USA > Georgia > Colquitt County > History of Colquitt County > Part 4
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There is no occasion here for a discussion of Reconstruc- tion as a general State question. This phase of it is suffi- ciently discussed by saying that now, at least, it appears that the giving of political rights to Negroes indiscriminately at that time, was a blunder in the science of government. In fact, Charles Francis Adams has said it was "the greatest blunder ever made in government by the Anglo-Saxon race, which has a genius for government, superior to that of ancient Rome." At the time it was done, however, Charles Sumner, a great senator, and a sincere patriot, said, "I recognize fully the incapacity of the Negro in practical gov- ernment, but I shall adhere to the policy of political equality
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
in spite of this incapacity, for the reason that I cannot see how in a democracy, the Negro can secure his civil rights unless he retains his political rights."
Nevertheless, notwithstanding the pressure from Washing- ton, the Negro was steadily forced out of the political pic- ture in Georgia, and in the South. From a representation of something like forty in the General Assembly of Georgia, in 1869-70, his numbers steadily decreased, until the Democrats captured the State in 1874-6. In the latter year, there were still sixteen Negroes left in the Georgia legislature. They con- stituted the balance of power in an exceedingly close race for the United States senatorship between Thomas M. Norwood, the incumbent, and Benj. H. Hill. After a long deadlock, during which they voted for Dawson H. Walker, a white Republican lawyer from Dalton, they finally swung to Hill, under the expert manipulation of Henry Grady and George N. Lester, Judge of the Superior Courts of the Blue Ridge Circuit, at the time. At no time since that time have they had any considerable representation in the Georgia legis- lature, and the last one came from Liberty County, more than twenty years ago.
In both state and national elections, in 1876, tremendous efforts were put out to recapture control of the southern states by the party of the old aristocracy. As has been said hereinbefore, a part at least of the old southern leadership- men like Longstreet and Joseph E. Brown, sat in the coun- cils of the Republicans. There is no doubt but that in the elections of 1876 "no holds were barred." On the night be- fore the presidential election of that year, schoolhouse meet- ings were held from North Carolina to Texas. A majority of these meetings were opened with prayer.
When the election was over, it was found that an unprec- edented situation existed. It was the nearest thing to an outright tie in a national election that the history of the coun-
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RECONSTRUCTION
try furnishes; but the equities of the situation pointed to the election of Tilden, the Democratic candidate.
In the interval, between the date of the election and the fourth of March, 1877, the date of the inauguration of the new President, John B. Gordon and Wade Hampton ap- proached the Hayes management and proposed to let Hayes get the presidency, provided that he would agree to with- draw from the South all detachments of Federal troops, all of which had been stationed there for more than ten years. The proposition was accepted. Hayes was made President, and the last Federal soldier was withdrawn from the South, during the first year of his administration. We believe that Wm. E. Smith, Congressman from the Second District of Georgia, was the only member of the Georgia delegation in that Congress who opposed the Gordon-Hampton deal.
Of course, when the Federal troops were removed from the South, down went the whole political fabric erected by the Reconstructionists. The victorious Democrats called another Constitutional Convention, which met in 1877, for the pur- pose of consolidating their 1876 gains. It was dominated entirely by General Robert Toombs, presided over by Gover- nor Jenkins, and submitted to the electorate our present Georgia Constitution. Colquitt's representative in this con- vention was Henry Gay, the veteran Democrat.
In the meantime, let us see what was happening to our local Reconstructionists, before and during the year 1876.
In the year 1876, the opposition to the sway of the Recon- structionists arose in Mitchell County, on one bloody day, still referred to as the "Day of the Camilla Riots," on which a Negro or two were killed, several more crippled up, and the local Republican leader, a young Yankee, late from the North, escaped death only by putting out the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress of a well-known secret order. Right then,
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
he removed to an adjoining county, and, henceforth eschew- ing politics, he spent a lifetime as a useful and valued citi- zen. Down in Thomas County, at the State general elections, Confederate Colonel Robt. G. Mitchell mounted his horse, rode down to the polling-place, pistol in hand, and single- handed dispersed the Negro voters, to return no more.
Willis W. Watkins, ex-Confederate soldier, who was a Re- publican and rejoiced in it, was a candidate for State Sen- ator, in 1876, but was defeated by James McDonald-largely by the aristocracy of Brooks County. In fact his advertised Quitman meeting was broken up with eggs-"in due and ancient form."
