WHITEHALL PLANTATION

WHITEHALL
An Antebellum Treasure

Any old house, especially one of the wooden clapboard variety, has a tale to tell, or many tales to tell.  But, since walls can't really talk, we will just have to use our imaginations. There are stories of life and death, laughter and despair, and triumph and tragedy. Though many of the accounts of life in an old house were never preserved, a few have been documented.  Architects design homes and carpenters build them, but a home is shaped and molded by those who live in it.  This is the story of Whitehall, the seat of the White family of Laurens County for many a decade and one of the county's oldest surviving homes.

Joseph McKee White migrated to Laurens County, Georgia about the year 1846.  White, a native of South Carolina and son of John and Dovey White, grew up on a plantation in the Sumter  District of South Carolina on the Black River.    His close friend Daniel G. Hughes believed that Joseph actually came from York County.   Before moving on, White completed his higher educational studies at the University of Georgia.   

Members of the White family were always told that White came through central Georgia on his way toward Mississippi, where he hoped to establish a thriving plantation in the lush delta regions of that state.  According to the family lore, White was so impressed with the fertility of the soils of Laurens and Pulaski counties that he ended his search and settled along the line dividing the two counties.

Joseph White, a man with a fine physique,  was described by Dan Hughes to be " a man of marked intelligence and sense of logic."   White's first recorded purchase of land came in 1847 while he was still considered a resident of Sumter County.  He purchased 900 acres from Mary Wilkinson for the not so paltry sum of $ 1700.00.  This land would form the nucleus of his plantation which he would call "Whitehall."  Though his real estate holdings would eventually encompass ten thousand acres or more, most of his purchases were recorded.  Located on the waters of Crooked Creek on the Old Uchee Trail, Whitehall was considered to be a part of the community known as Laurens Hill, which was centered a few miles to the northwest.  

White used his higher educational skills in an attempt to master the science of agriculture.    A frequent contributor of letters and articles in local papers, White wrote of the problems facing the state and nation on political issues as well as the problems which faced the farmers of the state.  His writings showed his readers that he was no ordinary man, but one of superior intellect and one whose opinions were weighty and valuable.

Just down the road on an adjoining plantation lived one of the most beautiful young ladies Joseph White had ever met.  Cherry Coley, a daughter of Cain Coley, accepted Joseph White's proposal of marriage.  The couple were married in 1850 and moved into White's new home.  

Large plantations were communities within themselves.  Though White's land holdings were large, he surprisingly owned relatively few slaves.  In 1850, White is shown as the owner of 39 slaves, 29 of whom were under the age of 14.  In 1860, the number of slaves rose to 50, with only forty percent of them being under the age of 14.  Many of the larger plantations were served by a local physician.  One such physician, Dr. J.W. Woods, a relative of Joseph White and recent salutatorian of his medical class, was invited to remove himself from his home in South Carolina in hopes of establishing a lucrative practice in the Laurens Hill Community.  Woods, an avid hunter, returned from a hunting trip, only to find himself somewhat ill.  As his own physician, Woods administered a dosage of what he thought was quinine.  A momentary lapse in vision resulted in his consumption of a fatal quantity of morphine.  For three agonizing days, the comatose doctor was beaten with wet towels and walked through the walls and around the porches of Whitehall in a futile attempt to revive him.  Dr. Woods once breathing body was laid to rest in the corner of a large field about a mile northeast of the main house at Whitehall.

Another short term resident of Whitehall was W. H. Mobley.    Mobley, a nephew of Georgia congressman Charles Crisp, married a daughter of Sen. John H. Reagan of Texas.  It will be remembered that is was Sen. Reagan, who as the Postmaster of the Confederate States of America, led the caravan of Confederate President Jefferson Davis as he made his way through Laurens County in an attempt to escape capture by Union forces in 1865.  Mobley served as his uncle's secretary in Washington and moved to Palestine, Texas to practice law.  He removed to Cochran in 1892 and lived with the White family until his return to Texas two years later.  Mobley, like his father actor who was killed in an Atlanta theater,  died a tragic death when he consumed a fatal dose of morphine in 1901.  

