USA > Georgia > Greene County > History of Greene County, Georgia, 1786-1886 > Part 39
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His herd of one hundred and fifty white-faced cattle, great barns filled with oats and hay, splendid tenant-houses, private electric plant and waterworks, tractors and other farm machin- ery cultivate his broad acres without horses or mules, and his well fed, well cared for colored tenants all testify to his good treatment. Mr. Mack Carter is his superintendent and Mr. and Mrs. Carter occupy a nice new home that is surrounded by many beautiful flowers that are the result of Mrs. Carter's handi- work. Another white family lives near by, and some forty or more negroes, all descendants of "Granma" Lawrence, age 95 to 105 has lived there all of her life and personally knew all the people of that section, are helping Mr. Reynolds to make a garden-spot of this long deserted region. Those who have been fortunate to be Mr. Reynolds' guest at "LINGERLONGER", feel that the spot is well named.
Mercer Reynolds spent his young manhood in Greene County and married one of our finest young ladies, Miss
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Davison ; his indomnitable energy and technical mind called for a wider field of usefulness than his home-county afforded, so he entered the Cotton Seed Oil industry where he made good in a large way, and it is doubtful if any other man knows the cotton- seed oil business as does Mr. Reynolds. To him goes the honor of being the inventor of the process of solidifying cooking com- pounds, and, whenever you buy a carton of this wholesome fat you should feel proud of the fact that this Greene county boy is the inventor of the process.
Mr. Reynolds is also the head of a large Pulp Mill in Chattanooga that makes paper-pulp from hulls and linters, and many other bi-products that come from his plant. Casings for sausage and weiners are one of his products, and goodness only knows what else he has a hand in. Unlike many of the sons of old Greene County who have gone forth to win fame and for- tune, Mr. Reynolds' heart turns back to his first love and is using some of his fortune to rebuild the waste places and demon- strating to the world that he has faith in "The Red Old Hills of Georgia," especially, Greene County. When politicians wake up to the fact that their phobia against privately owned public utilities and industries is choking the country to death and pre- venting a return to normalcy, the Georgia Power Company will harness the Oconee River, create power for vast industries, de- velop rural electrification and make "Cracker's Neck" as desir- able as it was in the long, long ago.
'STORIES OF CRACKER'S NECK"
As recorded in Chapter 5, "Boyhood and Other Days in Georgia" by George W. Yarbrough, D. D .:
"Cracker's Neck" lies south of Greensboro, Georgia, the classic region of Greene County, as its name suggests. So charmed with this portion of his county was Hon. William C. Dawson, United States Senator from Georgia, that he was fond of claiming that his elegant home in Greensboro (the Clayton Home) was included in the "Neck." Dwellers on the dividing lines between Greene, Hancock and Putnam Counties aspired to association with the citizenship of this highly favored region. In its early history it was noted mainly for the sentiment of
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liberty as it came down undiluted from the fathers of the Rev- olution. For the most part, they were a law unto themselves. They interpreted courts of justice to be institutions merely to keep the appearance of civilization. It is not surprising that their most historic church was named Liberty Chapel and that the county was named Greene, after General Nathaniel Greene, the friend of George Washington."
"The rich old blood of the Revolution was leaping in the veins of descendants of Revolutionary sires in the sixties; and Greene County, true to her traditions, invested heavily in that second struggle for independence; and there will always be channels for that blood to flow in, and they will never be dry. Let none receive the impression that the citizens of this locality were turbulent, fractious or troublesome. Far from it. Every man had a mind of his own and did as he pleased; and every- body accepted that order of things, and peace and harmony reigned."
"Writing for the most part from memory, I shall not be expected to be rigidly exact as to the topography of the country. The Oconee River, in a horseshoe curve, keeping it fresh and green on one side, and Shoulder Bone Creek washing it on the other side, will be sufficient for the outlines."
"Another part of Cracker's Neck was made historic by the "Fox Chase" of "Georgia Scenes" (by Judge A. B. Long- street ), when old "Smoothe-tooth," after pitching his forelegs over a large log, concluded to let his hind legs remain where they were and come to rest, and where the grapevine caught his rider (Judge Longstreet) under the chin and came near lifting him out of his saddle as the scent of game grew warm, and ripened him into a gallop." Old "Smoothe-tooth," was Judge Longstreet's mount on this famous fox hunt; and the chase started near the home of Mr. John Hall, father of the late V. S. Hall and other Greene County Halls.