In Colquitt, Republican Jim Murphy was defeated for the legislature by J. B. Norman, Jr., in a close race in which trouble was kept down by the cool counsels of both candi- dates.
Dan. Luke, resourceful leader of the Reconstructionists in Thomas County, has been dead more than a generation, and is buried in the Thomasville Cemetery. Willis Watkins died about 1898, and is buried in the same cemetery as Luke. Jim Murphy, who kept down a bloody riot at the elections in Colquitt County, in 1876, as he was being defeated by J. B. Norman, Jr., in his race for the legislature, lived quietly afterwards on his ancestral farm, near the Ochlochnee, in south Colquitt, where he died in good financial circumstances, in 1912. He is buried in the family graveyard, within a few steps of the house erected by his father, Henry Murphy, more than a hundred years ago. So much for the local as- pects of what is still styled by politicians who consider them- selves in danger, as "the Terrible Era of Reconstruction."
The Reconstructionists must be credited with giving the State an excellent judiciary, and with having placed the pub-
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RECONSTRUCTION
lic school system in our fundamental law, where, of course, it will remain forever.
A thing, too, that has some of the elements of pathos in it, is this: The legislatures of 1866-7-8-9 appropriated $200.00 a year to pay the educational expenses of "crippled and indigent soldiers," at the University of Georgia, at Emory College, and perhaps at Mercer University. In the years during which this was done, some 350 or 400 such Confederate soldiers received aid. To say the least, this was a long way ahead of the "New Deal," smacks strongly of socialism, and antedates by several years any pension system in the State of Georgia. Not so bad for the ex-slaves and the "Scalawags."
CHAPTER VIII The County Site
IN 1851, A POST OFFICE was established at the cross-roads near the center of what is now Moultrie, and named "Ocklock- ney." Of course, this was in Thomas County at the time, and when Colquitt was created, "Ocklockney" then became a post office in Colquitt County, and so remained until 1857, when the name was changed to Moultrie, a name which the post office and the town has retained until now, and of course will to the end of time. Doubtless the idea of change originated with Darling Creed, native of South Carolina.
The county site came near being located right on the east bank of the Ochlochnee River, and both sides of the Moul- trie and Camilla road. In fact, the justices of the Inferior Court were on the point of buying fifty acres at that point, comprising at least a portion of the present property of the Moultrie Cotton Mills, from a Mrs. Bryan, when A. C. Butts, of Bibb County, Georgia, who owned property in the vicinity, made a deed of gift to a tract of fifty acres to the justices of the Inferior Court, for the location of its public buildings, and for sale for the benefit of the county. This was in 1859. The gift was accepted, and the new town was made the county site by the justices of the Inferior Court.
William Moultrie was born in the State of South Caro- lina in 1731. He was a captain in the South Carolina militia before the Revolution, his commission being dated in 1761. In 1775 he was a member of the South Carolina "Provincial Congress"; and in the same year, was made a colonel in the South Carolina militia.
In 1776, he erected a fort of palmetto logs and sand, on Sullivan's Island in Charleston harbor. This he did against
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THE COUNTY SITE
the advice of his superiors, who told him it would never stand up against a bombardment. "Well, if they knock it down, we'll roll up behind the wreck; and still prevent them from landing troops," said Moultrie.
It did stand up against a bombardment of three days by the fleet of Admiral Sir Peter Parker. When a cannon ball would strike it, the soft logs and sand would absorb it, and there was no knocking down of the walls. We read all about it in a copy of "The Southern Reader," which bore all the marks of great age, when we were a boy. It sounded good to us-an American backwoodsman, ignorant of military tactics, whipping the hound out of a member of the British peerage, sporting so high-sounding a name as "Admiral Sir Peter Parker."
Seriously, our own personal opinion is that the name of Colquitt's county site was an inspiration.
The general post office directory shows a Moultrie in Ohio, and another in Florida. Which is good; but we think that Major-General William Moultrie's namesake in Georgia will, next after his construction of a fort of palmetto logs, be his best claim on immortality. There is "something in a name," after all. "Give a dog a bad name, and kill him," runs the adage; and, if this be true, then it is equally true that it works no injury to dogs or towns to name them well.
