LIMERICK

There once was a town called Limerick.

Dreamers hoped it would prosper and quick.

Electric cars and lights,

Factories within all sights.

But soon the money died and so did Limerick.

(Sandbar, Georgia, during 2002 snowfall)

Okay, after that hapless attempt at limericking, here is the story of the brief life of Limerick, Georgia. To understand how Limerick came to be, or almost came to be, we must go back to the early years of the 19th Century.

Situated at the northwestern corner of Montgomery County was the place where an old Indian trail running from Indian Springs to Savannah crossed the Oconee River. The old timers called this place "Sandbar." There was sand everywhere - primarily along the bluffs of the east bank of the river. When the river was low, there sand bars crept into the water. You can still see the sand on the banks and well inland, if you know where to look.

When Georgia seized control of the lands west of the Oconee River, she created more counties, one of which was named Laurens. The land around Sandbar and east of the river was annexed into Laurens County in 1811. Dublin, the new county seat, was situated on a high ridge opposite Sandbar.

For decades, Sandbar was nothing more than the place where travelers crossed the ferry into Dublin. But, when the railroads came in the 1880s, so did the speculators. Dr. R.H. Hightower owned the best high lands, some 341 acres between Keen's Mill Creek and the Savannah Road. When the rails of the Dublin and Wrightsville Railroad were laid to the river bank in 1886, Hightower's land became instantly and immeasurably valuable. Protracted litigation ensued over the railroads' rights and endeavors on the east side before the railroad bridge and passenger bridges were completed in 1891.

In the spring of 1896, Thomas M. Cunningham, treasurer of the Central of Georgia Railroad, led the formation of Oconee Investment Company. W.W. Mackall, Walter Charlton and several others joined in the venture to capitalize on Dublin's explosive growth.

By the end of the 19th Century, Dublin had grown into one of the state's largest metropolitan areas. With cotton related businesses as the core of the city's economy, factories of Agra-related businesses sprang up between the center of town and the river. One of these factories was the Dublin Hame Works, where J.A. Spain and his employees had a fine business supplying local farmers with hames for their horses and mules.

At the dawn of the 20th Century, Oconee Investment Company announced its plans to establish a new town, Limerick, which they named after Ireland's fourth largest city. The owners of the company hired Spain to run their new enterprise. For any businessman, property taxes and license fees are always crucial issues. Spain began to think of ways that he and the other factory owners like him could minimize their cost of doing business. The owners logically deduced that if they owned their own town, they could exempt factories from taxes and license fees as they saw fit. Cunningham, on the other hand, also knew that his company could erect warehouses, which new factories could use to store raw materials or finished goods, all of which would hopefully be shipped in and out of Dublin by his railroad.

The owners of the new company devised a scheme to build a new town on their land opposite Dublin. To survive, any town needs people. Plans were drawn to lay out streets and set aside neighborhoods where new residents could buy or rent homes. New families would require new schools and new churches.

City dwellers need infrastructures. The company promised that an artesian well would be dug to tap into the vast underground caverns of pure spring water in the area. A sufficient series of water works was designed to get water to the factories, homes, schools and churches.

Manager Spain made arrangements to establish electrical service throughout the new town. Before a single gasoline-powered automobile ever clinked and clanked in the city, the promoters of Limerick were promising prospective Limerikians that they could ride into their sister city on fancy new electric cars. To sweeten the deal, newcomers were lured with the promise of "every conceivable convenience they could imagine."

Cunningham, Spain and Mackall wanted everyone to know that they bore no animosity toward Dublin. Moreover, the opposite was true. They hoped that Limerick's industries would compliment and further accelerate Dublin's business boom. They just didn't want to pay their taxes into the Emerald City's pots of gold.

For some unknown reason, the town of Limerick never came to pass. Dublin's Prussian entrepreneur and honorary Count, H.E. Kreutz, paid $300.00 for a half dozen lots. James Brack bought the land where his house was. The bulk of the lands were sold for $2500.00 to Mrs. Fannie Brady in 1906. Brady hoped to capitalize on the idea of new a town. Jackson, Madison, and Marion Streets were extended into the new town. The old road leading east from the ferry was renamed Savannah Avenue. Five north-south avenues, numbered one through five, were laid out.

Mrs. Brady's plans also never materialized. She sold the bulk of the western part of East Dublin to Dublin attorney G.H. Williams in 1927. Williams took the plans for a new city a step further. He hired a surveyor and laid out 25' x 100' lots for small houses and larger lots for commercial enterprises. New north-south streets were Park, Maloney, Felder and Dorsey. East-west streets beginning at the railroad and going north were Bowery, Jackson, Macon, and Dudley.

The third attempt to make a city out of Limerick was somewhat successful. Twenty-five years later, the place they once called Sandbar, North Dublin and even "Booger Bottom," and hoped to call "Limerick," would officially and forever be known as East Dublin.

THE BRIDGE TO EVERYWHERE

It was a big thing. It is still a big thing. The thing is the bridge at Ball's Ferry. Way back some seventy years ago, the skeptics said that it was a bridge to nowhere. There were no highways leading to either side of the 1,683 foot long bridge. None of this mattered at all to the thousands of people from surrounding counties who gathered to get a closeup look at the first bridge over the Oconee River on the final day of March 1939. It was their bridge. And, they were proud of it. Last Friday a dozen seniors came back to relive old memories and remember the day when as kids they walked across the bridge for the first time.

Dennis Holder, Chairman of the Wilkinson County Board of Commissioners, hurriedly organized a ribbon cutting before the new bridge is scheduled to go into operation on Friday, January 22nd. A call was sent out to find as many of those people who were there the day the original bridge was dedicated to come back and walk across the bridge before it is opened to vehicular traffic.

Marlene Tompkins came. She was five years old when she watched her daddy, Mr. Cecil Lord, as he pushed wheel barrows full of cement and dumped them into wooden forms used to support the bridge. Mr. Lord kept the ferry at night and worked on the bridge during the day. "It was good work and he was glad to get it," Mrs. Tompkins added.

"I remember seeing 15 hogs cooking on the bar-b-que grill about where the new bridge is now," said Frank Mills. "My father bought me a new pair of shoes to wear. He got them from Mr. Murray Hall's store in Toomsboro. I think he paid five or six dollars for them. Before it was over, I had worn them completely out," Mills chuckled.

Ferry before the bridge.

A.W. Stuckey was there too. "I walked all the way across the bridge and then came back on the bottom side," he recollected. Stuckey remembered that the folks from Washington and Johnson counties met the folks from Wilkinson and Laurens County in the middle of the span. "I remember seeing lots of dignitaries everywhere. When the primary celebration was over, there was a big dance in the middle of the bridge that night. The bridge was really swaying that night." the ol' man recalled.

Perry Dominy's most vivid memory came just before the keynote speaker came to the podium. "I was a senior in high school and was trying to get a good look," Dominy remembered. As the Army band from Fort Benning was playing, someone suddenly shoved him out of the way. That someone was Gov. E.D. Rivers who was making his way to speak to the assembled multitude. "Gov. Rivers was never a favorite of mine," said Dominy, who added, "the bridge was a political football. He recalled that there were no roads there at the time because until that point travelers crossed the muddy river a short distance to the north at the ferry.

"My parents thought I was too little. So, I didn't get to come" said Annie Loyd Mason. But, Annie Mason was there last Friday. After seven decades Annie got her chance. She stepped onto the spotless concrete bridge and walked.