"Here and there, scattered throughout the States from Georgia to the Far West, are men and women who will have to let nature have her own way and moisten their cheeks a little as memory hovers over the old homes and haunts of the region I am visiting to-night on the same wing."
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"So dear to me and to others are the names of those families there, say in the early eighteen-fifties-that I will re- cord some of them. We readily recall the Armors, Dr. John Curtright, Col. Rowan Ward, the Kimbroughs, the Creddiles, the Woodhams, Brown (father-in-law of Rev. James Billings- lea and one of the riders in the celebrated "Fox Chase" of Geor- gia Scenes"), Perkins (grandfather of Preston Wright, of Greensboro, my old schoolmate), the Smiths, the Hutchinsons, Henry Walker, Rev. William Blythe, the Copelans, Gentry, a leading singer at Liberty, and Jernigan. We could make this list much longer without putting down a family not entitled to high consideration for having contributed to the character of Crack- er's Neck." (Just here, the writer will try to add a few names that Dr. Yarbrough omitted, but who were prominently identi- fied with Cracker's Neck; and should he omit some who ought to be mentioned, it will be due to his ignorance of that favored section prior to his becoming a citizen of Greene County-in the fall of 1889. The families whom I knew were; Moores, Parks, Betheas, Youngbloods, Roberts, Jernigans, Swanns, Har- wells, Callahans, Hudsons, Bryants, Wrights, Merritts, Row- lands, Veazeys, Jacksons, Ruarks, Browns, Rainwaters, Leslies, Crossleys, Pourols, Atkinsons, Lawrences, Owens, Monforts, Gentries, Cawthons, Turners, Lundys, Winns, Rileys, Cliftons, Halls, Williams, Parrotts, Slaughters, Brewers, Moons, Baughs, Robins, Bushes, Parkers and others whom I do not recall. By including the Wards and Armors, Dr. Yarbrough fixes the up- per boundary of Cracker's Neck by the old Greensboro-Park's Mill Road, and since U. S. Senator William C. Dawson desig- nated his Greensboro home as the apex we feel justified in saying that all the above were, "Cracker's Neckers." As to the origin of the name "Cracker's Neck", Mr. E. W. Copelan says : "The tradition handed down through his family dates back to the days when tobacco was the money crop in this region, and when the tobacco was ready for market, it was packed in hogs- heads with an iron axle through the center, to which shafts were attached, and oxen supplied the motive power that drew the precious cargo to the Augusta market. Rawhide whips with long crackers were used to tickle the necks of the oxen as they plodded along this wearysome journey; and as they approached
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the muddy-streeted little city of Augusta, the street urchens would yell out, "Here comes the boys from "Cracker's Neck," with their tobacco." The "Tobacco Road," made infamous by Erskine Caldwell, pulls off to the right from Route No. 12 just as you pass the unpaved road that leads to Grovetown. The "Liberty Boys," rolled their tobacco along the old Stage Coach route that crossed the Oconee at Park's Mill and lead via Greensboro to Powellton, then on east to where it merges into old Route No. 12 some two miles east of Barnett.
Again quoting from Dr. Yarbrough's book, he says : "When couples got married, they had big wedding suppers and rousing infairs the next day. Cake is not piled up at weddings now as it was then and there on such occasions. There were no buffet luncheons, menus, or functions of any kind; and I want it dis- tinctly understood that those things did not originate in Crack- er's Neck, with everything running to dishes of foreign names and to flowers and flourishes. The tables groaned under viands that allured the taste, substantial and delicious home-raised and homemade and home-named that made us feel, when it was all over like we had been somewhere and had gotten something worth going for and never to be forgotten." (The writer en- joyed the hospitality of some of these "Cracker's Neck," homes almost fifty years ago, and can say, "Amen," to what Dr. Yar- brough said about their bountiful tables and real hospitality) .