During the Civil War, Joseph White served as a major in the Confederate Provisional Army.    Too old to engage in combat, Major White was commissioned to help raise food and gather war materials for the cause of the Confederacy.  White may have commanded a small Confederate commissary, which was located just beyond Laurens Hill next to the Harvard family cemetery.  Several years after the end of the hostilities, Major White was granted a  full pardon by President Andrew Johnson for his acts of war against the United States.

Architectural experts have likened Whitehall's straightforwardly simple design of well proportioned square columns as representative of the best of a number of similar houses and buildings of the period, among them the cottage behind the President's House at the University of Georgia and the Davis-Edwards House in Monroe.   The house has been defined as hybrid mixture of indigenous architecture with the dignity and clarity of Greek  designs, which Thomas Jefferson so ideally sought in his classical designs. 

Students of architecture will recognize the details of the frame clapboarded t-shaped rectangular  house with a five-bay front, a hipped roof, two interior chimneys and three end chimneys.    Surrounded by a grove of ancient cedars, Whitehall features a porch on three sides.  Guests entered the home through a double door entrance into a central hall.    Grand houses like Whitehall often attracted the most prominent and highly erudite visitors.  Reportedly, thirteen governors of Georgia have slept in the guest bedroom, located in the northwest corner of the house.  

During the the late 1950s and early 1960s,  the home was occupied by  John Richard Staley, major renovations were put in place including transoms with radiating muntins, all new plaster and woodwork.  Staley, the president of Quaker Oats Company, purchased Whitehall as a birthday present  for his wife, the former Miss Carolyn Flemming, who had always admired the stately old home.   A car port was added and a breezeway between the house and kitchen was so enlarged to  merge into the house itself. Modern wiring, heating and plumbing were installed under the direction of the chief engineer of Quaker Oats Company. 

Architect Jackson Lamb, a native of Montrose, purchased the house in 1966 and undertook a major and complete restoration of the home, where he married his wife Nancy Ragsdale.  Lamb sold the house to Henry and Martha Cannon in 1970.  Henry, a long time executive with the Georgia Forestry Commission, and Martha, sister of Marion Folsom, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare during the Eisenhower administration, continued to make improvements  on the inside and outside.  

In the mid 1980s, Bill Holmes, a great-great grandson of Major White, purchased Whitehall and much of the original plantation lands.  Holmes  made improvements to the property, especially on the grounds.  Today, the property is owned by an investment firm and is not open to the public.

THE CHICKEN ROAD

The answer to that question is obviously, the chicken.    Perhaps the most essential question should be, why was the road named for a chicken and was the chicken, a bird, an Indian or a soldier?   For more than a century , toponymists (look it up, I had to) have vainly sought out to finally determine the derivation of the name of "The Chicken Road," which runs from Hawkinsville, Georgia on the Ocmulgee River to Dublin, Georgia on the Oconee River.

The Chicken Road is actually two roads.  Laurens, Bleckley andDodge Counties differ in their Chicken Roads.   Both Chicken Roads follow a northeasterly path running from Old Hartford on the Ocmulgee River, opposite Hawkinsville, through Frazier and Empire.  The lower road continues through Chester in Dodge County following the general path of Highway 257 on into Dublin. 

Northwest of Empire, another Chicken Road, sometimes called the "West Chicken Road" or "East Chicken Road"  veers   a little northwest of the former rail center through Dodge and Bleckley and enters Laurens County near the intersection of Branch Road, Moore Road and the terminus of Hillbridge Road. Continuing along its northeasterly course, this Chicken Road runs through the Buckhorn Community, first settled by Benjamin Darsey in the early 1800s, and intersects the Dudley-Dexter Road, Highway 338 at Turkey Creek, at a place once called Kewanee.  

