USA > Georgia > Tift County > History of Tift County > Part 44
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In 1920, when Mr. Parker was past seventy he and a friend made a journey up into the mountains of North Georgia. They became lost in the great woods of the mountains above Ellijay, and for forty hours they wandered without food. Afterward he wrote of his experience:
"Finally we reached the Connesauga River and our means of escape was practically assured ... after five hours of hard riding we had to cross the stream on the bottoms of solid rock . .. This was about eighteen miles from any place where a vehicle could go ... After a while we came to a trail .. . we came to the abode of an old mountain preacher, a Mr. Hall . .. a two room house built of the timber which grew all around. His wife and little daughter lifted the hearth stone and brought up eggs and bacon . . . This was the best meal I have ever eaten!"
Mr. and Mrs. Parker celebrated their golden anniversary. There was a brilliant reception at Parker house and Rowena and Jeff got married all over again, with a double ring ceremony, and with their children for attendants, and with many friends present, and numerous handsome gifts.
After the golden wedding the Parkers enjoyed ten more happy years to- gether before Mrs. Parker died, December 29, 1932. Thomas Jefferson Park- er lived until June 1940, when he was almost ninety.
JACOB MARION PAULK and ANNIE CATHERINE REGISTER PAULK
Micajah Paulk, of North Carolina, was the first Paulk to come to Irwin County, Georgia. His wife was Mary C. Young. Their son, James, married Faithy Akerage. James and Faithy had a son, James, called Jeems, who mar- ried Milly Whiddon, June 1, 1865.
Jacob Marion Paulk, son of Jeems and Milly Whiddon Paulk, was born April 19, 1866, in Irwin County. When a small boy his mother died. Later his father married again and there was a large family by the second marriage.
Jacob attended the schools of Irwin County. He later was a student at the Florida Normal School at White Springs, Florida, and in 1882, when Dr. M. A. McNulty founded the South Georgia Male and Female College at Dawson, Georgia, he attended that institution of learning, where he remain- ed in 1883. There he won three medals, one in mathematics, one in scholar- ship, and one for general excellence. A shy, studious youth, he never looked at a girl, and he always had a book. The S. G. M. and F. C. went out of exis- tence in 1885, upon the death of Dr. McNulty.
After teaching in Wilcox County during his early manhood, Paulk was in the mercantile business in Rochelle before going to Alapaha where he and a Mr. Gaskins were partners in a general merchandise business.
In 1895 Mr. Paulk came from Alapaha to Tifton. Here, on Main Street,
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in the south side of what is now Friendlander's, he conducted a general mer- chandise business purchased from another Mr. Gaskins. This Paulk sold in 1899 and thereafter he opened a furniture business. This, located on Second Street, he sold to Kent when Paulk became cashier of the new Citizens' Bank, opened February 1st, 1903, where the Cigar Store now is. Paulk was a stock- holder, and E. A. Buck was president.
On a Wednesday in November, 1899, Jacob Marion Paulk married Annie Catherine Register, daughter of James W. Register (born February 4, 1850, at Hamilton County, Florida; died, Jasper, Florida. June, 1929) and Florence Rainey Register (born March 11, 1851, Hamilton County: died June 1917, at Jasper). The ceremony was performed by the bride's pastor, the Reverend T. H. Bradford, of the Jasper Methodist Church, at the home of the bride's parents. Immediately after the ceremony the Paulks came to Tifton.
As bride and groom the Paulks, upon coming to Tifton, boarded with the Badger Murrows on Park Avenue until the home which the Paulks were building on Central Avenue could be finished. Then they moved there.
Years passed. Life to Marion was sweet. He had a beautiful and talented wife. He had a son and a pretty little daughter. He owned his home. He had a good position in the bank. He had everything-except health.
In search of health Marion went to Johns Hopkins, to Atlanta, to Mo- bile. At Mobile Dr. H. P. Cole was effecting cures by giving blood transfu- sions. He was the only physician in the Southeast giving them. Jacob Marion's brother, Edward, of Ocilla, went too and bared his arm. A five inch slit was made and a pint and a half of blood was drawn; but in those days few had heard of blood matching. After the transfusion Marion had a violent chill. He was able to travel, later, back to Tifton, but soon after- ward he died, Saturday, March 26, 1910. Of him was written in the Tifton Gazette: "One of nature's noblemen, a man whose jife was above reproach and whose dealings with his fellow-man were marked with sterling honesty and unflinching integrity, and whose life as a Christian, as a husband, a father and citizen, stands as a mark for emulation and praise, passed away -when Jacob Marion Paulk breathed his last."
