USA > Georgia > Colquitt County > History of Colquitt County > Part 7
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The first "sute" recorded in this docket is that of J. W. Jenkins versus Hardy Carlton, who fails to make any ap- pearance, and so default judgment is taken against him, on April 26, 1862. At the same "tirm," Stewart S. May takes a legal shot at Geo. F. Herndon. Also, at this term, "Absolum Baker," a local capitalist, proceeds against David B. Bland, on a promissory note for $14.50, for which a judgment is taken by "default," "with interest and cost of sute," on Jan- uary 23, 1863. At the March Term, 1863, Robert Bearden sues James Brown for $28.95, on a promissory note; and
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takes judgment by default at that term. Judge Norman died in 1864, and thus ended his judicial labors.
One of the extra judicial entries in this little book is a statement of a little account due by the judge himself to "Turner," as follows:
"to one Basin $0.75;
2 sets spones
.75;
1 cork scrue .50;
tobacco
1.50;
linnin .75.""
In the months of September and October, of a year that is not recorded, Judge Norman gets up some hands, and takes a drove of beef steers, numbering thirty-one, on a long trek, as far north as Culloden and Zebulon, for the purpose of sell- ing them along the way. The little docket contains an item- ized statement of expenditures in the way of food and feed, which foots up as follows: "Travelling expence for hands, $24.50"; and "provision expence, $15.36." In "Pinder- town," he spent 38c for "spirits"; and at "hockinvile," he spent 15c for the same commodity. He seems to have sold all his herd, at an average of about $10.00 each. An enter- prising kind of a man for his day, this same James Mitchell Norman; and this quality has been much in evidence in many of his descendants. The court over which he presided- namely, the Justice Court in and for the 1151st Dis- trict, G. M., for originally Thomas, and for the past eighty years Colquitt County, Georgia, still func- tions regularly, Judge John T. Coyle, presiding.
The Browning Act, cre- ating the county of Colquitt placed it in the Southern Judicial Circuit; and, by arrange-
Site where first eight terms of Colquitt Superior Court were held.
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
ment of the judges of the Inferior Court, the first term of this court was held at what was known at that time as the "Mims House," which was situated on the west side of the old Moul- trie and Albany public dirt road, at a point about four miles north of Moultrie, on lot of land No. in the 8th Land District of originally Irwin, then Thomas, and now Colquitt County. This building was originally constructed by George Tucker as a residence; and contemporaries still speak of it as the biggest "Double-Pen" log house ever seen by them. This type of "Colonial Architecture" is fully de- scribed in another chapter of this history; and for our present purposes it is sufficient to say that the two rooms were each some twenty-four feet square, and separated by an "entry" whose roof was a part of the roofing system of the two rooms, and whose floor was on an exact level with the flooring of the two rooms. The entry of this house was something like twelve feet in one of its dimensions; and, of course the other dimension was the same as the length of the sides of two rooms. There was therefore ample room for conducting an ordinary term of court.
We think that there is not in life, at the present time, a single participant of the first session of this court, which was held on first Monday in April, 1856. Mr. J. J. Giles, who at that time lived a matter of two miles to the north of the "Mims House," was a youth of fourteen years, or the rise; but, it is doubtful if he went to this term of the court. Hon. N. M. Marchant, now of active mind in the northwest part of the county, knows that his father-in-law, Hon. John Nelson Phillips, who had moved to Colquitt before it was a county, and who has been buried at Cool Springs graveyard, served at this first term of the Superior Court of Colquitt County as a grand juror. Since Colquitt's courthouse with its con- tents was destroyed by fire in 1881, much interesting his- torical records were destroyed. We know from records in the archives of Georgia preserved in Atlanta, that Judge
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COLQUITT COURTS
Peter E. Love, judge of the Superior Court of the Southern Circuit, presided at this term, and at the five next succeed- ing terms, till his resignation, in 1859; and that Honorable Edward Sheftall, solicitor-general of the Southern Circuit, per- formed the duties of solicitor-general, during the same terms.
Court House from 1881 to 1903
The above-mentioned Mr. Jacob J. Giles, who is still living with us, as he approaches his ninety-fourth year, made a joint contract with Mr. John Bryan to clear the present court- house square of stumps and litter of various kinds, prepara- tory to building a permanent courthouse. Messrs. Bryan and Giles were hired by the judges of the Inferior Court to do this work, in the year 1859; and so they went out and cleared off the site, taking out the stumpage of the original long-leaf yellow pines, and burning them. The new courthouse was completed, after the resignation of Judge Love, and so Augustin H. Hansell, a young lawyer of Thomasville, Ga., who had succeeded him in the judgeship of the Southern Cir- cuit, held the first term of the Superior Court in the new court-
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
house, in the fall of 1860. Hon. Erastus A. Smith, solicitor- general of the Southern Circuit, performed the duties of solicitor-general, at this term.
