Dr. Woodard and the Charter of Adel, GA

January 13, 2024 at 5:38 am (Education In the Wiregrass, Remedies and Medicine)
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Dr. Woodard and the Charter of Adel, GA

Robert Crawford Woodard taught in the schools of Berrien County, GA.
Dr. R. C. Woodard was born and raised near Ray’s Mill (now Ray City), GA. He entered medical practice at Adel, GA. In 1900, he was elected to serve on the Adel City Council.

In 1900, Dr. R. C. Woodard was elected as one of the town councilmen of Adel, GA. Woodard, a native of Ray’s Mill (now Ray City), GA attended the Medical College at Augusta, GA and graduated from in 1899. 

Adel News
Oct 19, 1900
Election Held Wednesday

The regular annual municipal election for the town of Adel was held Wednesday of this week, the entire ticket recently nominated being elected. There was a little scratching, but no organized opposition to the ticket. Forty-eight votes, all white, were cast and the following is the ticket elected:

For Mayor,
A. A. Parish
For Aldermen;
J. T. Wilkes,
S. A. Juhan,
Wm. Clements,
J. A. J. Parrish,
R.C. Woodard.

Mayor [John Henry] Kennon and Mayor-elect Parrish are both out of the city and the new men have not been inducted into office yet. As stated last week they are all gentlemen of strong capabilities and business qualifications and we look for the town’s affairs to be wisely managed during their administration.

Woodard was sworn into office on October 22, 1900. He served on the Adel City Council along with James Thomas Wilkes, Stephen Alexander Juhan, William Clements, and J. A. J. Parrish. Arlington Ansel “Arlie” Parrish was mayor. The council appointed Alonzo Augustus Webb as secretary and treasurer.  J. M. “Mark” Shaw was appointed Marshal of the town; The Marshal was instructed to collect all rents and taxes owed the town. 

Hog Law

The Adel City Council directed that the town ordinance against obstructing or littering the streets was to be strictly enforced, but enforcement of the Hog Law would be postponed until January 1, 1901. These two decisions were not unrelated. Under the Hog Law farmers were required to confine their stock. Loose hogs were taken to the pound, a corral or pen where livestock was held or “impounded” until the owners paid a fee to retrieve them. But in Tifton, the newspaper observed, a “town needs the services of those tireless scavengers just now when stale fruit and vegetables and other things deleterious to health are lying around loose. It is a fact that the hog law does the town more injury than good.” Leaving hogs free to eat the garbage in the streets, saved the cost and labor of having it carted away. On the other hand, free roaming and feral hogs were a major cause of the spread of Cholera, a disease which caused the loss of thousands of dollars a year in pork production. In Ray City, GA free-ranging hogs were a nuisance even into the 1930s. David Miley, lifetime resident of Ray City, recalled one particular swine that was notorious for stealing kids’ lunches at the Ray City School.

The Adel City Council declined to award the telephone franchise to R. R. Folsom and J. L. Williams. Ultimately, the telephone franchise went to the Adel Telephone Company, Inc., with William Clements, Arlington Ansel Parrish and C. D. Shaw as the principles.

The matter of a new charter for the town was taken up as the most important order of business.

According to the new city charter, the town council was responsible for provision public streets and grounds; establishment and assignment of “road duty” compelling citizens to participate or support road maintenance; food safety and inspections; building codes, building inspections and fire safety; regulation of the sale of “spiritous liquors”; and establishment of public schools under the supervision of a board of trustees.