Mrs. Paulk set herself to the business of rearing and educating her chil- dren. Back in Jasper she had played the organ in the Methodist Church from the time she was ten, until the time of her marriage. She had studied music at the Jasper Normal Institute, of which Mr. J. M. Guilliams was head. After her marriage she studied further at the Atlanta Conservatory and at Brenau. She taught music in Tifton and contributed much to the musical life of the town. She was a charter member and first president of the Tifton Music Club, organized by Mrs. Durrett, of Cordele.
Mrs. Paulk reared her children, and they would come back to Tifton and visit her. Her married daughter, who lived in Atlanta, would bring Mrs. Paulk's little grandchildren. White-haired Kate Register Paulk continued to play a large part in Tifton's life. She continued to teach music and had many piano pupils, both boys and girls.
One day in late August, 1947, Kate Paulk said, "I think I'll go over and
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go up stairs in the house where the Murrows used to live. I haven't been there for a long time. I think I'd like to see it again." She did. Afterward she was quiet for a little while. Her eyes were shiny and very blue, but she went about her duties as usual.
A few days later Tifton was grieved to learn that Kate had suddenly had a heart attack. She went immediately. Perhaps she wished to go to Marion.
Marion and Kate Register Paulk's children are Maudie (Mrs. Warren Maddox, of Atlanta), and Clarence, also of Atlanta.
JOHN A. PETERSON
John Atkinson Peterson, born in Douglas, Georgia, August 13, 1870, was educated in the schools of Coffee County, entered Emory College at Oxford where he took the literary course, and then went to Atlanta with an Emory professor and a group of Emory students who removed to the Capital City and became the beginning of Georgia School of Technology. Among his fel- low students when still in Oxford were W. L. Harman, later superintendent of Tifton Schools, and James Clements, later Judge Clements, of Irwinville.
Young Peterson was skilled in working with cabinet makers tools and also was gifted as a metalurgist, but after remaining at the young Georgia Tech for a short time he left that college and entered upon the study of dentistry at the Atlanta College of Dentistry, from which he graduated, 1898.
John Peterson had first come to Tifton in 1894 when he came here to be with his brother, Dr. Nicholls Peterson, and it was while in Tifton that he decided upon being a dentist. While still a student he practiced here, during vacations, with Dr. Alexander, eminent Alapaha dentist who came to Tifton several days a week, and here had an office.
After his graduation, Dr. Peterson came to Tifton and took over the Alex- ander practice as well as continuing with his own.
Dr. John Peterson met and married Miss Mabel Haulbrook, a teacher, daughter of William Coleman Haulbrook and Susannah Mason Haulbrook, newcomers to Tifton from Calhoun, Georgia, where Mr. Haulbrook had been a merchant. Although the Haulbrooks later bought land here they at that time were living on the Morris Place on the Brookfield Road and there Mabel and John were wed, September 2, 1903. Thereafter they lived for a year at Hotel Sadie, then, with the Haulbrooks, at what is now the R. E. Hall Place on West Sixth Street. Then they moved into the cottage which later, at the time of his death, was the home of Chief of Police Joseph Hen- derson. Thence they moved to the Nicholls Peterson home on Love Avenue and there their son, John Haulbrook Peterson, was born.
After other moves the John Petersons built and for twenty-five years lived in the Central Avenue house now the home of the G. N. Herrings. To Dr. and Mrs. Peterson were born two other children, Clyde Mason and Rosalie Mason, both of whom died in infancy.
During all this time Dr. Peterson was practicing dentistry in Tifton, where he was highly regarded and greatly beloved. Also he was prominent in state and national dental societies. His son, John studied dentistry and practiced
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with him. John married a charming young woman, Mary Woody, daughter of Willis Gaines Woody, and Mary Reynolds Woody. To John and Mary were born sons whom they named John Haulbrook, Jr., and Nicholls Alton. A daughter, Mary Catherine, was born not long after her grandfather's death.
Dr. John Peterson died at Tift County Hospital, March 13, 1944. Burial was at Tifton.
NICHOLLS PETERSON
Nicholls Peterson was born near Douglas, Georgia, January 31, 1868, lived for a time in Kirkland, attended Southern Medical College, graduated from the University of Louisville, took post graduate work in New York. After practicing medicine for about a year at Irwinville, he came to Tifton, in 1891. Except for a few months at Douglas he continued to practice medicine in Tifton until ten days prior to his death at the Coastal Plain Hospital, Tif- ton, Friday morning, March 13, 1936. Burial was in Tifton, where a host of friends mourned his passing. .
