PIECES OF OUR PAST - PHIL SHEFTALL - SERVING THE FAMOUS

PHIL SHEFTALL  - SERVING THE FAMOUS 

     Up and down the major railroads of the eastern part of this country, Phil Sheftall served his passengers with heartfelt, efficient care and extreme pure kindness.  During his storied career, Phil served as a Pullman porter for forty-two years.  For two score plus years, evenly split  between the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of 20th Century, Sheftall came in contact with many of the most famous and influential people in America.

 

   Phil Sheftall was born into slavery in Laurens County, Georgia in 1850 on the plantation of Jeremiah Yopp, who owned thousands of acres in the western part of the current city limits of Dublin and beyond to a few miles east of Dudley.   It is most likely that he and his mother may have become the property of a Mr. Sheftall, a member of one of the oldest Jewish families in Georgia going back to the early days of Savannah. 

     At the beginning of the Civil War, Phil was selected by Billy Rose, a sergeant in Company A of the 1st Georgia Infantry, to serve as his body servant.  Company A was one of the first official companies to organize.  Phil stayed close to Rose and in 1878, both men went to work for a railroad.  Rose was the conductor and right there by  Rose's side, as he always was, Phil began his career as a Pullman porter. 

 

   

 

 “When I began portering, there were no Pullmans like those you see today.  In 1878, the Southern Palace Car company owned all the sleeping cars and in 1880, they sold out to Pullman.  They were little cars that folks today would think of as uncomfortable.  At both ends were candles to light the car and it sure did keep me busy lighting them and taking them down when they burned out.  The cars were very cold, but we kept them warm with wood-burning stoves.” the gentle old man remembered.  He was one of the first Negro men to serve on the Kennesaw Line, which ran from New Orleans to Atlanta to New York.  

 

    In a 1923 article, Phil, one of the first sleeping car porters on the line,  was quoted as saying, “I was put in charge of one of the first dining cars - they called them buffet cars then - and I had to tend to the waiting on my passengers and look after alll the ladies traveling with their little children.  Being a porter and waiter too, is a job to keep one man flying around.”

     Phil boasted, “I guess I’ve hauled more famous folks on my trains than any other porter in the United States.”  

 

   “I hauled Mr. William McKinley all the time before he became president and afterward, too.  He was a pleasant and polished gentleman.  I hauled him down to Chickamauga Park in North Georgia for the dedication of the memorial,” Sheftall reminisced. 

 

    “Then too there was Mr. William Taft, who rode with me when I was on the New York - Washington line.  He was a nice, fat, smiling gentleman,” as Phil looked back to his golden days.

 

    “I used to take the first Mrs. Wilson to dancing school in Savannah when she was Miss Eleanor Axson.  Years after Mrs. Wilson and the President were on my train, I said to myself, ‘Lawd, if that ain’t young Miss Axson’” I hurried to get through making up my berths so that I could see her and tell her about the days when she was a little girl, but when I got through with my work it was late and she was sick and gone to bed,” the old gentleman related to a reporter. 

     “Then there was young Col. Roosevelt.  I hauled him and his Rough Riders down to Tampa at the beginning of the Spanish-American War.  There was one good man for you.  The Colonel was like one of the boys except he had a grand air about him like some of the Confederate officers in our war.  The men were just as excited as school girls.  A long time afterward, he and I talked about the trip,” Sheftall exclaimed.

     Bearing no animousity to his days as a slave and servant, Phil stated, “But the folks I loved best were the real Southerners, Confederates, and gentlemen who fought for what I and my folks believed.”   

 

   “Little Alex,” (Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens,) was the best speaker I ever heard. He was a little fellow, always looking white and tired, but his eyes were big and set in the back of his head,” Phil recollected. 

 

    “I had Mr. Jeff Davis and his wife Winnie and General John B. Gordon on my train on Mr. Davis’ last trip to Atlanta.  I ran him up from Mississippi to a meeting in Atlanta and he and the General both spoke from the back platform on the train.  I heard every word they said.” Sheftall stated as looked back to that grand day in his life.   

     Sheftall served on all kinds of trains, carrying shows and circuses.  He had vivid memories of his meeting the legendary, iconic western showman, Buffalo Bill.

     Although Sheftall loved serving others, the best days were when he got good tips.  He recalled that  women were better tippers.  His largest tip of $100.00 came from a character named “Apache George.”

     By the end of his four-plus-decade-career, Phil was proclaimed by the “Pullman News”  as an institution on the “New York and New Orleans Limited train.  The writers believed that his spryness in his early seventies, must have come from trips to Ponce de Leon’s “Fountain of Youth” in Florida.  The news of his retirement was published in newspapers all over America.  In his spare time, Mr. Sheftall enjoyed raising fine game chickens.  

     After 44 years as a proud and dedicated porter, Phil Sheftall retired in the autumn of 1923.  At the time, Phil was the oldest Pullman Porter in the United States. A month after retiring, Phil sat down with a very young female reporter from the Atlanta Journal.  Phil said, “They retired me,” as he stroked his blue uniform that lay over a chair near him and his hand lingered proudly on the eight gold service stripes on the arm.” 

 

   The reporter absorbed all of Phil’s words, possibly as if she was going to write a book.  The article, published in the Atlanta Journal on November 4, 1923, was written by Peggy Mitchell, who is better known as Margaret Mitchell and the authoress of one of the greatest novels in American literature.  It makes one wonder if Mrs. Mitchell incorporated some of Sheftall in her iconic story of “Gone With the Wind.”  And now you know the story of a  gentle and kind Laurens County man who retired a century ago as one of the best of the best railroad porters in America.