From Kewanee it passed through the Hogan lands on the same basic northeasterly course to the Shewmake Community near I-16.  Passing through the legendary first county seat of Laurens, Sumpterville, this Chicken Road followed Moore Station Road until its intersection with Bellevue Road and Bellevue Avenue (Old Hawkinsville Road)  until reaching its terminus at the Dublin Ferry, where the ancient Indian road from Indian Springs to Savannah crossed the Oconee River.  

             One of the first attempts to find the derivation of the name was published in the Dublin Post on May 1, 1879.  "Ms. James Wyatt tells us that Mrs. Polly Weaver says Mr. Thomas B. Fuqua is mistaken in thinking the Chicken Road to Hawkinsville got its name from the chicken stealing proclivities of the road hands who opened the road.  This aged lady, then  about 80, says the Chickasaw Indians who lived in this community used to travel that road to Hawkinsville (which town, by the way was at that time situation on this side of the Ocmulgee River and called Hartford) to trade, and that on this account it was called the Chickasaw road, finally abbreviated to Chicken Road."

At the southern end of the Chicken Road, J.W. Carruthers, an ancient resident of Hawkinsville, proclaimed that the road's name had nothing at all to do with Indians.  He claimed that road was constructed about 1825 to 1830 and it was a mere folly to the residents of Pulaski County, who in ridiculing the idea proclaimed "that nothing more than a few dozen chickens would ever be brought over the road." 

Carruther's statement as to the date of the road seems to be plausible in that no trace of a trail is shown on the surveyors' detailed land lot maps of the area mad about 1806.

Yet another attribution of the name to the feathered bird is the story that the area along the southern end of the road was abundant with wild chickens.  The story goes that one day a chicken peddler was traveling along the road when he fell asleep near a creek in the present day Frasier community.  When the man awoke, he found his wagon gate open and not a single chicken in sight.  The old timers believed they skedaddled to the woods and swamps where they lived the wild life.  

Most anthropologists believe that the Chickasaw came from the west to settle in Louisiana and Mississippi, so it seems unlikely that any Chickasaw ever lived in the Hawkinsville area.  

Renowned toponymist, Kenneth Krakow, in his landmark work "Georgia Place Names," restates the Chickasaw Indian connection, but incorrectly states that the Chicken Road was originally part of the Lower Uchee (Yuchi) Trail, which also ran from Hawkinsville, but along a somewhat parallel path crossing the Oconee River, five to six miles above Dublin near Blackshear's Ferry.   

Guy Alford, of Swainsboro, after consultation with Hal M. Stanley, State Commissioner of Insurance and formerly of Laurens County, believed that the Chicken Road was named after General George Chicken. Mereness in Travels Among the Colonies, wrote that George Chicken represented the the English Commissioner of Indian Affairs, traveling through this area on his way to the Flint River.

And so, I come to the end of my quest.  The question still remains.  Not only are there three somewhat logical sources for the naming of the Chicken Road, once the road leaves the Empire Community of Dodge County, there are two separate and distinct Chicken Roads.  

If you want to know my guess, I will go with the less romantic name which derived from the shipping of chickens along the road.  This conclusion is based on the lack of a chicken road being shown on early 19th Century surveys of the area coupled with the fact that this area was primarily settled by Yuchi (Uchee) and Muskogee speaking Creek Indians. 

However, it remains positively clear that at one time or another that a bird, a soldier and an Indian did cross the Chicken Road.  Why? You know why! And don't ask me again!

DUBLIN'S FIRST NEWSPAPER

The Beginning of a Tradition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OUR INFAMOUS INFERNOS

         Back in the old days, when fires were put out by brigades of volunteers throwing buckets of water or by fireman hand pumping small streams of water, a fire in the downtown area was often quite cataclysmic. Dublin's first major fire occurred on  May 26, 1889.  One hundred and twenty five years ago today, Dublin's business district was one mass of charred timbers and smouldering ashes of once bustling businesses. There was no hope in sight. Gloom, despair and agony permeated the smoking ruins.