At Tifton, May 16, 1897, the Reverend C. E. Crawley, pastor of the Tifton Methodist Church, performing the ceremony, Dr. Peterson was married to Miss Edna McQueen, of Nashville, Tennessee. She had been teaching at the Tifton Institute (see article on Mrs. Peterson, in Education chapter, this book).
Nicholls Peterson was a member of the Tifton Board of Education from about 1904 until 1923, when he resigned at the end of Mr. J. C. Sirmans's term of office as school head. For many years Dr. Peterson was chairman of the Board.
Dr. Peterson served on Tifton's earliest Board of Health created at a meeting of Tifton City Council, March 2, 1891. Other members of the board were Dr. J. C. Goodman, Dr. J. A. McCrea, Messrs. T. M. Greer, H. H. Park- er. At various times throughout many years Dr. Peterson served on the board of health. He was elected city physician of Tifton August 24, 1893 and in this capacity served at various times during many years. He was appointed, by Governor Terrell, a member of the Board of Public Welfare and con- tinued on this board until 1911 when he resigned in order to accept appoint- ment as a member of the Georgia Board of Medical Examiners, on which he continued until 1925. He was Tift County's representative to the state legis- lature for two years, 1925 and 1926. Soon after coming to Tifton he became a trustee of the Tifton Methodist Church and served in that capacity until his death.
Dr. Peterson began practicing in "the horse and buggy days." He loved fine horses and had a span said to be among the finest in the state. He and another Tifton man owned a livery stable here. His partner conducted the business.
Dr. Peterson began the House, which became the C. W. Fulwood home, for a hospital, but sold it instead to Fulwood. Dr. Peterson then opened a small hospital in other quarters. He later had a hospital in the home now occupied by Marion Holmes. Still later, with others, he conducted the Coastal
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Plain Hospital which continued until the opening of Tift County Hospital. At the new hospital the nursery is a memorial to Dr. Peterson who brought into the world more than a thousand babies.
A person who did not live in Tifton and know Dr. Peterson when he prac- ticed here can have no adequate conception of the esteem with which he was revered, nor the deep affection in which he was held by thousands of patients who not only respected him for his professional skill, but also loved him be- cause of his spirit of kindliness.
After he passed to his long rest a memorial service was held for Nicholls Peterson at the Twentieth Century Library Club. At this service Dr. Orin Mixon read a long and high tribute to Dr. Peterson. This, which was writ- ten by Dr. C. W. Durden who knew Dr. Peterson in other years when Dr. Durden lived in Tifton, read in part:
"He was a most charitable man. He would forgive like a child, nor would he treasure a grievance to mar his peace of mind; nor conjure time or occa- sion to repay an injury. He pushed from his mind as pestiferous weeds hatred and malice, but cultivated with delight the flowers of brotherly love toward all men. This made him the guileless man he was as he walked among men."
J. J. L. PHILLIPS
J. J. L. Phillips, his brother, P. D., and two other children moved with their parents from Alabama to Louisiana, in 1873. There his father, who was a physician, and his mother died in August of 1874. In October of 1874 an uncle from Alabama came and carried all of the orphaned children to his farm in Alabama. Here the children learned to work and they attended an Old Field School several weeks of each year.
In 1893 J. J. L. and P. D. came to Chula and there set up a small saw mill which they operated jointly. Later they operated a larger mill at Eldorado. After some years as joint owners J. J. L. sold his interest in the mill to his brother P. D. and J. J. L. moved to Tifton, where he opened a wholesale lumber business. J. L. Padrick worked for him in the office of this business. Later J. J. L. engaged in farming on a large scale, and he was interested especially in the raising of Black Angus cattle. Buyers came from great distances to view his herds and buy his cattle. Also he was manager of a "long distance telephone company," in 1903. That year, also, he became the first president of the First National Bank of Tifton, which opened in February. O. D. Gorman was cashier.
J. J. L. was nearly blind. He could not see well enough to read a letter even, and everything had to be read to him. His secretary, from South Carolina, was a pleasant young person and he fell in love with her and they were married.
In the early days J. J. L. Phillips was a member of the Sam Clyatt Fishing Club which used to make annual excursions to Homasassa, Florida. Later he was a member of the Country Club, at Gun Lake.
Associated in business with J. J. L. were the Hollinsworths. Mrs. Hollins- worth, prior to her marriage, was a Dickerson, and the Phillipses, the Hollins-
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worths and the Dickersons and Dr. and Mrs. J. M. Price were close friends.
