USA > Georgia > Tift County > History of Tift County > Part 49
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Tift, Jr. Bessie's pastor, Dr. Orion Mixon, conducted the services at the church and at the grave, and he was assisted by Dr. Aquila Chamlee, Pres- ident of Bessie Tift College, and two former pastors, Dr. C. W. Durden, of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dr. F. C. McConnell. Present was a dele- gation of faculty members and students from Bessie Tift College.
All of Tifton and a host of friends elsewhere mourned Bessie's passing; for all felt somewhat as did an old friend who said of her: "She was the sweetest person I ever knew."
Indeed, to her family, Bess was long known as "Sweet Bess."
HENRY HARDING TIFT, JR.
Henry Harding Tift, Jr., eldest of three sons of Henry Harding Tift, Tifton's founder, and Bessie Willingham Tift, was born October 1, 1886, in a private Pullman car, in, or near, Washington, D. C. when Bessie was coming to Tifton from her husband's old home, Mystic, Conn., where she and Henry, Sr. had spent the summer.
Henry, Sr. and Bessie, rejoicing at the advent of the fine boy, gave, as a thank offering, $1,000.00 to Baptist Foreign Missions.
Early the child's Christian education began. He received also public speaking instruction. Though not yet nine years old at the time of the laying of the corner stone of the Tifton Baptist Church in 1895, he took part in the ceremony. After an inclement Sunday, Monday was bright and beautiful and the Baptists had a fair day for laying the corner stone of their edifice. At the exercises, music was led by Miss Ella Bacon and Prof. E. J. Williams. The address was by the Reverend E. Z. F. Golden, of Cuth- bert. Miss Gertrude Patrick recited. Dr. J. B. Gambrell, Macon, President of Mercer University, and Messrs. B. T. Allen, Carswell, and Cole spoke. Master Henry Tift, in behalf of the Little Helpers, having laid the corner stone solid and firm, pronounced it " 'well and truly laid'."
This was the brick church, with amber colored windows, on North Park Avenue, and now used by the Presbyterians. When first built it had a spire 140 feet high. The contractor was John C. Hind, from Ontario, Canada, and Tifton's earliest contractor and builder. Henry, Sr., had given much of the cost of the church, of which his beloved wife, Bessie, was one of the charter members. Henry, Jr., attended Tifton public schools under W. L. Harmon and Jason Scarboro. He then entered Mercer University. There he became a close friend of Bobo Murray, nephew of the distinguished Greek scholar, Dr. John Scott Murray, for quarter of a century professor of Greek at Mercer, and later at Furman. Henry and Bobo one summer toured Europe together. This was a rollicking, happy journey. This was Bobo's first Euro- pean travel but he subsequently took numerous other trips, conducting large parties on European tours. Later Bobo was professor of French at Mercer where he taught when Henry's uncle, W. L. Pickard, was presi- dent of Mercer. Henry became a Mercer trustee. Later Bobo went as consul to South America, where he died soon after arrival.
At Mercer both Henry and Bobo were Phi Delta Thetas.
After graduation from Mercer in 1906, Henry Tift, Jr. attended Eastman
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Business College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. While playing ice hockey there he fell and received a severe blow on his head. However, he continued his studies and graduated.
Henry, Sr. and Bess were delighted at Henry, Jr.'s decision to locate in Tifton. He took a position with the Tifton Cotton Mills, of which Henry, Sr. was president. Henry, Jr. was doing well but one hot summer day while at the mill he suddenly fell over in a fainting spell, the first indication that the severe blow received the previous winter had caused a permanent in- jury. From then on life was an alternation of apparent good health and serious illness, but Henry was diligent and enterprising in business in which he was markedly successful; and his was a radiant personality which endeared to him many friends. Bessie Tift had a first cousin, Caroline Willingham, who became second wife of Jerome Balaam Pound, of Chat- tanooga, Tenn. J. B. Pound, by his first wife, has several daughters, of whom one, Virginia, was a person of rare sweetness and charm. Henry Tift, Jr., and Virginia Pound were married in Chattanooga, November 4, 1914.