Paul and Hayden, great grandsons of Mary Holland Duke, were there to help her retrace her steps. Betty Paul and Polly Sumner Brinson, who were students at Ball's Ferry School back in 1939, were back to walk again. Betty remembered masses of people everywhere. Polly thought about her daddy, Eugene Sumner, who helped build the bridge.

Charles Paul came with his mother Betty and brought his daughter Layla along too. This time there would be three generations walking across the new bridge. Layla was glad to see her grandmother get a chance to do it again. Paul, who helped round up participants, crosses the bridge every day. "It is more than just a bridge, it is a bridge to the future," said Paul, who believes his great grandchildren will be using this bridge into the next century.

Those who gathered on the west end of the bridge were greeted by Commissioner Holder, who thanked Georgia state senators Gillis and Brown for their roles in securing the ten million dollars in state and federal funding for the new bridge. Holder also thanked the members of the Ball's Ferry Park Association, which is composed of citizens from Wilkinson, Baldwin, Washington, Johnson and Laurens counties, for their dedication in establishing a state historical park. He also thanked the D.O.T. officials and project managers for the bridge, Chris Jordan and Kevin Joiner.

The project, which is slated to begin later this year, is now being tolled while environmental studies are being conducted on the burrowing crayfish, which lives along the banks of the river. The commissioner told the crowd that the new bridge will create a change in direction and offer a better entrance into the state park.

Cecil Hodges, of Washington County, was only eight at the time of the first dedication. He remembered school children were all lined up to walk across. "Before we began, we were told not to walk in step because it may cause the bridge to wobble and collapse," Hodges fondly remembered.

Mary Alice Jordan, a leading Washington County historian, was present lending her support to the bridge and the new park. Mr. Byron McCook, at 93 years, was a grown man back in 1939 when he crossed the bridge for the first time on foot. Mr. Byron responded, "I am just glad to be here again."

Kimberly Watkins - First to cross.

Kimberly Watkins was the first to accept Commissioner's Holder's invitation to walk across the bridge. Stopping only a few times to see if she could spot a gator flopping around in the suddenly warmer waters, Hopkins was the first to make the one-third of a mile trek to the Washington County side. "I wanted to be able to tell my five-year-old son, who was fascinated by the bridge building equipment, that I was one of the first to walk across the bridge," commented Hopkins. "People don't realize the history we have in our county. You always hear about the negative parts. But, I wouldn't trade living here for anything in the world." Right behind Mrs. Watkins was Connie Etheridge, the first of the repeat walkers to make it to the other side.

The new bridge took exactly seventeen months to complete. Workers of the Rogers Bridge Company installed more than ten thousand feet of beams and placed nearly 450 tons of reinforced steel into the new bridge, which is some 37 feet longer than the old one. They poured more than four thousand cubic yards of concrete. Heavy contractors dumped and graded 140,000 cubic yards of dirt along the approaches.

Today people will continue to cross the river on the new bridge at Ball's Ferry, but on a wider and safer bridge. No longer are there any doubters about the new one, which now and forever will always be the bridge to everywhere.

ANDY OUTLAW

A HERMIT'S TALE

Andy Outlaw watched the dough boys march by. He rarely saw the sun in the noon day sky or heard a baby's midnight cry. Andy lived alone indoors for most of his life, surrounded by the things that meant the most to him, without a child or a wife. And, he loved it, because Andy Outlaw was a hermit.

A son of Morgan Outlaw and Roxann Snell, Andrew M. Outlaw, was born in Johnson County, Georgia in 1859. When he was merely five years old, Andy recalled Sherman's army invading his hometown of Wrightsville. He remembered that his mother pleaded with the Yankees to save Wrightsville's churches and its school, courthouse, and Masonic Hall. To his dying day he knew in his mind that Roxann Outlaw's pleas touched the heart of the Union general and spared the Johnson County capital from total annihilation.

Andy was known as a quite handsome man in his youth. Though he loved them from afar, Andy was afraid of girls. No one could ever remember him courting a single girl. The Outlaws were determined to give their children the best education they could receive by sending them to the academy, an octagonal building located on a ridge on the outskirts of town. London born and bred teacher, Wycliffe Loyd, was able to capture and bring out Andy's ability to write in fine style.

Upon reaching manhood, Andrew Outlaw removed himself from Wrightsville to Bartow, a railroad town some twenty crow-fly miles away in Jefferson County. After three years in the mercantile business, Andy became deathly ill. He got the fever. When Bartow's finest physicians couldn't cure him, they sent Andy home to die.

But Andy didn't die. He lingered in his room in the Outlaw's hotel, which was erected in 1861 and operated by his father, who was then sheriff of Johnson County. Though Andy recovered from his illness, as far as the world around him was concerned, he was all but dead.

In the nearly sixty years before his death, townsfolk noticed that Andy ventured outside of his large home only on three or four occasions. The first time anyone could remember was the time when he got curious and walked across the street to get a closer view of a traveling show. There was another time when Andy took part in a fiddling contest. He won five pounds of mullet, a jar of preserves and a free pass that day, a memorable time which remained in the old man's mind for many decades. And, he did go to church, just once.

Andy continued to live with his aging mother until her death. He felt comfort in roaming the dark and narrow halls looking at and touching family heirlooms which filled the two-story, ghostly home.

The old parlor, once the site of gay parties, was so dark that the thick coat of dust covering the furniture could hardly be seen. Right in the middle of the parlor sat a Chickering piano, which his parents bought in 1875. As an 80-year-old, Andy demonstrated his still outstanding musical abilities to W.R. Manry, a reporter for the Courier Herald. Manry described Outlaw as a man having an inborn, better than average musical ability who could play the flute and the violin. He had nine violins until he gave two of them away. Andy did keep his prized violin in a bureau drawer. It was a Stradivarius, one made by the old man Antonio Stradivari himself in his prime way back in 1713.

"Andy could make two noises with his cheeks and mouth, snap his fingers of both hands, kick both feet together off the floor and shake his head - all at the same time - a feat very few people can do, regardless of age," wrote Manry.

The old hermit rarely threw anything away. Stacked next to the fireplace mantle was a collection of old almanacs. In nearly every room in the house, Andy strung strings of twine along the walls. Rooms adjoining the parlor was filled with mounds of boxes, bags and paper sacks. Kits crammed with kaboodles covered every corner, nook and cranny. In justification of his hoard, Andy cited the Biblical phrase, "Blessed is he that hath of his own for he shall want not." His quote actually does not appear in the Bible, but it did seem to justify in his own mind his addiction to accumulation.

The old hotel, which was frequented by Gov. Herschel Johnson during his time on the bench of the Superior Court, was filled with antiques and collectibles. There was an old organ from Arline Chapel Church, which he got in a trade. Above the mantle was a working 1818 open face clock and a mirror with relief sketches of heroes of the Spanish American War. All throughout the house were framed pictures of loved ones whose lives Andy could recall in exacting details. One of Andy's prize possessions was a picture of George Washington, which he cut from a cardboard box of plug chewing tobacco. One could hardly step without moving around an old broken chair, scattered stacks of tattered books, or some useless antiquity that he hated to discard.

