horrors of Vietnam." 

     This Saturday afternoon, in the first day time and the first Saturday game in Shamrock Bowl history, some of Dublin's finest young men will strap on the "green and the gold"for the last time  in the first state championship game ever to be played in Dublin.  The first three state championship games, all victories, were played on neutral sites.  The last three, all losses, were played on the opponent's field.  There is a saying that  everything bad or good happens in threes.  So we've lost three in a row.  Now is the time to begin another trio of state championships.

     My connection to this year's team comes through my son Scotty.  Through baseball, Boy Scouts and the band I have come to know, and yes admire, many of the

seniors of this year's team.  Over the last ten years, I have watched these young boys

mature into young men.  They are a part of me.  They will always be a part of me.

     I first met Chris Williams on the ball field at Little Hilburn Park.  He was a little

chubby and not very fast on his feet.  But immediately Chris showed one of his most

endearing and enduring qualities.  It seemed like he always had a smile permanently

cemented on his round face.  Well mannered and always well behaved, Chris was and

still is a compliment to his parents Luther and Valencia Williams, who were there at

every ball game and every Cub Scout outing.    Chris got stronger and faster and could knock a baseball as hard as anyone.  Chris is one of those kids you might not think of as being a member of the band. He played saxophone in the band until he settled solely on football as his number one extra curricular activity. This once teddy bear like kid will now knock your head off if you aren't wearing a green and gold uniform. 

     I also met Tyler Josey on the ball field.  At the age of eight, Tyler, with his "Boog

Powell" physique and a buzz cut  towered over the rest of the kids in the league. I think I actually ordered him an XL jersey.    Tyler played first base and could catch nearly every ball thrown his way.  He never managed to get under the ball to lift it out of the park. But, I'll guarantee you if there was no fence and no Big Hilburn park next door, his line drives would have rolled into C.W. Anderson's side yard on Hodges Street.  I'll never forget the sight of Tyler rambling around the bases, his freckled face smiling and his parents cheering him on.   When I saw him four years later in the halls of Dublin Middle School, Tyler was as tall as I am.  I knew right there and then that this kid was going to be a very good football player some day.

     There is a  trio of seniors who never seem to draw the attention of the sportswriters.  I never coached only one of these young men, but my teams did play

against two of them on many occasions.  Thomas Cox was always as fast as greased

lightning. As a pitcher, Thomas had one of the best and most wicked breaking balls

you've ever seen in a young kid.  On the soccer field, where his true talents shine, Thomas is always one of the first to get down the field, with or without the ball.  Just

watch him on the kick off teams, he is usually the first one down and always manages to perform his assignment.  He's also a pretty fair defensive back in his own right and

somehow despite the rigors of football and soccer, he manages to be one of the top

students in his class.  Then there's Josh Tarpley.  "J.T.," the consummate team player, has persevered and this year took over the job of being the team's short snapper. Considering the fact that in the Dome the Irish set the state all time season scoring record, "J.T." just may have snapped more extra points in a season than anyone in Georgia high school history.   Izell Stephens and Miles Allen are also team players.  These kind young men with kind hearts l unselfishly play wherever it is necessary to help their team win. 

     The team's quarterback, Ben Cochran, carries the dogged intelligent athleticism

of his mother and the courage and leadership of his father.  As an 8th grader, Ben

pitched a near-perfect game and was snaring nearly every ground ball in the second

game of a doubleheader to lead his team to the Middle Georgia Middle School Championship.  At last year's graduation ceremony, I observed Ben, dapperly dressed in a tux as a part of his duties as a marshal, take the arm of a special ed graduate who lost her way back to her seat.  Ben escorted the young lady back to her seat as if she was the queen of homecoming.  I have never been more proud of Ben than I was that night.

     No one and I mean no one, plays with more determination than Jesse Coxwell.  I have seen Jesse time and time again, dive, push, throw, stretch, play while hurting and hustle with the best of them.  Hampered by a nagging injury this season, Jesse is a smart sentinel in the defensive backfield.  Making less mistakes than his father has hairs on the top of his head, Jessie is more than aptly ready at a moment's notice to take over the duties of quarterback if necessary.

     If you don't believe in angels in the outfield, then you don't know Drew Griggs. 

