USA > Georgia > Troup County > History of Troup county > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
GRIGGS HOME. The battle-scarred Griggs home is on the Alabama line in West Point and located in Alabama, but it is so closely identified with the history of Troup County, that it has been included in our list of homes. It remains practically unchanged since the battle of Fort Tyler, when it was scarred with bullets in the fierce struggle for possession of the fort.
WHITFIELD HOUSE. This is one of the old houses of Troup County, and was the home of Horatio Whitfield, an old pioneer of the county, and is located on the south side of the road at Whitfield Crossing near Louise. The property was afterward in the possession of the Banks family. In 1931, it was purchased by S. H. Dunson, and he and Mrs. Dunson have used excellent judgment in the remodeling of the house, adhering strictly, though in a charming manner, to the traditions of architecture of the ante bellum period during which the old house was built. It is now known as "Gricewood."
TARVER HOUSE, CHURCH STREET. This house was built by the mother of Judge Walter Colquitt. After the death of Henry Colquitt, her husband,
195
ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES
she married Andrew W. Tarver, and was in her second widowhood when the house was built. She occupied the house with her son, John Colquitt and his children, he being a widower at that time. The property is in possession of the Lehmann family and has been for many years.
HENDERSON HOME, 303 HILL STREET. This stately house was built by William Henderson, the great uncle of Mrs. R. O. Pharr, some time before the war, and was purchased by Benjamin H. Bigham in 1865 upon his return from the War Between the States. It is conspicuous for the beautiful stair- case and the handsome brass cornices over the windows. Mrs. Adelaide Bigham Park, her daughter, Mrs. Mary Park Polhill, and her granddaughter, Mrs. Adelaide Park Webster, were all married in the same room of the house.
MCFARLAND HOME, HINES STREET. This house was built by a German contractor named Wagner for Joseph D. McFarland about the year 1833. It was occupied by the Bacon and the Fannin families; James Stanley and his wife lived here in 1843, and it was afterwards occupied by Benjamin B. Amos, the father of Mrs. Ida McFarlane. It was bought by L. J. Render in 1880 and is still in possession of his daughter, Mrs. W. E. Morgan. The Render family though pioneers of Meriwether County have added much to the wealth, culture and prestige of LaGrange and Troup County for more than fifty years.
RUTLEDGE HOME. This house is located on the east side of the road from Hardin Crossroad to West Point. It was built by a contractor named Urpe in 1852 for Joseph Rutledge, father of Mrs. M. L. Fleming. Two years were required to construct the house; no nails were used in the framing, all joints being mortised and tenoned and fastened by wooden pegs. It remained the property of Joseph Rutledge until his death in 1892, and became the property of Mrs. M. L. Fleming in 1895, and was sold by her to William Hogg in 1908.
FROST HOME, 323 GREENVILLE STREET. This house was the former home of the Frost family, who were financial and military characters in the early days of LaGrange. At some later time it was purchased by W. V. Gray, and occupied by his family for many years, and is still in possession of the family.
WILKES HOME, 218 MAIN STREET. This house was the former home of Benjamin Wilkes, the grandfather of Ben Wilkes of Springdale Drive. The house was situated in the center of a large lot fronting on Main, Bull and Broome streets. It was afterwards moved southward from the original po- sition, when the Truitt home was built near Broome Street. The Wilkes family were among the wealthiest and most influential of the early days.
SWANSON HOMES. On the north side of the old Vernon road just beyond the second crossing of the A. B. & C. Railroad is the old home of Graves Swanson. On the south side of Vernon road within the city limits on the
196
HISTORY OF TROUP COUNTY
site of the home of Ely R. Callaway was the home of Sherwood Swanson. Both of these homes were noted for their lavish hospitality. The home of Sherwood Swanson housed the first session of the Superior Court held in the county. Sherwood Swanson married Sarah Cameron, one of the three grad- uates of LaGrange College under the Montgomerys in the first class of 1846.
CAMERON HOME. This home is located on the north side of Vernon road just within the city limits, and was the home of Benjamin Cameron, a pioneer builder and contractor. He built the old court house in 1831. His son built the dormitory and college building of LaGrange College in early 1861, the war preventing the completion of the college building.