Referring to weddings Dr. Yarbrough wrote: "Well, all that was common in Cracker's Neck in our day and time; and folks paid the preacher for marrying them, too. Every bride in those parts was worth it, and all this "I'll see you again" on the part of the festive groom was not in it. The service was recog- nized in heavier change than that, gold itself being considered none too good to invest in that part of the program." Liberty Chapel was the outgrowth of a visit to that section by Bishop Asbury in 1799; a conference was held in Bush's home (later, the home of the father of the late Hon. E. A. Copelan and his brothers John D. and Henry Copelan and their sisters, one of whom was the mother of Dr. E. G. Adams and Mrs. J. P. Brown; and in this home was born our fellow townsman Mr. E. W. Copelan, Mrs. L. S. Cawthon and their brothers and sisters. The old home was destroyed by fire many years ago.
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Of this historic old church Dr. Yarbrough says: "Liberty Chapel was the center of attraction and influence in Cracker's Neck. It was surrounded by thickly settled neighborhoods of the best people." "I must be pardoned for doubting if any Church in Georgia ever exerted a more wholesome influence over people within its reach. And it had a good name at a distance as well as near." In answer to Question 16, "When and where shall the next Conference be held? (Minutes of 1808), the answer was: South Carolina Conference, Georgia, Liberty Chapel." The Conference was held by Bishop Asbury in a farmer's home (Mr. Bush, later, the Copelan home), in a house now gone by fire. At this conference Lovick Pierce was ordained deacon. It was an inspiring place for George F. Pierce, his son and a native of Greene County, to preach his first sermon." (Liberty Church Conference )
"The mourners' bench," was born at Liberty Chapel. A noted revivalist, Rev. Stith Mead, was conducting a meeting of great power. His custom was to talk privately to every one under conviction, to make the way of the Spirit clear. But at Liberty the work pressed him until he was forced to adopt another method. So he invited all with such experience to come to the front seats, where he might instruct all together as he had been instructing them individually. It proved most helpful; and, of course, others followed his example. Finally the custom drifted into going up to the front to be prayed for; and we have the "altar" or the "mourners' bench," as we have been pleased to call it."
"In 1871, while on the Greensboro charge, Dr. John Curt- right, then advanced in years, and a noble specimen of Meth- odist manhood, told me that Judge A. B. Longstreet gave him this history and told him that it was the beginning of what afterwards took the form of going up for prayer."
Liberty Chapel still survives; but most of those whose names are mentioned above, lie in the near-by "city of the dead". And the once populous and wealthy neighborhood is well- nigh deserted. Mr. Samuel P. Turner, Miss "Minnie" Monfort, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Winn, Mr. John D. Gentry, "Tal" Lewis and perhaps, a few others are all who are left of those who wor-
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shipped there in the long ago, however, many of the descend- ants of old Liberty Chapel saints live in Greensboro, White Plains, Siloam, Union Point and other parts of Greene County ; and not a few have gone to enrich Atlanta and other cities of this and other states.
So firmly were the seeds of Methodism planted in Crack- er's Neck, that no other denomination has ever gotten a foot- hold. Her erstwhile citizens have been an honor to society where- ever they have gone.
JUDGE GARNETT ANDREWS AND HIS RECORDED MEMORIES OF OLD BETHESDA CHURCH
By T. B. Rice
In a recent article I tried to picture a scene around old Bethesda Baptist Church, in Greene County; and the vehicle described belonged to none other than Judge Garnett Andrews. When I wrote the story I did not know that Judge Andrews had written a book and described the conveyance that he called a "chair" (pronounced it cheer ) and which had been built for his mother to attend Baptist "meetings" in, therefore, I feel that I should correct the few mistakes made in my description of the rig that created a sensation at old Bethesda soon after the turn of the past century; and will let Judge Andrews tell the story as it actually occured. His book was published in 1870 by the Franklin Steam Printing Co., of Atlanta, Georgia, although, his manuscript was written many years before. I quote from chapter 1. and only such paragraphs as have to do with the times, people, customs and political situation as they were in Greene County, between the years 1802 to 1830. I am indebted to a Greene County lady, now residing elsewhere, for excerpts from Judge Andrews' books, and my only regret is she does not wish me to use her name.
Quoting from p. 9: "An old friend of Judge Andrews, like many other people, was bewailing the degeneracy of the times, but more particularly the consequences of making a new county, Taliaferro, in the limits of which he had been caught.
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Somehow or other he connected, not only his own, but the mis- fortunes of the country with the county lines which had been drawn around him."
