USA > Georgia > Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I > Part 19
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It is somewhat anomalous that the inspiration of such a purpose should have come to one circumstanced like Martha Berry. The high station in life to which this daughter of a patrician household was born at the close of the Civil War, makes it seem almost incongruous that a girl reared in the lap of luxury, to whom an ungratified wish was something almost foreign, should come through such a tutelage to be adversity's best friend. The culture of generations, flowering in a well-stored intellect, to which the graces were kind enough to add beauty of person and winesomeness of manner, only served to create tastes for intellectual em- ployments and to open spheres of conquest which were most alluring and brilliant. But Martha Berry was an unspoiled favorite of fortune. The vision of pale and wan little faces, framed in a rude door-way of the moun- tains, made the most dazzling offers of the social realm seem like the glitter of mere tinsel, while the voices which called ever and anon from the far hills brought to her ear the honest ring of pure gold. She found her life's work in the humble needs of the mountaineer's neglected child. Nor was Florence Nightingale or Clara Barton called by
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a clearer sense of duty to a more heroic service on the field of battle.
As the sequel will show, Miss Berry was a born organizer. She was something more than a mere dreamer of dreams-a builder of castles in the air. She was a doer of deeds. She was in fact a pioneer whose mission was to blaze a highway through an unbroken for- est and to re-enforce the civilization of the twentieth century with a new element of strength, reclaimed from the great heart of the Georgia mountains. There was not a school in the State for pupils of this character-at least opened to them on like terms-until Miss Berry appeared upon the scene. Today they are numerous. The State of Georgia has established eleven district schools, each of them occupying a definite geographical area and organ- ized upon the Berry model; but the whole north-west corner of the State has been recognized by the law- makers as Miss Berry's rightful domain. If the labor of starting a school for the mountain boys and girls was one of condescension on her part, she only stooped to conquer.
To sketch in a very few words the story of how she came to start the Berry school, it happened in this way : Just in front of her old home, on the Summerville road, surrounded by a thick grove of forest trees, there stood a little mud-daubed shack, built of rough logs. It was not unlike a hundred other structures to be encountered in a day's journey through the mountains; but it was destined to witness a rare bit of history-making in the educational annals of Georgia. This little shack had served the purpose of a play-house for Miss Berry in her childhood days; and afterwards, impelled doubtless by the romance of association, she had transformed it into a comfortably fitted den, where undisturbed she could bring her work-basket to hold converse with the whispering leaves and to catch the inspirations of nature while she
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busily plied her needle and thread. In the light of sub- sequent events it seems that the divinity which presides over human affairs-to quote in substance an apt remark -was in this way only placing Miss Berry on a plane of understanding with the other cabin-dwellers on the distant slopes of the mountains. Whether for idling or for working the cabin was a favorite resort, in which many a pleasant hour was spent in the companionship of her day-dreams.
While thus engaged one Sunday afternoon, the laugh- ter of young people wandering in the grove near by came merrily through the open window. They proved to be children from Possum Trot, a hamlet some eight miles distant, at the foot of Mount Lavender. Asked what they usually did on Sunday afternoons, the answer came back : "Nothing." Thereupon Miss Berry invited them to re- turn on the following Sunday, at which time she promised to tell them some stories from the Bible. They came ac- cording to appointment, some of them re-enforced by older members of the family, even to aged grand-parents who with them had tramped the long distance on foot. The Sunday school grew from Sabbath to Sabbath. Not only the children but the grown-ups hung breathlessly upon the words of Miss Berry as she told them in an artless manner the old-fashioned truths of religion.
But it soon became evident to the teacher that her pupils needed instruction on other lines ; and she planned a day school for which she built a more commodious structure on the opposite side of the road, a building to which additions were made as the interest grew and which became in time a marvelous freak of architecture, a sort of patch work palace. The little school-house was furnished at the start with rude desks made from dry- goods boxes. Speaking afterwards of her experience in the work at this time, Miss Berry said: "It was no easy matter to get the children of the mountain to come with clean hands and I resorted to a strategem. I brought a microscope which I had formerly used in botanical work
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and invited them to make an inspection under the glass. The result was that they began to vie with each other in having the cleanest hands and the neatest nails."