SIMS HOME. The home of Wiley Sims was the site of the old LaGrange Country Club; the old house being remodeled as a club house. Wiley Sims was the first ordinary of Troup County, the office being created in 1852. He was prominent in the social and political life of early days.
FLORENCE HOME. Near the A. J. Heard place southeast of LaGrange, the summer home of Judge Walter Colquitt, was located the Florence home. The menage of this home was noted for the exquisite furniture, handsome carriage and horses, and other appointments in keeping with the early pioneer country home.
POER HOME. This house dates far back in the county records, and the age is attested by the bend in the street in West Point, whose other streets are straight lines except those along the river front. The city was laid off in rectangular squares at the beginning of its existence.
WHATLEY HOME. This home is located on a narrow road leading north just beyond the Estes Cemetery west of Abbottsford. A view of this quaint house bespeaks its age. The angular dormers and steeply pitched roof are ample evidence of the originality and good taste of the designer.
HARWELL HOME, 305 BROAD STREET. This is perhaps one of the oldest homes in LaGrange and was the home of Vines Harwell and his wife, Mary Lane, who were married on November 18, 1823, and afterwards moved to this home, where were born Henry and John Harwell on December 24, 1827, in this house. The house was afterwards occupied by J. Brown Morgan, whose wife was captain of the "Nancy Harts" in the Civil War period. It was afterward owned by John N. Cooper. It has been in possession of the Pinckard family for more than thirty years. The beautiful columns were added to the house in the later years of its existence.
MODERN HOMES. Among the handsome modern homes of LaGrange, West Point and Hogansville, may be mentioned the following: Truitt and Dunson homes built in southern colonial style; Nix home of English type with its beautiful gardens; the handsome Callaway Italian villa set in the
197
ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES
famed Ferrell Gardens, now called "Hills and Dales"; Lanier home in West Point with the house and gardens artistically set on the famous Fort Tyler hill with a magnificent panoramic view of the surrounding country; Word home in Hogansville picturesquely located in a stately grove of oaks.
There are doubtless many other homes in the county, which should be enumerated, but the lack of definite information has prevented their inclu- sion in this edition of our county history.
CHAPTER XXIII. CUSTOMS AND PRACTICES
LANTATION DAYS. On the old plantations the spring months were one unending toil of planting, sowing, weeding, tilling up to the "laying by" time about the first of July, when the golden seas of wheat, barley, rye and oats, and sometimes millet were waiting for harvest time. The strong armed cradler mows a swath in the ripened grain, and he is closely followed by one who gathers the cuts and binds them into conven- ient bundles or sheaves. When the reaping and binding are complete, the bundles are shocked in upright piles with one spread over the top to protect the shocks from possible rains before the threshing time.
The itinerant thresher is notified that the community is ready for "thrash- ing day"; and when notice is received that the caravan is on the way, then commenced the hurry, bustle and hard toil of the burning summer days, which left completely exhausted every one from the cooks feeding the extra itinerant crew and the laborers moving the grain to the thresher and the chaff and straw out of the workers' way, to the master awaiting the scorer's count of the harvest total. The modern reaper has taken away the glamor of old "thrashing days" with the hearty appetites and deep sleep consequent upon laborious toil.
The summer months were largely idle time with the exception of the pulling of fodder and cutting of hay. Visits to distant friends and kinsmen, various gatherings in churches and camp meetings, served to pass away the long summer days. The call of the road commissioners always marred the idyllic summer days, when the able bodied citizens gathered together for highway work in making possible the old roads and in cutting new ones.
The notable days of autumn were cotton picking, cane grinding, cider making, corn shucking, each of which were celebrated in accordance with the alcoholic inclinations of the participants. One other day should be mentioned, and that is settling day or October 1, when the accounts of the harvest year are closed. Prior to this date all transactions were of the barter type: the threshing paid in toll of grain; the miller in toll of grain; all else on credit payable on the settling day.
Plantation days are gone with its toils and labors, with its pleasures and recreations, but they have a warm place in our hearts.
THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. In the early days most of the roads were only faintly marked trails, and in consequence travel was largely on horseback. This was the method employed by the country doctors in reaching their patients, and all physicians were country doctors.
