THE GREEN HAND

Success through FFA

For nearly four decades, the novel and its movie version of Paul Chapman’s “The Green Hand,” proved that any child, no matter how disadvantaged or troubled could succeed in life if he learned and followed the creed of the Future Farmers of America.  This story, which was told over and over again, has its roots right here in Laurens County, Georgia.

“Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to Serve:” That is the motto of the young men and women of the Future Farmers of America.  Originally founded as the Future Farmers of Virginia some ninety years ago, the Future Farmers of America were officially organized in 1928.

Still today when many youngsters have left the farm or never live on a farm at all, the F.F.A. is one of the nation’s largest youth organizations with a membership of  more than a half a million.

It was in the year 1932 in the midst of the country’s deepest economic depression, when University of Georgia professor of  agriculture Paul W. Chapman wrote a novel which he called, “The Green Hand.”  The book was intended to show that the Future Farmers of America could and would improve the lives of the youngsters who participated in the new program.

The plot line features a fictional and hopelessly delinquent student, Fred Dale.  The inspiration for the bad boy turned good came on a night before Christmas in 1927.  Set in the fictional community of Cedar Falls,  the story actually took place in Cedar Grove, Georgia, situated in the southern tip of western Laurens County.

Cedar Grove School was one of the first in the county to develop a vocational agricultural program following the adoption of the Hughes-Smith Vocational Act of 1917, which was adopted by the Congress after the sponsorship of Hoke Smith, a United States Senator from Georgia, and Congressman Dudley M. Hughes of Danville in neighboring Twiggs County.

The story goes that in attendance at the banquet were two professors from the University of Georgia. The occasion was a father and son banquet held at the school.   In the midst of a traditional, yet unexciting speech, a gang of rowdy youngsters interrupted the Christmas merriment and fellowship.  The culprits were apprehended and punished for their malfeasance.

The professors returned to the campus and told the story.  One thing led to another and Paul Chapman decided to write a book based on the event.  In 1932, Chapman, who was named Director of Vocational Education of the College of Agriculture of the University of Georgia in 1934, completed his work, which began to  be read by many a future farmer. Chapman accepted an offer to turn his novel into a movie.

Senior officials of Sears-Roebuck & Co. saw the potential revenue in producing the movie, which was primarily shot in and around Athens, Georgia.  Most of the cast was composed of students and regular citizens of Clarke County and around the state.  The lead male character Dale goes on to success in government and business in the 29-minute film, which was completed in 1939.

The movie reaffirms the book’s plot that F.F.A. can change the life of a bad kid.  Dale is at first expelled from school, but is given the chance to by a vocational school teacher to return to school and make amends for his delinquent behavior in a classic story of bad becomes good.  The story features romance, fights, a trial, and saving the family farm from foreclosure in the traditional Hollywood style.

It was only natural that the film premiere in the home of the University of Georgia in Athens With 4000 F.F.A. students in Georgia, as many as 5000 people were expected to visit the Classic City to see the new film, which many of them could relate to.  All of Athens promoted the film, which premiered on January 12, 1940.  Georgia Governor E.D. Rivers and the founder of the National F.F.A. were in  attendance at the premier activities,  which were broadcast over WGAU radio.  The next day, a Saturday when traditionally farmers came into town, was declared “Future Farmers of America Day in Athens

During that winter and the following spring, the film was shown in theaters, high school auditoriums and gymnasiums around the state and around the country.  A big theater screening of the “The Green Hand” became a feature event of the 1940 National Convention of the Future Farmers held at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. .

Future Farmers Programs in Laurens County began in 1936 at the high schools of Dudley, Dexter and Rentz.  Rentz organized its chapter in October 16, 1936. Professor Luther H. Cook (left)  and businessman Ralph Chambless led the effort to build an educational building in 1939.

Dudley High boys organized a chapter  in October 1937 under the leadership of president Addison Hogan.  Oliver Heath was named Vice President. Secretary Clinton Perry, Treasurer Lawton Johnson and Recorder R.W. Parker served under the leadership of Doyle Bedingfield.   Clyde Greenway, Vocational Teacher at Cadwell High, led the formation of the Cadwell chapter. Cedar Grove established its own chapter later under the leadership of H.D. Jordan.