During six decades of seclusion, Andy did a lot of reading, though in his old age, he had to wear glasses to keep from ruining his eyes. Outlaw developed a keen interest in astrology. Particularly fascinating to the recluse was the day of July 3. What was special about this particular eve of Independence Day was it was the day when his father was born, married and died, a feat which may happen to one in nearly 49 million people. But there was more. His brother was born and married on the same day, but didn't die on July 3, a fact which meant nothing to him since he died on another day anyway.

Andy was superstitious too. Over his door, he nailed a horse shoe and recited to his visitors as he rarely welcomed them, "Be sure you nail it right and you will chase the witches away tonight." To keep himself free from harm from witches and other evil specters, Outlaw carried in his shirt pocket an alligator tooth wrapped in waxed paper, a good luck ring and an assortment of spirit repelling charms.

The once handsome man became a decrepit, but friendly, octogenarian. Dressed in heavily patched britches and a torn army blouse, a gray-haired Andy Outlaw told reporter Manry, "I would rather be filthy than sickly." Andy's long life came to an end on May 8, 1943.

In the last years of his life, Andy sat by the window peering out into the modern world. He could see the new two-story courthouse, large brick stores and warehouses around him. He could see cars go by and planes flying in the sky. Andy lived through four major wars, saw the end of slavery and the coming of the automobile. He lived long enough to use the electric light, though he never used it much. He lived long enough to listen to music of the phonograph and the side-splitting laughter and the suspenseful screams coming out of his radio.

Andy Outlaw, once a good looking rich kid, died a far poorer man. For he turned inward instead of outward and missed the magnificence of the wonderful world outside the walls of his home.

DE JA VU - SCHOOLS IN TROUBLE

DEJA VU

Schools In Trouble

Baseball's best philosopher, Yogi Berra, once quipped, "It's deja vu all over again." Well folks, what is happening now in the public school systems of our county and our state has happened before. Eighty years ago, county school board officials across the state were in dire straits. Although the amount of state funding cuts were not as massive, the effects were much more devastating. Imagine if you will, closing schools at the end of January. That's exactly what happened in the dead of winter in 1930. And, the money troubles weren't just confined to larger districts in larger cities, it was right here in the one room school houses, which were scattered throughout each community of Laurens County.

Unlike today when a board of five school board members set policies to be carried about by a single superintendent, each of the small county schools was controlled by a board of trustees under the overall control of a single superintendent and the board.

January 29, 1930 was cold, dreary, dark and wet day. County superintendent T.M. Hicks announced that the end of the school week would be the end of the term for all county schools. The startling announcement came at the end of meeting with all of the trustees of the various schools throughout the county. The meeting, originally slated to be held in the courthouse, was moved to Dublin's city hall.

Many teachers, who boarded in the homes of local residents, packed their belongings and headed home. They had no choice. Their pittance of a salary was scarcely enough to survive on. So, they moved back to the homes of their parents and relatives until the summer was over.

Until that day, the county school board and other boards across the state were allowed to borrow operating money based on future appropriations by the State of Georgia.

When appropriations were cut 25% in 1928 and 30% in 1929, banks across the state and the country became skeptical of the district's ability to repay their loans. After all, banks were in trouble too. Sound familiar? Only three banks were operating in the county at that time. Citizens and Southern Bank had just taken over the failed First National Bank. The Bank of Dudley and Farmers and Merchants Bank were hanging on, but just barely.

The death knell came when Merchant's National Bank of Battle of Battle Creek, Michigan and Citizens and Southern Bank wrote letters to the board refusing to extend credit to the Laurens County School system.

Other systems across the state were facing similar problems. Thousands of schools were closed. Banks just didn't want to lend school districts money when the state was increasingly decreasing funding at the state level and placing the burden on local tax payers, who were officially in the "Great Depression." In point of fact, the citizens of the county had been in a depression for a dozen years after the arrival of the boll weevil, which decimated the cotton crop, the life blood of the county's economy.

All of those who gathered voted to close schools until the end of the spring term. The vote was nearly unanimous. Those who dissented couldn't come to terms with the cataclysm they were facing. Fortunately, there were some schools which remained open. These were schools who were given the authority to tax the residents of their districts.

Members of the school board were confident that they had made the right decision, hoping that a four-month furlough would put the district into a better financial position to start the 1930-31 school year. They also hoped to avoid a similar situation which occurred in the mid-1920s when county checks were considered worth less than the paper they were printed on.

On the last day of school, a check from the Georgia Department of Revenue arrived from Atlanta. The $1,666.66 payment from the equalization fund fell well short of the $16,000.00 a month that county schools needed to keep their doors open.

Professor J.E.Leger and Board Chairman H.C. Burch weren't about to close their school. The mothers of the Cadwell P.T.A. rushed into action. Fund-raising events were planned. Prof. Leger reported, "patrons of the school have generously volunteered to board teachers in their home free of charge and citizens have come forward with donations already and more are expected. The people of our city have shown that they intend to do everything possible to keep their schools open, and I feel sure that they will succeed."

A few days later, Supt. Hicks stated, "When a people go to sleep, chloroformed by less important issues than the welfare of their own offspring, it is not surprising that the offspring suffer."

More than half of the thirty-six Laurens County schools were affected. Mt. Carmel, Cadwell, Pine Forest, Rentz, Bethsaida, Lovett, New Bethel, White Springs, Moore, Poplar Springs, New Evergreeen, Montrose, Cedar Grove, Chapel's Mill, Dudley, Centerville, Baker, New Salem, Pine Grove and Minter, all independently financed schools, remained open. Some Negro schools also announced their intentions to remain open as long as possible.

As one might expect, citizens of the county disagreed over the cause of the financial crisis. G.C. Bidgood criticized the board for going into debt in the past as the reason for the failure of the banks to lend the funds to keep the schools open. J.B. Bedingfield praised the board and turned his wrath to state officials. State Rep. Bedingfield, who was not seeking reelection, blasted Georgia governor L.G. Hardman for his stooping and nagging of his political enemies instead of cooperating with the state's school board. Supt. Hicks cited that it appeared that the governor was more interested in building roads and promoting fishing and hunting than in the children of the state and in particular the five thousand students in Laurens County. Have you heard that lately?

The Laurens County school system, aided by the generous people of the county, survived the financial crisis of 1930. Eventually state funding was restored under succeeding administrations.

The noted French philosopher Alphonse Karr once said, "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose," or for those who don't speak French, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." I think Alphonse and Yogi were both right.

THE WADLEY AND MT. VERNON RAILROAD

A Significant Shortline Railroad

Although it was only around for a third of a century, the Wadley & Mt. Vernon was the most important thing to come to the extreme ends of Laurens and Johnson County in the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th Century. Only some thirty-six miles in length, this shortline railroad brought about brief, but vital and long lasting, spurts to the towns and communities where its tracks ran. When it was gone, those towns were never the same again. Here is the story of the Wadley & Mt. Vernon Railroad and how it created the towns of Rockledge, Adrian and Kite. And, why its owners never quite saw their long range plans come true.

The Wadley and Mt. Vernon Railroad originated at the Old Town Plantation of Capt. Thomas Jefferson James in Jefferson County, Georgia. James, a master builder of railroads in East Central Georgia, drew a lot of his success in building railroads through the newly authorized use of buying convicts from prisons to do his labor. With a crew of up to three thousand bought and paid for hands, T.J. James took credit for building more than six hundred miles of railroad, a distance sufficient to run tracks from Dublin to Washington, D.C.