When the business section of Dublin began to expand, stores and other places of business were expanded well beyond the original plan of four lots/buildings  per block.  The closeness of buildings to each other , coupled with the fact that brick buildings were somewhat scarce, even in the early 1890s, led to massive fires in the downtown area, some fueled by drought and wind, others fed by insidious incendiaries.

Dublin's first "great" fire (great fires are never great)  began early on a quiet Sunday morning.  A westerly wind was howling down the main street from the west.  It had not rained in weeks.  Water was scarce.  Napoleon Baum was only beginning to erect the town's first public well on the northeast side of the Courthouse Square. With the two requisite elements for a catastrophic conflagration present, the smallest spark would ignite a firestorm. 

Investigators focused on the source of the fire and determined that the flames emanated from the Post Office causing  the whipping winds to leap from one wooden structure to another.  For nearly nine hours, townsfolk futilely  sought t0 extinguish the rolling mass of flames.  The Dalton Hotel was sacrificed by dynamiting it to save the Tillery and Burch houses.

The fire burned everything from the corner of Lawrence Street around the block and down Jefferson Street stopping before reaching the Troup House.  Among the buildings suffering substantial losses were the Post Office, the old Hooks Hotel,  Roughton's store, B.F. Duggan's Grocery, C.W. Brantley's house, F.W. Shelton's general merchandise store J.W. Gilder's building, P. Hillman's restaurant, Peter Franklin's barber shop, Jesse Cowart's grocery, George Bang's Dublin Jewelry Store,  H.P. Smith's shoe store, Susan Tillery's store house, Nathan Burch's building, Willis Dasher's restaurant, L.C. Perry's stables and buggy shop, and M.L Jones' store, which was the highest valued loss at $4000.00.  Jones came out smelling like a rose because he had $3000.00 in insurance.  No other building owner did.  G.W. Maddox's furniture store suffered the most damage with $3000.00 in uninsured losses. 

Only the slightly damaged brick office of Dr. R.H. Hightower (where Deano's is now located) survived the fire in the entire block southwest of the courthouse square.    The final total of damages ranged from $25,000.00 to $50,000.00 with eleven business houses being totally engulfed in flames.  The total figure was most likely at least $40,000.00.  Two or three weeks later, the rains finally came and the town was safe, at least for a while.

One of the burned buildings belonged to H.C. Roughton of Sandersville.  Upon hearing of the fire, Roughton rushed to Dublin by train, arriving  just before the fire was finally under control.  He sought out L.A. Chapman, the owner of the brickyard.  The next morning before the ashes cooled Mr. Chapman began delivering bricks to the site.  What resulted may be the oldest building in downtown Dublin.  It is occupied in 2014 by New York Fashions.  

It was another Sunday and another fire. It was the evening of September 21, 1890, just before the autumnal equinox.  It had been relatively wet, a condition which had severely damaged the year's cotton crop.  Just about 9:00 in the evening, a wood stove caught on fire.  The flames spread across the street from the Troup House on the first block of South Jefferson Street consuming all of the houses in their path.  T.F. Newman's harness shop, J.S. Lewis' ice and soda saloon, the barbershop, the bottling works, and the newspaper offices of the Dublin gazette were totally destroyed. Much to the chagrin of the liquor and beer drinkers, both J.M. Rinehart's and W.J. Hightower's bar rooms were incinerated when the flames hit their flammable stock.    Luckily, hardly $50.00 of  Miss Susie Bearden's millenary was scorched.

New Year's Day 1894 was not a happy one, not at all.  

On the last day of 1893, the citizens of Dublin were looking forward to a better economic year following the economically disastrous Panic of 1893.    Just before midnight, flames began to fly out of the Whitehead-Watkins Building on the corner of West Jackson and South Jefferson Streets.   Thoughts immediately turned back to May 26, 1889, when the entire block was virtually burned to the ground.

