USA > Georgia > Coffee County > Ward's History of Coffee County > Part 12
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The great bald cypress, with its creeping, angular knees, furnished a soft wood that has worked into shingles, barrel staves, fence posts, door panels, and construction of many types.
The "bay" in front of our home was not a body of water, but a thicket of evergreen trees with their great gray trunks and their glossy leaves lined underneath with silver that glistened in the sun when the wind stirred them. They bore fragrant white blossoms in summer, and in early spring the rose bays blossomed profusely making a perfect mass of pink blooms around the borders of the swamp.
The Sturdy Oak
I shall carry to my grave visions of sandy hillsides covered with great scarlet oaks hung with gray Spanish moss. In the spring they showed innumerable shades of green, tan and brown in their budding leaves and silky catkins or tassels. These colors intermingled with the green of the holly and cedar and the starry gleam of white blossoming dogwood, the misty rose and lavender of wild crabapple and Judas tree bloom, and the crimson of budding maple, made a scene to rest tired eyes and lift one's spirit.
But autumn changed these great oaks into one flaming forest after a long summer of dark, glossy green coolness, then laid a thick carpet of brown for the short cool winter. This carpet was swept away by the blustery March winds.
Then there were many species of useful trees in the oak family, tanbark, shingle oak, post oak, iron oak, pin oak, willow oak, and great barren oaks (the negroes called them "bar'n oaks," and I thought for
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many years that barns were made of them). Many of these oaks bore acorns which fattened the hogs and fed the squirrels, deer, birds, and other wild life.
The Basket Oak
The sweetest in my memory are the basket oaks, or white oaks. Splits were peeled from these and woven into baskets for cotton, laundry, and some of fancier type were painted for parlor wood containers and to hold magazines.
The little babies were often cradled in long baskets made of these, and often the little colored babies of former slaves were suspended in these from the droop- ing limbs of great water oaks to the edge of the fields, and as parents reached the ends of the rows they would set them swinging and croon their unforgettable songs to them as they hoed away, or resumed their cotton picking, corn gathering, or potato digging.
Many of these great old water oaks still stand, their great trunks dotted with pale green lichens and draped about with soft grey-green Spanish moss, and with wild birds flitting among their decaying branches. I would think that one of them might be cut down to within a few feet of the ground and covered with mortar or cement and some fitting memorial be written on it for the faithful old slaves who rest unnoticed in the old neglected cemeteries nearby.
Other Tree Families
The woods of my plantation home were thick with giant hickories bearing various sizes of nuts, one shaped like a top, another round and large, others small and sweet.
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The wood of these hickory trees was fashioned into axe handles and parts for many useful farm imple- ments, made into mauls, chairs, and many other things.
Great tree trunks of some kind, I think poplar, were fashioned into watering troughs for the stock, salting troughs for meat, feed troughs for the stables, and laundry troughs for the "wash house."
There was a shop with a bellows we loved to watch where various things were made, including tubs for sugar, lard, vats for syrup, there being negroes specially trained for this service, which passed out almost too early for me to remember, my most vivid recollection being of a casket made for a colored person.
The Black Walnut
We had many large black walnut trees, and though we used these only for their shade and the delicious black walnut meat for cakes, candies, and salted nuts, I see them being planted over vast acres now to be used for furniture, gun stocks, airplane propellers, and many important things.
Other trees of value which were purely ornamental with us, or handed down as a natural heritage, were great magnolias with their massive, fragrant white blossoms and pods of red seeds; sycamore with gleam- ing white trunks; tupelos with yellow tulip-like blos- soms in spring and gold leaves in autumn; black gum, ash, holly, elm, beech, alder, cottonwood, hackberries, locust, maple, persimmon, false mulberry, poplar, swamp bay, willow, chinaberry, sourwood, thorntree, and evergreen or cherry laurel.
The woods of many of these are being used for making tennis racquets, golf sticks, baseball bats,
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Pullman car interiors, automobile bodies, furniture, and many other things.
Our Chewing Gums
A grove of sweet gum trees furnished our gum supply. We scarred the great old trunks and with a knife or pointed instrument transferred the white syrup to our mouths, where it became a wad of gum.
