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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Malaria at Clements Sawmill

August 5, 2023 at 1:17 am (African American, Clements Family, Remedies and Medicine)
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Ray City Employer Orders Mandatory Treatment for Malaria

In 1920, practically every employee of the Clements Lumber Company sawmill at Ray City, GA was sick with Malaria. In April 1921, the superintendent of the sawmill ordered that every resident of the company town must take the mandatory treatment for Malaria or leave the town. The timing was significant because the usual, annual epidemic of malaria began in May. The Georgia Board of Health report on malaria advised, “There is little variation from year to year in the beginning of the malarial epidemic. Anti-malarial measures should be adopted in the early spring when the mosquitos begin to hatch. To wait until summer means an increase in the mortality from that disease.”

The ‘sawmill town’ had grown up on the outskirts of Ray City to house the sawmill workers and their families. The Sawmill Census of 1920 shows there were 78 households with 313 residents living in rented homes at the sawmill; more workers lived in the surrounding area and in the town of Ray City. Sixty-five percent of the sawmill laborers were black. The superintendent of the mill was Melvin W. Rivenbark. The local physician supervising the treatment, Dr. H.W. Clements, reported outcomes in a letter the Georgia Board of Health.

“Southern Farmer’s Burden” poster about the Georgia State Board of Health’s efforts against malaria among African American rural workers, United States Public Health Service, 1923.
“Southern Farmer’s Burden” poster about the Georgia State Board of Health’s efforts against malaria among African American rural workers, United States Public Health Service, 1923. Southern Farmer’s Burden depicts a white farmer toiling under the load of carrying his cotton bale while a lethargic black worker rides on top, sick from the bite of a Malaria mosquito. In response to high rates of malaria among rural blacks, the Georgia State Board of Health appealed to white farmers to provide adequate housing to their African American workforce. Black laborers in the South typically lived in poor quality housing near swampy land – a perfect breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, photo no. 90-G-22-4

Malaria in Ray City was just a tiny part of the world-wide malaria pandemic that killed millions of people. Few Americans today can recall the devastating effects of malaria, since a massive public health effort eradicated the disease from the United States in the 1940s. Today, the CDC estimates annually there are still 241 million cases of malaria worldwide and 627,000 people die from malaria every year, mostly black children. Throughout history, malaria has been responsible for more human deaths than any other disease.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite in the blood. People with malaria often experience fever, chills, and flu-like illness. Left untreated, they may develop severe complications and die. The term malaria originates from Mediaeval Italian: mala aria—”bad air”, a part of miasma theory;  the conventional wisdom prior to germ theory was that all diseases were carried by “miasma” vapors, which were believed to emanate from marshy areas. The disease was sometimes called ague or marsh fever due to its association with swamps and marshland. In earlier times malaria caused the abandonment of entire Georgia towns. The state capitol of Georgia was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta because of malaria. In the Antebellum South, malaria accounted for almost eight percent of all deaths.

Malaria is commonly associated with poverty and has a significant negative effect on economic development. Poor quality housing without screening and situated in or near mosquito-infested areas combined with lack of access to effective treatments or healthcare significantly increased risk of the disease. The effects of malaria on Southern blacks were disproportionate since they were more likely to live in these conditions. In fact, in 1920 blacks were twice as likely to die from malaria as whites. (For similar reasons, contagious diseases in general had a disproportionate effect on blacks. In 1900, black laborers suffered an outbreak of smallpox in Berrien County.)

People with malaria can usually expect a complete recovery, if properly treated. However, severe malaria can progress extremely rapidly and cause death within hours or days. In the most severe cases fatality rates can reach 20%, even with intensive care and treatment. The death rate among children is three times that of adults. Over the longer term, developmental impairments have been documented in children who have had episodes of severe malaria. Studies (Hong, 2008) have shown that survivors were significantly shorter in adulthood, as a result of malnutrition driven by childhood malaria infections. Because of an immune system disrupted by malaria infections, they were more susceptible to other contagious diseases. Adults infected with malaria were more likely to develop chronic health conditions later in life. “For children, malaria could reduce attendance at school and deteriorate their learning ability by impairing cognitive development, performance, and behavior. For adults, it could reduce productivity at work and hinder economic development through its impact on wages and profits”

Malaria eradication in the U.S was largely due to the U.S. Public Health Service’s campaign for mosquito control and malaria treatment. Mosquito control used indoor and outdoor residual poisons, largescale drainage projects, improved housing conditions including window screens, and introduction of mosquito-eating Gambusia minnows into open bodies of water. In the 1920s, a “Standard Treatment” for malaria was developed, involving an eight week course of daily doses of quinine.