Only a few months elapsed before the building was outgrown. Then the thought occurred to her of establish- ing a chain of schools in the near-by mountain districts. The first of these to mark the growth of her widening influence was established as Possum Trot. As she would come riding up behind old Roney, the Sunday school horse, there would break from the lips of the children a glad shout : "Here comes the Sunday Lady !"; and so the whole mountain-side commenced to acclaim Miss Berry. Other schools were subsequently started at convenient points; but the teacher was always associated in the popular mind with the name of her first missionary out- post and in the picturesque language of the locality she became to every one-"The Sunday Lady of Possum Trot." Nor was the title in the least distasteful. There was nothing at which to take offence; and, besides indicat- ing the particular part of the mountains in which she labored, it imparted a distinct touch of sacredness to her high mission.
But the problem of how to better the conditions of life in the mountains was not to be solved by a chain of schools. On visiting her pupils in the remote cabins from which they came, the Sunday Lady found that what was needed most for the uplift of these children was better home surroundings, Thereupon the idea occurred to her of establishing a school of industry where. in an atmos- phere of Christian culture, the pupils might be taken to board for a certain number of months in the year; and where the dignity of toil might be taught them by ob- jective illustration. She tried to interest her friends in the project but without success. Some ridiculed it; others in a vein more serious entreated her to give it up. But she was not to be dismayed by difficulties.
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Drawing again upon her personal funds, she procceded to build a ten-room dormitory, for which a clearing was made in a thicket of woods, some few hundred feet dis- tant from the school-house. When completed she chris- tened it Brewster Hall, in compliment to Miss Elizabeth Brewster, a graduate of Leland Stanford and a devoted co-worker, who shared the Sunday Lady's earliest labors.
This was the nucleus for her industrial school. But she did not stop here. Going to a safe-deposit box in which she kept her papers, she drew therefrom an old deed. It was something which she held most sacred, for when a little girl of twelve it was given to her by an idolized father. But could she put it to a better use? Here were the raw materials out of which the sturdiest manhood and womanhood in Georgia were to be molded. The nation's reserve strength lay in the undeveloped sinews of these boys and girls who only needed an oppor- tunity to show what was in them. Nor could they well have asked less. They were the lineal descendants of men who musket in hand went forth from these hills to fight the battles of King's Mountain and Kettle Creek and Yorktown. They were inheritors of the purest strain of Anglo-Saxon blood to be found on the continent and they belonged to a race of people who built empires and lifted the torch of civilization and fought the battles of human liberty for more than ten centuries. To give them an equal start in life was not only a sheer act of justice to them but a service of patriotism to the State.
Armed with the deed in question, the Sunday Lady next sought a lawyer's office. Even here she encountered hesitation. But she gave the lawyer to understand that if he needed assistance in making a simple transfer of property she was ready to call some one else into con- sultation. Without further ado a document was drawn up, in which she deeded to a board of trustees part of her patrimony, one hundred acres of land, to be held by them for the use of the poor boys and girls of the moun- tains. On the tract of land which she thus conveyed to
THE LOG CABIN IN WHICH THE FAMOUS BERRY SCHOOL ORIGINATED, NEAR ROME, GA.
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the trustees was included both the dormitory and the little school-house. It was Miss Berry's idea from the very start to give instruction to girls as well as to boys, but the exigencies of the situation made it necessary for her to begin with boys. They could reduce the operating expenses of the school by performing the required labor and they were better prepared for roughing it during the pioneer stages of the experiment. But Miss Berry after- wards smilingly said that she did not know at this time how much boys could eat. When the dormitory was well under way, the Sunday Lady, putting old Roney into harness, started for the mountains in quest of recruits ; and she found them.
On January 13, 1902, the date fixed for the formal opening of the school, five boys appeared upon the scene with trunks in which scanty wardrobes were none too securely confined. Before the end of the year the number of boarders was increased to eighteen. It was found by close calculation that a boy's board and keep was worth $100 per annum. He was required to pay only half this amount in cash. The rest was to be paid in labor. If for any good reason he could make no payment in money, he was not on this account denied the privileges of the school but was allowed to do odd jobs, by which to redeem his obligations in full. Work of every kind was to be done by the pupils-even down to cooking. There was to be no hired help. But the putting of this plan into effect involved some difficulties. For strategic reasons, Miss Berry decided to put the hardest task first.