And, although we "snitched" it from each other and fought for its possession, our old colored mammy never interfered and I never knew a case of "hydro- phobie" or any other dreaded disease to be transmitted through the exchange.
These sweet gum trees were particularly beautiful in autumn, being a deep blood-red, and I learn that its wood is now used for "satin walnut" in veneering furniture, and for paving blocks, and many other things.
The Medicine Trees
A visitor on these grounds not long since told me that he counted thirty-six different varieties of trees in one acre and a quarter, so it is impossible to name them all, but I must touch on the "medicine trees."
The cherry trees yielded their bark for many medic- inal uses; the root of the sassafras was much sought after in the spring, its delicious tea being one of my sweetest springtime memories, and creamy flowers in early spring were only surpassed in beauty by its leaves in autumn, being a mixture of gold, crimson and bronze set off with clusters of bright red berries.
The famous "black drink" handed down from the Indians was made from the yaupon tree, or cassena
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berry, called now swamp holly. This is much used for decorative purposes at Christmas times, its wealth of bright red berries making it particularly appro- priate. Thus is "Liex vomitoria," and the drink is an emetic.
A great many of these great old trees bore great bunches of mistletoe, which was also popular in decoration.
Many pecans have been planted in place of the trees which stood in this old grove, and their flavor is said to be a superior one owing, it is thought, to their proximity to the great hickories and walnuts; in fact, the pecan limbs have been grafted into the trunks of the hickories in many instances.
Of the future of these I take the liberty of quoting Honorable Chase S. Osborn, former Governor of Michigan, whose winter home is at Poulan, about fifty miles away.
Value of Pecan Trees
Says Governor Osborn in this treasured sketch, "Why I Think Georgia is Perfect," published in a state paper :
"The value of the pecan as a nut-producing tree is appreciated, but its arboreal value is as yet little valued. Some day pecan trees will be planted here for their timber. A member of the hicoria family, the wood of the pecan is as hard as you can wish. Later we will utilize pecan tree timber. Then, there is an- other value attached to pecan trees. Do you wonder why South Georgia is so healthful, why your towns have so remarkably low a death rate? May it not be due to the fact that pecan trees, which abound here
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in millions consume carbon dioxide in unusually great quantities, giving forth again purest oxygen? Does that sound like a wild theory ? Maybe, but I do not doubt that there is truth to it."
Other Values in Trees
Then there is the value of the last leaf crop to the building up of the soil. I recall an instance of some forty years ago at my plantation home. A visitor from the southwest remarked to my father that he did not realize the wealth that lay in the century of leaf-mold
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SHERIFFS
1. W. M. TANNER. 1916-1928.
2. R. C. RELIHAN, 1928-now serving.
3. WILLIAM TANNER, 1889-1893-1895-1901.
4. W. W. SOUTHERLAND, 1901-1906.
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packed away under the trees in the Ocmulgee River swamp, using them as fertilizer as florists and or- chardists of other localities did.
Acting on the suggestion, my father sent wagons into the swamp and brought out several loads of this leaf- mold and had it worked into the vegetable garden. Then the fun began.
A certain wag on the place declared that the watermelon vines tore off all its young melons running around so fast and that the Irish potatoes played hop- scotch with each other after crowding themselves out of the ground. In truth, I never saw such vegetables and things as that ground produced, and fruit trees around where some of it was spread grew amazingly ahead of others.
It was my father's plan to follow the use of this extensively, but alas, after a rigorous winter in At- lanta, where he represented the 5th district as Senator, 1890-91, fell ill and was unable to carry out his plan.
A Bee Tree
My mind goes back to a spring morning when we enjoyed a bee tree cutting on our place. It was dis- covered by Mr. Duncan McLean who thereby shared its wealth of golden honey with our family, and there were a number of invited guests outside.
This was a great hollow pine tree which the bees had filled with honey known as the gall berry blossoms type. This gall berry bush is a species of the holly family, known as black, and its blossom yields a su- perior quality of honey, along with the bloom of the tyty bushes.
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The pine was great and tall, and it required a lot of cutting before it gave up the ghost and crashed through the blossoming wild shrubbery, carrying many other small trees along with it. But the delightful flavor of the honey was worth all of them.