The Laurens County Future Farmers of America joined forces at a fish fry held at Session’s Lake on the evening of March 26, 1938.  Addison Hogan, of the Dudley Chapter, was selected as President of the consolidated chapter, with the leadership rotating on an annual basis.  Danville High School  from Twiggs County was allowed to join the Laurens County Future Farmers Clubs in March 26, 1938 as that county had no program at the time.

On May 15, 1940, the local premier of “The Green Hand,” sponsored by the Lions, Exhcnage and Rotary clubs, was presented at Dublin’s Ritz Theater on West Jackson to a full house.  The next day on “4-H/FFA Day” in Dublin, some one  thousand county school students were released from their classes to attend the grand festivities in downtown Dublin.  A two-block long parade and a concert on the courthouse grounds  by the Laurens County Marching Band  thrilled the large crowds during the noon hour.  Dublin optometrist and long time advocate of vocational education in the county, Dr. Charles Kittrell, helped to organize the spectacular event with the unwavering  support of County Demonstration Agent Nelle Robinson.

For the last seventy five years plus, the boys and girls of the Laurens County chapters of the Future Farmers of America have proved Paul Chapman’s theorem, that good, decent farm kids and even some of the bad ones who were set on the path of the straight and arrow can make a difference in their community, their state and their nation.

THE BIG ONE THAT STILL GOT AWAY

The World Record Large Mouth Bass

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

George laid the lifeless bass on a pair of scales.  No one would question the accuracy of these scales which were actually the official scales of the Helena Post Office.  The needle stopped at twenty-two pounds and four ounces.  Someone grabbed up a measuring tape and wrapped it around the twenty-eight inches of the fish's girth and then laid it out on the counter and marked off thirty-two inches.

      There were no digital cameras in those days and certainly not any cell phone cameras.  It was more than six decades before any purported photograph appeared.  The one that did showed an unidentified man and an unidentified young boy holding a big fish.  The palm trees in the picture's background still stand on the post office property and lend some credence to its authenticity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

FARMING IN LAURENS COUNTY IN 1915

The somewhat lackluster year of 1915 was more remarkable for what did not happen here

than what did happen.  After a quarter century of unbridled growth, Laurens Countians began to

suffer from business closures, cotton crop failures and general uneasiness about their future.  The

county had reached its zenith in 1913 and 1914, but there were always people here who never

lost faith in themselves and the county they loved.

For example, take a look at an article penned by "A Dublin Resident," in the August 10,

1915 edition of the Macon Telegraph, which he titled, "Laurens County Proves Its Splendid

Richness - Brilliant Opportunities in Laurens for The Worker."

In proclaiming that life is worth living the writer pointed to a "countywide" spirit

progressive reform in bettering schools and churches in addition better home lives and farming

conditions.  Credit was given to the county commissioners, school officials and teachers, Sunday

school, the Laurens School Improvement League and school agricultural clubs for the continued

growth in the county.

First and foremost on the minds of Laurens Countians in 1915 were good roads, not only

passable and maintained county dirt roads, but the coming of the Dixie Highway to Central

Georgia.   As the year progressed, Dublin appeared to be a sure spot on the highway's two route

selections from the trans continental Columbus to Savannah route, the future Highway 80, or the

Savannah to Atlanta route, which was not chosen. 

With its half million acres and 810 square miles of area, the need for new and better

county roads were always on the all-important minds of the voters. With improved roads came

the need for things we take for granted today.  Concrete culverts and bridges were on the need list

of the commissioners, who, in those days, were called "Road Commissioners."  The first

non-river crossing bridge was the steel bridge over Hunger and Hardship on North Franklin

Street.  With new and improved equipment and an abundance of natural soil resources, the

commissioners began to further appease their voters as tax dollars would allow.  

Boasting the fact that Laurens was a "Two-Crop County," the author pointed to the fact

that the number of farms was increasing every year. That figure would peak in 1924, when the

county boasted more than 4000 farms, an all time state record.  Part of the increased number of

farms was attributed to the subdivision of once larger farms and former ante bellum plantations

across the northern portion of the county and the cultivation of the pine and Wiregrass section

along the lower southwestern edge of the county. Prime farm lands brought between 25 and 50

dollars per acre, far below the prices of farms in other southeastern states.