The Continental Congress formally thanked Colonel Moul- trie for his palmetto log fort. He was a Major-General at the end of the Revolution; and was twice elected Governor of South Carolina. He died in 1805.
In 1873, Jane Fowler, an unmarried half-sister of Robt. Bearden, came to Moultrie to live with the Beardens, but did not remain long, for the reason, as rumor has it, that she and Aunt Sally Bearden did not get along in perfect concord. So a man named Billy Holt hired Miss Fowler to go out and stay
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
at his home which was afterwards known as the "Joe Norman place" on the Moultrie and Sumner public road, and stay with his wife, it being necessary for him to be much absent from home to attend his extensive holdings of cattle and sheep.
Mr. Holt was accustomed, when he came to Moultrie, to ride a spirited horse, which he would put into a brisk gallop as he came into the town from the north. One morning, Miss Fowler put a sidesaddle on this horse, and rode it into Moultrie. As she came down the hill north of the present site of the present A. B. and C. Depot, she lost control of the horse, which ran away and dashed down West Broad or Main Street till it came to the courthouse square. There was no fence around the square, and so the horse ran into the west side of the square and into a chinaberry tree which stood near the present site of the Confederate monument, where it whirled suddenly, and throwing Miss Fowler around the tree-trunk, killed her instantly.
Robert Bearden was Moultrie's first merchant. As best we can learn, he came to Moultrie with his wife, "Aunt Sally," from Thomasville, about 1856, the birth year of the county. Of course, this was before there was any Moultrie, but the story goes that this couple drove up from Thomasville in a one-horse wagon; and that a Mr. Sheffield, a merchant of Thomasville, staked them with a small stock of goods-per- haps was a partner in the enterprise himself at first. John Sheffield of Americus, staked the Beardens for many years. The census of 1860 shows that both the Beardens were born in South Carolina.
So the Beardens put up a storeroom on the present site of the Moultrie Banking Company, which fronted south, being at the intersection of North Broad Street and West Broad Street-now at the northeast intersection of Central Avenue and Main Street. To the north of this storeroom were some
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THE COUNTY SITE
rooms, which furnished a bar, and a big dining room. Still further north were other rooms containing beds for rent. Aunt Sally was a famous cook, and her praises have rung down the grooves of time, as they were sounded by her custom- ers, until this good hour. Since the Beardens' establish- ment was really an inn, and sold drinks; and since in those days, the men frequently took "appetizers" just before sit- ting down to a meal, it is just possible that this circumstance influenced their appreciation of Aunt Sally's cookery.
However, we are not disposed to discount her art or its praises, as they come down to us from the remote past. In truth, our mouth waters at mention of the "chicken cooked with red rice and seasoned with butter and a little pepper and salt; green field peas with raw onions and green peppers, served with corn bread. Also served with coffee or both kinds of milk. Dessert: sweet potato custard."
The Beardens having bought out the interest of partner Sheffield, commenced life work on their own and became
"Two souls with but a single thought, Two hearts that beat as one."
For more than thirty years, Aunt Sally, in addition to her culinary and household duties, could handle a customer in the store or inn, as well as her husband. Neither had any foolish extravagances-like helping the poor, giving to the church, or contributing to the missionary fund.
As the nearest trading points were at least thirty miles away, the Beardens had a monopoly, and so put on the traffic "all that it would bear." Far from discouraging credit, Bearden extended it freely, since it gave him a chance to charge exorbitant prices with a better face. His only diver- sion was fishing and hunting, in which Job Turner and John Tucker were his boon companions; but when he had ac- cumulated a big account against each of these men, he didn't
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
hesitate a moment to sue his claims to judgment and levy his executions. And this was his invariable custom; not- withstanding the fact that he put prices on his wares the highest of which we have any account. Shoes of the coarsest grade at $6 per pair; coffee at 50c per pound, raw; meal at 50c per peck; and flour at $18 per barrel; and whiskey at $2 per gallon, although it could easily be made for 25c a gallon then, as well as now. The only contribution that the Beardens made to the welfare or progress of the human race, during their sojourn in Moultrie was Aunt Sally's cooking.