Captain James envisioned a railroad that would initially run from Wadley to Mt. Vernon. Wadley was a small commercial center in lower Jefferson County, but was strategically positioned on the great Central of Georgia Railroad. Mt. Vernon, the commercial center of the lower Oconee River Region, was scheduled to be on the Savannah, Americus and Montgomery Railroad. With each of its termini being on the vital major rail lines, James and his investors hoped to capitalize on the new markets this new road would open. In the beginning, James planned extensions northward to Augusta and southward through Valdosta onto the Gulf Coast.

James, a member of the large timber firm Donovan & Perkins, applied to the state to incorporate its logging road into a full-fledged railroad. Although the Wadley and Mt. Vernon had not then been incorporated, three passenger trains per week traveled between Wadley and Kite by March 1889. The state legislature finally approved. And, on June 25, 1889, the Wadley and Mt. Vernon was incorporated with a capital stock of $200,000.00. Within the year, a 13-mile extension was completed to Ricksville on the Old Savannah Road.

The Wadley and Mt. Vernon Railroad ran from Wadley south through Tom, Kite, Ethel, Meeks, and Odomville. The railroad crossed the Big Ohoopee at the Nazarene Campground just a few hundred feet west of the Highway 80 bridge. It ran southwesterly to a junction with the Brewton and Pineora Railroad in the center of Adrian. Capt. James, in moving his home to Adrian, made that once non existent community into a boom town and the headquarters of the railroad.

The railroad was completed through Ricksville, located at the intersection of the Old Savannah Road and current Georgia Highway 15 and just north of Blackville on Georgia Highway 86. The road turned in a more westerly direction through Orianna and onto the vicinity of Rockledge around the turn of the 20th century to become Laurens County's sixth railroad. By that time, James had the company's charter amended to extend the line to Valdosta, the most important rail center in Southwest Georgia. Capt. James extended the road to join with the newly constructed extension of the Macon, Dublin, and Savannah Railroad in 1902. Houses and businesses sprang up. Rockledge boomed. The new railroad gave the citizens of the area a closer route to the Central via Wadley. Engineers laid out an extension of the line to Mt. Vernon.

The company's directors changed their minds and instead of running the railroad down the eastern side of the Oconee River to Mount Vernon, the line was changed to continue in the same direction crossing lower western Laurens, Dodge and bridging the Ocmulgee in Telfair County before heading onto Valdosta. The ambitious 200-mile extension of the railroad hoped to capitalize on the vast forests of virgin timber, still left uncut in the upper Wiregrass regions of the state. In 1903, Congress granted the Wadley and Mt. Vernon's request to build a bridge over the Ocmulgee River. Once in place, plans were accelerated to complete the railroad. Work began on the railroad from Barrow's Bluff on the Ocmulgee to Douglas in 1902, but no work was ever completed beyond the grading to the Oconee River, southwest of Rockledge. Before 1907, the extension to the Oconee was completely abandoned. The cost of bridging both the Oconee and the Ocmulgee rivers was beyond the budget of the railroad, which mainly hauled freight and only a few passengers between small towns.

In the early spring of 1905, the Atlantic and Birmingham Railroad bought the assets of the Wadley & Mt. Vernon Railroad Company and renamed it the Wadley Southern Railroad. The new line also included a second shortline track from Wadley through Swainsboro and Stillmore to Collins, Georgia in Tattnall County. Railroad men speculated that Captain William Raoul of the A & B RR purchased the company to bolster his vast network of railroads in South Georgia. That news preempted a report two days earlier that the Douglas end of the Wadley & Mt. Vernon and two other local railroads had been purchased by J.E. Wadley, J.S. Bailey and G.G. Parker of Waycross. In 1906, the Central of Georgia Railroad purchased the Wadley Southern and moved its headquarters to Savannah.

The Wadley Southern was dealt a near fatal blow in 1915, when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against it in a dispute with the State of Georgia. From the very beginning, the Wadley and Mt. Vernon was bound to fail. Good times wouldn't and couldn't last. The railroad lived and breathed with the timber industry. After twenty-five years, there were no more trees to cut. Naval stores in the Rockledge and Ricksville areas were then being transported to market or railroad depots by truck. When the towns began to wane, so did the number of persons riding the passenger cars through the dead towns of Odomville, Ricksville, Tom and Ethel.

The road from Adrian to Rockledge was closed first and by the mid twenties the tracks along the Adrian-Wadley end were taken up forever. The Wadley Southern officially went out of business in the early 1960s after closing its remaining lines.

In its day, the Wadley & Mt. Vernon and its successor, the Wadley Southern, were the lifeblood of the towns they served. When it folded, the towns did not die. They are all still there. And, on windless night, if you listen real closely, you just might hear the cry of the old freight engines as they chug through the woods.

HOORAY FOR THE HANGMAN

Quintessential Justice


One gallows. One hangman. One fine day. Three bodies buried. Three families grieving. Three speedy trials. Five coffins waiting. Five nooses tightened. Five necks broken. Ten legs dangling. Ten thousand eyes staring. Justice served. Justice done. Hooray for the hangman!

@ Vanishing Georgia.  Sheriff Dunham is on the ground, standing near the center of the photograph.



The Montgomery County jail was infested with villainous murderers. And, Judge Christopher C. Smith was ready to rid the jail of the vermin, who had been plaguing the citizens of Montgomery County. Twenty-one prisoners, nine charged with murder, would soon know their fate. Judge Smith issued an order on August 1, 1893 to begin the process of clearing the jail. Judge Smith, who was in his first year on the bench of the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit, ordered that the most serious offenders were to be tried before the court and juries beginning on the 4th day of September.

First on the docket was the oldest case, the State vs. Weldon Gordon. Gordon and his accomplice, the master murderer Nick Nutting, had gotten into an argument with one Barney Neal of Montgomery County. During the struggle, Gordon negligently killed Neal's young daughter, Zerida. Nick Nutting, who had been known to have killed at least a half dozen men, was hung by the neck on the 26th of May. Blue Ridge Circuit Judge George Gober, sitting on the bench in the stead of Judge Smith, called the cases to order. Thomas Eason and C.D. Loud represented the State of Georgia during the long week of trials. Gordon, represented by Messers Beasley and Hines of Mt. Vernon, was convicted of murder in a trial which began after lunch and concluded just in time for the jurors to eat a late supper.

The next morning, the defendant Purse Strickland stood before the court. Strickland was charged with the premeditated malice murder of Jim Locklear. The two men got into an argument which culminated when Locklear shot at Strickland's dog and threatened to kill him as well. After a short cooling off period, Strickland snuck into Locklear's residence and shot Locklear in the back of his head while he was eating his supper. The trial was over in two hours. Strickland was found guilty of murder.

On Wednesday morning, the most celebrated case filled the courtroom with spectators and the courthouse grounds with thousands of captivated bystanders. Lucien Manuel, Hyre Brewington, and Hiram Jacobs were charged with the heinous murder of Alex Peterson, a popular express agent in nearby Ailey. The three defendants, all said to be Scuffletonians of mixed white, black and Indian blood, had quickly confessed to their heinous crime to Sheriff George W. Dunham, who was praised by Georgia governor W.J. Northern for his quick removal of the men from the throngs of vengeful lynch mobs by taking them to Savannah for safe keeping. Northern was especially proud of Dunham's ingenuity in using a gathering of a brigade of ministers to protect the innocent until proven guilty. The preachers happened to have been convening in town earlier in the day doing God's work. Despite the best efforts of defense attorneys W.L. Clarke and L.D. Nicholson, the trio was found guilty after only two minutes of deliberation by the jury. Ashley Manuel and Hezekiah Brewington, brothers of two of the defendants, were found innocent of the charge of murder and released without a trial.