“The authorities of said town shall also have power and authority to prevent injury or annoyance to the public or individuals from anything dangerous or offensive; to prevent dogs, hogs, cattle, sheep, horses, mules, goats, asses, and all other kind of animals and fowls from going at large in said town or any prescribed territory therein; to protect places of divine worship; to abate anything which in the opinion of the authorities is a nuisance; to regulate the keeping and selling of dynamite, gunpowder, kerosene and all other hazardous articles of merchandise; to regulate or prohibit the operation of blacksmith shops or other businesses that endanger the property of others in said town; to regulate the running of steam engines, whether for factories, mills, or any other kind of machinery propelled by steam engines; to regulate the running of any and all sorts of vehicles, however drawn or propelled, that may be used on the streets of said town; to establish quarantine and regulate the same, and to regulate the burial of the dead in said town.“

The town council was also the authority over municipal taxes,

…able to levy and collect a tax upon all and every species of property in said town subject to State and county tax; upon banking and insurance capital employed in said town; upon brokers and factors; upon each and every business, calling, trade or profession carried on in said town; upon billiard and pool tables, bowling alleys, bank, insurance, telephone, telegraph and express agencies in said town; to tax all theatrical performances, shows or exhibitions for gain or profit in said town; to tax all itinerant traders and peddlers, all venders of patent medicines, drugs, books, nostrums or devices of any kind; to tax all solicitors or canvassers selling wares or merchandise by sample at retail to consumers.

According to his memoirs, Woodard “convinced Adel’s electorate to support the establishment of a graded public school system, the first of its kind for a town of that size in Georgia.” The town council was responsible for the city schools and for the election of a board of trustees to oversee their operations.

The duties of said trustees shall be to establish two schools in the town of Adel, one for white children and one for colored children, which shall be entirely distinct and separate; to provide school houses by building, rent or otherwise; to employ teachers and provide the curriculum of said schools; to fix the salaries of teachers…to employ for said schools those teachers only who have a license to teach in the common schools of the state…that said schools shall be open for not lest than six, not more than twelve months in each year and shall be free, except a matriculation fee to be fixed by the mayor and council, to all children between the ages of six and eighteen years, whose parents or guardians reside within the corporate limits of the town of Adel.

Woodard opposed liquor sales in the town and voted to set the city liquor license fee at $10,000 dollars.

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R. C. Woodard Attended Medical College of Georgia

January 7, 2024 at 5:11 am (Education In the Wiregrass, Remedies and Medicine)
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R. C. Woodard Attended Medical College of Georgia

Robert Crawford Woodard taught in the schools of Berrien County, GA.
Robert Crawford Woodard taught in the schools of Berrien County, GA.

In 1896 Robert Crawford Woodard was presented with the opportunity to pursue a career in medicine. Woodard, who was born and raised near Ray’s Mill (now Ray City), GA, was then teaching in Adel, GA. His ambition to enter medicine may have been influence by a family connection to Dr. Crawford W. Long of Georgia, the first physician to use ether as an anesthetic in surgery. 

The opportunity came in the form of a full scholarship to attend the medical college at Augusta, now known as Augusta University. In July 1896, Woodard learned that he would be a recipient of The Charles McDonald Brown Scholarship Fund, established at the University in 1881 by the late Hon. Joseph E. Brown, Civil War Governor of Georgia. Two white students from each Congressional District of Georgia were appointed annually by the Governor to receive scholarships, and R. C. Woodard was selected from the Second Congressional District. The scholarship was actually a loan, and recipients were expected to repay the endowment after graduation.

Thus, R. C. Woodard moved to Augusta, GA, in early October to study medicine at the Georgia Medical College. His wife and children followed on Saturday, October 31, 1896 to join him in Augusta.

In Augusta, the Woodards rented a home at 619 4th street near the corner of Watkins Street, about seven blocks south of the Savannah River and fronting on May Park. The Woodard’s place was just a six block walk from the medical college building at 558 Telfair Street. Also boarding with the Woodards was fellow medical student Henry W. Clements, of Ray’s Mill, GA (now Ray City). Another classmate at the medical college was Charles X. Jones, who established his medical practice at Ray City, GA and was influential in the incorporation of the town.

The Woodard residence in Augusta is long gone, the lot now occupied by the Richmond County Jail. It bordered on the Olde Town Historic District which still preserves many houses along 4th street and Watkins built in the late 19th century, homes typified by simpler elements and a lack of detail in comparison to the larger Greek Revival and Victorian townhouses closer to the river.