"Now, boys," said the Sunday Lady, "we are going to wash clothes. I will show you how. Then each boy is to wash his own garments." There was a painful silence, for a full moment. Then the eldest, a giant in size, but a child in knowledge, spoke :
"No, ma'am", said he, "I ain't never seen no man- kind do no washin' an' what's more I ain't going to do none."
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There was a distinct challenge in the boy's accent. The idea of doing either a woman's work or a negro's work was repugnant to the virile masculine natures of these stout young Anglo-Saxons. But Miss Berry was prepared for the mutinous outbreak.
"If you will not do the washing," said she, "you may watch me while I do it for you."
Straightway into the tub went the soft ivory arms of the gentle woman. The boys watched her in blank amazement. They began to look sheepish and to betray a conviction of guilt. At last when she bent heavily be- side the tub to rest for a moment, breathing a deep sigh of weariness, the rude mountaineer chivalry of the oldest boy was touched, and he blurted out: "I ain't never seen it done, but I'm a-goin' to wash them clo'es." Miss Berry was elated. In this battle of the wash tubs she had won a victory which made the success of the manual school certain. She had firmly established the principle upon which the institution was to be conducted. The rest was bound to follow as day follows night.
Thus the Berry School was opened. It has grown by leaps and bounds ever since. The Sunday Lady has sacrificed domestic interests to share the lot of her boys, incurring by this course the well-meant censure of some of her most cherished friends. But she has followed the lead of strong convictions, with the result that she has witnessed a miracle of growth performed on the land which she once owned. Today there are scores of hand- some buildings on the beautiful campus. In 1909 a girl's school was added to the plant. Without an exception, the numerous structures represent the labor of the boys, who have reared them under competent supervision. They have also laid out the walks and beautified the grounds. Everything of a practical nature is here taught : domestic arts, cooking, dairying, weaving, basket-making, fancy- work, carpentry, agriculture, architecture, mechanics.
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The motto of the institution is happily in accord with its declared objects-"Be a lifter not a leaner." There are 200 pupils, with a faculty of 20 teachers, in the school for boys ; 80 pupils, with a faculty of 6 teachers, in the school for girls. These figures could easily be doubled, if the capacity of the school were adequate to meet the demand for accommodations. Nor can there be found within the State of Georgia a manlier set of boys or a finer lot of girls. One sees at the Berry School few faces on which the impress of character is not distinctly stamped; and if he visits the little dormitory rooms in which the pupils live he will be filled with amazement to find how tidily the apartments are kept and what delicate refine- ment is here displayed by these children of the moun- tains. Nothing bizarre or tawdry-nothing common. It is marvelous how quick to respond to the appeal of gentle- ness is the pure blood of clean young lives.
Scarcely a week passes without bringing some stranger from a distance to inspect the workings of the Berry School, and he is invariably charmed by what he sees. The pupils are taught to be thorough. There is no time lost in idleness ; and great emphasis is put upon small economies. The most careful record is kept of every job of work assigned and of every piece of material used. Overalls are the only uniforms worn by the pupils. The discipline of the school is strict but in no sense harsh. The most punctilious code of politeness is exemplified in the social life of the institution and the law of love makes everything work in harmonious adjustment, with- out the least flaw or friction.
There has been no change in the ideals with which the school started. It is characterized by the same sweet and wholesome spirit which it breathed in the pioneer days. During the decade which has come and gone a thousand pupils have been enrolled. Nor does any one need to be told that the school has wrought a vast change in the mountains. Its transforming touch has been felt at cabin-firesides three hundred miles away; and from the walls of the Berry School boys and girls have gone forth
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as missionaries of culture to work miracles of social betterment among a people, in whose rugged independ- ence lies the Republic's best hope. Up and down the mountains run the golden threads of Miss Berry's work and in safe-guarding the fibres of the Blue Ridge she is tightning the nation's moral back-bone. Some of her graduates have attained to high positions, but they have not forgotten the Sunday Lady whose gentle hand first lifted them up, and in the mountaineer's simple way they bestow upon her the same knightly homage which Sir Philip Sidney gave to Queen Elizabeth.