The "Mims House," used for a place for holding the first terms of Colquitt Superior Court was bought, soon after it ceased to be used for that purpose, by James Frazier, who used it as a residence, while he operated the farm on which George Tucker had originally built it. Frazier and his wife raised their children on this place. All traces of the original log double-pen are gone-no one knows how. However, con- sidering the size of the logs, it is altogether likely that it was destroyed by fire. We present at the close of this chapter a cut of the building now standing on the site of the "Mims House."
The tree is an ancient magnolia planted by Mrs. George Tucker in her yard, nearly a hundred years ago. The photo- graph was taken in the blossoming season of 1936. The white patches in the foliage are made by the blooms.
Court House from 1903 until now
CHAPTER XVIII Colquitt's Early Bench and Bar
THE FOLLOWING is a list of the judges of the Superior Courts of the Southern Circuit in which Colquitt County was placed by the creating Act of 1856, and in which she has remained uninterruptedly until the present:
Peter E. Love. 1856-1859 res.
Augustin H. Hansell
1859-1868
John R. Alexander 1868-1873
Augustin H. Hansell 1873-1903
Robert G. Mitchell 1903-1910 res.
Joseph Hansell Merrill 1910-1911
William E. Thomas 1911-
The following is a list of the solicitors-general of the Southern Circuit, from February 25, 1856, when Colquitt County was created, and placed in the Southern Circuit, to the present:
Edward T. Sheftall 1856-1859 res.
Erastus A. Smith 1859
Samuel B. Spencer 1859-1867
William B. Bennet 1867-1873
Robert G. Mitchell 1873-1884 res.
D. L. Gaulden 1884-1885
Daniel W. Rountree 1885-1890 res.
John R. Slater 1890-1892 died
Henry B. Peeples 1892-1896 res.
J. L. Hall 1896-1897
William E. Thomas
1897-1911
John A. Wilkes. 1911-1917
Fondren Mitchell 1917-1918 died
Clifford E. Hay. 1918-1929
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
G. Clarence Spurlin 1929-1934 died
George R. Lilly. 1934-
Colquitt County had only one resident lawyer prior to 1893; and the business of her Superior Courts was transacted by the judges and solicitors-general, assisted by attorneys from surrounding counties. These attorneys rode the South- ern Circuit with the presiding judge and the solicitor-general, or such counties in it as furnished them business. For a long time, each county had two terms per year, arranged accord- ing to convenience and the necessities of the case.
There was not much business in Colquitt, anyhow, the popu- lation being sparse, and living so far apart that they did not irk each other in their contacts. When families lived any- where from two miles to fifteen miles apart, there was not likely to arise trouble about gardens, chickens and children. Then, too, the necessities of life were too plentiful and too easily obtained for the citizens to give over much attention to property rights.
Some lawyers, however, did come to Colquitt's courts. Here is a partial list of them: The MacIntyres, father and son; R. G. Mitchell, and W. M. Hammond, all from Thomas- ville; Henry B. Peeples, and J. N. Talley, both from Nash- ville; W. B. Bennet, Dan Rountree and W. S. Humphreys, from Quitman; and I. A. Bush and C. O. Davis, from Camilla. All these came during the eighties, we know. All got some fees, of course; and all enjoyed practicing under such a judge as Augustin H. Hansell, and coming in contact with each other and with the Colquitt yeomanry. J. N. Talley, in his engag- ing classic "The Southern Circuit," has described with a poet's affectionate eye, the after-supper gatherings of these choice spirits, in front of Bob Bearden's Inn, which stood exactly where the Moultrie Banking Company's building now stands, at the northeast corner of Main Street and 1st Avenue, N. E. Among other things, Mr. Talley tells us how Judge
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COLQUITT'S EARLY BENCH AND BAR
Henry Peeples, who had been a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, along with William H. Felton, of Bartow, and Simmons of Sumter, when these two had their celebrated clash over Felton's bill to take away juvenile criminals from the convict lessees-a clash which culminated in Dr. Felton's terrible castigation of Simmons, would, so long as he attended Colquitt Superior Courts, be called on at least once each term, to "take off" for the delectation of his associates, the doctor's devastating philippic. These meetings all happened before our time at Moultrie; but we were the guest of Judge Peeples at Nashville for a few hours in 1900; and he gave us "old Felton's speech against Simmons"; and he never had a more interested auditor; since, when we were only nine years old, we heard the doctor "work on" Judge George N. Lester, his antagonist in a fight over a seat in Congress from the 7th District of Georgia.