The doctor was the surgeon, the dentist, the pharmacist, the nurse, and the botanist, and anything else that was needed by the patient. He carried
199
CUSTOMS AND PRACTICES
in his saddlebags instruments for operations, materials for compounding rem- edies, miscellaneous sedatives and purgatives, bandages and liniments, in fact a circulating pharmacy.
On the way to some distant visitation his watchful eye was ever on the alert for catnip, boneset, lobelia, bayberry, gentian and all those plants from which he prepared his tinctures.
It is a matter of pleasure and also of duty to pay tribute to the tireless energy, enduring patience and studious skill of these faithful pioneer min- isters of health to our forefathers.
CORN SHUCKING. The monotony of farm life was sometimes broken by introducing a concerted social feature, or by making play of work. One of these in those other days was a "Corn Shucking," which our northwestern countrymen would call a "Husking Bee," but in our Georgia always bore the above appellation.
By light of lanterns and to the accompaniment of banjos and fiddles (not violins) husky neighbors vied with one another in races of time or quantity of corn husked, and a feature of the contest was to find who would shuck the first ear of red corn, which entitled the lucky one to the first and a double portion of the eggnog, and sometimes he received also a spanking from the envious defeated contestants.
The dancing of jigs and singing of old songs interspersed the program of work and amusement. Now, alas, the days of corn shuckings are no more, and it is in memory alone that we may see some husky buck "cut the pigeon wing," or hear some old darky "zoon."
LOG ROLLING. The original forests of the county were so dense that in order to plant crops, it was necessary to fell the trees and to destroy all timber not needed for building cabins, barns and shelters. The disposition of the enormous mass of trunks, branches and brush entailed the communistic as- sistance of neighbors in rolling the logs into a heap for burning. After the arduous toil by day with cant hooks and levers, came the evening by the light of the bonfire, and entertainment of song and dance with refreshments both liquid and savory.
HOUSE WARMING. When the patches for fields and gardens were cleared, and the cabin of logs completed with its board roof and stick chimney; when puncheon benches, shelves and racks and bunks, were added, and the pioneer ready to occupy his new home, invitations were broadcast by word of mouth to the "House Warming." The house might be the future home of some newlyweds, or merely the abiding place of some newcomer to the com- munity, but the ceremony was much the same in either case. The host gave warm welcome with a roaring fire in the spacious fireplace, a royal banquet
200
HISTORY OF TROUP COUNTY
of venison or bear steak with suitable accompaniments, which usually in- cluded hard liquor for men and wine for the ladies.
The presents brought by the guests would seem curious when compared with a modern shower: for the host, a powder horn scraped until thin and translucent, a leather shot pouch, a tinder box, a coon-skin cap, knitted woolen socks and the like; for the madame, a skillet, a spider, buckskin moccasins, mittens knitted from colored yarns, and the like.
COOKING METHODS. The pioneer oven usually placed some distance back of the cabin, was a cumbersome affair built of stone or brick, with a huge firebox underneath provided with a stick chimney for the draft. The firing of the oven was not a daily occurrence, for it required some time to heat the oven chamber to a cooking temperature. The bread supply for a week was usually baked at one heating, and a ham, or a whole pig, or a turkey, or all three could be baked at one time in the cavernous depths of the oven on ceremonial occasions, but roasting and barbecuing were more frequently resorted to for such use as the family alone required.
The spider was a three legged cooking implement for cooking bread at the open fireplace. It was provided with a cast iron cover on which hot coals and ashes were heaped in order to brown on top the biscuit or corn pone without having to turn over.
The skillet, or frying pan, was used for the cooking of rashers of bacon, sliced ham and steaks, much as at the present time.
The hot ashes of the giant fireplace were also utilized for the roasting of sweet potatoes, and sometimes for the cooking of the ashcake of corn bread. To keep the home fires burning was a solemn duty, since matches though invented in 1856 were not in common use in the South until some time after the Civil War. The method of preserving fire was to bank ashes over the live coals at night before going to bed. The hunter, camper and long distance teamster customarily carried a tinder box, flint and steel, or some- times in a metal box a spongy mass taken from decayed trees, which they called "punk," which would when enclosed carry a smouldering spark for many hours.