At the point of death two springs ago and buttressed with an army of empathetic supporters, Drew battled back to excel both on the diamond and on the gridiron.  Check him out as the long snapper.  After he snaps the ball, he is almost always the first Irish defender to reach and tackle or hinder the receiver.   Drew has stepped up and taken his place in the long line of place kickers in Dublin football history. Will Griffith is a combination of Larry Csonka and Dick Butkus.  It's too bad that the good Lord didn't see fit to bless him with an enormous frame to accommodate his bullish style of play.  Pound for pound, no one runs harder and hits harder than "Willie G."  

     Brian Wilcher, another former sax player in the band, might be considered the best athlete on the team.  I once watched him lead a seven-man baseball team into a close contest with the best nine-man team in the league.  Had he stayed with baseball, he would have certainly been a star in that sport as well.  If you do the math and Coach Holmes let Brian carry the ball twenty five to thirty times a game as many team's number one tail backs do, Brian would easily be approaching 3000 rushing yards by now.     I used to watch Thomas Barnes as he would come into elementary school.  There was something about his demeanor that stood out from many of the other kids.  Now sporting a goatee and the bronze face of a Roman warrior, this quiet man came almost out of nowhere three years ago to become one the most important driving forces in this team's successes on both defense and offense in the last three seasons.  His leadership and aggressive style of play was a leading factor in the Irish basketball team's state championship this past spring. 

     I think I met Michael Hall one time.  I hope to meet him on more occasions.  This

young man, with blazing speed, brute strength and a brilliant mind, spends many moments of his precious spare time after practice to tutor those kids who can't seem to keep up with the arduous standards of school work.  Michael has helped to organize a S.W.A.T. team and enlisted other seniors to help others in their studies.  I really don't know Tony Smith, though I hear Billy Beacham calling his name over the loudspeaker a lot.  I do know he loves to come by the concession stand after the game and ask for a piece of left over pizza.  Tony, if we have any pizza left Saturday night, you can have a whole one. 

     I don't know Brandon Edmond or Jamon Morris.  I do know it's difficult to tell them apart as their single digit numbered uniforms are hard to differentiate as the fly down the field.  I would like to get to know Brandon Taylor and Tim Wells.  I hear great things about them as  players and  persons as well.   As for Nick Davis, Sammie Daniel, Grant Hingst, Derelle Lewis and Kenyardo O'Neal, I wish I knew you better as well. I do admire your dedication to the team. 

                                                            

     The boys in the band are pumped too.  It's their last football game as well.  Scotty

will eat his turkey sandwich for lunch instead of supper as he has for the last three

seasons.  It didn't work against Cook last year and he had to eat a standard Bryan's sub before the dome loss to Buford.  He will join Paul and Heath in driving  the fight song rhythms.  Sris and Tim will sing melodies on their saxes.   Jeremy, Matt, Joey and Josh will be blasting their horns rooting their classmates on.  Meanwhile Kentaro, on tuba, will keep the bass line pumping.  Nelson Carswell, IV, the unofficial leader in the student section and the team's 12th man, will be painted in green and waving the Irish battle flag.  Nelson's indomitable spirit and unbridled enthusiasm has become a special and integral part of Dublin Irish football.

     Here's my prediction for the game this Saturday afternoon.  Dublin will play with

the same intensity, determination, heart and discipline they have displayed in the past three seasons.  Many people associate luck with being Irish.  This year's incomparable team has relied on meticulous and exhausting preparation rather than an enchanted pot of gold.  Nevertheless, bring all your good luck charms.  Our angels will be there too.  They sit up in the trees in the north end zone in the bowl's best seats.  Look carefully. You may see a few of them rattling limbs and whistling after every Irish first down.    

     I do know this. When I turn off the light in the concession stand for the last time,

there will be tears in my eyes and the eyes of many others.  For no matter what the final scoreboard reads, ours will be tears of joy and our Irish eyes, well as always,  they will be smiling, and you'll hear the angels singing "Go Irish!"