After his marriage J. J. L. Phillips built a large and handsome brick resi- dence at the southwest corner of Central Avenue at Twelfth Street. There he and Mrs. Phillips lived for a number of years before moving to Florida where he engaged in further sawmill operations, before moving to Coral Gables where Mr. and Mrs. Phillips now make their home.
The beautiful Tifton home which J. J. L. built for Evie was sold to the W. T. Roughtons. Later, after the death of Mrs. Roughton, it was purchased by the Twentieth Century Library Club, and it has not only housed the library but has been the scene .of many beautiful receptions and weddings.
JOHN A. PHILLIPS
John A. Phillips was born in Emanuel County, Georgia, July 28, 1836; served in the Confederate Army; married, in Emanuel County, Miss Mar- garet Elizabeth McArthur. (born July 25, 1845-died December 18, 1932 Atlanta; buried at Tifton). To John and Margaret were born two daughters, Ida, and Sadie (born July 4, 1872).
Captain Phillips had made his fortune and had retired from business and his two daughters had graduated from Wesleyan, Macon, when he and Mrs. Phillips and Ida and Sadie came to Tifton, in the fall of 1889. He made large investments here, where he bought land and erected Tifton's first ho- tel of considerable size. This large hotel was in process of erection on the site now occupied by the Myon Hotel, when Sadie, about seventeen years old, was stricken with typhoid fever. She died on Christmas Eve, 1889, only a few months after her family had moved to Tifton. Sadie was buried at Tifton.
The new hotel was completed, and Captain Phillips called it "The Sadie Hotel," for his beloved daughter. This structure became famous in the social life of early Tifton.
The Phillips had an apartment at the Sadie and for a short time lived there, but they never operated the hotel, but leased it to I. J. Clements. Cap- tain Phillips built and moved his family into the large frame house now called the Julian Apartments, at northwest corner of Central Avenue at Second Street. Next door to this house was the Methodist parsonage, occu- pied by the Reverend C. E. Crawley, pastor of the First Methodist Church. The parsonage burned and the lot on which it stood and the adjoining lot were bought by Captain Phillips and Jacob Marion Paulk, the Methodists buying a lot in the next block and erecting thereon a large two story house.
The Tifton Gazette on May 10, 1895 carried the following item: "Capt. John A. Phillips lost one of his cottages at Phillipsburg by fire early Wed- nesday morning. It was occupied by a family of negroes."
After living in Tifton only a few years, Captain Phillips sold his interests here and he, Mrs. Phillips, and Ida moved to Fitzgerald. He sold the Sadie to W. W. Timmons; he sold his large new home to Dr. George Julian, who made it his home until his death; he sold to J. M. Paulk his interest in the lots they had bought from the Methodists. Paulk built on these lots two
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homes the second of which he and his bride occupied, and in which Mrs. Paulk lived until her death in 1947.
Mrs. Irvine Myers later owned both the hotel site and one of the Paulk built houses. The Sadie burned in 1904 and was replaced by the Myon. Phillips was active in the founding of Fitzgerald where he remained until his death from a stroke of paralysis. He had first suffered a stroke in 1903, and had apparently recovered when he was again stricken on May 27, Satur- day, 1905. He never rallied. Death came on Sunday evening at eight o'clock, at the home of his daughter and her husband, J. H. Harris, in Fitzgerald.
The body of Captain Phillips was brought to Tifton on a special train Wednesday morning. It is said that nearly half the population of Tifton joined in the procession to the Tifton cemetery where Captain Phillips was laid to rest beside his beloved daughter, Sadie.
Later Ida's husband was killed by a truck, in Fitzgerald. Following his death she and her children and her widowed mother moved to College Park. Mrs. Phillips died in Atlanta; and Mrs. Harris died in or about the year 1945.
Of Captain Phillips the Tifton Gazette in issue of June 3, 1905, wrote, in his obituary: "He was one of the first heavy investors in Tifton in the early days of its growth, and also one of the founders of Fitzgerald, to which city he contributed much of its growth."
P. D. PHILLIPS
P. D. Phillips was born in Calhoun County, Alabama, in 1860. He was son of a physician who, in 1873, moved his family to Louisiana. In August of the next year both P. D.'s parents died. In October an uncle came from North Alabama to Louisiana for P. D. and his brother, J. J. L., and the two other children and carried them back to his Alabama farm where he taught them to work. They attended an Old Field School for several weeks each year.