Dr. Mannie Alamanza Fort, a physician from Quitman, GA was serving as Director of the Division of Malaria Control for the Georgia State Board of Health reported the following in the 1921 bulletin of the U.S. Public Health Service:

In the spring of last year [1920] we secured an order from the superintendent of a big mill at Ray City, requiring every man, woman, and child in the town to take the standard treatment or move. The following from the local physician tells the result: 

Correspondence from Dr. Clements, Ray City, GA

Dr. M. A. FORT, Atlanta, Ga.
Replying to yours of September 26, will say: In 1920 we had at Clements Lumber Co.'s mill some 300 cases of malaria. Beginning in April of 1921, after we had had some 30 cases, we applied the eight weeks treatment universally. The malaria subsided suddenly. I moved from Ray City August 7 of this year, and up to that time there had not been a case of malaria, and if there had been any since I would have heard of it. There is only one thing to do along these lines, and that is the eight weeks treatment. Thanking you for your help in this matter, I remain,
Yours respectfully,
(Signed) H. W. CLEMENTS

U.S. Public Health Service poster: "Quinine kills malaria germs" 9 September 1920
U.S. Public Health Service poster: “Quinine kills malaria germs” 9 September 1920

No observations were reported on the contribution of environmental factors in the transmission of malaria at the Clement’s sawmill: proximity to stagnant water, poor quality housing, or lack of window screens. The sawmill was about 1 mile north of Ray City, situated along the boggy margin of Batterby Creek and adjacent to an impoundment pond covering approximately 11 acres. Given the rates of infection it seems unlikely that the rental houses in the “sawmill town” were provided with screens. The 1921 report of the Georgia State Board of Health observed “In the malarial belt the laborer living in a rented house whose landlord will not furnish screens becomes at once a menace to the public health and also a municipal burden.” Surely, they meant “The landlord who will not furnish screens creates a menace to the public health….”

U.S. Public Health Service malaria poster: "Keep mosquitoes out, and avoid malaria" promoting the use of window screens for protection against malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
U.S. Public Health Service malaria poster: “Keep mosquitoes out, and avoid malaria”

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The Small Pox in Berrien

August 7, 2021 at 12:25 am (African American, Governance & Civics, Remedies and Medicine)
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The Small Pox in Berrien

In 1900, the threat of a smallpox outbreak alarmed the citizens of Berrien County, GA. Local outbreaks of smallpox had been reported in cities and communities across the region. African-American neighborhoods were particularly affected. In some cases infected houses were burned to contain the disease.   “Because smallpox requires a human host to survive, it smoldered in densely populated areas, erupting in a full-blown epidemic every ten years or so. Wherever it appeared, smallpox caused blindness, sterility, scarring, and death.” – Smithsonian

A year earlier, Berrien County men serving in the Spanish-American War had been vaccinated against smallpox prior to shipping out to Cuba. In some towns, local authorities strongly encouraged all citizens to get vaccinated, some even provided free vaccinations. Residents sick with smallpox were quarantined in “pest-houses.” Those who had been in contact were placed under observation in a “detention house” for 14 days. Visitors found to be infected might be driven out of town.

Smallpox vaccination scene. National Library of Medicine.

Before smallpox was eradicated, it was a serious infectious disease caused by the variola virus. It was contagious—meaning, it spread from one person to another. People who had smallpox had a fever and a distinctive, progressive skin rash.

Most people with smallpox recovered, but about 3 out of every 10 people with the disease died. Many smallpox survivors had permanent scars over large areas of their body, especially their faces. Some were left blind.

Thanks to the success of vaccination, smallpox was eradicated, and no cases of naturally occurring smallpox have happened since 1977. The last natural outbreak of smallpox in the United States occurred in 1949.  -CDC

In 1900, Berrien County commissioners looked to Dr. Robert C. Woodard, a recent graduate of the Medical College at Augusta, GA (now Augusta University) to treat the sick. Local authorities enforced quarantines with guards around infected homes and considered compulsory vaccinations.