C. O. Davis, sui-generis, and altogether lovable, was the darling of the lawyers who attended these meetings; and was invariably called on to give an account of his "cause celebre," "The Cripple Niggers versus The Circus." John M. Norman, son of a pioneer, and grandson of two or three more, who had a nose for the humorous, and who made it a habit to sit in with the lawyers at their "after-suppers," at Bearden's, shall tell it for us and for posterity, as C. O. rendered it:
"Well, gentlemen, this here circus had showed at Thomasville, and left there on the rail-road for Albany and points North. They covered a flat-car with niggers, and hitched it to the rear of their train of cars. Over about Pelham, they took a curve too fast, and spilled niggers for a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards, and proceeded possibly without knowing of the accident. These hurt niggers comes up to my office next day, or sends word. I took their names and description of their injuries, and tore off after the show, over-taking it at Americus. I went to DuPont Guerry's office, a young lawyer there, and we fixed up a fist full of attachments, and I went on out to the show-ground and gave them to the Sheriff, and he levied on six Percheron hosses, three leopards, two tigers, and a
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
geraffe. He just about had half of the animals levied on, when the show-man hunted me up, and asked me if I was ready to talk tur- key. I told him I might, if he talked right; and in no time, I had settled all these claims with him for a total sum of three thousand dollars. I took the money to Guerry's office, showed it to him, and asked him how much he wanted. He says 'Oh, I don't know, C. O. -would five hundred dollars be too much?'
"I says, "That's all right, DuPont. Here it is: count it.'
"Well, I took the balance and went back home, got the list of my clients, and sent for 'em. Next morning they were there bright and early, and I began to sort 'em around, according to how bad they was hurt. One nigger with an ear gone, I took as a startin' off basis, and put him down for twenty-five dollars, and then I commenced scalin' 'em up from that, but it was not long before I was out of money, and a whole gang of niggers not paid anything. Of course, you understand, I wasn't actually payin' out anything, but just sorta figgerin' out the situation, so's I'd know how to settle. When I saw I was goin' to run out of money, I says to myself, 'Pshaw! There just aint no nigger's ear worth $25.00'; so I reduced it to $20.00 and started again, with the same result. Well, gentlemen, no honest lawyer ever tried any harder to do the right thing than I did in working with this money, but I found that I could never do right between these people, and so I finally decided that I'd just keep it all myself."
At this point, Captain Hammond would slap the knee of the lawyer sitting most convenient to him, and say, "Gentle- men, that last part of his story is the exact truth!"
On the criminal docket of the Superior Court of Colquitt at the September Term, 1890, John A. Wilkes, a young lawyer who had just come to Moultrie from Nashville and got his first case: A citizen of Colquitt carried a friend around behind the courthouse, for the purpose of giving him a drink. He stopped directly under one of the windows of the grand jury room, squatted on the ground over his satchel to get out his bottle, and in so doing, brought into view a pistol, concealed in the satchel. At least, it was brought into view of two or three members of the grand jury, who
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happened to be looking out of the window at the time. "D. W. Rountree, solicitor-general," is marked for the State in this case on the docket, and "J. A. Wilkes" is marked for the defendant. Under the circumstances, it would seem to have been a pity for the case to have been pushed too vigorously ; and this seems to have been the idea dominating the mind of General Rountree. Anyhow, the case seems never to have been tried.
Once, when Captain W. M. Hammond was speaking to the court and jury, in the defense of some case, and said, "Gentlemen, I think that even the State's evidence shows the innocence of the defendant," Uncle Dick Norman, who was on the jury, said right out loud, and with energy, "Yes, Cap- tain Hammond,-and I think so too."
"The jury will keep quiet," said Judge Hansell, who was presiding.
At the Spring Term, 1893, of Colquitt Superior Court, the case of State versus Henry Gregory was sounded; and the defendant not answering to the call of his name, and the solicitor being about to forfeit the bond, or inquire why Henry had not been arrested, his brother arose and said: "There is no use bothering about this case any further: He is dead: I have a letter here that I'll read you. It is from Henry. He says, 'I am dead; that last spell of cramp colic I had was the worst one I ever had. It killed me.'" Cap- tain W. M. Hammond, who was prosecuting the case, merely said, as he looked over his spectacles, "Is my friend sure of the veracity of the witness?"