     

06-46

TRUE CHAMPIONS

I was right in my prediction of the outcome of last Saturday's state championship game at the Shamrock Bowl.  The Dublin Irish played with the same intensity, determination, heart and discipline they have displayed in the past three seasons. All season  long the players and the coaches kept their eyes on a single solitary goal.   They did not set out to score more points in a single season than any other team in the history of Georgia, colleges and professional included.  They did not desire to score more points in the playoffs than any other team in Georgia history.  Nor did they make it their goal to score more points and win by the largest margin in the history of high school football play in the Georgia Dome.  Their ultimate goal was to finish what they had started and win a state championship.  In the cooling darkness of a warm mid December evening they did just that.

Most people can't understand the concept which the Georgia High School Association has adopted concerning ties after the end of regulation play of championship football games.  It is a rule which has been in effect for at least forty-nine years.  It first happened in 1958 when Avondale and Thomasville were named co-champions.  It happened again in 1969, 1978, 1991 and as recently as 2004 when Hawkinsville and Clinch County, two great teams, battled to a draw at the end of the fourth quarter.  Last Saturday, it happened twice.  Roswell and Peachtree Ridge were named co-champions of Class 5A following a tie in their championship game.  Regardless of the reasoning behind the rule, a rule is a rule.  It is just as much a part of the game as having two feet in bounds or being able to interfere with a receiver on a Hail Mary pass in the end zone and give the offended team the ball back fifteen yards from the original line of scrimmage.

I first arrived at the Shamrock Bowl just after 8:00 on Saturday morning.  I had been there with my son and two of my loyal band boosters three hours the night before getting the concession stands ready for the game the next day.  As I topped the hill by the fire department, I began to notice the tailgaters were already there.  A motor home had been in the Century Club parking lot all night, parked in a strategic location on the slope outside the fence  where it's occupants and guests could shed their shoes, climb on top and get an optimal and free view of the spectacle about to unfold.     My trusted and loyal fellow band boosters had six hours to get ready for the onslaught of thirsty and hungry fans who were scheduled to come through the gate at 2:00.  Did we have enough food?  We ordered as much as we could store.  When I think about it, every restaurant in Dublin could not accommodate eight thousand people in four hours. 

I walked up the hill to see a line forming sometime around 11:00.  My friends Ronnie and Renee Green were the first to station themselves within inches of the gate.  I noticed everyone was sitting down, enjoying the moments.  Someone even brought along a bingo game to pass the time.  As we scurried about trying to meet the deadline, the aroma of steaks and burgers on the grill and the rapidly warming sunlight made things more pleasant.  It was as if the Super Bowl had come to Dublin.  By 12:30, the line continued to grow as if there was a big sale going on inside.  Everyone in the line began to stand.  By 1:45 the line was so enormous the game manager decided to open the gates fifteen minutes early.  I saw hundreds of people running or walking as fast as they could to stake out their usual seats.  It seemed like a bomb had gone off out in the parking lot.  Only the reserved seat holders knew they had a seat for sure. Within thirty minutes and with one hundred and five minutes before kickoff to go,  the home stands and the imported baseball bleachers  were crammed to near capacity.  One by one and then by the dozens people began to line up at the concession stand.    Drinks were sold so rapidly, you might have thought that the stand was in the middle of the Arizona desert.  There wasn't enough ice to cool the thousand gallons of drinks. 

But at 4:00 the highly anticipated match between Dublin and Charlton County began.  As I focused my camera toward the south end zone, I was amazed at the immense congregation on the hill.  Never before had so many people come to a football game in Dublin.  I was dumbstruck.  I couldn't believe what was unfolding before my eyes.  I was nervous. We were all nervous.  Those nerves subsided once Dublin jumped to an early 10-0 lead.  I will admit that I laid down face up on the slope next to the band.  It was the near the same place where I used to sneak under the fence forty years ago on Sunday afternoons to play football where my heroes did.  In the clear blue late autumn sky I noticed a jet airliner passing above, its occupants and crew oblivious as to what was going on thirty thousand feet below them. 

As the second quarter ended, Irish fans were smiling.  The band stepped it up and put on one of its best performances of the season.  I could have announced the show from the booth but I wanted to be on the field with my kids for one final time.  I checked back in the concession stand and we had made it through half time.   We did sell out the supply of all the peanuts we could order.  Everything was going well and then it happened.