Other defendants met lady justice that week, but these five convicted killers were sentenced to a date with the hangman on September 29, 1893. As the day for the hanging approached, there was electricity in the air. Thousands and thousands of the vengeful and the just plain curious began to assemble in the county capital of Mt. Vernon. All during the night and throughout the morning before the hanging, the five condemned men were consoled by the prayers of the Rev. Samuel Ross, a colored Methodist minister. By the best estimates of reporters, nearly a hundred Negroes gathered around the jail to pray for the condemned and serenade them with religious melodies.

Just about noon, Montgomery County Sheriff Dunham and his deputies loaded the defendants into a wagon and set off on a half mile journey to the gallows, custom constructed for the purpose of the mass hanging. Sheriff Dunham read the death warrants. With nerves of cold steel, Manuel, Brewington, Jacobs, Gordon and Strickland climbed the ladder of death. Gordon and Strickland puffed their last cheap cigars. In dead silence, each man looked down on the grave of one Will Blash, who had been hung on the same spot some two years prior. Off to the side, they gazed upon five new and empty coffins, their own coffins. D. McEachin read a prepared statement on behalf of Weldon Gordon attributing his ruin to whiskey. Gordon reminded the masses of the evils of alcohol. In his last words, the child killer thanked the sheriff and jailer for keeping him alive until the hanging. He forgave the lawmen and prayed for their future health.

Strickland told the crowd the he killed Locklear in self defense. Then Rev. Ross led the crowd in prayer followed by a recitation of the dirge, A Charge to Keep I Have. Lucien Manuel echoed the other comments by confessing that alcohol led him to kill Alex Peterson. Hiram Jacobs confirmed his co-conspirator's comments. Rev. Wm. Moore led the assembled multitude in another hymn. After a final prayer by the Rev. G.B. Allen, Sheriff Dunham tied the doomed men's arms, adjusted their nooses, just in time for one final prayer. As he placed black hoods over the five condemned souls, Sheriff Dunham muttered, "Goodbye boys and may God have mercy on your souls." At 2:02 on the afternoon of September 29, 1893, hangman Dunham, pulled the trap doors open. Five bodies dangled for twenty-one agonizing minutes.

The bodies of Gordon and Strickland were loaded on wagons by their families and taken away for private burials. The other three corpses were shipped to medical schools in Atlanta. While under the care of undertaker David T. Howard in his Calhoun Street mortuary, a large crowd, mostly black, stormed the morgue, breaking paints, glass, and jars of embalming fluids trying to get a last glance of the twisted and swollen cadavers before they were dipped into the pickling vats.

As the souvenir hunters picked up the last shreds of murderabilia and the cooler days of September were coming to an end, those who came walked away knowing the justice was done. It was one of the largest, if not the largest, public executions in the history of Georgia, and one of the last public hangings outright. The hangman, Sheriff Dunham, would see only one more September. He was fatally shot in the face in the spring of 1895 when he confronted William Connell, who had allegedly made remarks about his wife. Dunham's friends riddled Connell with their pistol bullets and shotgun shot. And, the devils laughed out loud from the bowels of Hell.

BOYD MCWHORTER

The Father of the SEC

Now that the Southeastern Conference football champion for 2010 has been crowned and is headed to the national championship game, let me take a few minutes to introduce to you, Dr. H. Boyd McWhorter, who has been called "The Father of the modern day SEC."

Boyd McWhorter, a native of Cochran, Georgia, was another member of one of the royal families of the University of Georgia athletic programs. Kinsman Bob McWhorter was the first. Bob was the university's first All-American and a four-term mayor of Athens, Georgia. Born on May 8, 1923, Boyd McWhorter graduated from North Georgia College in 1942. McWhorter attended the United States Naval Academy during World War II. During the Korean War, Captain Boyd McWhorter, United States Naval Reserve, was given a leave from his teaching duties to return to the service of his country.

After earning his master's degree in English from the University of Georgia in 1949, McWhorter received his doctorate from the University of Texas in 1960. McWhorter then joined the faculty of the English department at the University of Georgia, where he taught for 22 years. Known more for his work in athletics, McWhorter was known by many of his students as a outstanding teacher. "He enjoyed teaching English in the classroom as much as anything he'd done," said son Hamilton McWhorter.

McWorther served on the university's athletic board from 1963 to 1972. For seven years, he served as faculty chairman. During his tenure at Georgia, McWhorter served as Assistant to the President in 1965 and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1968.

In 1967, McWhorter was elected Secretary of the Southeastern Conference. He was elected by the universities and colleges of the NCAA as the organization's Vice-President for two terms.

The members of the Southeastern Conference named McWhorter as the fifth head of the Conference in 1972. Upon taking office just before the 1972 football season, McWhorter said, "I consider the Southeastern Conference the best and it will be my determination to keep it that way." The new commissioner made it his goal to prevent the abuse of athletics standards by relaxing academic ones. "That's why we call them student-athletes," McWhorter frequently said.

Determined to keep the conference strong, McWhorter was disturbed that most of the attacks on the institutions were a result of those on the inside who were there to protect the conference contributing to the problems.

Commissioner McWhorter retired in 1986 as the second longest serving commissioner in conference history.

Following his retirement due to health reasons in 1986, McWhorter returned to his alma mater as a consultant to the President on issues of academic and athletic affairs following the turmoil created when English professor Jan Kemp was fired for criticizing the university for its favoritism toward athletes and the subsequent trial demanding her reinstatement.

McWhorter was elected to the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1979, along with Tommy Aaron, Zeke Bratkowski and Maxie Baughn.

Boyd McWhorter died on July 23, 1994 and is buried in the Oconee Hill Cemetery in his beloved Athens.

Friend, colleague and sportswriter Loran Smith wrote that one of McWhorter's most distinguishing characteristics was his infectious laughter which would literally turn a dreary mood into one of uplifting gaiety. Of his love of English and the Bulldogs, Smith said, "He could quote the poets, but he could quote from the Georgia media guide - a learned man who appreciated both intellect and smooth athletic talent."

"Boyd McWhorter took his job seriously, but never himself," said Smith, a native of Wrightsville. Smith knew his friend as a bright person who never looked down on another by illustrating the point that McWhorter, who preferred his first name and not doctor, maintained that a PhD was on campus to serve the institution and not the other way around.

"He believed strongly in the value of intercollegiate athletics, but with an underscoring of honesty and integrity. He didn't find fault, he looked for solutions. He carried his own bag, he fixed his own drink. When the joke was on him, he laughed the loudest," Smith concluded in his eulogy to his dear, dear friend.

In his illustrious career, Boyd McWhorter brought the SEC through the first years of integration and into serious contention for national championships in many sports. McWhorter negotiated the conference's first major television contract and rejuvenated the post-season conference basketball championship.

So, when you cheer for your favorite Southeastern Conference team in any sport, remember that the man who brought the universities together and helped to transform them into one of the nation's greatest collegiate athletic conferences, once called Bleckley County, Georgia home.