John A. Wilkes introduced into his practice a lot of show- manship, for instance, he was representing a Negro school- teacher whom Solicitor Dan Rountree had indicted for false swearing in connection with his school returns. Dan put a Justice of the Peace on the witness stand, who in response to questions, said: "Yes, that's his signature. Yes, that's my
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
signature as a witness. Yes, he swore to it." John A. took him on cross-examination saying, "Judge, you say he signed this paper?"
"Yes." "You say he swore to it?" "Yes."
"Judge, at or before he fixed his signature to this here document, did you have him to place his hand on the Book of the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, or elevate his right hand to the skies, and take the oath or affirmation that the law requires?"
"No, I didn't do that."
"Come down!" sang John A., and the Negro went out of court a free man.
Well, gone are all these unique spirits now-Judge W. B. Bennet, excellent lawyer and perfect gentleman, who raised four other excellent lawyers and perfect gentlemen, Joe Ben- net, Stanley Bennet, Sam Bennet and Matt Bennet; Bill Humphreys, dangerous antagonist before a piney-woods jury ; Dan Rountree, who left the Circuit, entered the practice in Atlanta, where he accumulated, it is said, a million dollars, and where he died three or four years ago; I. A. Bush, who was one of two or three lawyers in Georgia who knew all about ejectment law, who practiced law fifty years in a small town, generally taking his fees in land, which grew to be worth a million dollars; C. O. Davis, the friend of man; the Tom MacIntyres, father and son, who made a fortune in the practice at Thomasville; Henry Peeples, the unmatched host; W. M. Hammond, incomparable orator; Robert G. Mitchell, to whom fear was unknown, solicitor-general and judge of the Superior Court-all are gone to "that undis- covered land, from whose bourne no traveler returns."
AUGUST H. HANSELL
CHAPTER XIX The Moultrie Bar in the Nineties
AS WE WRITE, we have before us a rather pretentious adver- tisement of Moultrie, gotten out in the year 1895, by Wade Hampton Cooper, the editor of the Moultrie Observer at that time. This advertisement was gotten out a matter of two years after the Georgia Northern Railroad came to Moul- trie. Population of the town is claimed to be 1500; and everything booming. We shall have more to say of this ad later. For the present we are content to call attention to the fact that the ad shows that Moultrie had a bar in 1895. Here is the list: H. B. Lester, J. J. Walker, Joseph P. Smith, M. J. Pearsall, R. L. Shipp, J. L. Hall and D. F. Arthur.
There is no other record or account as to Col. Lester. One snap-shot at him on the wing, so to speak, and he is gone.
Our only authority for listing Mr. Arthur among the lawyers is that his name is marked as representing the de- fendant in the case of the State versus Ellis, on the Criminal Docket of Colquitt Superior Court, at the September Term, 1893. For many years after 1895, his time was devoted to abstracting the titles of Colquitt County lands. It is thought he died some years ago at some point in Florida.
Col. Joseph P. Smith came to this section from up about McDonough, soon after the War Between the States. He was the son of Rev. Melton Smith, and came with his father to this section. The father participated in local politics as a leader of the Reconstructionists. The son will be recalled by many as a member of the legal staff of the Georgia Northern Railway for many years. He was a man of well-furnished
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THE MOULTRIE BAR IN THE NINETIES
mind, and well grounded in the principles of his profession. He has been dead now, some fifteen years.
J. L. Hall once represented Thomas County in the lower house of the General Assembly of Georgia. He was solicitor- general of the Southern Circuit, serving as such from about April, 1896, to April 1, 1897. Afterwards, he did a gen- eral practice in Colquitt, until his health failed him a few years later. He was a man of brilliant mind; and possessed of many of the qualities of leadership. He has been dead now a matter of twenty years. We are under the impression that J. J. Walker (Jack) was Colquitt's first native lawyer. He was a son of Frank Walker, who moved to the "Hemp- stead District" (Berlin, now), bought land and settled on it sometime about 1892. Frank Walker and his family graded high among their neighbors; and Jack had many friends among both the laiety and his brother members of the bar. Sometime about 1897, he removed to Ocilla, Georgia, where he died about 1915.
By June, 1898, when this writer came to the bar at Moul- trie, the pastoral era was giving place to the industrial and farming era. This latter era will be written of in another chapter; and so at present, we are to write about the Moul- trie bar as it existed at that time and later, under our knowl- edge.