Tifton Gazette
January 26, 1900

The Small Pox in Berrien

Hon F. M. Shaw, chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, was in Tifton Tuesday. He came here to meet Dr. Woodard, of Adel, who came up on the noon train, and was carried to Brookfield and Enigma, where five cases of small pox are reported, one at the former place, and four at the latter.
The cases were reported Monday, and Coms. Shaw and Dorminy went at once to the scene of the trouble. Guards were put around the houses infected, and a strict quarantine inaugurated. The services of Dr. Woodard were secured by telephone, and the cases placed in his hands.
The disease is confined entirely to negroes, and is supposed to have been brought from Irwin or Coffee by migratory hands. One of the negroes at Enigma is reported dead.
The action taken by our commissioners deserves the highest praise. The best way to stamp the disease out is to isolate each case, and this they propose doing. A few dollars spent in this way will save the county thousands that would be required should the trouble become epidemic. They should be given every encouragement in their efforts, and the support of every loyal citizen.
As yet, no alarm has been felt in Tifton, and no further action has been considered necessary by the city authorities than that taken yesterday in establishing a pest house and notifying the police and all physicians in the city to keep a sharp lookout and report any suspected cases. Should any appear, they will be at once isolated, and vaccination made compulsory.

Despite the attempts at quarantine, smallpox continued to threaten Berrien County. So much so that Judge Augustin H. Hansell determined a large public gathering would be imprudent, and cancelled the March term of the Berrien Superior Court.

Tifton Gazette
March 16, 1900
Superior Court Postponed.
At Chambers, Thomasville, Ga., March 12th, 1900:
For providential causes, consisting in the prevalance of small pox in various portions of Berrien, making it improper to bring the people together, the March Term, 1900, of Berrien superior court is hereby postponed to meet on the first Monday in June next, at 10 o’clock a.m. and all jurors, witnesses and parties interested will attend at that time.
Aug. H. Hansell,
Judge S.C.S.C.

By the end of March 1900, smallpox was spreading across Georgia and neighboring states.  Savannah, GA had had a compulsory smallpox vaccination requirement since 1877, but compliance was less than complete. With the pox running rampant, the city moved for strict enforcement of vaccination for all residents.

Proclamation
Office of the Mayor
Savannah, Ga., March 27, 1900.
The following is published for the information and guidance of the public:
As a precautionary measure, and in view of the fact that small-pox prevails in many of the counties and towns of Georgia and the surrounding states, and can be transmitted through the medium of the mails, express packages, freight, etc., notice is herewith given by the Sanitary Board of the city of Savannah, that every person resident in the city of Savannah or the county of Chatham, must be vaccinated within the next ten days, ending April 6, 1900, and that after the expiration of that time the law will be rigidly enforced as to all persons found not vaccinated, as follows:
“Section 62, MacDonell’s code (acts of 1877: Vaccination Compulsory: Vaccination shall be compulsory upon all persons living in Chatham county, and any person or persons who have not been vaccinated, and who, after the 19th of February, 1877, fail to be vaccinated, shall, upon conviction for the first offense, be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars or imprisonment in the county jail for not longer than one month.”
The city physicians will vaccinate free of charge, any persons resident in the city of Savannah or county of Chatham, who are paupers or unable from poverty to pay for the same.
HERMAN MYERS
Mayor and Chairman of Sanitary Board.

During 1900 to 1904, cases of smallpox continued to be reported in Berrien County and all over the state.  On June 21, 1901, the Tifton Gazette reported, 

The carelessness of some of [Berrien’s] neighboring counties in dealing with small-pox is little short of criminal. Wednesday [June 19, 1901] a white man came to Tifton in a car crowded with people, and stopped with crowds on the streets until it was noticed that he was thickly pitted with small-pox. Even when notified to leave town, he was sullen and slow about going until he found that he was confronted with the pest house. The state needs a quarantine law to take hold of these cases that refuse to take any measures for their own protection or that of their neighbors.

From 1900 to 1904 an average of 48,164 cases and 1528 deaths caused by smallpox were reported each year in the United States. The pattern in the decline of smallpox was sporadic.  The last case in the United States was reported in 1949. Smallpox was completely eradicated worldwide in 1979, because of the mass vaccination efforts of the World Health Organization. Smallpox is the only disease that has been eradicated.