HORSEBACK RIDING. In the early days when most of the roads were little more than faintly marked trails, the favorite method of transportation was that of a saddle horse. The general use of saddle horses made necessary some changes of costumes, which were later relegated to the realm of things past and forgotten. One of these changes among the men was the habitual wearing of high top boots. Among women in the days when modesty of person was considered a virtue was the use of the side saddle, and a riding habit with long flowing skirts was always in evidence. These perquisites
201
CUSTOMS AND PRACTICES
required the use of other forgotten conveniences, such as boot-jacks in the bedroom and mounting blocks at the gate.
FOURTH OF JULY AND CHRISTMAS. A very curious reflex from the wan- ton destruction and pillage of Federal soldiers during the war and the suc- ceeding days of Reconstruction was the feeling that the independence for which we fought in the eighteenth century was being denied our people in the nineteenth. As a consequence the former elaborate celebrations of the Fourth of July were abandoned and have not to this day ever been as whole- heartedly celebrated as in those other days. The use of noise producing fire- works and of fantastic masquerade parades was bodily transferred to the celebration of Christmas, which had been in the former days a quiet cele- bration of social cheer and church service.
CARPENTERING. The pioneers were endowed with a plentiful supply of timber, and had only to choose the enduring varieties for permanence. For the zigzag or worm rail fences, the easy splitting chestnut was chosen; for the log cabins, the long slender boles of short leaf yellow pine; for the picket fences of gardens and yards and for covering boards, some easily rived species of oak; for the later development of frame dwellings, pines and oaks or such as yielded to the magic touch of the broadax and adz. The sills of a house were hewn with broadax, and carefully mortised for each corner post, brace and stud in the wall, and each upright timber was firmly pegged into its place at top and bottom.
Within the recollection of the writer was the first structure in which the above members were toenailed in place, when the old citizens warmly de- bated whether the house would withstand its first winter of wind and rain.
The old time carpenter treasured in his complement of tools, a crosscut saw, a broadax for hewing, an adz for smoothing, a froe for riving boards and pickets, a large and a small auger for pinning, a large hatchet, and such other tools as his purse permitted, such as a handsaw, a hammer, a plane, and some chisels for mortising.
The strength and beauty of some of the old houses built during the pioneer days are a lasting monument to the skill of these craftsmen of those other days, when all work from the forging of nails to the ripping of planks, from the fashioning of mouldings to the smoothing of flooring, was hand work. They builded wisely and well.
WORKING THE ROADS. The old time road work was usually performed in August after the fodder was pulled and the hay cut. Every able bodied citizen in a militia district was subject to the call of the road boss of the district, and under his supervision the holes and washes of the roads were filled, and the ditches were cleared. When a place was remembered as being
202
HISTORY OF TROUP COUNTY
miry and wet in the preceding winter, it was piled with stones, or covered with transverse poles and logs and smoothed over with earth, which the heavy rains soon removed, and gave the passing traveler that bane of a highway, which was dubbed a "corduroy road."
If the old road was very much eroded, the old plan was to shift to right or left as convenience dictated. Putting top-soil on a road was unknown, and paving was practically limited to the streets of large cities. Many of the old roads were narrow and often flanked by cavernous ditches. The small streams were crossed by fords and the larger ones by ferries, though bridges were added as rapidly as possible, but the efforts were largely in the direction of the addition of new roads to connect new communities with those previously established.
The summoning for road work was later developed into a road tax, which was compulsory on all male citizens, and which could be paid by personal labor, or in money, or by the furnishing certain teams and appliances for road work.
SETTLING DAY. In the early days there were very few cash transactions, and most accounts for clothing, groceries, fertilizers, harness, and in fact every class of commodity, were tacitly made as payable on October 1st, which date was interpreted very freely as some time before Christmas, or rather the date on which the cotton was sold. The day of settlement with the merchant, or settling day, was the date due of crop mortgages, and various obligations. The payment of the hired help was usually deferred to some time nearer the eve of Christmas.
PIPE SMOKING. In the days when smoking was a pastime and not a busi- ness, a familiar sight was that of the corn-cob pipe with its reed stem, or the more durable and also more odorous clay pipe, either of which was charged with home-grown tobacco, and lighted by means of a live coal from the glowing fireplace.