Jack Walker, here in 1895, was gone, as was Col. Lester. W. A. Aaron, and one or two others who had come here after 1895, had also gone. The others, J. L. Hall and J. A. Wilkes, had formed a partnership for the practice of law; and on June 2, 1898, the date this writer came here, this firm was doing fairly well, being in charge of the campaign for all county offices which their faction was waging against the "Ins." But it is about the lawyers we should be writing.
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
Moultrie was by this time a good place for a young lawyer to locate. There was much activity in timbered land, the naval stores business was booming; and Moultrie's ten saloons turned out plenty of criminals. Also, there was plenty of ready cash to pay lawyers' fees, all of which combined to render this the Golden Age for the lawyers. During the four years following 1898, and until the county was made dry by the church people, the practitioner at criminal law was in clover.
And so the lawyers moved in; and practice in the "Big Court" boomed, as it did in the City Court, which was created in 1902, to relieve congested conditions in the Superior Court. Some of the old visiting practitioners died out, or ceased to visit their old haunts in Colquitt. In the first term of the Superior Court (October, 1898), the elder MacIntyre is remembered, as is John G. McCall, of Quitman; I. A. Bush, of Camilla, and Captain W. M. Hammond, of Thomas- ville.
The firm of Pearsall and Shipp has already been men- tioned as being located at Moultrie in 1895. We now intro- duce the members of this firm: R. L. Shipp came to Moul- trie, about 1893, from Americus, Georgia, where he had studied law in the office of Littlejohn and Thompson, Judge Littlejohn being his brother-in-law. From the first, he was always to be reckoned with among the practitioners at the Moultrie bar, as a formidable antagonist. He served Col- quitt County very effectually as her representative in the General Assembly of Georgia, in 1901-2; and a few years later, he served a term as judge of the City Court of Moul- irie. He removed to Miami in the boom days, and attained high rank as a lawyer. He died in 1934, and is buried in the Moultrie cemetery.
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THE MOULTRIE BAR IN THE NINETIES
Matt J. Pearsall came to Moultrie about the same time Robt. L. Shipp came, having studied law with him at Amer- icus. Before coming to Georgia, he read law in the office of the Hon. Marion Butler, United States Senator from North Carolina. Mr. Pearsall himself was a graduate of the Uni- versity of North Carolina, and was well born, as to both his parents. He was killed in a railroad wreck near Moultrie, in 1902; but he did not pass away before he had reached a position of unquestioned leadership of the Moultrie bar; and there seemed to be no limit to his possible success, both as a lawyer and a politician, had he lived and remained in the State. His grave is at Morganton, North Carolina.
A new firm was organized, as a member of the Moultrie bar, about 1896-Mckenzie and Mckenzie, composed of H. C. Mckenzie and J. D. Mckenzie. They were cousins, and stood right at the top among the members of the Moul- trie bar. J. D. Mckenzie was elected judge of the City Court of Moultrie, where he rendered distinguished service till his death, which occurred long before he had reached the term set up by the Psalmist. He is buried here.
John A. Wilkes, who has already been mentioned, as prac- ticing here in 1895, was here in 1898 in the active practice as a member of the firm of Hall and Wilkes. He was a very dangerous antagonist in a criminal case, being capable of devastating eloquence in crises. He knew how to pick a jury, and knew the Criminal Code of Georgia "by heart," a thing which, in itself, was frequently very inconvenient to his op- ponents. He commenced practice in the Southern Circuit as a member of the Nashville bar; when Dan Rountree was solicitor-general, whom more than once he brought to grief in the lists of the law. His special delight was in spectacular coups, in some of which he would put to flight both opposing counsel and the presiding judge-all this to the intense de-
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
light of the populace, who would come out of the courthouse, saying to each other, "Old John A. jist knows more damned law than judge and solicitor-general put together." He realized the ambition of his troubled youth, and attained to Dan Rountree's job, which he held for four years, until his death, in both public and private life, he walked in a straight line, "from his youth up."
While after W. S. Humphreys moved to Moultrie, his nephew, James Humphreys came here, and entered into a partnership with him. He survived W. S. Humphreys several years while he maintained his place among the leaders of the local bar. He knew all that his uncle did about the re- actions of the wire grass jurors, and his uncle knew all there was to know; and he was even more resourceful in his tactics on the battlefield. "Little Jim," as we affectionately called him, died some years ago, leaving an excellent and popular wife, who has raised and turned into the local bar two members, both of whom are demonstrating already that they are "chips off the old block." "Little Jim" is buried in the Moultrie cemetery.
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