To Virginia and Henr'y Tift, Jr. were born two children, Virginia (called "Prec"), born at Tifton, December 10, 1915, and Henry Tift III, born Feb- ruary 4, 1917, at Tifton.
Henry, Jr., built for his wife, whom little Prec called "Big Dolly," a large bungalow on College Street. Next door Amos, Henry, Jr.'s brother, built one for his beautiful wife, Lutrelle.
Henry, Jr. also had a large and valuable farm (now the Fulwood Plant Farms) and he owned extensive acreage on the Alapaha River, on the bank of which he built a large cabin, the scene of numerous merry-makings when he and his friends repaired there for an evening following a supper of freshly caught fish.
When Henry and Virginia had been married only a few years Virginia became ill. She was taken for her health to North Carolina but instead of improving she died there in 1918. She is buried on the Pound lot, Chatta- nooga. Henry, grief-stricken, moved his two babies to the home of his parents where they were reared by his mother. The Lennon Bowens moved into the Henry Tift bungalow.
The first automobile in Tifton was owned by Mr. Johns, of Tifton Heights. He had the car for hire. Henry, Jr. was one of Mr. Johns' best patrons. At the St. Louis Exposition Henry was greatly interested in the automobile display. He urged his father to buy a car, which Henry, Sr. did. His was the first private automobile in Tifton.
Later Henry, Jr. always had a beautiful car. He also went in to the automobile business and had an automobile agency. He was an excellent driver and enjoyed high speed. He liked to drive, but because he was often ill he usually took his colored chauffeur, Jeff Mathis, with him and if Henry felt ill Jeff would drive.
Henr'y attended an automobile show in New York City, and greatly en- joyed it. At the time of the Glidden Tour in interest of better roads, he hastened all the way from New England in order to drive in the procession of cars on the tour.
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Henry was greatly beloved in Tifton, and was much in command as a public speaker. He was a member of Tifton Chamber of Commerce and at one meeting said that Tifton should have an airport and he offered the use of some of his land to be used as a landing field. This was in a day when aviation was not so general as it now is.
Henry, Jr. loved the beautiful virgin growth pines and he was happy over his father's gift of Fulwood Park to the city. He also loved roses, perhaps because from earliest childhood he had seen beautiful and choice ones in his mother's garden and in that of his next door neighbor, J. L. Pickard, who was a great lover of roses. Henry, Jr. gave funds with which to buy rose bushes for the establishment of a rose garden in Fullwood Park.
"Now," said Henry, "everybody can enjoy the pine trees and everybody can enjoy roses."
Like his great and good father, Henry was generous hearted. The first dormitory at the Tallulah Falls School was made of lumber donated by Henry, Sr., and it was built by the students with tools bought with $250.00 donated by Henry, Jr.
Like his father also was Henry, Jr. in his great interest in the Second District Agricultural School. On June 11, 1929, Prof. S. L. Lewis, presi- dent of the school, was to be presented a gold watch in appreciation of his work at the college. Henry, Jr. made the speech of presentation at exer- cises held in the auditorium of the Tifton High School. Bess attended, and later left for Bessie Tift College, to attend a mission meeting. Henry, Jr. drove her to the train. He had a brand new, beautiful car.
Next day Henry, Jr. did not feel very well, but he was enjoying his new car so much that he did not get Jeff to drive, but drove it himself. He liked to feel the engine respond to his slightest touch.
When after supper, he left the house, his namesake, Henry III, wished to go with him as far as Aunt Florie Pickard's where their cousin, "Kew- pie," had arrived that day for a visit. Henry, Jr. let Henry III out there, and then drove on. He turned and drove up Sixth Street. He did not take the familiar turn onto College Avenue where he and Virginia had been so happy. He drove on past, straight out Sixth Street. At the end of the street instead of making the turn the car shot forward at a terrific speed. There was a splintering crash. The car telescoped against a giant pine tree.