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Confederate Cures in the Civil War

April 11, 2020 at 12:14 am (Civil War, Remedies and Medicine)
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In the Civil War, the death rate from contagious diseases and illnesses were very high. “In the Federal armies, sickness and disease accounted for 7 of every 10 deaths. One authority has estimated that among the Confederates three men perished from disease for every man killed in battle. Small wonder that a Civil War soldier once wrote his family from camp: “It scares a man to death to get sick down here.” – The Civil War

In the Summer of 1862 the Berrien Minute Men, 29th GA Regiment, stationed at Causton’s Bluff and Battery Lawton would suffer with malaria, fever, measles, mumps, dysentery, tonsillitis, wounds, typhus, pneumonia, tuberculosis, syphilis, hepatitis, and rheumatism. The heat, mosquitoes, fleas and sandflies just made the men all the more uncomfortable. All of the stations of the Berrien Minute Men on the Georgia coast were disease ridden. After visiting Battery Lawton on June 22, 1862, Captain George A. Mercer wrote, “Fort Jackson, and the adjacent batteries, are located in low swampy fields, where the insects are terrible, the air close and fetid and full of miasma and death.” The “miasma” was actually mosquito-borne transmission of diseases like yellow fever or malaria, but the conventional wisdom at the time was that all diseases were carried by vapors, which were believed to be especially prevalent in coastal marshy areas.  Given the state of medical knowledge in the 1860s, Regimental Surgeon, William P. Clower, had little if any effective treatments for such contagious diseases. (Surgeon Clower’s brother, John T. Clower, would later practice medicine in Ray’s Mill, now Ray City, GA).  Wiregrass Georgians had always depended more on home remedies, patent medicines and faith than doctors.

On June 12, 1862, a concerned citizen advised Confederate soldiers via a newspaper article to treat camp illnesses themselves and not to trust their health to physicians. Some of the “cures” seem worse than the disease.  In discussing the recipes for tinctures and enemas, the advise is, “If the pepper is too exciting for delicate patients, leave it out…   

On the treatment snake bite, the reference to Hog Artichoke has a trivial connection to the Berrien Minute Men; Colonel William Spencer Rockwell, who enlisted the Berrien Minute Men in the C.S.A., was perhaps the leading horticultural authority on Hog Artichoke in the State of Georgia.

 