The boastful, status quo  idea that a cotton-corn dominated agricultural economy would

continue to support Laurens Countians soon dissolved into oblivion.  The coming of the boll

weevil and the near destruction of the cotton crop led to a massive crop diversification

agricultural pursuits for the first time since the Civil War.  Before the war,  the plantations across

the northern end of the county were forced to diversify to support all of the needs of the residents

of the county.  

As the cotton economy began to fail, farmers looked to other vegetables, grains and

grasses, such as oats and vetch,  as well as increasing the production of livestock, swine and their

byproducts. 

Dublin, the county seat, was pointed to as the key to the economic development of the

county, which was the center of a developing commercial and industrial area.  The writer saluted

the communities of Dexter, Dudley, Cadwell, Rentz, Tingle, Montrose, Rockledge, Brewton,

Lovett, Minter, Orianna, Catlin, Cedar Grove and Poplar Springs for working together with

Dublin and each other.

By all accounts, this writer was hopelessly optimistic as to the near future of Laurens

County.  With the escalation of World War I and the country's eventual entry into the war in

Europe, agricultural activities began to stabilize.  Once the war ended and the cotton crop failed

to rebound, the economic consequences were staggering.    As the county peaked in  its number

of banks to a mark only behind Fulton and Chatham counties, one bank after another began to

fail.  Before the end of the 1920s, the county's banks dwindled down to two, the Farmers and

Merchants Bank and the Bank of Dudley, which were owned by single families.

The sole purpose of the 1915 article was to show that Laurens County, though ravaged by

the boll weevil, had the power to survive any agricultural crisis.  With an average annual rainfall

of 51 inches over the previous four decades, Laurens farmers were poised to continue their large

yields.

The author pointed to the ten million dollars of farmland encompassing a quarter of a

million acres and 400 square miles, and  fed by the streams of the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers,

the county was perched on the precipice of greatness.

Two indicators of better time was the formation of the Farmers Supply Company and the

Laurens County Farmers Union.  Cotton production in 1914 rose to nearly 60,000 bales, or

30,000,000 pounds.  Beating that second highest record, set in 1911, would be difficult for

Laurens County's farmers, who had led the state from 1911 to 1913 and finished a close second

in 1914.  

Production plummeted in 1915 by nearly a third in Laurens and in the other leading

counties in the state.  When the bales were counted and estimated, production for the year 1915

amounted to 40,000 bales, although respectable, was regarded as a devastating loss to Laurens

County's farmers.  

The Laurens Herald looked at the 40,000 bale figure and applauded it as a sign of

increased diversification.  On the optimistic side, the first carload of hogs, sponsored by the

Farmers Union, were shipped to Moultrie in hopes of agricultural diversification.  A county wide

soil survey was completed to give farmers a better knowledge of soil conditions across the

county.

In retrospect, not even the invulnerable Four Seasons Department Store, which had been

the leading store in the East Central Georgia area for nearly a decade, could withstand its losses

when it filed bankruptcy.  

Despite drastic changes in cotton crops and prices and the national economic woes,

Laurens County farmers persevered for the next three decades.  As World War II ended, the

county's farmers once again led Laurens back to the top of the list of the most productive farming

counties.  

GROVER C. NASH

Soaring to New Heights

Grover C. Nash could fly a plane with the best of any pilot of his day.  In 1938,  he made history during National Air Mail Week.  This is the story of a poor farm boy from Twiggs County, Georgia who piloted his plane into history as he became the first African American pilot to fly and deliver the U.S. mail.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


A TRIP IN TIME TO JEWELL, GEORGIA

JEWELL, GEORGIA 

Photos by Scott B. Thompson, Sr. 

If you want to take a trip in time back to the 1800s, from Laurens County get in your car, travel through Sandersville and continue on Highway 15, turn right in Warthen and then turn west when you see the sign for the turn to the road to Hamburg State Park.  Keep going past the park and just before you reach Georgia Highway 16 between Sparta and Warrenton, you will turn a bend and be transported back to the 1800s in an instant.  