SHIN PLASTERS. Before that silver was used for fractional currency, the Federal government put into circulation some paper money of small denom- inations. The bills were not only small in value, but also small in size. The denominations were five cent, ten cent, twenty-five cent, and fifty cent bills, and because of their small size were humorously called "shin plasters." Most of these bills of fractional currency have been retired from circulation, and those remaining are kept in the collections of numismatists together with the two-cent copper coin, and the three-cent and half dime silver pieces.
PEDDLER WAGONS. An exciting event in the lonely country communities was the coming of the peddler wagon, a conestoga affair, with the greatest imaginable variety of wares: tinware in the form of cups, pans, plates, buck-
203
CUSTOMS AND PRACTICES
ets, strainers and sifters; cutlery of all descriptions from knives to broad- axes; ribbons, laces, calicoes, flannels, lindsey, and sometimes silks and vel- vets; Arnica and liniments, quinine and tonics, turpentine and machine oil. All wares were offered for cash or barter in fruits, rags, bacon, meal, pota- toes, and horse feed. Sometimes with the peddler came the tinker, who sharpened scissors and knives, soldered leaky pans and buckets, and repaired umbrellas and clocks.
GOING TO MILL. Among the holidays for farmer boys in those other days, none were more pleasing than that of taking grist to the mills, corn and wheat. Then while waiting your turn, the time was spent in fishing and in wandering along the stream, or in watching the mysterious processes of bolting and sacking of bran, shorts and flour. The sight of the ponderous water wheels, and the spray and foam of tumbling waters was ever a source of pleasure and interest.
QUILTING BEES. In the halcyon days when the opportunities of the mis- sion circles, the parent-teacher associations, and the bridge clubs, were un- known, the feminine interchange of news and gossip was limited to church- goers and to those gathered together for some ostensible work for charity or for personal benefit such as sewing and quilting bees and the like. The technical term, bee, had no reference to the humming machines, which were then not in existence, nor did it always imply the idea of steady con- tinuous work, but it did always have a buzzing in the form of chat and whispers, which gave the name.
After the industrious housewife had laboriously fashioned square after square of variously colored scraps of cloth in accordance with some design or fashion of the day, and had assembled and sewed together the squares for the quilt cover, and had stretched the lining on the frames, and had neatly placed the carded cotton and the patterned cover over all, then the invita- tions were sent to all neighbors to come to the quilting bee. Soon after the assembling of the clans, the swiftly plying needles formed row after row of quilting seams. When fingers began to tire, they were relayed by waiting helpers, and the crisscross seams of the quilters were soon completed. When the work was finished, then came the refreshments, which were usually cake and wine.
Among the old time patterns for the squares are noted the following names: Hexagon, Double Irish Chain, Rocky Mountain, Lone Star of Texas, Tulip, Wheel of Fortune, Rainbow, Ohio Rose, Log Cabin, Pineapple, Love Apple, The Whig Rose, and later that rebellious attitude toward anything symmetrical was that "Crazy Quilt."
204
HISTORY OF TROUP COUNTY
The decades have passed and many of the old time quilts handed down from the former days attest the excellence of the old workmanship and materials.
ILLUMINATION. In the pioneer days there was little need of lights in the home, for books were few in number and newspapers long delayed in trans- mission, and fat pine knots furnished such light as was necessary as they flared in the huge fireplaces. Torches were used in such movements by night as were unavoidable.
The tallow from slaughtered cattle was next used for lighting. It was shaped into long cylinders with a central wick made from twisted cotton yarns. In very close rooms there was a somewhat disagreeable odor from the sputtering tallow, and the use of wax and of the sperm from whales con- stituted the first improvement in the making of candles. Snuffers, an im- plement for trimming wicks, were always found hanging near the mantel.
The discovery of petroleum in 1858 soon changed the source of the illum- ination to that of oil lamps, but in the beginning there were frequent ex- plosions due to the mixture of gasoline, naphtha and other highly inflam- mable oils with the kerosene. These dangerous elements were soon removed by distillation and gasoline was then only a waste product for which there was little market. The glass chimney and the argand burner soon became the best means of illumination. The streets of cities were lighted by oil lamps set on the tops of posts, and a lamplighter was one of the city employes.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.