Over 2,000 acres of land are today embraced in the ample domain over which the Sunday Lady presides at Mount Berry. The approach to the campus is through a broad driveway bordered with green hedges and over- arched by stately shade trees planted in long regimental rows. The improvements represent an invested capital of $200,000, besides which there is also an endowment fund amounting to half this sum, a marvelous achieve- ment for a woman who almost single-handed has wrought this noble work for the neglected boys and girls of the Southern Appalachians.
But the count is not exhausted. The burden of rais- ing annually the sum of $35,000 to pay the running ex- penses of the school likewise devolve upon Miss Berry- a task in itself for Hercules. The money has come in small amounts. There have been no large contributions. But she has never failed to make buckle and tongue meet and not a dollar of indebtedness has ever been incurred. She cannot and does not beg. To one of her tempera- ment the necessity of making an appeal in public is an ordeal equivalent almost to crucifixion; and to the rescue of a brave woman struggling alone under such a load the chivalry of a continent ought to rush with funds ample to meet the demands of growth and to make the work of the institution perpetual. She cannot always hear these responsibilities. It is the marvel of the times
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what she has already done at Mount Berry. Today there is not a corner of the map of the United States to which the fame of the Sunday Lady has not penetrated. It has even challenged the admiration of Europe. Miss Berry has been the guest of the nation's President at the White House in Washington. She has overcome her native timidity to such an extent that she has more than once melted assembly halls at the North to tears by the simple story of what she has done with small means and of what she expects to do "when her ship comes in."
Ex-President Roosevelt, accompanied by his former chief of the Department of Forestry, Gifford Pinchot, visited the school in 1910, only to leave it a most enthusi- astic and powerful advocate. William G. McAdoo, the great metropolitan engineer, said in a talk to the pupils not long ago : "I would rather have been the founder of this school than to have built the Hudson River tunnels." In a somewhat similar vein of compliment a well-known journalist, after visiting the school, wrote an article in which he avowed that Martha Berry was the first woman to make him sorry that he was born a man.
Nor can it be said that such tributes are in any wise misplaced or ill-deserved. The Sunday Lady has made herself a true conservator of the State's undeveloped resources ; and, when reduced to the final analysis, there is more of the essence of real statesmanship in the service which she has done the commonwealth by estab- lishing this school-woman though she be-than in many a volume of statutes which the General Assembly has enacted. She is here training men who will some day have the power of the veto; and what is best of all she is making future Senates for Georgia out of materials which have hitherto been neglected. Her work is unique. It has nobly answered the call of the hills. But the ulti- mate fruition of the Sunday Lady's dream stands re- vealed only to the omniscient eye of the Great Seer who, in the diminutive cup of the acorn, can measure the gigan- tic shadow of the coming oak.
PART TWO
Historical Outlines, Original Settlers and Distinguished Residents of the Counties of Georgia
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PART TWO
Historical Outlines, Original Settlers and Distin- guished Residents of the Counties of Georgia
APPLING
Created by Legislative Act, December 15, 1818, out of treaty lands negotiated from the Creeks by Ex-Governor David B. Mitchell, in the same year. When first organized Appling embraced Clinch, Jeff Davis, Pierce and Ware Counties, and in part Charlton, Echols and Wayne. Named for Colonel Daniel Appling, of the War of 1812, a native Georgian. Baxley, the county-seat, named for Wilson Baxley, an early settler, who came to Georgia from North Carolina.1
Colonel Daniel Appling was perhaps the most distin- guished officer of Georgia in the second war with Eng- land, though barely twenty-seven when he earned his laurels. He was born in Columbia County, Ga., August 25, 1787; and, in honor of his family, an old one in this section, the county-seat of Columbia still bears the name of Appling. His father was a man of some prominence in the pioneer day's of Upper Georgia and a member of the convention of 1795 to revise the State Constitution. At the age of eighteen, young Appling entered the United States army as a Lieutenant; but it was not until the war of 1812 that he was given an opportunity to win his martial spurs. As soon as hostilities began, he received orders to repair to Sackett's Harbor, in New York. He hastened northward without delay; and, in the battle of Sandy Creek, on May 30, 1814, achieved the gallant