     The village of Jewell exists around an expansive open green defined by a few, widely spaced buildings, and along the Warrenton Road (Georgia Highway 16) on both sides of the Ogeechee River. The village lies in two counties, Warren and Hancock, separated by the Ogeechee River. The site is situated near an old Indian trail from the east to the west which crossed the river about a hundred yasds below the present bridge (on Highway 16). There were many rocks in the river at that point which afforded a crossing over the river even at flood staged The rocks were blasted out of the river in later times. On the West stde of the Ogeechee the town surrounds a green, planted at one time with elms which later died. Today the green is grassed and defined by a dirt road

   Facing the -green are a small two-story frame school house on a granite foundation. Built ca. 1871 by Daniel A. Jewell, it has a gable roof with brackets. The principal facade faces north. The entrance is on the center line of the north elevation; a box return gable pediment is over the door. On each side is a window with 6/6 lights. The second story, north elevation, has one window centered over each of the first-story windows, and a double window in the center with pointed arch lintels. On the interior there was a classroom downstairs with meeting hall over the latter reached by winding steps. The benches, the blackboard, the platform, and old stovepipes are still in place. The present use is as a community house for the two churches. 

   Baptist Church: 1871 Norman Gothic style. Faces north. Main entrance through tower (north) end. Pilasters and pointed windows (some double like the schoolhouse). Present use: church. Condition: good. ..

   Methodist Church: ca. 1841-45. Original location at Rock Mills Community, moved to Jewel! in 1894. Wooden, Gothic style. Five-side south end. Square steeple, pointed windows. Present use: church. Condition: good. 

   Ashley Jewell Residence: Wood, Victorian Queen Anne, Gingerbreadstyle house. Faces west. Late 19th Century. Two stories and attic. Fishscale trim. Present use: residence. Condition: good.

Baptist Church, Jewell ca. 1870

Methodist Church, Baptist Church, School 

Rosemont Store

Ashley Jewell House

Rock Mill Methodist Church. ca. 1841

School/Meeting Hall 

The district of Jewell, Georgia, is significant as, the remains of an early Georgia mill village. Its architectural features-date from the 1840s to the latter half of the 19th Century. Nearby are the sites of a textile mill, grist mill, and an iron,foundry. The town of Jewell is located on an old Indian trail, which crossed the Ogeechee River a few hundred yards from the present bridge. 

The town of Jewell has been known by various names. In the early days of its development, it was owned by the Shivers family and tradition has it that it was called "Shivers." The Shivers family, headed by Jonas Shivers, came to Georgia from Virginia and lived in Hancock and Warren counties, Georgia, in the late 18th Century. 

Jonas' son, William Shivers (1783-1852), was the proprietor, not only of the site where Jewell is located, but of Rock Mills, about a mile and a half north, on the Ogeechee, where the William Shivers home place (known as Rock Mill) still remains. One site was also known as Shivers,Mills, 1826-1835. Mr. Shivers had a grist mill at the Rock Mills, and later built a thread mill, as well as a large store to supply the mill workers and their families, at Shivers. 

After William Shivers' death in 1852, his administrator sold the Rock Mill Factory (known in public advertisements simply as the "cotton factory") at Shivers to Thomas Neal of Warren County in November, 1853. This tract included nine acres surrounding the mill site on the Warren County side of the river. Neal sold the same to Thomas Windsor on July 15, 1856, and on February 20, 1857, Windsor, of Baldwin County, sold the site and nine acres jointly to Daniel Ashley Jewel! (late of Massachusetts and New Hampshire) and Simeon C. Bodfish (late of Connecticut) for $3,500. In April, 1857, Jewell and Bodfish bought 105 acres across the Ogeechee in Hancock County to add to their enterprise. A year later, June 15, 1858, Bodfish sold his half interest in both locations to Jewell, and the firm was dissolved. Jewell then became sole owner of the Rock Manufacturing Company. 

In 1858, Jewell and Bodfish (and after July 6th, Jewell alone) had advertised that they had repaired and added new machinery at the mill and that cotton and wool manufacturing was once again underway. They could supply yarns, wool and cloth.