Charlton County, the two-time defending state champions, roared back with a vengeance. The state appointed public address announcer kept on calling out positive plays as the boys from South Georgia moved the ball with relative ease.  With a touchdown within their grasp, the Irish defense formed a stone wall and kept the ball out of the end zone when Thomas Barnes intercepted a pass and kept the Irish ahead. Drew Griggs kicked the ball through the middle of the uprights in the south end zone to give the Irish a 13-0 lead.  Buried between the "B" and the "L" in that end zone was a shiny penny, found heads up lying next to the curb of the Friendly Gus Store  on Claxton Dairy Road just two days before.  I buried it there as a good luck piece early Saturday morning while no one was looking.  My son Scotty said he hoped that Drew would kick the winning field goal. Well he did. 

Dublin couldn't move the ball against the stingy Charlton defense.  Once again Charlton came back down the field. Charlton's champions would not relent and scored.  Another touchdown brought the score  to 13-13.  Dwight Dasher, the Indian quarterback, punter and place kicker lined up to put his team in the lead.  Brandon Edmond managed to get the tips of his fingers  on the ball and the conversion attempt failed.  The score was still knotted at 13-13. Maybe the lucky penny worked. 

Then the Irish stepped up like the true champions they are.  One time-consuming play after another exhausted the score board clock.  The drive stalled in the middle of the field.  Coach Roger Holmes made a decision.  It was his decision, the right decision.  He was not conceding defeat, he was playing to win.  Let every true Dublin football fan shun the doubters,  nay sayers and skeptics.  Many of them couldn't coach a team of grown men and beat the Dublin Irish.  After all, a major reason why there were some eight thousand people there Saturday afternoon was the countless days of preparation and brilliant planning that Dublin's coaching staff put in to get our team to the championship game.  

As the clock ticked down to 0:00, I knew our team had just won the state championship. Many were expecting an overtime session.  As I looked around, I saw no cheering, only wide eyes and open mouths in stunned disbelief as the announcer proclaimed both teams as state champions.  As parents, classmates and friends swarmed the field, I remained with the band.   When director Louis Foster announced the next band song was "Last Night," I made my way down to the field.  Just as I promised, I danced the twist on the field after we had won the championship.  My partners deserted me and I was forced to dance solo and endure alone the laughs on the faces of those around me.

I then walked to the center of the field trying to congratulate the kids whom I have known and grown to admire over the last ten years.  No one was smiling.  Tears were streaming down from their eyes.  Ben Cochran was sobbing uncontrollably as Johnny Payne attempted to get his thoughts on the game.  It seemed as if he had let the team down. He didn't.  I saw Tina Cochran crying.  She couldn't understand why her son was crying.  I tried to comfort her.  I hugged her.  We hadn't been that close since we slow danced to the long version of the Beatles' Let it Be some thirty eight football seasons ago on the dance floor of the un air-conditioned Shanty.  Guy Cochran was holding back his tears as well.  

I found nearly everyone I hugged was crying. I kept looking for Chris Williams, but never found him.  I only found out later that he injured himself twice during the game and was unable to play at the end of the game.  I too began to sob when I hugged Tyler Josey, whom I coached ten years before.  He smiled a little as he towered over me.  Other mothers were crying.  Some daddies were too.  But I kept on saying, "It's a win! It's a win! It's a win!"  Few remember that the first game ever played in the bowl was a 13-13 tie. 

I turned off the light in the concession stand and got in my truck to go to Ruby Tuesday's to celebrate another Irish victory with my fellow band boosters.  I took the long way around to avoid the long caravan of vehicles headed south to Folkston.  It has been a tradition for the last two years.  This time the place was crowded with a mixture of Dublin and Charlton fans.  We complimented our guests at the next table on the play of their team and their band.  They returned the compliment.  They were happy and we were happy.

