THE ET CETERA CHRONICLES - VOL. 109.
CHRISTMAS CHEER - The yearning for some fine ol’ Christmas cheer was never as strong as it was in the early days of the winter of 1916-17. For most of the year, the prohibitionist preachers of Laurens County had condemned the evil demon rum. Local officials even brought in Robert B. Glenn, the former governor of North Carolina. Known as the “Prohibition Governor” for his leading the statewide effort to successfully ban the sale of alcoholic beverages, Gov. Glenn spoke to a large, enthusiastic crowd at the Laurens County Courthouse on March 21, 1916.
All of the talk about the debaucheries and the perils of drinking was lost on a group of thieves the following Christmas. A throng of thirsty thieves made their way inside of the depots of the Wrightsville & Tennille Railroads at both Brewton and Lovett on the first day of winter. The burglars took 50 cases of liquor at the express office in Brewton, while the exact amount of the take in Lovett was unknown, since the miscreants set the depot on fire to cover the evidence of their crime. Both law officers and the public set out on a mission to find the men who stole the Christmas cheer and the $500 reward that went with the arrest and conviction of the thieves.
At the depot in Rockledge, a similar sin took place on one of the nights, Christmas night. This time, a band of burglars took 100 packages of whisky along with “other goods.” The Christmas crooks were never caught.
A POSTAL PROBLEM - In 1916, city officials and postmen found themselves in a quandary. It seems that there were two sets of streets in Dublin, each with the same names. On the south side of town, there was Harrison Street, which ran from South Jefferson Street eastward over to South Washington Street. The other Harrison Street, located in the northeast quadrant of Dublin in the Scottsville area, was named for the Republican President Benjamin Harrison, as were all of the streets in that neighborhood named for Republican presidents and candidates for the presidency or states of the Union. The southern Harrison Street, which had been in place much longer and was likely named for the Harrison family, which lived in the area in the early 1800s, kept its name while the northern Harrison Way was named Graham, in honor of the Clerk of Council, Graham.
There were two McCall streets in the same neighborhood. The main McCall Street, named after the iconic minister of First African Baptist Church, the Rev. Norman McCall, ran from Telfair Street north to the railroad. The other, in the nearby Jordan’s quarter, was renamed Flanders Street.
WHERE DID CADWELL GET ITS NAME? - Matthew Caldwell was just an ordinary citizen of Laurens County. He was born on December 14, 1858, and grew up during the turbulent years of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Tragically, at the age of 27, Cadwell was out riding on his horse. On August 8, 1886, a bolt of lightning killed both Cadwell and his horse. In the days that followed, both Cadwell and his horse were buried in the same grave in the Lowery Cemetery. Cadwell’s wife, Rebecca Lowery, remarried to Charlton O. Burch. When he died in 1902, his widow set out to establish a new town just north of the border between Laurens County and Dodge County. Mrs. Burch submitted the name of “Burch” for the town and its new post office. When she received a notification from the post office that the name “Burch” was already in use, she decided to name her town, “Cadwell” after her first husband, Matthew Cadwell.
MARCH-DECEMBER WEDDINGS - While couples of divergent ages are not that unusual today, they often made the news in newspapers around the country around the turn of the 20th Century. One of the more unusual pairings of the era came when Judge Green Brantley married just beyond his 80th birthday. His bride, Bessie King, had not yet turned sixteen. Nearly a quarter of a century later, in 1909, Sarah Hartley decided to tie the knot in marriage with E.G. Joiner in a ceremony conducted by Justice of the Peace R.M. Brown. After the vows were said, the 74-year-old spinster Hartley and the 25-year-old Joiner returned to the home they had shared before their marriage - the Poor House of Washington County. The Eaton, Ohio, Democrat, April 23, 1885, The Roxboro, North Carolina, Courier, August 25, 1909.
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