May Park, Augusta, GA photographed circa 1900. Dr. R.C. Woodard rented a residence across the street from the park during the period 1897-1899 while attending the Georgia medical college (now Augusta University). May Park was named after Robert H. May, mayor of Augusta during the Civil War and from 1879-1891. In 1898, the Augusta Herald described the setting, “This park was developed under his administration. It is noted for its beautiful large trees, lakes, flowers, hillocks, rustic houses and pavilions. Just across from May Park lies “the city of the dead,” the most beautiful spot in Augusta, whose broad avenues are lined with magnificent magnolia trees. The choicest flowers and shrubs the south can produce can be seen here. It is a vast flower garden – with gleaming white statues and shafts arising amidst its setting of green shrubbery and brilliant flowers. Many statues and tombs are works of art by the most renown sculptors of fair Italy.” – Augusta Herald, October 12, 1898
Medical college at Augusta, GA

The medical college at Augusta was described in 1902 in the Standard Medical Directory of North America:

GEORGIA UNIVERSITY, Medical Department, Augusta; Dean Eugene Foster; Medical Academy organized 1829; suspended 1861-65; present title 1873. Admission: Certificate from high school or equivalent. Graduation: Age 21, attendance on three lecture courses of six months each, the last at this school. Fees: $100.00, examination $30.00. Faculty: Professors 10, demonstrator 1, instructors 7. Property $36,000.00. Recognition: I. S. B. H., U.S.N.Y. Matriculates last session 145.

Medical College of Georgia Dissecting Room, 1896-97
Medical College of Georgia, dissection room, 1896-97.
Pathology Laboratory at Medical College of Georgia, 1896-1897
Pathology Laboratory at Medical College of Georgia, 1896-1897.
Robert Crawford Woodard was elected class historian for the Class of 1899, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA.
Augusta Herald, Nov 4, 1898.

In January 1898, the Tifton Gazette reported that Robert Crawford Woodard was the teacher at the Rays Mill academy. He apparently took the job at Rays Mill between courses of study at the Augusta medical college.

Tifton Gazette
January 21, 1898
There has been quite a changing of teachers in South Berrien this year. Prof. M. S. Patten is teaching at the Roberts school house, J. J. Roberts, Social Circle; R. C. Woodard, Ray’s Mill academy; Miss Sallie Parrish, Griffin school house; Miss Jensie Nichols, Pine Grove; J.M. Patten, Grand Bay; J. A. Weaver, Green Bay; P.T. Knight, Cross Creek, and J. D. Patten at Milltown.

R. C. Woodard and family left Adel on October 4, 1898 to return to Augusta so he could complete his final term of enrollment at the medical college.

Woodard received his medical degree in 1899.  Throughout his life Dr. Woodard continued his medical education each year by taking graduate courses in medicine, even traveling to New York to attend some courses.

Following completion of his medical degree, The Adel News reported his return, “Dr. R. C. Woodard returned home Tuesday afternoon [April 11, 1899]. He has finished his medical course in Augusta and is now ready for practice. He deserves success, and we extend congratulations as well as best wishes for your future, Dr. Woodard.”

Return to Adel

Even after entering into his medical practice Dr. Woodard remained actively engaged in Cook County civics and education.  The announcement of Fall 1903 classes shows that he was then serving as president of the Board of Trustees for the Adel Institute.

It appears Woodard moved his parents about 1902 to a small house in Adel on Railroad Avenue, perhaps on the corner of Eighth Street. About 1910, Dr. Woodard purchased from his father a small house and lot in Adel, GA, but it appears this transaction may have been more about providing funds for his father than providing a property for Dr. Woodard. Dr. Woodard’s mother, Jane Crawford Woodard, died December 3, 1912 and his father, Robert Daniel Woodard, died January 7, 1914; both were buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Adel, GA.