Along about 1892, the Beardens sold their stock of goods to Millsap and McPhaul; deeded away their property to the highest bidder for cash; and, taking the $150,000 that they had accumulated during their stay in Colquitt, they moved back to Thomasville, where Bearden soon died. Im- mediately a perfect swarm of elderly gentlemen, widowers and bachelors, began to fly around Aunt Sally, every one of them swearing to his undying love for her, based on her personal charms alone; but that bereft lady was adamant to their impetuous appeals till old Jack Alford, from up Poulan, appeared on the scene; and such was the witchery and potency of his "line" that in no time he had scattered his rivals, and took the memorable trip over the broom, a-holding Aunt Sally's hand. In about two years more, Aunt Sally lay down and died, leaving lover-Jack with nothing in the world to console himself for his bereavement except the little old $150,000 which he, under the Florida inheritance laws, took in its entirety, there being no inheritance tax foolishness in those halcyon days. Lover-Jack, too, has passed on, they tell us, having lost in some wild-cat scheme a considerable portion of the $150,000, and we have not thought it worth while to try to trace the remainder.
Moultrie's second merchant was William B. Dukes, already seen as an advertiser in Moultrie's first effort at ad-
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THE COUNTY SITE
vertising her resources in a big way. Mr. Dukes was a native of Thomas County, and by 1891, had built up a big general trade at Chastain, down on the Ochlochnee, on the Thomas County line. This was easy, since Chastain was not so far from Thomasville, which was its shipping point. Also, it catered to a big section of Colquitt. It is a fact that Mr. Duke's sales force at Chastain sold as much as $1500 in cash on Saturdays. His salesmen were Henry and Aaron Murphy, Jo. J. and George Battle, and a Mr. Munroe.
When the railroad came to Moultrie in 1893, Mr. Dukes moved his family and merchandise to Moultrie, bringing along his entire set-up of salesmen. He made money from the jump. In 1898, his residence on what is now First Street, S. E., was the most pretentious house in town. It is there yet, opposite the First Methodist Church, and a little south-a two-story frame building. In it lived Mr. Dukes and his family in 1898, and there he continued to live with his family until 1907. During this time, Mrs. Dukes kept boarders in this house. Some of whom will come into this history a little further on.
It will occasion surprise, we think, when we inform the present resident in Moultrie that in June, 1898, there were less than ten trees in Moultrie, four of which were in the street between the present Methodist Church and the front of the Dukes' residence. First Street came to a full stop a little further south, and Mr. Dukes, being a lover of trees and flowers, refused to allow his four pine trees to be removed from the street in front for a long time. On the corner where at present is situated the Methodist Church was a two-story frame building called the "Piney Woods Hotel"-a name possibly derived from the proximity of Mr. Dukes' four pine trees. North of the Methodist Church, and on the sidewalk opposite, being on the north side of Fourth Avenue, stands one of the oldest trees in Moultrie. It is sixty-two years old, a
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
fact which is known from a story that Mr. A. B. Hall, a resi- dent in Moultrie during the past sixty-two years, tells us of his having gone with his mother to this small oak for the purpose of getting some inside bark to be used for some in- digestion ailment to which teething children were subject. Another rumor is that a tea made from such bark was a sure cure for digestive troubles sustained by a teething child that had never seen its father.
CHAPTER IX First White Settlers
WE HAVE SEEN that the counties of Lowndes and Thomas were created in 1825 from portions of Decatur and Irwin coun- ties; that the 8th Land District of originally Irwin was finally made a part of Thomas County; and that the 9th Land District of Irwin became a part of Lowndes.
We have also seen that the County of Colquitt, created February 25, 1856, was given the whole of the said 8th Land District of originally Irwin, then Thomas County, along with "all that portion of originally Irwin, then Lowndes County, lying west of Little River to where the river crosses the dividing line between lots of land Nos. 443 and 444, both in the 9th District, thence south to the district line be- tween the 9th and the 12th Districts."
It is extremely difficult to obtain accurate statistics as to the first settlers of this territory comprising the present terri- tory of Colquitt, all of which is included in the cession of land exacted from the Creek and Seminole Indians, in period covered by the years 1814 to 1818, inclusive, which cession, as we have seen was made to the State of Georgia. However, a list of the heads of families in Lowndes County, taken from the U. S. Census of 1830 (see Appendix) contains several names of citizens of that part of Lowndes County that was, twenty-six years later, incorporated into the new County of Colquitt. Some are recognizable as such. For instance the name of Randall Folsom is there; and a matter of three years ago, a Randall Folsom, at the age of ninety, passed away in that portion of Colquitt that was taken from Lowndes by the Colquitt Act of 1856.