1 Authority: Mr. P. H. Comas, President of the Baxley Banking Co.
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record upon which his fame as a soldier today rests. The following account of his part in the engagement has been preserved :2 "Captain Woolsey left the port of Oswego, on May 28, in charge of eighteen boats with naval stores, destined for Sackett's Harbor. He was accompanied by Captain Appling, with one hundred and thirty of the rifle regiment and about the same number of Indians. They reached Sandy Creek on the next day, where they were discovered by the British gun-boats, and in conse- quence entered the creek. The riflemen were immediately landed and, with the Indians, posted in an ambuscade. The enemy ascended the creek; but, in an effort to land a detachment upon the banks, an unforeseen difficulty was encountered. The riflemen from where they were con- cealed suddenly confronted the new arrivals and poured so destructive a fire upon them that, in ten minutes they surrendered to the number of two hundred, including two post Captains and two Lieutenants. On the part of the Americans but one man was lost. Three gun-boats were captured, besides several small vessels and equipments. After this affair, Appling was breveted Lieutenant- Colonel."
Daniel Appling's There were several other engage-
Sword: an Heirloom. ments in which this distinguished officer figured with equal credit. At the close of the war he returned to Georgia; and on October 22, 1814, the General Assembly passed a resolution in which "the heroic exploits of the brave and gallant Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Appling" were commended in the most enthusiastic terms. At the same time, the Governor was requested to have purchased and presented to this native son
an elegant sword suited to an officer of his grade. But Colonel Appling, on March 18, 1818, at Fort Mont- gomery, died of an attack of pleurisy, before the above
" White's Statistics, pp. 106-107, Savannah, 1849.
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resolution was carried into effect. He left no children. At the ensuing session of the State Legislature, a resolu- tion was passed in which the General Assembly of Georgia assumed the guardianship of the young officer's fame. It was ordered further that the sword be pur- chased at once and deposited for safe keeping in the Executive Chamber. This was done; and for more than fifty years it was one of the treasures of the State capi- tol. In 1880, during the administration of Governor McDaniel, the General Assembly made the Georgia His- torical Society of Savannah the custodian of this price- less heir-loom .
Holmesville, the original county-seat of Appling, was situated on land belonging to Solomon Kennedy, one of the original pioneers. The town was made the county- seat by legislative enactment, on December 8, 1828. Sub- sequently the court house was removed to Baxley, after which Holmesville began to decline. Today the very name of the little village is forgotten.
Original Settlers. According to White, the original settlers of Appling were: Nathan Dean, John Taylor, Henry Taylor, Silas O. Quin, Moses Vick, John Johnson, John Hawkins, John Smith, D. Redish, D. Summerall, R. Strickland, Samuel Sellers, John Pervis, A. Eason, G. Moody, John Roberson, Jesse Carter, Samuel Carter, Thomas Woods, R. Swilley, S. Swilley, B. George, the Mobleys, the Halls, the Wilsons, and the Overstreets.
Malcolm Morrison was also an early settler of Appling.
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BAKER
Created by Legislative Act, December 12, 1825, from Early County, at which time it embraced Dougherty, Mitchell. and a part of Miller. Named for Colonel John Baker, of the Revolution. Newton, the county-seat, named for Sergeant John Newton, who, with the gallant Jasper, made a famous rescue of prisoners on the outskirts of Savannah in 1779.
Colonel John Baker was a noted patriot. He came of the famous Dorchester Colony of Puritans in St. John's Parish. He first appears upon the scene as a member of the Provincial Congress in Savannah on July 4, 1775, at Tondee's Tavern. He afterwards organized the St. John's Rifflemen, of which he became the Cap- tain; took charge of the fort at Sunbury which he put in readiness to withstand an attack; and then marched at the head of seventy-five militiamen to surprise the enemy at Fort Wright on the St. Mary's. Due to the treachery of MeGirth, who, at this time, began his notorious career as a Tory by stealing a lot of horses, Colonel Baker was forced to retreat from the latter stronghold. However, he was quite successful in a number of subsequent opera- tions in the neighborhood of Midway Meeting House and, on one occasion, made a capture of officers, including five Captains and three Lieutenants. We next find Colonel Baker in Savannah, on March 3, 1776, in company with Captain James Sereven, demanding the release of Cap- tain Rice, who had fallen into the hands of the British while attempting to dismantle some vessels at Savannah wharf.
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