Down to Darien
When my father needed money, he took a group of colored farm hands into the river swamp for a number of successive days, then began preparation for drifting the great rafts of yellow pine logs to Darien to be turned into money. The negroes called it "Dairy Ann," and it was one of the burning desires of iny young life to see that queer port of which they talked after their semi-annual excursion there with these rafts.
We sat on the river bank and watched them raft the great logs, while back in the great old kitchen were smells that I know I shall never enjoy again, home-made light bread, potato pone, parching green coffee, barbecuing pork and other meats, baking ginger bread and other things to eat on the journey.
Occasionally a steamboat passed by, fanning the drooping branches of the pale green sand bar willows, and stopping the work of pinning together the great logs as they rode up and down with the disturbed mud-yellow waters.
The Flowering Trees
After they had waved us good-bye and the last raft had disappeared around the bend, we went back to the house along a road lined with beautiful flowering
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locusts, wild plum trees, silky white tassels of the fringe tree, better known as "grandfather's beard," and festoons of vines covered with red trumpet blos- soms.
In the old sand yard were great lagerstroemia trees, now called crape myrtle, with their light brown shining trunks and great panicles of crinkled and ruf- fled pink bloom, the accacies, the cape jasmine or gardenia with its fragrant waxen white bloom, the English hawthorn with its wealth of snowy white blossoms in spring and red haws in autumn, the mock orange or syringa, and many others dear to the heart of Coffee County home makers.
Know the Trees
Julia Ellen Rogers, who has compiled a wonderful tree guide, the study of which has helped me to de- scribe many of the trees in this little sketch, prefaces one of her books with this :
"It is natural that trees, which are greatest in all the plant kingdom, should inspire in us the highest admiration. Their terms of life so far outrun the puny human span! They stand so high, and spread so high, and spread so far their sheltering arms! We bless them for the gifts they bring to supply our bodily needs, and for their beauty, which feeds our souls.
"To love trees intelligently we must learn to know them. We must be able to call them name by name, whenever and wherever we meet them. This is funda- mental to any friendship. It is a fund of knowledge that starts with little, but grows more rapidly year by year."
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Fast Becoming a Myth
There are many beautiful flowering trees and shrubs in Coffee County not named in this little sketch, and there are many that are of inestimable value to the industrial world which, if planted and cared for would bring wealth to land owners and prosperity to the county.
There are vast areas in this large county from which the trees have been taken, and if steps are not taken to protect the wild life, especially the wild birds that save them from extermination by destroying the in- sects and worms that infest them, many of these trees are in danger of becoming only a memory or a myth.
The wild birds scatter the seeds and have planted, no doubt, many of these beautiful forests as well as the wild flowers from which come the fine honey for which the county is noted. Do they not deserve our protection and our consideration ? They are our natural heritage, ours to study, love, and protect, and to perpetuate. Birds and trees, "Useless each without the other."
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A Member of the Confederate Cabinet
It is not generally known that at the same time Jeffer- son Davis was captured in Irwin County, May 10th, 1865, that John C. Breckinridge, a member of his cab- inet spent a week at the home of Honorable Seaborn Hall near Graham, Georgia. When the Confederate Government went to pieces, a last cabinet meeting was held at Washington, Georgia. It was supposed that the Federal Government would make a desperate ef- fort to capture President Davis and all his cabinet. And the cabinet was just as determined not to be captured. And so the members of the cabinet sep- arated and each one looked out for himself. President Davis came by Dublin, Georgia, and on down to Irwinville where he was captured. General Breckin- ridge, leaving Washington, Georgia, came south and crossed the Altamaha River at Town Bluff and made his way to the home of Honorable Seaborn Hall in Appling County. Mr. Hall was well known all over South Georgia and had a wide reputation for hos- pitality.
It was thought by many that President Davis was going to Alabama to join the Confederate forces there, but if so, he never reached his destination. When the news of the capture of Mr. Davis reached Mr. Hall and Mr. Breckinridge, Mr. Breckinridge decided that he would leave the United States. So Mr. Hall, after en- tertaining him in great fashion for a week or more, took his distinguished guest in a buggy and went to Florida where he boarded a steamer and made good his escape. The entire trip was made by riding at night and hiding out at day. When the parting time
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came General Breekinridge was so overwhelmed with gratitude to Mr. Hall that he presented him his handsome gold watch as a token of his friendship and esteem. Hle also gave him a gold-trimmed saddle. Judge Elisha Graham of Baxley and McRae, Georgia, fell heir to the watch and wore it as long as he lived. It is supposed that Mr. Hall and General Breckinridge passed through Coffee County down through Ware County at old Waresboro and on to Florida.