On Sunday morning I drove out to the Shamrock Bowl just to see the place one more time. Forty years ago I did the same thing on the morning after the game.  I expected to see a gang of probationers stuffing trash into bags.  The bowl was empty.  The only evidence that a game had been played there fourteen hours before was the saturation of the bleachers with peanut hulls, spilled popcorn, empty nacho containers, candy wrappers and partially eaten slices of pizza. As I scanned the concrete for extra copies of over priced generic programs, I observed newspapers, magazines and other items brought in by fans to pass the pre game hours.  I picked up shakers and gold megaphones, their shouts long dissipated.  I must have picked up two dozen discarded tickets, the once highly desired piece of paper that caused people to stand in line for hours and criticize school officials, who sold all the tickets they could get their hands on.  There was an empty drink bottle under nearly every seat.  But my eagle eyes never spotted a single cent lying on the ground.  Maybe everyone kept their lucky pennies in their pockets. I do have to say that the band sections on both sides of the stadium were literally free of litter.

As an alumni, band booster president and school board member, I am extremely proud of the young men of the Dublin Irish football team.  Through the leadership and dedication of a unparalleled coaching staff, these champions finished the job. They achieved their goal. No asterisk, no "yea, but," no vent poster, and no one,  and I mean no one, can ever take it away from them.  They are champions, true champions. 

 06-47  

ENSIGN SHELTON SUTTON

"The Unsolved Mystery of a Hero at Sea"

Shelton Sutton was a hero. To his two hometowns of Brewton and Vidalia, he was a hero. To his parents, aunts, uncles and cousins, he was also a hero. To many Georgia Tech fans of his day, Shelton was a hero. The United States Navy considered him a hero. But the answer remains, why was he a hero?

Shelton Beverly Sutton, Jr. was born in Brewton, Georgia on August 21, 1919. His father worked as a mechanic. The Suttons left Laurens County when Shelton, Jr. or "Slim" was a young boy. They wound up in Vidalia, Georgia, where Slim became a star football player for Vidalia High School in the mid 1930s. 

Slim's extraordinary athletic ability enabled him to earn a spot on the roster of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in 1939. Slim was a substitute offensive lineman on Georgia Tech's best team of the 1930s. The Jackets (8-2) won a share of the SEC Championship with a perfect conference record, losing only to Notre Dame, the nation's second best team that season, and to a very powerful Duke team by one point. The "Ramblin Wrecks" put an exclamation point on the season when a victory of Big Six Champion Missouri in the Orange Bowl. Sutton made his way into the starting lineup in 1940 as the team's center. Tech suffered through a 3-7 season, with the year's only highlights coming in a six-point loss to Notre Dame and a post season win over California by the score of 13-0. Playing at guard beside Slim was Wexler "Wex" Jordan of Dublin. 

By 1941, Sutton came into his own as a suitable center. Losing to five top twenty teams, the Jackets suffered through a 3-6 season. Slim's last game was a heartbreaking 21-0 loss to intrastate rival Georgia. What made it even worse was that he was ejected from the game for an offense he really didn't deserve. Sutton tackled Georgia back Lamar Davis, grabbing him around the mouth and cutting off his breathing. Lamar bit Sutton's finger to break the deadlock. Sutton, sensing the amputation of a part of his hand, violently shoved Davis's head back. A nearby official noticed only the shove and promptly sent Sutton back to the bench. Sutton walked toward Davis and shook his finger at him chastising him for not telling the referee that he had Slim's finger in his mouth. Tech Coach Bobby Dodd ran out toward Sutton to reprimand the Tech center for being thrown out the game. Dodd's rage evolved into laughter when Slim told the soon to be iconic coach what really happened out on the field. 

Georgia Tech was supposed to play another game, another post season game against California. But something happened the next weekend that would change Slim Sutton's life and the entire course of the world's history. Just eight days after he played his last football game, the Japanese air force bombed Pearl Harbor. Sutton and Jordan along with many of their teammates enlisted in the Navy. Before he left for military service, Slim graduated from Tech with cum laude honors. Many of the Tech players participated in Naval ROTC at Tech. In fact, Center Sutton became Ensign Sutton of the United States Naval Reserve on April 21, 1941. Owing to the loss of many of their team's top players, Tech's request to cancel the late December game with California was granted.

In the weeks after the war began, Sutton reported to duty with the Naval Reserve. On February 12, 1942, he was ordered to report to the Commandant of the Third Naval District for active duty. Just two days later, the U.S.S. Juneau, a light cruiser, was commissioned by the U.S. Navy. Sutton reported for duty aboard the U.S.S. Juneau on March 2, 1942. The Juneau served off the Martinique and the Guadeloupe Islands in blockade maneuvers and remained in the Atlantic Ocean until August 22nd. The Juneau was assigned to Task Force 17 and then Task Force 61. The ship's first major action came in the victorious Battle of Santa Cruz Island on October 26th.