The first story stores of G.W. Bishop, E.J. Tarpley, G.W. Maddox and Tarpley & Kellam were gutted.  Upstairs, the medical offices of Dr. A.F. Summerlin, and Dr. Charles Hicks, along with the legal offices of  Peyton Wade, Frank Corker, Joseph Walker, Joseph Chappel, and Mercer Haynes. were destroyed except for a few pieces of furniture and books of Dr. Summerlin and Attorney Wade, which were carried out before the flames totally engulfed the newly constructed brick building.  Amazingly, none of these erudite professionals carried insurance.

Dr. Hightower's building, which survived the Great Fire of 1889, was severely damaged when the adjoining burning building collapsed upon it.    The fire was so intense that the heat broke windows across the street in the bank.  The proprietors of Lord & Brooks covered the front of their building with wet blankets to keep the heat from damaging their store next to the bank.  

No clues were ever found to determine the origin of the New Year's fire, although preliminary investigators believed it to be of an incendiary nature.  

In today's world of high tech fire fighting equipment and highly trained firemen, we would like to hope that we are exempt from such infamous infernos.  But as you know, history has a way of repeating itself.  It is important to all of us to follow simple and basic fire prevention guidelines to protect our families, friends and our homes and buildings. 

  

DUBLIN GEORGIA FIRES

FERRIES ACROSS THE OCONEE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE FIRST NEWSPAPER

A Centennial History

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SUMPTERVILLE

The Ghost Town of Laurens

Two centuries ago, Sumpterville became our first ghost town.  Laurens County, Georgia was established by the Georgia Legislature on December 10, 1807.  It was a county without a county seat.  The first court sessions were held in 1808 in the home of Major Peter Thomas on the Lower Uchee Trail in northwestern Laurens County.  As the county government began to organize, a more central location for the county seat became a prime goal. A committee chose a site, well centered in the county, but a site which, within two years, would be mostly abandoned and forgotten.

When Laurens County was  created, it stretched from its present location on the west side of the Oconee River southwest to Hartford on  the Ocmulgee River, and  included parts of present day Dodge, Bleckley, Pulaski and Wheeler counties.

The justices of the Inferior Court,  analogous to a mixture of today’s Probate Court and the County Commissioners, appointed a committee, which included John Fullwood,  to seek out and find a suitable location for the county courthouse.   The main goal of the committee was to choose a location on level ground near an abundant water source.  It was imperative that the site be situated near the center of the county and on an existing thoroughfare.  

The committee settled on a flat area along or near what later became “The Chicken Road.” This road was actually a major trail leading from Hartford on the Ocmulgee in a more or less direct line to present day Dublin.  The other dominant trail, the Lower Uchee Trail, traversed the western and northwestern limits of the county crossing the river at Blackshear’s Ferry.  The chosen site was not far from the old Indian trading path which ran from Indian Springs through Macon and onto Savannah. (Left photo by Don Johnston).

The spot chosen was Land Lot 39 of the First Land District of Laurens County.  Interestingly the 202.5 acre land lot had just been purchased by John Fullwood in November 1808 for the  sum of $1000.00 or approximately $5.00 per acre.  The fertile oak and pine lands along Turkey and Rocky Creeks were highly coveted by early settlers who swarmed to the western part of Laurens County.  

Following  the tradition of the day, the new county seat was named in honor of a hero of the American Revolution.  Laurens County was named for Col. John Laurens, a top aide to Gen. George Washington and a native of South Carolina.  General Thomas Sumter (LEFT)  was the chosen honoree for the name of the first county seat.  Sumter preferred to leave the “p” out of his name.  The justices chose to leave the letter in. And, the town of Sumpterville, Georgia was born.  Gen. Sumter, known as “The Carolina Gamecock,” was admired for his fierceness in the battles  in upstate South Carolina.  Described by Gen. Cornwallis as his “greatest plague,” Sumter was  one of the models for Benjamin Martin, the protagonist of the movie, “The Patriot.” 