On Tuesday, May 3, 1904 tragedy struck the Woodard household with the loss of their little daughter, Jane Woodard. The Adel News announced the death. The little girl was laid to rest at Woodlawn Cemetery, Adel, GA.

Grave of Mary Jane Woodard (1902-1904), Woodlawn Cemetery, Adel, GA. Image source: Cat

Adel News
May 20, 1904

The Death of a Child

Little Mary Jane Woodard Died on Friday Night Last.

Mary Jane, the little nineteen-months-old daughter of Dr. and Mrs. R. C. Woodard, died on last Friday night. For two or three weeks the little one had been ill and several days before her death it was see that her case was a grave one. All that the skill of physicians and the tender nursing of loved ones and friends could do was done for the little sufferer but it continued to grow worse until its pur little spirit was transported to a fairer clime.
The little girl was a bright and attractive child and will be missed not only by the family, but by the neighbors as well, who were accustomed to seeing her almost daily.
The funeral services were held at the residence Saturday afternoon and were conducted by Rev. B. F. Elliott, who spoke tender words of sympathy and comfort to the bereaved ones. Some sweet songs were sung by the choir and the services were very impressive. The interment was in the city cemetery. The sympathy of all our people go out to the family.

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Professor R.C. Woodard

January 6, 2024 at 1:41 am (Education In the Wiregrass, Remedies and Medicine)
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Dr. Robert Crawford Woodard (1867-1949)

Robert Crawford Woodard taught in the schools of Berrien County, GA.
R. C. Woodard taught in the schools of Berrien County, GA.

Robert Crawford Woodard’s early life was spent near Ray’s Mill (now Ray City), GA.

After studying at Bowling Green College of Business Administration Robert Crawford Woodard returned to Berrien County, GA. He became a teacher and was in charge of a school near Ray’s Mill (now Ray City), Ga by 1892.

On March 18, 1892, the Tifton Gazette reported, “From Ray’s Mill…Mr. R.C. Woodard has a school of sixty odd pupils at the Knight Academy two miles south of here. He is assisted by Mr. L. Lovitt [Lyman Byrd Lovett].”  Meritt E. Johnson, a native of Ray’s Mill, later served as a Trustee of the Knight school.

The Ray’s Mill Academy was taught that term by Jonathan Perry Knight; The two men would later work together as state legislators.

In those days, few teachers were college educated. Most teacher training “involved a very important, now almost forgotten, American institution – teaching institutes. At these, teachers gathered for instruction in subject areas and teaching methods…Throughout the nineteenth century, most U.S. elementary school teachers received no special training. Those who completed eight elementary grades, or the few privileged to attend secondary-level academies, won teaching positions by passing state subject-matter exams.” In Berrien County, the annual examination of applicants for teacher’s license was held in the summer at the county seat at Nashville, GA.

For the convenience of the teachers, The Berrien County Teacher Institute sessions were held on Saturdays during the summer and locations were rotated to towns around the county. Sessions were taught by the more qualified teachers and sometimes by outside experts. R. C. Woodard was a frequent attendee, and presented on such topics as Methods for classwork in Arithmetic, and Capital letters and the rule for their formation. Among other well-known presenters at Teacher Institute were R.L. Patten, William Green Avera, Johnathan Perry Knight, and J.M. Guilliams.

“In theory, these institutes augmented the former training of teachers, bringing them up to date on new theories or new knowledge. In most of America, these short sessions provided the only contact elementary teachers would ever have with expertise in the developing profession of public school teaching. Teachers came to institutes to learn, to gain inspiration, and to develop a sense of professional identity. The larger public attended evening lectures. Parents gained pride in their schools, and young people committed themselves to teaching as a career. The gathered teachers enjoyed the fellowship with other teachers and the home hospitality offered by local families. Institutes were the camp meetings of the teaching profession, and the ablest, most sought-after instructors the evangelists of the public school movement.” – Peabody College: From a Frontier Academy to the Frontiers of Teaching and Learning

Like the public schools of the time, the Berrien Teacher Institute was for whites only. African-American teachers in Berrien County were required to travel to attend five days of separate, mandatory training at the Peabody Institute which was held on consecutive weekdays at a central location serving multiple counties.