THE MEN OF STRIFE

O Hear the Angels Sing

T'was the morning before Christmas and throughout the town of Rockledge, Georgia, people were scurrying about making last minute preparations for Ole Saint Nick. The day was December 24, 1910. What follows is a story of a tragedy. No one there that day is alive to tell the truth about the story I am about to tell. Witnesses, hearsay hearers, and townsfolk differed as to what really happened and who was truthfully and legally to blame. Townsfolk still differ.

There was trouble in Rockledge, big trouble. One town marshal after another was tucking his tail between his legs and running away. Many blamed the three Thigpen brothers, Claude, Tella, and John, as incessant instigators who were known to have bullied and clubbed former marshal Autry, just the week before. It was alleged that the trio made life miserable for the town's lawmen and forced them to leave town in short order. Claude had been seriously wounded during a violent disagreement with a Mr. Grier only some three months earlier. Rockledge's city leaders hired one Thomas Lee Rastus "Ras" Raffield, known to have been a man with no fear, to stop the rowdiness and bring peace back to the town by cleaning out all of the troublemakers before Christmas. Raffield, also known as Erastus E. Raffield, rushed back from Savannah to accept the mission to restore peace in Rockledge.

It was a Saturday morning. Blustery north winds bowed the bare hardwood branches. Evergreen pines swayed as a cold weather front approached just in time for the much desired chilly Christmas. There is a story, still told by many in the Thigpen family, that Martha Thigpen begged her three sons not to go into town that day or to at least eat their lunch first before they went looking for trouble. One of her boys responded by stating that they may soon be eating their lunch in Hell.

Marshal Ras Raffield, on his first full day on the job, was making his rounds. The Thigpens approached the intrepid Raffield and told him in no uncertain terms to leave the town immediately. Tempers temporarily boiled. Tensions soon dissipated. The quarreling quartet parted ways, albeit momentarily.

As he was standing on the platform at the Macon, Dublin, and Savannah Railroad depot, Raffield noticed Claude Thigpen at the top of the steps. Thigpen was engaged in a loud confrontation with a Negro man, whom Thigpen claimed owed him a much disputed debt. Eyewitnesses stated that Thigpen was badgering the man. Raffield, a lifelong carpenter by trade, approached the men and asked Thigpen to leave and go home. He threatened to arrest Thigpen if he failed to comply with his orders.

Thigpen made a sudden move. Raffield attempted to arrest the twenty-four-year-old Claude by grabbing him by the arm. A melee ensued. Thigpen, according to witnesses at the scene, reached for his pistol. Raffield pushed Claude Thigpen from the platform, a flat fall of four to five feet. Thigpen came up from the ground firing his pistol. Raffield fired back simultaneously. Thigpen's first shot nicked Raffield's left pinkie finger. Raffield's first was more effective, striking Thigpen in his neck. Though the bullet lodged in his back and severed his spine, Claude managed to fire a second time.

As the commotion crescendoed, Claude's brothers, John and Tella "Tal" Thigpen, rushed to the scene, only to find their brother staring into the clearing noon day sky, bleeding, lying on the still wet ground, and writhing only from his chest up. Both brothers opened fire. Tal was ten feet from Claude, firing up at Raffield. John ran up the steps and straight toward Raffield. The 31-year-0ld marshal fired back. Raffield's first shot instantly and mortally wounded Tal, a fortnight shy of his 22nd birthday. Raffield, turning in one quick and smooth motion, stopped John dead in his tracks with his second shot. Witnesses reported that John, a thirty-four-year-old Free and Accepted Mason, cried out that he had been killed as he was falling to the ground. There were reports that during the fracas, Raffield suffered a second wound in his left arm.

When a fourth brother, James, heard of what was happening, he started looking for his gun. His wife Mattie, not wanting another funeral to attend, hid her husband's pistol in the loft of the house, recalled their grandson Jimmy Thigpen as he repeated the account of the tragedy.

Raffield, oblivious to his bleeding wounds, made his way into the depot office to reload his gun. After pulling himself together, Raffield left the depot and went to telegraph Laurens County sheriff James J. Flanders of what had just happened. Raffield told the sheriff to come to Rockledge and place him under arrest. Flanders came down in his automobile and took the shuddering marshal back to Dublin. Fearing for Raffield's safety in the jail, Sheriff Flanders decided to place the marshal under guard and not in a jail cell. On the day after Christmas, a member of the Thigpen family came before a Justice of the Peace and swore out a warrant against Raffield for the murder of his kinsmen.

Raffield issued a statement that he was sorry that the circumstances were such as to force him into the action he took. But, he maintained he shot in self defense while in the performance of his duty as a marshal. A commitment hearing was scheduled on Tuesday, December 27. Judge K.J. Hawkins granted a two-day continuance. On Thursday, the prosecution once again announced it was not ready to proceed. Claude Thigpen was still lingering near death. Dr. Williams, the physician attending Mr. Thigpen and also an eyewitness to the tragedy, was unable to come to court due his attendance to Thigpen's impending mortal wounds. Other witnesses could not be secured for the hearing. Judge Hawkins, after hearing arguments from the lawyers for the defendant and the state, ruled that there were enough witnesses present to present sufficient evidence that the defendant should or should not be bound over for trial for the murders of the John and Tal Thigpen. The state's attorney, fearing that he did not have enough evidence to meet the legal standards and in light of strong public sentiment in favor of Raffield, voluntarily dismissed the case. No new charges were filed against Raffield and no trial was ever had to determine exactly what happened that Christmas Eve morning in Rockledge. Raffield rejoined his wife Eugenia and their children in hopes of salvaging some semblance of Christmas.

The bodies of Tal and John were carried to the Thigpen home where they were washed and cleaned on a kitchen table. "That table remained in the family of their sister Shelly for many years," Jimmy Thigpen remembered. Shelly Thigpen Beacham always had a cloth over the table to cover the blood stains, but never the memories, of her dead brothers.

The event cast a pall over the Rockledge community. Claude Thigpen died on December 29th in an Augusta hospital, just three weeks before his 25th birthday. Ras Raffield never returned to his duties in Rockledge. The three Thigpen brothers, who ironically lost their lives in accomplishing their purported goal of running another marshal out of Rockledge, were buried a little over a mile south of town in the hallowed burying ground of Mt. Zion Methodist Church. Surrounded by the immortal remains of family, friends and loved ones, their granite obelisks, crowned with draped urns, stand high into the air in a sanctuary where they sleep free from pain, grief, and anxious fear.

L-R: Claude, Tal and John Thigpen

Mount Zion Methodist Church Cemetery

Rockledge, Georgia

Lena Graham, of nearby Lollie, Georgia, composed a touching poem about her dear departed friend, John A. Thigpen, a married man and father of two sons, Laron and James. Mrs. Graham wrote:


He is gone but not forgotten,
Never will his memory fade;
Sweetest thoughts will ever linger
Around the grave where he was laid.


A precious one from us has gone,
A voice we loved is stilled;
A place is vacant in our heart
Which never can be filled.

All is said within our dwelling
Lonely are our hearts today;
For the one we loved so dearly
Has forever passed away

It is sad to part with loved ones,
And so hard to see them die;
But we hope some day to meet him
In that home beyond the sky.