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
Also, in this list of the heads of Lowndes families, made in 1830, appears the name of James M. Norman. We know that the name of this pioneer appears as a Justice of the Peace, in the Lowndes part of Colquitt's territory, as early as 1849. This indicates that he may have resided in the Colquitt part of Lowndes as early as 1830; or it could in- dicate that, in 1830, he lived in some other part of Lowndes, and, by 1849, had moved to the Colquitt part of Lowndes. In fact, there is a tradition around Nashville, Ga., that Jas. M. Norman moved from Liberty County, Ga., to a farm near Nashville, before 1830, lived there for some time, and then crossed over Little River into the part of Lowndes that came into Colquitt. It is to be remembered that the whole of Berrien County was a part of Lowndes in 1830, and for some years afterwards. All this may be said of Thomas Selph, another name on this 1830 list, as well as of the three listed Tillmans-John, Jeremiah and Joshua.
Finally, there appears in the 1830 list the name of "Henry Tucker," and we think it is entirely likely that this is the same as Colquitt's pioneer, Elder Henry Crawford Tucker, shown by his gravestone, now standing in the graveyard of Bridge Creek Primitive Baptist Church, eight miles west of Moultrie, and on the banks of Bridge Creek, to have been twenty-five years old, when the census of 1830 was taken.
In the Appendix to this book will be found a list of all the heads of families in Thomas County, as they existed in 1840, the list being separated into militia districts, existing at that date. Reference to this shows that Hilery Murphy (Hillary) and David Murphy, headed families in the Thomasville dis- trict, in 1840. These men pioneered from North Carolina to Thomas County, between 1830 and 1840, according to family tradition preserved by their descendants now residing in Col- quitt County. These two men settled on the line separating the Thomasville district of Thomas County from the 8th
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FIRST WHITE SETTLERS
District of the same county, both finally getting over into the 8th, where they continued to reside until the 8th District was incorporated into Colquitt County. The list of heads of fam- ilies in the 8th District of Thomas County (Colquitt County, since 1856) will have special interest for the student of Col- quitt County's history. In addition to the Gregorys, the Han- cocks, the Laniers, the Sloans, the Vicks, the Halls and the Stricklands, all of which names are now known or easily re- membered by the average citizen of Colquitt, notice will be had of Henry Murphy, the great-great-uncle of the brothers Henry and Aaron Murphy, at present prominent citizens of Moultrie. We also note that the Henry Tucker appearing in the list of heads of families in Lowndes County in 1830, is listed in 1840 among the heads of families of the 8th Land District of Thomas County, as Henry C. Tucker. Doubtless both are aliases of Elder Henry Crawford Tucker, the Col- quitt County patriarch.
In studying the lists of heads of families set out in the 8th Land District of Colquitt County division, we find that James M. Norman has moved, since 1830, from the 9th Land Dis- trict of Lowndes to the 8th Land District of Thomas. There is no doubt about this, family tradition assures us. It is the same James Mitchell Norman, who lived from about 1845 to 1854 on land lot ..... in the 8th Land District of Colquitt, with his wife, Ruth Tillman Norman, the pair becoming the founders of the county's most noted family.
In the list of heads of families of Thomas County in 1840 will be noticed the name of Artaxerxes B. Norman, a full brother of James M. Norman, both having sprung from North Carolina stock and migrated to Georgia about 1820. It is thought that when the parents of this baby named him after the Persian king, he became the only person in the world
.
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
called "Artaxerxes." This man had a son named David. whose tombstone is in the Sardis Primitive Baptist Cemetery, who had sons as follows, all of whom have lived in Colquitt: Philip, Moses Xerxes and Virgil, the last two of whom are still alive. A copy of "Plutarch's Lives" must have been lying around two or three generations of this branch of the Norman tribe.
HENRY CRAWFORD TUCKER
Photographs of the Colquitt Pioneers are not easy to obtain. Here is a chance find we picked up of Elder H. Crawford Tucker, born in 1803. He spent most of his life in the Colquitt territory. Married three times, the Elder was. The census-taker in 1860 found him and one of his wives with thirteen children. Probably the second wife.
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