Those who rushed to the scene found Henry's body completely crushed. He was still alive, though unconscious. Dr. N. Peterson, hastily summoned, rushed to his aid but said afterward that there probably was not a bone in Henry's body that was not broken. Henry was taken to the Coastal Plain Hospital. By God's mercy Henry died without ever regaining con- sciousness. He died in the first minutes of the morning of June 13, 1929.
All of Tifton mourned Henry's passing. His personality had been one of rare radiance, and his spirit was ever one of generosity and thoughtful and loving service to others.
' Burial was in Tifton cemetery, where a lone pine stands sentinel near where he sleeps.
"Henry always loved the pine trees," said Bess, one Easter day after
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she had placed at the head of Henry's resting place some Easter lilies sent by Henry III. Henry III was at Harvard where he was studying to be a physician.
AMOS CHAPMAN TIFT
Amos Chapman Tift, third son of Bessie Willingham Tift and Henry Harding Tift, Tifton's founder, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, August 24, 1891.
A member of the First Baptist Church of Tifton, he was for a great many years song leader in the First Baptist Sunday School, of which also he was a loyal and faithful and useful member.
Amos attended Tifton public schools and the Virginia Military Institute. and graduated from Mercer University. There he was a Phi Delta Theta. Also he was 1911 manager of the Mercer Cauldron and in 1912 he was prominent in baseball.
Amos Tift was wont to spend the summers with his parents at their summer home, Mystic, Connecticut, where he learned to handle a boat skillfully, and grew to love the water.
Returning to Tifton after graduation from Mercer, Amos engaged in the automobile and garage business and erected some of Tifton's hand- somest business edifices. He also has farming and other real estate interests.
On July 5, 1918 Amos Tift married beautiful Titian-haired Lutrelle Mc- Lennan, daughter of David Charles and Lina Roberson McLennan, the Reverend Ward performing the ceremony at Bainbridge, Georgia.
Of this union are three children, Lutrelle Tift, born April 15, 1919: married Homer Meade Rankin (born New Orleans) ;
Amos Chapman Tift, born January 19, 1921;
David Harding Tift, born December 19, 1923.
All were born in Tifton and all served in the armed forces of their country during World War II. Prior to the war, and after her graduation from the University of Georgia, Lutrelle, Jr., was founder and editor of a weekly newspaper at St. Simons Island, "The St. Simons Star."
Amos built and for many years occupied a house on College Avenue. but after his mother's death he bought and moved into the H. H. Tift homestead on Second Street, where he now lives. He owns a summer home at St. Simons Island.
His love of the water and water sports has influenced him to have a large part in the construction of the old swimming pool which through the years has furnished a wholesome recreation for Tifton people and he has been one of the most generous donors to the fund for the construction of the new swimming pool, also he has built two beautiful artificial lakes near Tifton, Tift's Pond, now called Lake Mary, after Mary Carmichael, the beautiful deceased daughter of the present owners of the lake, Mr. and Mrs. Homer Carmichael; and another lake not far from the Ocilla Road near Tifton. This is as yet unnamed.
A friendly, kind man of few words, Amos combines many of the excellent
THOMAS WILLINGHAM TIFT, of Atlanta and Tifton Large owner of Tifton property and oldest son of Tifton's founder
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traits of both his parents. He is a trustee of Bessie Tift College and is a member of the Tifton City Commission. He enjoys golf and is a mem- ber of the Tifton Country Club.
All three of Mr. and Mrs. Amos Tift's children have returned safely from the war, though Amos, Jr. was in the European Theatre of Operations, and David was in the hazardous undersea duty in the far Pacific. They are now with their parents in the old Tift homestead, and Lutrelle, Jr. is mar- ried and lives next door.