Under the sole operation of Daniel A. Jewell (1822-1896), the community became a burgeoning textile center. A two-story school house was built on the green by Jewell about 1871. During his ownership, homes were built, many on the highlands on both sides of the river, continuing the standard mill houses, built of heart pine and mortised-and-pegged construction, which had been built for the mill workers beginning in the 1840s. 

The Walter Dickson house is an example and is one of the two oldest houses standing in Jewell. D.A. Jewell, a Massachusetts native, had come at age 25 (ca. 1847) to Milledgeville, Georgia, the state capitol, and had married there in 1849 Mary Ann Shea. In the mid-1850s, he operated D.A. Jewell and Company, a wool-manufacturing firm, and this was his occupation just prior to the purchase of the Rock Factory. He moved to Jewell (then called Rock Factory) by 1859, for he was living there in 1860. 

During the War Between the States, while the town was still known as Rock Factory, a company known as the "Ogeechee Minute Men," was formed in 1863, with Jewel! himself, a Northerner, asking the state's adjutant general for weapons. Tradition has it that federal soldiers came through the town in 1864 after reaching Shoals on the Ogeechee, a few miles to the south, but did not burn the mills or the town due to seeing the masonic symbol on the mill's chimney. (This stone was later salvaged and is now located at Call away Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia.) 

The William P. Haynes Lodge of the Free and Accepted Masons had been formed at Rock Factory in 1864 and was chartered in 1865, shortly after the end of the war. It was dissolved in 1946. A Baptist church was organized there in 1869 and the brick edifice was built ca. 1871 on the green, also sponsored by Mr. Jewell. It is the oldest brick church building in the Washington Baptist Association. 

The wooden Methodist church was built about 1841-1845 at Rock Mills, and was moved to Jewell in 1894. It had been previously known as the Rock Mills Church. Today it stands on the northwest side of the green. The name of the town remained Rock Factory until approximately 1869-1870. 

An act of the legislature in 1872 incorporated the town as Jewell's Mills, and maps after this date are the first to show the new name. Later, the name became Jewell 's, and later Jewell, as it remains today. The U.S. Post Office at Jewel!'s was established in 1873 with Mr. Jewell as the postmaster, later to be succeeded by his son.

During the first decade after the Civil War (1866-1876), the mill resumed operations, as evidenced by the surviving Factory Accounts book for the entire period. The mill operated six days a week except for holidays (usually Thanksgiving, Christmas, and sometimes July 4th), or when the water was exceedingly high or low, thus hampering production. 

Changes in equipment also caused several down days during this decade. Produced during these years were jerseys, jeans, and yarn. By 1876, jerseys were being made in cotton and wool. In 1876, the mill complex also included flour and saw mills, and by 1880, there were 3,000 spindles for cotton and 150 for wool, with 50,000 pounds of cotton being processed per month. D.A. Jewell died in 1896 and was buried in the town that not only bore his name, but bore the results of his hard work and benevolence. His wife, who died the year before, is buried there also. 

The town of Jewell has been connected with a number of the South's great textile families. Fuller E. Call away, later president of the Call away Mills of LaGrange, Georgia, married Jewell's granddaughter, Ida Cason (for whom Callaway Garden was later named) and eventually helped members of the Jewell family to move to Chickamauga, Georgia, where their descendants are still involved with the cotton mills. 

D.A. Jewell, Sr.'s sole ownership of the mil! continued until 1875, when his son-in-law, Colonel W.L. Bowen, acquired partnership with him and the name was changed to Bowen-Jewell Company. Metal "coins" were minted for use by mill workers during this period. 

Eventually, D.A. Jewell, Jr. (1860-1935) became the family partner with Colonel Bowen. Sales were made in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Jewell, Jr., built a bag plant there, alternating weeks supervising the plants at Jewell and Chattanooga. Gordon Lee of Chickamauga, Georgia, began developing springs in his area and sold land to Jewell, Jr., for a mill, where ca. 1902 he built a finishing plant. 

After several decades of dual mills, Jewell, Jr., sold the Georgia site around 1922 to the Gant Brothers, who ran the Glen Raven Mills of North Carolina. In 1927 the mills at Jewell were completely destroyed by fire. Today only the mill's foundation remains on the banks of the Ogeechee. 