It is also said that General Beauregard passed through this state on his way west. And it is also said that General Bragg passed through Coffee County about the same time that Jefferson Davis was cap- tured, and gave some man at the court house in Douglas a five-dollar gold piece. And so it is that some of the great and some of the mighty passed through Coffee County in the most tragic history of the state.
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The Negro Race
The negro race in Coffee County gave us but little trouble during slavery time, and they have made very good citizens since they got their freedom. Many of the slaves remained with their masters after they were freed. The Lott negroes, the Paulk negroes, the Ward negroes, the Vickers negroes, the Hargraves negroes, the Ashleys negroes and many other families of old negroes hung around the homes for their old masters and kept them as long as they lived. In 1860 the population of Coffee County was: whites 2206, colored 673. In 1870, ten years later, which covered the Civil War period, the whites 2614, the colored 678.
We would judge from this that Coffee County had less than a thousand slaves in it. The appraisement of the estate of Nathaniel Ashley shows that he owned 97 slaves, which were valued at $42,550. A list of their names and ages appears in Minute Book A in the office of the Ordinary of Coffee County. Several of these old negroes are living yet. The date of this appraisement was January 4, 1856. At that time old Ambrose Harris was sixteen years and Wade Harris was thirteen years of age. Wade Harris is still living, 1930.
Too much credit cannot be given to these old-time slave negroes who remained at home during the Civil War and helped to carry on the work of the country. There are very few instances where they were not true and faithful to their masters. The training the negroes received while they were slaves has been a great blessing to them since they were free. They learned how to work. Many of them were good car-
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penters, good blacksmiths and good farmers. For many years after the war they did the hard work of the country. They split rails and made fences, built log houses, worked on railroads and did other things. And there is one strange thing that I wish to speak about in connection with the negroes of Coffee County. They had a tact for the saw mill business. Many large saw mills in Coffee County had negro sawyers. I can- not think of any reason why a negro, with his thick skull, would make a better sawyer than a white man who is supposed to have better sense than a negro. Another thing I wish to say about the negroes of Coffee County, they never foment strikes and lockouts. They are mostly lawabiding citizens and respectful to the white race.
They have the gift of song and sing as they work. They are enthusiastic in their disposition, but their enthusiasm shows itself more in religion than riots and other unlawful conduct. Another characteristic of the negro is their disposition to be helpful and useful. If the house gets on fire or a horse runs away with a wagon, or if a car breaks down, or in case of an acci- dent of any sort, a negro is the first one there is to help.
The old-time people, black and white, in Coffee County are living in peaceful relations and will con- tinue thus to live so long as other people will keep their noses out of our business.
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Grady's Tribute to the Negro Slaves
It has been noted repeatedly that history records no more remarkable illustration of loyalty to trust than that manifested by the negroes of the South during the Civil War. Often left behind as the sole support and protection of the families of the Con- federate soldiers, not an instance is recorded in which one violated his trust. Of this remarkable record, Georgia's matchless orator, Henry W. Grady, said in his last great speech :
"History has no parallel to the faith kept by the negro in the South during the war, often five hundred negroes to a single white man, and yet through these dusky throngs the women and children walked in safety and the unprotected homes rested in peace.
"Unmarshaled, the black batallions moved patiently to the fields in the morning to feed the armies their idleness would have starved, and at night gathered anxiously at the big house to 'hear the news from Master,' though conscious that his victory made their chains enduring. Everywhere humble and kindly ; body-guard of the helpless; the rough companion of the little ones; the observant friend; the silent sentry in his lowly cabin; the shrewd counselor; and when the dead came home, a mourner at the open grave.