For the fall term of 1893 Woodard took the teacher’s position at Milltown Academy.

Tifton Gazette
July 21, 1893
Milltown has a flourishing school now under the administration of Prof. R. C. Woodard.

In the spring of 1894, Woodard came back to Adel to act as associate principal in the South Georgia Normal School at Adel. The January 6, 1894 issue of Educational News reported that Woodard had entered a partnership with James Rembert Anthony, of Taliafero County, GA. ”Captain J. R. Anthony will leave Crawfordville, and, in conjunction with Mr. R. C. Woodard, will establish a normal and business school at Adel, Ga.“ J.R. Anthony was an early student of the University of Virginia and a Confederate veteran; At the close of the Civil War he had assisted former Confederate Secretary of State Robert Toombs on his escape to Cuba.

1895 advertisement for Tifton, GA’s big expo, the Empire Garden Midsummer Fair

When Governor William J. Northen and Education Commissioner Samuel Dowse Bradwell visited Tifton on June 4, 1894, they were received by Tifton Mayor Columbus Wesley Fullwood “and a select party of gentlemen,” Robert Crawford Woodard among them.

In the Summer of 1894, Woodard was back for a Teacher’s Institute convened at Sparks, GA. He co-presented with B. F. Hill on “Spelling – Old and new methods explained and illustrated.” While the Institute was in session the teachers held a little “competition to suggest a suitable name for a fair to be held at Tifton, GA. To make the contest interesting a five-dollar gold medal was offered to the one proposing the most suitable name for the fair. Among the rest was “The Empire Garden Mid-Summer Fair” suggested by Prof. R. C. Woodard, of [Adel], and this name was adopted and the medal was awarded to Dr. Woodard. The Prof. was elated at his success and valued the medal very highly.” The Empire Garden Mid-Summer Fair became a great success and by 1897 was drawing 5000 attendees annually.

Around this time, R. C. Woodard served a term as principal of the Grand Bay School near Ray’s Mill, GA. An appreciative pupil was James Madison Knight (1879-1953), a great grandson of William Anderson Knight who was the first pioneer to settle at Grand Bay. The Grand Bay School had been built by J.M. Knight’s two grandfathers, Jonathan Knight (1817-1886) and James Madison Baskin. The Grand Bay School was consolidated with the Milltown School in 1923.

In April, 1895 Woodard took the position of Principal of the school at Cecil, GA. In addition to teaching, he served as a vice president of the Berrien County Sunday School Association, which convened for its annual meeting at the Nashville Baptist Church.

Tifton Gazette
July 26, 1895

Prof. R.C. Woodard is now teaching the Fellowship School, two miles east of Cecil, with an attendance of about nintey pupils. He is ably assisted by Prof. R. F. Carey, late of Emory College. Prof. Woodard is a hustler in school work and is never out of the harness long at a time. He has been tendered the Cecil school for another year. – Adel News

That winter he returned to Adel.

Tifton Gazette
November 29, 1895
Prof. R.C. Woodard has moved into town [Adel] again and receives a warm welcome by all.

In the spring term of 1896, Professor Woodard was again teaching at the Cecil School. When the Berrien Teacher Institute met in Adel on Saturday, February 15, 1896 his students gave a performance. “At 9 a.m. the teachers and visitors were treated to a song by the Cecil School, ‘Sailing O’er the Sea,’ which reflects credit on Prof. Woodard, and his assistant, Mr. O.H. Pafford, and their pupils. This song, which is a very pretty one, is sung by the school every morning before entering upon the duties of the day.“

During this period Woodard tried his hand working in accounting and farming, as well as teaching.