By hard work and economy young P. D. saved a little money and, when twenty-one years old, went to Texas where for $500.00 he purchased a half interest in a sawmill-the beginning of his sawmill activities.
In the fall of 1890 P. D. Phillips married his first cousin, Miss Willie Phillips, of Jacksonville, Ala. Of this union were four children; Joe, Clar- ence, Charles, Mary Lou.
Three years after his marriage P. D. and J. J. L. Phillips began sawing lumber with a small mill near Chula. About 1901 the Phillips brothers began operating a much larger mill at Eldorado. After a period of joint operation P. D. bought out J. J. L.'s interest, J. J. L. moved to Tifton and P. D. and his famiy continued in Eldorado, where P. D. operated the mill.
In 1909 P. D. was a member of Tift County's first Board of Education. Chairman of the board was Briggs Carson, and other members were W. R. Smith, Dr. B. F. Pickett, G. W. Crum, and J. N. Horne. Of Mr. Phillips the Tifton Gazette wrote at that time, "As a member of the Board of Education
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he has always been punctual, and his judgment, dispatch, and business ability have been recognized from the start.
"As a citizen he has been a firm friend of education and extremely gener- ous to the church, the school, and to the Children's Home. Like other mem- bers of the Board of Education he takes great interest in agriculture and has demonstrated that two bales of cotton per acre can be raised on Tift County soil."
During that year, 1909, Mr. Phillips was still operating the Eldorado mill, he was president of the State Mutual Insurance Company, was president of the Phillips Lumber Company, was a director of the Bank of Tifton, a stockholder in various other Tifton enterprises, besides owning valuable real estate in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.
From Eldorado Mr. and Mrs. P. D. Phillips moved to Thomasville, where Mrs. Phillips still lives. P. D. died about two years ago.
THURSTON ELILIS PHILLIPS
Thurston Ellis Phillips, one of several children of Ellis and Elizabeth Lansdell Phillips, of Columbia County, Georgia, was born in Columbia Coun- ty, October 4, 1868 and spent his boyhood on his father's large Columbia County plantation, not far from Augusta.
Aftar having finished his school in the educational institutions of the com- munity, young Thurston, at the age of twenty-one, acquired a portable saw- mill and began sawmill activities, first in Columbia County, and later in Burke, Jefferson, Johnson and other Georgia counties and in Edgefield County, South, Garolina. It was his wont to stay in one location for a fort- night or for several weeks and then move on to another.
At Darien, Georgia, February 8, 1898, Thurston Ellis Phillips was united in marriage with Mary D. Chappellear, an orphan, daughter of Reuben and Mozelle Patterson Chappellear, of Jefferson County. Miss Chappellear was, at the time of her marriage, living with a sister, Mrs. Robert E. Printup, in Darien. Of this marriage were four children, Mattie Lou, Ida, May, T. E. Jr., Mary.
Mr. Phillips bought land at Eldorado in what was then Berrien but now is Tift County. On January 1, 1900 he established there a sawmill and he also engaged on a large scale in the turpentine industry. Also he engaged in farming and increased his land holdings until he owned six thousand acres and was operating sixty-five plows.
The Phillips family remained at Eldorado for fourteen years and then, in order to avail themselves of better schools for the children, Mr. Phillips moved his family to Tifton where he built for their occupancy a large brick house at 410 Park Avenue, North, which is still the Phillips home.
In Tifton, Thurston Phillips took an active part in all worthwhile com- munity projects. In 1916 he was elected to Tifton City Council, on which he served for about eight years. For about six years he was on the school . board. He served as chairman of Tift County's first Board of County Com- missioners, was off the board for a year, then returned and served as chair-
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man for two terms, during which time, through his influence, the county's first concrete bridges were built. One was built over Little River and there were numerous smaller ones built. From 1927 to 1931 T. E. Phillips ably rep- resented Tift County, for three terms, in the state legislature.
Walter G. Cooper, writing of Mr. Phillips in his "Story of Georgia," credits him with always standing for progress, and always being interested in economy and efficiency of government, striving to ease the taxpayers' burden and seeing that the taxpayer received a full measure of benefit for money expended.
Mr. Phillips is a director of the Bank of Tifton, of the Tifton Investment Company and of the Farmers' Bank of Tifton.
In partnership with Holmes Murray, Mr. Phillips operated for many years a grist mill at Tifton. Later he owned it outright, and still later in 1945 when the mill was incorporated he retained one-third interest and became president of the corporation.
Mr. Phillips is a deacon for life of the First Baptist Church, Tifton.
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