THOMAS WILLINGHAM TIFT
Thomas Willingham Tift, second son of Henr'y Harding Tift, Tifton's founder, and Bessie Willingham Tift, was born September 15, 1889 at Albany, Georgia, at the home of Bessie's sister, Julia Bacon, where Henry had taken Bess that she might be under the care of Julia's husband, Dr. Wallace Winn Bacon, an eminent physician. The child spent his boyhood in Tifton where he was called Willingham, but at Mercer University, from which he was graduated in 1910, he was called Tommie. At Mercer he room- ed with Ralph Bailey, clergyman and writer, who married Tommie's cousin, Julia Baynard Pickard. At Mercer, Tommie was a Phi Delta Theta. After graduation from Mercer he went to Yale where he was graduated from the Law School, in 1912.
Mr. Tift possesses great business acumen and he engaged in farming interests near Tifton, and also built a number of houses and stores in Tifton, some for rent, some for sale.
April 16, 1921, at Greenville, Georgia, his uncle, Dr. W. L. Pickard, per- forming the ceremony, he was married to Catherine Hill Terrell, daughter of Dr. Terrell, and a niece of former Governor Terrell, of Georgia. She had been a room-mate at Washington Seminary, Atlanta, of Dr. Pickard's daughter, Elizabeth Belle, name-sake of Willingham's mother and of Eliz- abeth's and Tommie's Aunt Belle.
In addition to his Tifton holdings Willingham Tift acquired valuable interests in Atlanta and moved there to make his home. He continues to have large Tifton holdings and makes frequent sojourns there where he maintains a country home.
Willingham Tift is president of the Westside Land Co., Chattanooga, Tenn .; president of the Piedmont Cotton Mills, Egan, Georgia; vice-pres- ident of the Bank of Tifton; president of the Tifton Chennille Co .; is a director of the Willingham-Tift Lumber Co., Atlanta; is a member of the Board of Trustees of Bessie Tift College, which is named for his mother; is on the Board of Trustees of the Tifton Investment Co.
Willingham Tift is a member of the First Baptist Church of Tifton, of which his mother was a charter member and to which his father gave the original church site, and which Willingham joined in early boyhood.
Willingham Tift is a member of the Atlanta Rotary Club; the Capitol City Club; Atlanta Piedmont Driving Club; Tifton Country Club.
Thomas Willingham Tift and Catherine Terrell Tift have two children: Catherine Hill Tift and Thomas Willingham Tift, Jr.
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Catherine Hill Tift was born Atlanta, Georgia, July 15, 1922, and mar- ried James Tinsley Porter, December 7, 1945.
Thomas Willingham Tift, Jr. was born January 8, 1927. He is a cadet at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.
WILLIAM ORVILLE TIFT
William Orville Tift was the second son of Amos and Phoebe Harding Tift born in Mystic, Conn. in the year 1843. He was educated in the Mystic public school and joined the Army at the age of nineteen.
At the close of the War he took a position as purser with the Mallory Steamship Lines sailing to Galveston, Texas and Key West, where his uncle, Asa, had gone some years before.
In Texas, he made connections and went into the business of cattle raising, and became the junior partner on one of the largest cattle ranches in the state.
In the meantime he had married Eliza Catherine Mallory, eldest daughter of David and Sarah Stark Mallory, also of Mystic, Conn. She was born in the year 1848, also in Mystic. All went well with the young couple until one summer when yellow fever broke out in Galveston and a tidal wave swept hundreds of head of cattle into the Gulf. This meant the failure of the firm.
In the meantime his brother, Henry Harding Tift, had come to South Georgia and sent for him to join him. It took great courage, for at that time South Georgia was virgin territory; there was nothing here but the pine woods,-no schools, no churches save the little log cabins where the Primitive Baptists and Primitive Methodists held forth. I have heard my mother say that, unless she had guests, six months would go by and she wouldldn't see a white face save that of Uncle Henry, Father and Mr. Hall, who was overseer of the saw mill.
But they stayed, believing in the future of this part of the state.