"A thousand torches would have disbanded every Southern Army, but not one was lighted. When the master going to a war in which slavery was involved said to his slave, 'I leave my home and beloved ones in your charge,' the tenderness between man and master stood disclosed. And when the slave held that charge sacred through storm and temptation, he gave
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new meaning to faith and loyalty. I rejoice that when freedom came to him after years of waiting, it was all the sweeter because the black hands from which the shackles fell were stainless of a single crime against the helpless ones confided to his care."
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A Negro Funeral
"Good morning, Uncle Ben, how Uncle Ike doing this morning ?"
"Well, he isn't so well; he didn't sleep so well last night, and den the sign is all against him. I heard my rooster crow before twelve o'clock last night and that is shore a bad sign. I was sitting up with Brother Ike when the rooster crew and I notis that he got worse off right away. Seem like his mind was dis- turbed about something. Can't you come over and sit up with us tonight ?"
Uncle Ben was on hand the next night ready to sit up with the sick, and ready to see him die, for every negro likes to see a sad death. Not only was Uncle Ben there to sit up with the sick but there was a dozen or more of sympathetic friends gathered in the hut. A little fire burned in the hearth and a small candle burned on a dry goods box near the bed. Everything about the sick man was noted, and when he asked for a drink of water Sister Sealey Jones said, "I am afraid Brother Ike fever is rising, you see he is wanting water, and that is always a bad sign when you have a disease like that." And so with everything to discourage and nothing to encourage, Brother Ike turned over and bid this world a long farewell. The news went out that Uncle Ike was dead. His kinfolk, his pastor, and many of his friends called to see how poor old Ike looked when he was dead. By the rising of the sun the preacher, the clerk of the church, and the undertaker were all sitting around his bed. The clerk of the church was asked to write down the last words of the deceased. All the brothers and
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sisters were asked to tell something about Uncle Ike. All this was written down for the benefit of the preacher who was the pastor of the sermon. All next day the crowds came and went. The little candle was ยท kept burning all day. Each friend or relative who came and looked on the sad face of Uncle Ike would make some kind of remark. One friend said, "Well don't he look the natural." Another one would say, "And ain't it such a quiet corpse too." While an- other one would say, "Well, what do you suppose he is thinking about right now."
The watchers came by detachments. The societies came in one group. The members of the church came in another group, and so on. When the plans of the funeral had been fully arranged the body was taken over to the church and laid in state during the night. The congregation sang funeral hymns and chanted Dirges with the saddest wails. Many prayers were
uttered. Speeches were made. Groans weird and spooky filled the church and attracted attention round about. With the rising of the sun the congregation all stood up and sang "Sweet Chariot" and other songs, for they said, "Perchance the Holy angels will come at sunrise and take him to his home in his skies."
Eleven o'clock was the time set for the sermon. Brother Jim Crow, the pastor, made a few scattering remarks about the long and useful life of Brother Ike. He then read to the congregation the informa- tion written down by the clerk of the church. He then proceeded with his sermon something like this: Last night while I was sleeping I had a vision like Isiah the Prophet, the heavens were open and I saw the angels, the Ark Angels, the Cherbum and the Seraphin and
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all the other phims. I seemed to see Gabriel stand up and he say to one dem der phims, "Dis day heaven must be enriched. The glory of the Glory World must shine out in bright colors today. I seemed to see sadness on the face of the angels in heaven and it seems to have been because one child who belonged in heaven was not there. And Gabriel say to the angels, 'Fly down and fly over this world and see if you find any one who is worthy to open the Pearly Gates and come in to live with God's Glorified.' And as the Angel flew I saw him circle around over Douglas like an aeroplane fixing to land, and after while in my vision I saw him light. He went straight to the home of Brother Ike. He laid his hand on Brother Ike's foot and his foot went to sleep, and den he laid his hand on Brother Ike's lips and Brother Ike could talk no more. He put his hand on Brother Ike's eyes and Brother Ike went to sleep, and then he put his hand on Brother Ike's heart and it beat no more for Bro- ther Ike was dead, and then there was shouting and singing in heaven. The little angels flew around the big angels and there was joy in heaven. The ever- lasting gates were opened and Uncle Ike went in as Hallulahs were ringing throughout the regions of heaven. Uncle Ike went in and took a seat with Abra- ham and Isiah and Jacob and Bob Douglas and Abe Lincoln."'
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