‘Tis hard to break the tender chord,
When love has bound the heart;
‘Tis hard, so hard, to speak the word:
We must forever part.

Farewell, dear, but not forever,
There will be a glorious day;
We will meet to part, no never,
On the resurrection morn.

Asleep in Jesus, far from thee,
Thy kindred and thy grave, maybe
But thine is still a blessed sleep,
From which none ever wake to weep.

Dearest, one we must lay thee
In they peaceful grave’s embrace;
Thy memory will be cherished
Till we see thy heavenly face.

Far beyond this world of changes,
Far beyond this world of care;
We hope to find our mission one
in our Father’s mansion so fair.

We hope some day his lovely form
in a glorious robe to behold;
To sing with him in the angel’s songs,
With harps of gold.

Three sons of Melancton Joseph and Martha McLendon Thigpen were dead. Seven brothers and sisters; James, Ennis, William, Joanna, Martha, Jennie, and Shelly were grieving. Joe Thipgen, said to be one of the finest men in the community, had seen his share of killing before as a corporal in the 57th Georgia Infantry in the slaughter at Baker's Creek and in the opening salvos of the Battle of Atlanta. He had seen suffering before as a guard at Andersonville prison and in a Tennessee field hospital where he and his brothers James, Richard and William watched their brother George slowly die of pneumonia. None of these horrors compared to the nightmare of losing three sons in one senseless moment of madness.

There is another story, quite unsubstantiated, in the family that Ennis Thigpen, Claude's twin brother, sought to kill Raffield for the murder of his brothers. Another story comes from an unnamed source that one of the surviving brothers decades after incident was still looking to kill Ras. The source, who has followed the case for most of his life, said that the brother went by a country store on the northeastern outskirts of Adrian and asked the storekeeper for a gun to kill the former marshal. That man refused to give Mr. Thigpen a gun. That man was Henry Thompson. That man was my grandfather.

The tragedy lasted only a few moments. The anguish endured for decades. Newspaper accounts of the tragedy, upon which this story is based, were published in newspapers around the country, even as far away as Reno, Nevada. The story has been told and retold for a hundred years. If there is anyone alive three hundred years from now, the story will still be told.

Ras Raffield, a forty-year-old son of John Winston Raffield and his wife Susan Fordham, returned to his trade as a carpenter. In 1920, Ras and his family were living on Barnard Street off Telfair Square in Savannah. He may have lived in Jenkins County in the 1930s as well. Thomas L. "Ras" Raffield died on May 31, 1938. Those who knew Raffield in his later years, knew him to a broken man following the murder.  "He never was the same after that day," said Javan Garner.  His body is buried in Northview Cemetery in Dublin beside his son Cordie, a World War I veteran, who died two years earlier. His obituary writer ignored his instant of infamy and simply summarized his life by stating, "Mr. Raffield was a native of Dublin and spent his entire life here. He was a carpenter and a farmer and a member of the Methodist Church." Raffield's other children, Atys, Herschel and Thomas, Jr. , moved away from Dublin.

Christmas Eve wasn't the same a century ago in Rockledge. To all it was not a good night. All was not calm. All was not bright. As the cold clear midnight came, angels with their golden harps descended through the cloven skies, through the solemn stillness, down to the mournful and frozen plain. Man, at war with man, heard not the tidings they brought to hush the noise of the men of strife. Those who believed heard the angels sing. And once again, there was peace on the Earth and good will toward men.

Post script:  At twenty minutes to noon on December 24, 2010, one hundred years to the hour after the tragedy in Rockledge unfolded, my son Scotty and I returned to the scene of the moment of madness.  It was indeed ironic that instead of angels flying in the sky above where the old depot once was located, there was a venue of turkey vultures circling looking for their lunch.  There was no ceremony to mark the anniversary.  One man was working in his yard, oblivious to what transpired exactly one hundred years ago in front of his house.  Upon a visit to the Mt. Zion Cemetery, there were no flowers.  Of all of the 730 plus stories I have written, this is one of my favorites.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Merry Christmas to all!

GOD'S ACRE

A Plan for the Man Above

When times are bad in this part of the country, most people turn to God. During the darkest years in the beginning of the Great Depression things were bad, really bad. Even God, or should I say the getting of His message out, needed help to pay the preachers, keep the churches running, and keep students in schools. That's when the Baptist churches of Georgia came up with the idea of God's Acre, a plan to keep going through the darkness and into the light.

The idea for the God's acre plan was cultivated in the late 1920s and first implemented in the early 1930s. The plan of churches and individuals setting aside a small tract of land to cultivate crops for the good of the Lord spread across the state, reaching a pinnacle in 1932. Every Baptist Association across the state implemented its own plan to raise crops for the Lord.

The plan was designed "to dedicate a parcel of land to be planted, cultivated, and harvested for the extension of the Lord's kingdom on earth, the proceeds to be contributed through the local church for the support of both the church and of the Co-0perative Program, which included missionary, benevolent, and educational causes of the denomination," so said James W. Merritt.

In Laurens County, Dr. C. D. Graves, pastor of the First Baptist Church, Dublin, served as chairman of the local effort. Dr. Graves saw the plan as a way of keeping the churches of the Laurens County Baptist Association open during the economic chaos which plagued the entire country.

In an article in the February 18, 1932-edition of the Christian Index, Graves reported that during the winter, organizers solicited thirty-one members of the local association to secure their help for the 1932 crop year. The association also sought out and received commitments from local Baptist women to donate their hens' Sunday eggs to the church.

During the previous year, more than 332 Laurens countians cultivated plots on 165 acres of land and realized a profit of nearly $1300.00. Eggs produced on Sundays were sold by ten church women's groups for nearly $140.00 in profits.

The members of the Rentz, New Bethel, and Mt. Carmel churches took the program a step further. These churches built new sanctuaries with funds raised from their members' gardens. In the case of Mt. Carmel, the members grew crops to raise the money to rebuild their church after it was flattened by a 1929 tornado. The Baptists at Pleasant Hill and Snow Hill remodeled their churches as well. The members of Marie Baptist used their crop money to aid the Baptist Orphanage at Hapeville, Georgia.

From the beginning, the crop of choice planted in God's acres was cotton. M.H. Hogan, improvising and improving on the methods of Captain W.B. Rice - one of the county's foremost farming experts - wrote a pamphlet on improving agricultural production which was distributed to farmers all over the county.

In the fall of 1931, the Laurens Baptist Association asked each church to maintain at least two plots and for individual members to plant their own plots to secure greater profits for the Lord. Especially successful in the fall of 1931 was the cotton grown on the 12-acre plot of Bethlehem Baptist Church.

With early successes in the growing of Irish potatoes, Mrs. H.A. Knight's Sunday school class planted a small half-acre garden in 1930. The following year, the class tripled its plot and harvested 210 bushels of potatoes and a tidy profit of $81.50, an outstanding mark considering a dramatic drop in the price of the staple spuds. It was soon discovered that a crop of late tomatoes could be planted on the same ground after the potatoes were dug. The girls of Jefferson Street Baptist planted an acre of potatoes primarily for the seed, which was highly in demand by local farmers. Experimentation in farming methods increased under the plan. Mrs. Knight's boys planted one acre of lettuce.