"The extreme limits of five counties made the new one ; and in them living remotely from towns, (Taliaferro was form- ed out of parts of Greene, Hancock, Oglethorpe, Warren and Wilkes counties, in 1825, were free from the vices and extrav- agances of such corrupting neighborhoods, and were of the great est simplicity and purity of manners, as will appear in the con- versation I had with the old friend by my fireside one winter night. I will give after many years, what I remember of his yarn."
"My parents were from old Virginia and were of the Bap- tist persuasion. My father was what was then called, an old peach brandy Baptist; by which I mean he made peach brandy. My recollections go back to about the time of the closing of the African slave trade, in 1808, when the country was full of "outlandish" or "new negroes" as they were called. I remember how many professed to be "Princes" and "Princesses" in their native country, how they had marks of distinction on their flesh, as they said; how many destroyed their lives to return in spirit, to their own country; how some large slaveholders ar- rested it (the suicidal tendancy) by cutting off the head of a suicide, telling them he would return to his country without it, and that he would decapitate all self-destroyers in the same way; of how some trader had given his purchased servants pants to hide their nakedness, and on the next morning found them tied around their necks as ornaments; how one ran away, got frostbitten, and cut off his feet and placed them before the fire to get warm."
"I remember the War of 1812, with its privations and hardships, how I was going to school, cyphering in long divi- sion, learning grammar and thought to be a prodigy of learning, at a house on the great public road leading from Augusta to Washington to Greensboro; how the mailman came to Wash- ington once a week, stayed all night and went thirty miles the next day to Greensboro, with all the letters and papers for all the country in a pair of common saddle-bags; how the news
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was a month coming from the "Niagara Frontier"; how my father took two newspapers, the only ones to be had for miles around; how the neighborhood came to hear the news; and how the school boys all admired the brave mail boy."
"The only festivities in the country were corn shuckings and Baptist meetings, as they called them then, for the Bap- tist "crab grass" had taken all the land then cleared in the country."
"In the country where I was raised, remote from towns and villages, the big Baptist "meetings" were the only other convivial gatherings, I say convivial, not because there was as much deep religious exercise as I ever saw, but because it was for these occasions the turkeys, eggs and fatted calves were kept to entertain friends coming from a distance. It was going to and coming from these "meetings" that all the courting of the young people was done. One of the most dexterous and admired feats of gallantry was for a young spark to cut out his rival, that is to ride between him and his girl as their horses watered at the creek or some other sought for occasion."
"My mother was a pious and very religious Baptist wom- an whose main enjoyment in life was attending Baptist "meet- ings." My father, an enterprising well-to-do man, had made her what she called a chair (pronounced "cheer"), afterwards a gig. It was constructed of ash by a common wagon maker of the country, without springs, and painted blue, like the wagons and split bottom chairs so common throughout the Southern country ; the body was what I think is called a stool body, after the fashion on old sulkies. My father had almost everything manufactured on his plantation; among the rest, his own flax, leather and shoes. Dick, his shoemaker made the harness for the chair. Some of the negroes on the plantation made the "wahoo" collar. The reins I do not recollect, but have no doubt they were a pair of cotton plow lines. Whatever moderns may think of the turnout thus far, we had a splendid docile gray horse that could rival the best of his successors now. The gray was hitched to this spanking new equipage, and I, then in Robin- hood, was selected to drive mother to her old "meeting house"
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(Whatleys, now Bethesda) in this the first wheeled vehicle, made as a luxury for riders that had ever approached its sacred precincts."
"Tom Hunt, a boy a few years older than I had aroused the envy, not to say hatred, of all the boys for wearing to school a pair of coarse boots, made by Jack, his father's shoe- maker. The pleasure of the ride with whip in hand, had been delicious, but as I passed Tom with his boots, I had a feeling of triumph that was new and delightful. This was the begin- ning of the triumphs of that great day of my life. I took pains to drive up as near the front door of the "meeting house", as it was then called, as propriety would permit, to an end, that my turnout might be seen by everybody in general, and Jinny Shotwell in particular, who I thought had looked with tender emotions on Tom's boots the Sunday before."