In 1896, Robert C. Woodard was admitted to the Medical College at Augusta, GA.

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Dr. Robert Crawford Woodard (1867-1949)

January 1, 2024 at 7:27 am (Education In the Wiregrass, Remedies and Medicine)
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Dr. Robert Crawford Woodard, born near Ray City, GA in 1867, photographed August, 1920.

Dr. Robert Crawford Woodard (1867-1949)

Early Life

Robert Crawford Woodard was born in 1867 near Ray’s Mill (now Ray City, GA).  He was a son of Robert Daniel Woodard (1831-1914) and Jane Crawford Woodard of Berrien County GA. He was one of the Medical Men of Ray’s Mill and became an important figure in medicine and education in Wiregrass Georgia.

His father, Robert Daniel Woodard, was a Confederate veteran. R. D. Woodard enlisted as a private in Company E, 54th Georgia Regiment on May 6, 1862. Among R. D. Woodard’s Confederate company mates were J.D. Evans, H.M. Talley, Littleton Albritton, William J. Lamb, Jehu Patten, Stephen W. Avera, Matthew Hodges Albritton, James M. Baskin, Samuel Guthrie, George Washington Knight, Jesse Lee, John Lee, William H. Outlaw, Rufus Ray, and Benjamin Sirmons. Woodard was on special detail as a teamster for most of the Civil War and served in coastal Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi. According to available service records and pension applications, he was on duty until about the first of April 1865 and was on furlough at home when the war effectively ended with the surrender of the Confederate Army on April 9, 1865. Woodard’s application for a Confederate pension would later be denied by the State of Georgia on the grounds that he was not present with his unit at the time of surrender. On July 30, 1867, Robert Daniel Woodard swore the Oath of Allegiance to the United States and was again permitted to register to vote. (Through the act of secession, the US citizenship of Georgia residents had been renounced.)

Robert Crawford Woodard, the subject of this sketch, was born December 6, 1867, during Reconstruction. In his autobiography, R. C. Woodard reflected that his family had lost nearly everything in the devastation of the Civil War. But the Georgia Agriculture Schedules for the Census of 1870 show his father still owned a one horse farm near Ray’s Mill, GA (now Ray City) with 390 acres, 30 acres under cultivation and 360 acres in unimproved woodlands. His father kept milk cows and beef cattle, sheep and chickens, and cropped corn, oats, and sweet potatoes.

1884 Double Keyboard Typewriter – NMAH

A synopsis of Woodard’s autobiography provides the following:
Woodard recounted his early enthusiasm for hard work and thirst for education. In his teens, he resolved to get a better education than the school afforded in his home county, so he made application and was accepted at the present Bowling Green College of Business Administration, Bowling Green, KY.  Studying there for several years, he then returned to South Georgia and became a teacher.

In 1886, the Bowling Green College of Business occupied the building of the former Bowling Green Female College, which had closed a year earlier. The school taught typical business skills such as bookkeeping, shorthand, telegraphy, pensmanship, and typewriting. A five month course in business was $45. The college’s eight typewriting machines were of the double keyboard type, which had only been invented in 1884. No typewriter instructor and no text were used; the method of touch typing had not yet emerged.

Bowling Green College of Business occupied this building on College Street, Bowling Green, KY in 1886.
Bowling Green College of Business occupied this building on College Street, Bowling Green, KY in 1886. Robert Crawford Woodard attended the college in the late 1880s.

After returning to Berrien County, R. C. Woodard taught in the common schools of the area.

On August 25, 1892, Robert Crawford Woodard married Lillian Ida Parrish. She was the eldest daughter of Susan Mathis and John A. Parrish of Berrien County, and granddaughter of Primitive Baptist elder Ansel Parrish. The wedding ceremony was performed by Primitive Baptist minister William Pendleton Nunez, a Confederate veteran who with other men of the area had served in the 26th Georgia Regiment.

Marriage certificate of Robert C. Woodard and Lilian Ida Parrish

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