In it's annual meeting in 1931, the Baptist Association encouraged more participation in the Sabbath egg program. County Demonstration Agent, J.F. Hart worked with churches to increase production. At Mount Carmel Church, near Dexter, twenty women agreed to save their Sunday eggs for the Lord, while thirty-eight male members agreed to plant a plot of ground. Not to be outdone, a dozen boys and girls agreed to raise a calf or a pig for the Lord.

Over in Dodge County, every church in the rural sections of the county agreed to participate in the plan. The program continued well into the latter part of the 1930s. Members of the Baptist Church in Adrian used their profits to build a parsonage in 1936.

Dr. Graves in promoting the program said, "We are under the severest financial depression - world wide. It may be long drawn out." Graves saw the improved farming methods as a way of helping both the economic and spiritual health of the county.

The beauty of the plan was that it allowed rural churches to raise funds for the church by doing what rural people did best. And, that was farming. In the process, the farmers were introduced to better farming methods which helped them produce and realize a higher profit, when any profit at all was critical to just existing.

At this time of the year when life long farmers and amateur gardeners are preparing their fields and gardens, I urge you to think back eight decades ago when, in times of economic tumult, the people of our county set aside a small part of their lands to benefit the work of the Lord from whom all blessings flow.

REMEMBERING THE GOAT MAN

Chess McCartney, without a doubt, is the most famous 20th Century folk icon of Middle Georgia and perhaps even the Southeast. For decades the wandering evangelist traveled with his tribe of goats all over the country, spreading the word of God and earning a meager living in the process. For all of us who lived along Highway 80, McCartney, known simply as "The Goat Man," we were privileged to see him on a regular basis. The really lucky ones got to talk to him and pet his goats.



Many people have read about "The Goat Man" in books and magazines. So, when I set out to tell his story, I enlisted the aid of my Facebook friends. These are their memories of the heavily bearded man who lived in a kudzu-covered ravine near the village of Fitzpatrick in northwestern Twiggs County and who walked along the highways and towns of America, including right here in Dublin.

When Barbara Lewis Barroso was five, she remembered hearing that the "Goat Man" was coming down Highway 80 near the VA. "All the kids on my block would run across the alley between our houses and through the yards of the houses behind us, cross the street and go to the edge of the highway," Barbara recalled. "I remember all the pots and pans hanging down from his wagon. I remember him talking to us, but don't remember anything he said." she added. He was a man ruff in appearance with his scruffy beard and clothes, but he had this magical charisma that charmed and delighted us. Those of us that had that experience were lucky that we lived in such a place and time that we were worry free. I think kids today would be afraid of him and run the other way. Tommy Martin remembered the pots and pan too, "He came down Mincey St. on a fairly regular basis with his old wagon, pots and pans hanging thereon, and of course, a herd of goats. We actually bought things from him from time to time."

Barbara's sister, Mary, recalled the time the "Goat Man" stopped at a gas station near their Highland Ave. home. "He and Mr. Brown were arguing because he wanted his goats to use the bathroom. It was memorable because two grownups were arguing and there were all these goats, and they were pooping all over his station," an amused Mary remembered.



The Whipple sisters, Suzanne Hagan and Jennifer Whiddon, had fond closeup memories of McCartney. Their father, Lucian, would take his family to see "Goat Man" whenever he was in town. Lucian, a prolific photographer, took many pictures. His son, Miles, took some and made them into a scrapbook. Whipple, also an adept conversationalist, talked to the folk icon as if he were just an ordinary person. Jennifer has never forgotten the banging noises of his clanging pots, which to her was as exciting as the ice cream man coming down the street. Suzanne had a more up close experience. "When I was in my first year of nursing school, about 35 years ago, I was assigned to him as a student nurse," she remembered. Weak and frail, Chess required delicate personal care. "When we were learning basic nursing cares such as giving a patient a bed-bath, I remember drawing up his bedside basin and I set it next to him on the table beside his bed. I explained to him that I was going to give him a bath. Well, he very distinctly told me that he didn't need a bath that day and refused it stating that he never bathed on any kind of regular schedule. My nursing instructor wanted me to be a little more assertive in this matter. Well, I tried again but he refused and that was that. However, he was very kind and friendly but simply was not interested in being bathed. Now, he could have used a clean bath as he had a long white beard and looked very rugged and smelled like his goats but in the end he won and did not have to take a bath that day."

Kim McCoy Wyatt also encountered McCartney in a Macon hospital. While visiting her aunt, Kim went down the hall to look for something. "I bounced right back into her room I thought!. There I was face to face with the Goat Man... I knew it was him the minute I saw him. Long white beard & hair.... I will never forget it. We were eye to eye... I said, 'I'm sorry. I'm in the wrong room.'He was very nice and sweetly said, 'that's all right child & smiled."



Dwight Stewart used to go by his house to hear him preach. " I went in the house and stood. I didn't want to sit down. His goats came in and out of the house as they wanted too," Dwight reminisced. Leaving the house and its pretty strong odor behind, Preacher McCartney got his Bible and from his podium preached a sermon to Stewart and his friend. To pay his bills, McCartney sold postcards to his admirers. "I bought two of them. I still have them." Stewart fondly remembered.



Kim Kirz and her family traveled from Dublin to Macon every Sunday for Sunday school. Whenever possible, the Kirz family would stop and visit. "The goat nursery under his wagon was our favorite thing to check out," Kim said. Lynn Alligood begged her daddy to stop by the "Goat Man's" school bus house every time they came back from Macon. Lynn also remembered seeing him across from the old drive-in theater. "People were lined up to get their pictures made with him," Alligood remarked. Jan Stanley Edwards also remembered the clanging pots and thought to herself that when she grew up, she wanted to be like the "Goat Man." Marilyn Freeman Dailey also visited the "Goat Man" at his home, but also remembered seeing him during a vacation on U.S. Highway 1 near Daytona.

Cindy S. Brown's daddy was in a bank in Dublin one day when the "Goat Man" came in to cash a check back in the early to mid 50's. "The 'Goat Man's check was for $500, a good bit of money back then. The banker called Macon to verify that the check was good and was told that his check is good up to fifty thousand dollars," Cindy recollected.



Connie Dominy wrote, "He used to camp out on 80 in the area right across from where Bank of America is. There is a car dealership there now. We use to go up and hang out with him. His wagon had car tags from different states all over it. He also had other things, like pots and pans hanging off the side. I remember he would straddle a goat, milk it and then turn the mason jar up and drink it. He would offer us kids some. Underneath the wagon was his nursery area for a better word. That is where the babies and sometimes the mama's would ride. He and the goats would sleep in the wagon. He would make a campfire and cook beans and stuff. He was a preacher and would always preach some. He was a gentle man and would take time with us kids. He would let us hold the little baby goats and of course pet the others. He would sit on an old bucket while talking to us. He had about eight goats that pulled his wagon and would tie others up to walk behind the wagon. I remember the look and smell. Once his son was with him. I remember the son went into the woods and came out smelling like baby powder. Every time he came through and stopped up there, we would all go up and hang out with him. As a kid, I was not afraid of him at all. He was so gentle. He used to tell us about places he had traveled. I also remember going up 80 and stopping at his house outside Jeffersonville. And his house had a school bus and little church on the grounds."

As for me, I wish I had the writing bug thirty five years ago, for I could kick myself all the times I drove by him as I was coming home from college. Let that be a lesson to us all.



If you have memories of the man we called, "The Goat Man," please email them to me at scottbthompsonsr@yahoo.com.