"The morning sermon was, as usual long, to me, an age in length. When it ended the congregation dispersed to get water, eat lunch, but above all to see the great show in the churchyard. Soon there was a large crowd gathered around the "chair" that would not be considered large enough for an apple cart. Old Elijah Dearing, a very tall man with a walking stick, was the leading surveyor in examining the strange con- trivance. Just before, I had noticed that Jinny had passed by and lingered too to admire. Tom was standing by and he look- ed as enviously at the "chair" as I had at his boots. After Mr. Dearing had looked at and shaken the thing, he straightened up, tapped a spoke with his long stick and exclaimed, "Well ! Well! What will this world come to next?" Then my feelings were worth five dollars a minute, and though I am near my three score and ten, I have not been as happy since."
"During the War of 1812, all the goods we received in the interior of Georgia came out of the peddlers wagons from the New England States, and in a few wagons that carried cot- ton to Baltimore (600 miles) and returned laden with mer- chandise. There was a merchant in the neighborhood named Shorter, who had a daughter, Kate, who, through the peddlers of her father's wagons, had become the owner of a parasol, the first that had ever been seen in all that vicinity, and the pos-
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session of which had made her odious among the girls, as Tom Hunt's boots had made him with the school boys.
Though every damsel in the neighborhood was plaiting oat straw bonnets and spinning jeans cloth, to buy a parasol, they had been diligently engaged in ridiculing Kate's "rag," which it seems she stretched and flourished on every possible occasion. She was in danger of having an edict of ex-communi- cation issued against her by the feminines visiting that church ; until my dear old mother came to her relief, for she soon made a diversion in Miss Kate's favor. The envy and ridicule of the sisterhood were now turned against the owner of the "chair". The doctrine of election and final perseverance forbade that she should have "fallen from grace" but she had become "too proud and worldly minded for a Christian," and they were greatly "hurt."
"As my good and inoffensive mother made a diversion for poor Miss Kate, so the leading Baptist preacher came to her relief. He was deputed by the church to attend a Conven- tion or some other Ecclesiastical body, at Philadelphia, when he too had a "chair" made for him and his wife to take the journey in. He left in a shallow breasted jeans coat which all the preachers wore then, and in warm weather laid off in the pulpit, and his wife a plain ribbon in her bonnet; but to the great scandal of religion, he returned with satin lapels to his broadcloth coat, and she, not only with colored ribbons, but colored bows and flowers on her new bonnet. On this greater sin luminaries of the church, my dear mother was almost forgotten and was suffered to travel to all the big meetings in compara- tive peace."
"If these old preachers did fight the devil with coats off, it was to some purpose, for I've never known a more religious and moral community, nor one more deeply impressed with the truths of the Bible and religion, than the people under their ministrations."
"Those were the days of the double log cabins and sand- ed floors; of burnished pewter plates displayed in the sun to passersby on a shelf at the front door, and to visitors on an
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open sideboard in the principal room in the house; and of tink- ers with their packs on their backs, to mend such wares as might be broken, and to mold new ones for the thrifty housewives. I have not seen a pewter plate nor a tinker within these new county lines since they were run."
"Those were the days when the land was fresh from the hand of God, no sedge, no Bermuda grass, and the rivers and creeks were full of shad and other fish."
"If a young man wished to marry he went to the other side of the spring or another site on his father's abundant, cheap, rich virgin soil; built his log cabin, cleared a turnip patch and cowpen, and went to multiplying and replenishing the earth. Since these new county lines the country is scarred with red gullies, the cane, forests and fish are gone, and if a young man marries he may expect to feed his children on red clay and blackberries. "They got their new county and not only reaped these bitter fruits, and many others that I can mention, but have lost their simple industrious habits. The boys must quit the plow and go to town, and learn to drink, dance and play cards. Because they have a courthouse, neighbors who used to settle their little disputes in the church, have gone to the law. One half bought drygoods and liquor, bad liquor at that, and the other half went to buying (spending) and drink- ing and they all went broke; brethern who had belonged to the same church and lived neighbors all their lives without an unkind word, went to lying and fighting over the new county offices. And here we are, once the happiest and most independent people in the world, now the most miserable set of poor devils on earth, and all on account of these new county lines they have run around us." "Here my friend groaned aloud, refilled his pipe, and in his agony of soul pufed smoke like a steam engine."
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