For a year or so, public sales and court sessions were held at Sumpterville, possibly in the home of John Fullwood.  Presiding over the court during that time was Judge Peter Early, who would later become Governor of Georgia.  Bids were taken in the spring for the building of a courthouse and a jail. Lots were sold to the public on May 26, 1811, but no  deeds were delivered to the purchasers.   When plans changed, those who bought lots were issued refunds. Fullwood, himself a justice of the Inferior Court,  was finally  paid $36.00 for building the courthouse on his own land by the  Court in August 1811.   

After losing a good part of their county in 1808 to Pulaski County, many Laurens Countians fixed their eyes on acquiring replacement lands on the east side of the Oconee River.   In 1811, a bill was finally passed annexing portions of Washington and Montgomery counties.  At that point, Sumpterville was no longer in the center of the county.  In anticipation of acquiring new lands for a new county seat, county officials had already focused their sights on a broad ridge overlooking the Oconee River at a place formerly called Sand Bar and called Dublin by its founder, Jonathan Sawyer, who operated a store and post office there.     The courthouse in Sumpterville was abandoned.  

The town of Sumpterville became an abysmal failure.  By Christmas 1811, public sales were being held in Dublin.  In 1824, Fullwood was reimbursed for building another courthouse in Dublin.   Fullwood, Laurens County’s state seantor from 1812-1814,  never transferred the lots at Sumpterville to the county, but he did hedge his bets by investing in several hundred acres of land just north of Dublin, where he erected a large and successful grist mill on the waters of Hunger and Hardship Creek.

John Fullwood, a teen-age soldier of the American Revolution,  erected his plantation plain home at Sumpterville along a road lined with  live oaks, reminiscent of the coastal regions of Georgia.   Eventually, Fullwood’s home would become a stage coach stop when stages were the predominate method of long range transportation from the 1820s to the Civil War.  

In the 1820 Census, there were thirty persons in the Fullwood household engaged in agriculture on the two-thousand acre plus plantation.  Forty-nine of the fifty- six persons living at Sumpterville were slaves.  By 1850, more than seventy slaves called Sumpterville home.   Fullwood, one of the founders of the Laurens County Academy, the county’s first school,  died at sixty-four in  1828.  He is buried in the cemetery to the rear of his home. His estate went to his widow Mary, who married Andrew Hampton, a wealthy landowner who lived a short distance to the west.  After Andrew Hampton died, Mary married the super wealthy Henry P. Jones, of Burke County.  

All the while, both Mary Fullwood Hampton Jones and her third husband Henry Jones continued to buy more and more land, amassing a plantation of more than five thousand acres. When Mary and Henry died, the Sumpterville plantation passed to the Shewmake family, including John T. Shemake, of Augusta, who was serving as Attorney General of Georgia. Although the Shewmake family established a factory on their plantation which they called the Sumpterville Factory, the area  became more popularly dubbed “Shewmake,” When the Macon, Dublin, and Savannah Railroad was cut through the area in the early 1890s, a depot was established on the road at the point where it crosses the present I-16 highway.  

In 1894,  the Sumpterville site was acquired by J.B. Tyre, one of Laurens County’s first farm agents.  It is believed that Tyre added the western wing of the Fullwood house, which still stands today.   Tyre also established an inn in his house about a century ago.   Wallace W. Walke acquired the farm in 1930 and established Walke’s Dairy, giving the adjoining road its current name. 

Today, the Fullwood home and some of the  magnificent live oaks which lined the old stage road still remains.  Just west of a historical marker placed on the site by the John Laurens Chapter of the N.S.D.A.R. is a small wooden building which has fallen to the hallowed ground and  thought by some to have been the first Laurens County Courthouse.  To this point, no one has come forward with any definitive proof that this decaying structure was our first courthouse.  Nor have they completed discounted that it was not.   For now I’ll print the legend. 

PHOTO BY DON JOHNSTON

PHOTO BY DON JOHNSTON

PHOTOS BY IRENE R. CLAXTON