A street of mill houses, known as "Smut Row," paralleling the Warrenton Road, were cleared in the 1960s to make pastureland. Many of the present-day residents of Jewel! are descendants of the original mill families. They have carefully preserved the remaining houses and are interested in seeing that the character of the town remain unchanged. 

Historical material from National Register of Historic Places Inventory Form.   

MARVIN METHODIST CHURCH

MARVIN METHODIST CHURCH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

of "Marvin."

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

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

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

LOVETT, GEORGIA

LOVETT, GEORGIA
A Look Back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the lighter side, the farmers of Lovett were enjoying a plentiful season, raising enough corn, fodder and provisions to provide for their families for another year, without being forced into debt.  Ike Askew brought the first two bales of cotton into town on August 9th.    Mr. E.A. Lovett paid Askew $5.80 for his prized bales.  By the end of the month, heavy tropical rains severely damaged the unpicked half of the cotton crop. Fears of losses were erased by the first of October, most of the

farmers were happy. But Lovett continued to grow.  Sidewalks were given much needed and overdue repairs and three new handsome homes were erected that summer.  The young people were preparing a concert and a traveling showman thrilled the congregation of folks with a ascension of his hot air balloon.

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

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

MISCELEANEA FROM THE LAND OF THE 'HOOPEE

RUNNING THE GREAT AMERICAN RACE - Ben Lane, of Wrightsville, Georgia,

driving a 1966 Chevrolet, placed 26th in the 1967 Daytona 500.  Lane, whose prize winnings totaled

$1120.00,  finished 141 of the 200 lap race, just two spots behind David Pearson and ahead of racing

greats Buddy Baker, LeRoy Yarborough, A.J. Foyt, Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison. The race

was dominated by Mario Andretti and Fred Lorenzen. Greensboro Record, February 27, 1967, p.

21.

LIGHTS OUT! WATER TOO! - In the early months of October of 1917, the lights went

out in Wrightsville. The broken-down power house was unrepairable.   The town’s citizens came

together in a mass meeting to attempt to quickly resolve the problems, bu to no avail.  J.H. Harrison,

the powerhouse superintendent, set out to complete rebuild the power plant.   Electrical service was

sporadically restored, but a severe winter storm and vandals kept the lights out until mid-February

of 1918.  And to make matters worse, there was a shortage of water and when water was plentiful,

the lack of electricity made it nearly impossible to pump it to homes and businesses.  Macon

Telegraph, Oct. 12, 1917, Feb. 4, 1918.   

HOME MAIL DELIVERY - In today’s world when the practice of U.S. postmen delivering

mail to the mailbox on your front door beginning to slowly disappear, the family of W.E. Parker, of

Wrightsville, Georgia would have preferred that the mail man leave their mail in the box out by the

street.  Early in the predawn hours of January 16, 1960, mail truck driver Benjamin Hull fell asleep

at the wheel, left the roadway some 165 yards from the Parker home and made a bee line through

the Parker’s storehouse, striking the wall of their home and landing in the kitchen.  Miraculously the

family wasn’t preparing an early breakfast and no one was injured, except the house which suffered

approximately $1000.00 in damages.  Augusta Chronicle, Jan. 20, 1960, p. 3.

THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED.  Two cars were approaching each other on Highway 319

near Wrightsville, when the car occupied by Herbert and R.W. Jackson of Bartow veered into

another car which was headed from New York to Marianna, Florida and  driven by Lucille

Colosimo.  Colosimo’s husband Philip and Salvatore Carbone along with Lucille were killed.  Two

other passengers, N.J. Zelman and Jack Shomer,  were injured.  What was remarkable was that

Lucille, Philip and Salvatore were the lead vocalist, saxophonist and trombonist of Ray Eberle’s

band.   Eberle, a main member of Glenn Miller’s band, led his own band after Miller’s untimely

death in World War II.  The Bridgeport Post, January 20, 1958.

CELEBRATED SURVIVOR - In the early days of February 1944, a United States Army

Air Force plane’s crew parachuted to safety after the pilot lost control of the plane over Wrightsville. 

The plane crash and crew’s survival was somewhat unnewsworthy except one of the crew, Lt.