My father was a visionary-he saw that the state must get away from cotton, and he introduced tobacco, peaches and grapes into what is now Tift County. He planted most of the trees in Tifton and believed in its future.
He died in 1909 of hardening of the arteries, in Mystic, Conn., in the house where he was born.
His wife survived him by a number of years.
Two children were born of their union-a son, William Orville Tift, Jr., and a daughter, Katherine Stark Tift.
(Editor's Note: Mrs. Katherine Stark Tift Jones, the writer of the above sketch of her parents, has established a wide reputation as a gifted reader, particularly of Negro dialect sketches. She is a radio speaker, and at present is with the Tifton broadcasting station.)
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WILLIAM WHITFIELD TIMMONS (Contributed)
William Whitfield Timmons, who was born in Marion County, South Carolina on July 15, 1852, moved to Tifton (then Berrien County) in July, 1891. He and his wife, the former Mary Frances McWhite, to whom he was married on December 27, 1876, first lived in a house on the corner of Love Avenue and Second Street. After this house burned with all its con- tents in 1904, he bought the house immediately next door on the north side.
After moving to Tifton, he spent the rest of his life engaged in the pro- duction of turpentine. He was in this business, which was on a large scale, both singly and in partnership. He also owned and operated several farms of considerable size. Mr. Timmons was one of the important men of his time and section : he was public spirited, generous, and active in anything for the good of his community. He was a Mason, a member of the Tifton Lodge, and of the Baptist Church, and was for twenty years prior to his death, Chairman of the Baptist Board of Deacons. He served as council- man for several years in Tifton and was at one time mayor of the city. He was in every respect a good citizen who died in 1924 with the love of all who knew him.
ELIAS L. VICKERS
Elias L. Vickers, son of Henry Vickers, a farmer, and his wife, Ellen Sears Vickers, was born June 21, 1861, in a large six or seven-room log house on his father's farm in Coffee County about six miles west of Douglas. In this house red-haired Elias lived for several years and there were born to his parents several other children before the family moved into a new clapboard house built in front of the older log house.
An alligator bit Elias's leg when the boy was ten, and it was a problem to know how to extract the leg from the creature's jaws without hurting the boy more than he was already hurt. Finally a fire was placed under the reptile's jaws, and when he then opened them a rope was slung around the upper jaw to prevent him again closing his mouth and the boy's leg was thus freed. Mrs. Vickers insisted that the alligator's head be cut off, which was done, but he walked about without his head and this horrible and gruesome sight haunted Elias even when he was grown; also, even when he was grown he carried the scars made by the teeth of the creature. He said he was not so much hurt as that the pressure was terrific and the blood circulation was cut off, so that he felt numb.
Elias after finishing the schools near Douglas went to Eastman Business College, at Poughkeepsie, New York. Thereafter he went to Willacoochee where he engaged in turpentining. There he met Charles Goodman, son of Dr. J. C. Goodman, later a well-known Tifton physician. Elias met Charles's sister, Mary Etta Goodman, who was living with her parents at Jackson- ville, Georgia. The Goodmans soon after this moved to Tifton and there Elias Vickers and Mary Etta Goodman were married, the first couple to be married in the little white chapel, then newly built and Tifton's only
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church edifice, the same now known as Bessie Tift Chapel, but at that time it stood near the present site of the Methodist church. Later, Etta's sister, Harriet, and George Evans were the last couple to be married in this church before it was moved to the mill village.
About 1894 Mr. Vickers had a large house built for his family at 315 West Sixth Street, the same now owned by Mrs. Briggs Carson, Sr. It was built by S. G. Slack and was then and still is one of Tifton's most beautiful and interesting residences. It was at one time occupied by Mrs. T. O. B. Wood, sister of Bessie Tift. Elias Vickers also built homes for his family at Arabi and at Old Field. He had turpentine stills at those places and at Adel, and at Panama City, Florida. Mr. Vickers moved his family to Tifton in 1910.