On November 8th, the Juneau joined Task Force 67 to escort reinforcements to Guadalcanal Island. Japanese fighters began to attack the ship, which repulsed six planes with little damage. Early in the morning of Friday the 13th, a Japanese force engaged the Juneau's group. The Juneau suffered moderate damage from a torpedo, but managed to limp away from the enemy ships under her own power. Around eleven o'clock in the morning, a Japanese submarine fired three torpedoes at the wounded ship. The Juneau's helmsman managed to avoid the first two, but a third torpedo struck the ship in the exact same spot it had been damaged earlier in the morning. There was a tremendous explosion. The ship broke into. In twenty seconds, she was under water. The Juneau's sister ships, the U.S.S. Helena and the U.S.S. San Francisco, both damaged, steamed ahead fearing a similar fate. There was no time to look for survivors. 

Of the nearly seven hundred man crew, only about one hundred sailors survived the explosion. For eight horrific days, the survivors treaded water and fought off thirst, hunger and sharks as best they could. Only ten survived. Also onboard the Juneau was Albert, Francis, George, Joseph, and Madison, the five sons of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Sullivan of Waterloo, Iowa. George, still nursing his wounds from the early morning action, managed to make it to a life raft. The other four brothers were killed instantly in the explosion. George died after five days in the water. The brothers were immortalized in the Hollywood movie, The Fighting Sullivans. Their deaths led to a directive by President Franklin Roosevelt that if any family lost two sons, then the remaining sons were to be removed from the military and sent home to their families. This directive is portrayed in the movie Saving Private Ryan. Private Ryan, actually Sergeant Niland, lost two of his brothers and was thought to have lost another. The stories of the Sullivans and the Nilands were the inspiration for Saving Private Ryan.

The Navy withheld details of the sinking of the Juneau. It was nearly four weeks later when the news arrived at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Sutton that their son was missing in action. Slim's body was never found. Ensign Sutton was one of the first Toombs Countians to lose their lives in the war. The abandonment of one hundred survivors was withheld from the public for a long time, making it one of the war's and the U.S. Navy's most secret scandals. It wasn't until 1994 when Dan Kurzman published Left to Die, the first true and complete account of the tragedy of the U.S.S. Juneau. 

On August 6, 1944 in Tampa, Florida, Lillie Mae Sutton broke the traditional bottle of champagne across the bow of the U.S.S. Sutton, which was named in her son's honor. The Sutton served in the Atlantic until 1948, when she was taken out of service. The ship was lent to the Republic of South Korea in 1956 and was used by the Korean Navy as The Kang Won until 1974. Ensign Beverly Sutton was one of ten members of the crew who were selected by the U.S. Navy to have a ship named in their honor. He joined Captain L.K. Swenson, Commander William M. Hobby of Sylvania, Ga., Lt. Cmdr. T.O. Oberrender, Lt. H.C. Gearing, III and of course, the "Sullivan Brothers," in being afforded such a distinct honor. Lt. Cmdr. J.G. Neff was lauded by the U.S. Naval Hospital in Dublin with a street named in his honor. 

            At the cruise ship dock at Juneau, Alaska stands a monument with the name of S.B. Sutton and the names of his fellow crewmen of the U.S.S. Juneau. His name also can be found on a monument at Fort William McKinley in Manila, the Philippines. But of a more local importance, among the hundreds of graves at the Brewton Cemetery, is a cenotaph marker commemorating the life of a man who lived as a hero and died as hero.

Could Slim have survived the catastrophic explosion? No one alive seems to know. My guess is that he did and that this Laurens Countian helped the survivors to escape the inferno toward what they believed was safety. Otherwise, why would the Navy have selected Ensign Shelton Sutton as the only junior officer aboard the Juneau with the naming of a ship in his honor? Perhaps one day the mystery will finally be solved. 

Postcript: Exactly 364 days later on Veteran's Day, 1943 Slim Sutton's teammate Wex Jordan was killed in a training accident off the coast of San Diego, California.