William Arnold, was the son of  Edward Arnold.  The senior Arnold was a leading Hollywood actor

for four decades and a President of the Screen Actor’s Guild.  Omaha World Herald, February

5, 1944.

LAST ONES OUT - The beginning of the end of the Vietnam War began in March1973. 

Among the last troops to leave was Claude Green, of Swainsboro, Ga.  As one of the last 1100

combat troops to return home to the states, Specialist Four Green remarked, “The people of Nam

were good.  I am just glad to be out of it.”  Boston Herald, March 30, 1973.

I LIKE IKE - Ray Brinson, a 36-year-old resident of Swainsboro, was proud of his

community and proud of one of its greatest resources, the pine tree.  He was determined to take of

pine seedling and deliver it to the President of the United States, even he had to deliver it on foot. 

So when President Eisenhower spent his Christmas vacation at Augusta National Golf Club, Ray

Brinson decided he would walk the 63-mile trek and hand deliver it to Eisenhower himself.   Brinson

set out walking north from U.S. Highway 1 in Swainsboro at noon three days after Christmas and

arrived late the next day.  After a much needed rest, Brinson hoped to hand deliver the prize seedling,

but was met by the President’s aides, who presented to Cliff Roberts, the Club Chairman, who

instructed the groundskeepers to plant it on the club house grounds.  Omaha World Herald,

December 31, 1953. 

VOTE FOR DURDEN - To some, election ballots can be confusing.  To the voters of

Emanuel County in the autumn of 1957, the ballot was more confusing than usual.  The incumbent

Judge of the Court of Ordinary, known today as the Probate Court, had been appointed to the

position.  Judge Durden chose not to seek election for a full term causing a special election to fill the

vacancy.  Running for the post were Kelmer Durden and Geroude Durden.  When the ballots were

counted, Kelmer Durden was declared the winner by 181 votes.   Dallas Morning News, December

7, 1967.

POSTMASTER PRESIDENT - William C. Layton, Swainsboro’s postmaster, was chosen

to lead the National League of Postmasters at their organization’s convention in the summer of 1960.

Washington Evening Star, August 7, 1960.

AND THE WINNER OF IS - The people of Swainsboro were very proud of their

community’s title as the “Turpentine Capital of the World.”  So proud, that they sponsored a farm

queen contest.  They even were able to secure Georgia governor Marvin Griffin to travel to

Swainsboro to announce the winner.  After the elimination rounds, only Janice Ridgdill and Sarah

Ellen Phillips remained.  Ridgdill, described by a UP writer as pert and pretty, was the unanimous

choice of the three judges.  But, when Governor Griffin announced that Sarah Ellen Phillips, “a whiz

in 4-H Club activities,” as the winner, the judges were shocked.    When the opinions of the judges

were made public, protests within the community  abounded, even among the community’s most soft

spoken leaders.  Ridgdill, an Oak Park junior,  had her winning name removed from the judge’s

envelope  during a secret meeting of the Farm Bureau’s directors, reportedly because Sarah Ellen

was more talented when it came to 4-H club activities.  She accepted the decision with charm and

grace, bowing out when the controversy began to expand.   Later in the year, Janice proved her

worthiness in 4-H activities by capturing the award for the most progress in the club during the year

and a state award for her entomology project.    Miss Phillips, the official winner and a  senior from

Graymont, felt sorry for Ridgdill but vowed to take the crown and carry on her assigned duties. 

Augusta Chronicle, May 8, 1955, Dec. 26, 1955.  

THE LEADERS’ LEADER - The Jaycees, United States Junior Chamber of Commerce

make it their mission to train through community service to become leaders of their community.  The

state leaders of this national organization came together in Miami, Florida in 1951 to elect their

national president.  The delegates chose Lee Price, a Swainsboro, Ga. attorney and Coca-Cola

executive.  During World War II, Price worked for the OSS in Norway in espionage work and

surpvervised European immigrants coming to the United States after the war.    Price joined Coca

Cola in 1951.  He was named Vice President of Personnel in 1954 and Vice President of Public

Relations in 1960.  Price tragically died in 1962 from a heart attack at the age of 44 years.

Greensboro Daily News, June 9, 1951, Augusta Chronicle, February 8, 1962.