When the Vickers house was built it stood in a woodland, and there were only two houses between it and the home of the Goodmans on Central Avenue and Second Street. The two houses were the C. W. Fulwood house, and the Dinamore house, then occupied by a Northern man who tended the fruit at Cycloneta.
At the Vickers's house was written, b'y a friend of Mr. Vickers, a book entitled "The Negro Is a Man," written to offset the then recently pub- lished book, "The Negro Is a Beast," which book sorely angered Mr. Vick- ers, who loved the negroes and would never work convict labor as was sometimes customary at that time among turpentine men.
Elias Vickers invented what is said to have been the first turpentine cup to fit a tree. Formerly the trees had merely had a trough cut in them. Vickers's cups were first made of wood, later of papier-mache.
In 1910 Elias and his family moved to Macon, where they lived on a farm across the Spring Street bridge. There, on December 14, 1910 his daughter, Ruth, was married to Paul Fulwood, of Tifton. Later Elias sold the farm, and lived in the old Joe Hill Hall place in Macon, where he continued until his son, John had graduated from Georgia Tech. Mr. Vickers live in Atlanta for a while.
Another son, Hawkins Ladson Vickers, had a position with the Ballard Plant Company, at Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Mr. and Mrs. Elias Vickers moved to Hattiesburg in 1925. There Mr. Vickers died September 7, 1933. He is buried in the Tifton cemetery.
Mr. Vickers was a staunch Methodist. He was a trustee of Sparks Col- legiate Institute, at Sparks, Georgia, and of Wesley Memorial Hospital, until it was consolidated with Emory University. He was a lay leader of the South Georgia Conference of the Methodist Church.
Mrs. Vickers, Mary Etta Goodman, was born March 10, 1866, at Somer- ton, Virginia. She was graduated from Wesleyan College. She died at Char- lotte, North Carolina, April 28, 1947. Burial was at Tifton.
To Elias and Mary Etta G. Vickers were born ten children. Those who survive are Mrs. P. D. Fulwood of Tifton; Mrs. E. H. Cardwell, Mrs. Paul Bankston, Miami; Mrs. S. J. Evans, Washington; John H. Vickers, Char- lotte, North Carolina; Hawkins L. Vickers, Hattiesburg, Miss.
Mrs. W. L. Harman, of Tifton, is a sister of Mrs. Vickers. Another sister, Mrs. W. M. Thurman, died March, 1947.
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JONATHAN WALKER
Hezikiah, Jonathan, Jack and Wash Walker came from South Carolina to Irwin County in the early days of Irwin County.
Of the above, Jack was living near Bones Mill Pond (now Crystal Lake) during the War Between the States. Jack married Sarah (Sabry) Clements, sister of Abraham Clements, of Irwin County. Jack's and Sarah's children were: Abram, John, Sarah, Melanchthon, who was called Dink, Jim, Joe, Sam, Rachel, Jane, and Jonathon.
Bones Mill Pond was one of the most picturesque inland bodies of water to be found. Its waters are of an amazing clarity, and though far from the coast, the hard sandy beach is as dazzling in whiteness as the ocean strand. The whole is surrounded by a dense forest wherein are choice and rare flora. In one place near the lake is a peat bog, in another the trembling earth. In still another place beneath the near Stygian shade of forest giants the water is unfathomed. This weird, secluded, dangerous and dark water is known as Devil's Den.
During those troublous times of war the sad plight of runaway slaves was one of the gravest problems of the time. One such was known to be at large, and Jack saw him on his neighbor's land, near the lake. Jack went to capture the slave, but Jack and his neighbor became engaged in a struggle and Jack disappeared, as also did the Negro. Later Jack's body was found buried near the lake edge, and irate citizens seized and tried the owner of the lake and hanged him to a limb of a tall oak tree which still stands a gaunt, bare, white skeleton of a dead tree rising spectre-like above the lesser trees of the forest.
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