Savannah Morning News
June 12, 1862

“[From the Columbus Enquirer.]
Every Soldier his own Physician.
Editor Enquirer:—Horrified at the rapidity with which our soldiers die in camp, we are tempted to give them the following recipes, the result of some experience, in hopes that some may be saved by using remedies simple, safe, and generally sure cures:
TO PREVENT SICKNESS.—Have a Jug of salted vinegar, seasoned with pepper, and take a mouthful just before going to bed. The salt and vinegar make a near approach to the digestive gastric Juice of the stomach, and are besides antidotes to many of the vegetable and miasmatic poisons.
FOR PNEUMONIA, COLDS AND COUGHS.—Take half a cup or less of the salted pepper vinegar, fill the cup nearly full of warm water, and then stir in a raw well-beaten egg slowly. Taken mouthful every 15 or 20 minutes; in the intervals slowly suck on a piece of alum. If the attack is violent, dip a cloth in hot salted pepper vinegar and apply it round the throat, cover with dry clothes to get up a steam, and do the same to the chest.
FOR CHILLS.—Put a tablespoonful of salted pepper vinegar in a cup of warm water, go to bed and drink; In two hours drink a cup of strong water-willow bark tea; in two hours more another tablespoonful of the vinegar and warm water, and so on, alternating, until the fever is broken up. After sweating, and before going into the out door air, the body ought always to be wiped off with a cloth dipped in cold water. Dogwood will do if water-willow cannot be obtained
FOR MEASLES.—Put a small piece of yeast in a tumbler of warm sweetened water, let it draw, and drink a mouthful every 15 or 30 minutes, and drink plentifully of cold or hot catnip, balsam, horehound, or alder tea, and use in place of oil or salts, one table spoonful molasses, one teaspoonful lard, and one teaspoonful salted pepper vinegar, melted together and taken warm. Take once a day, if necessary— keep out of the wet and out-door air.
FOR DIARRHOEA.— A teaspoonful of the salted pepper vinegar every one or two hours. Take a teaspoonful of the yellow puffs that grow round oak twigs, powdered fine; take twice a day in one tablespoonful of brandy, wine or cordial. If these yellow puffs can not be found, suck frequently on a piece of alum. The quantity of alum depends upon the severity of the attack; take slowly and little at a time.
FOR CAMP FEVERS.—One tablespoonful of salted pepper vinegar, slightly seasoned, and put into a cup of warm water—drink freely and often, from 4 to 8 cupfuls a day, with fever or without fever. Pour a cupful more or less of the salted pepper vinegar into cold water, and keep the body, particularly the stomach and head, well bathed with a cloth dipped in it. Give enemas of cold water, and for oil use a tablespoonful molasses, a teaspoonful lard, and a teaspoonful pepper vinegar, melted together and taken warm. If the pepper is too exciting for delicate patients, leave it out of the drinks and bathings, and use simply the salt and vinegar in water, and very little salt.
ANTIDOTE FOR DRUNKENESS: FOR THE BENEFIT OF OFFICERS —One cup of strong black Coffee, with out milk or sugar, and twenty drops of Laudanum. Repent the dose if necessary. Or take one teaspoonful of Tincture Lobelia In a tumbler of milk; if taken every ten or fifteen minutes it will act us an emetic: taken in longer intervals, say thirty minutes, it will act as an antidote. The Yankees declared that poisoned liquor was put on the counters in Newbern to poison their soldiers. Nobody doubts the liquor being poisoned, but it was made of poison to sell to our own Southern boys; and it is horrifying to think of the liquors now being made down in cellars, of “sulfuric acid, strychnine, buckeye, tobacco leaves, coloring matter and rain water.” For this poisoned liquor, the best antidote is an emetic, say lobelia and warm salt and water, and then drink freely of sugared vinegar water.
FOR SNAKE BITES —The best thing is one teaspoonful of Lobelia and ten drops of Ammonia, taken every few minutes, and a bottle filled with Lobelia and Ammonia, stopped with the palm of the hand and warmed in a panful of hot water; then apply the bottle to the bite, and it will draw out and antidote the poison. Either of these, Lobelia or Ammonia, will answer without the other. Tobacco, or Nightshade, or Kurtle Burr, or Deer Tongue, (a rough-leafed herb, in flower and appearance like to hog artichoke) stowed in milk; drink the milk, using the rest as a poultice. The last is an Indian remedy, and will cure in the agonies of death.
FOR CHICKEN CHOLERA, NOW DEVASTATING FOWLDOM.—Put one or two Jimpston or Jamestown weed leaves, properly called Stramonium, into the water trough every day—fresh leaves and fresh water. This is one of the triumphs of Homeopathy, for we were just from a perusal of one of their works, and finding that the chickens died and made no signs of sickness, except holding the head down, we concluded the head must be the seat of the plague, and reading that stramonium affected the brain with mania and stupor, we tried it, and have not lost a chicken since the using.
If other papers will copy these recipes, they will save many lives, now sacrificed to the negligence of salaried physicians The Eastern monarch’s plan ought to be adopted, to strike off a certain percent of a Doctor’s salary every time he loses a patient— that would soon stop the feast of Death! X.

Confederate medicine: cures for soldiers in the regimental camps.

Confederate medicine: cures for soldiers in the regimental camps.

 

 

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Dr. Pierce Hubert (1854 – 1933)

April 28, 2018 at 4:46 am (Remedies and Medicine, Uncategorized)
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Dr. Pierce Hubert (1854 – 1933)

Special thanks to Bryan Shaw for sharing contributions to this post.

Dr. Pierce Hubert was among the medical men of Ray City, Georgia in the 1920’s. Dr. Hubert was a philanthropist, civic activist, Mason, checker champion, and public administrator.

It appears that Dr. Hubert and his wife moved from Louisville, GA 190 miles south to Ray City, Georgia sometime after 1920. An account statement from his medical practice shows that he was treating patients here in 1923, one being Francis Marion Shaw.  A bill for the doctor’s treatment of Shaw’s “last illness” was found in the death papers of the deceased. Dr. Hubert was still using office stationery imprinted with his former place of business in Louisville, GA, carefully crossed out, and overwritten with his new location, in Ray City.

Dr. Pierce Hubert billed the estate of Francis Marion Shaw $5 for two visits to the deceased during his last illness leading up to his death. Image courtesy of Bryan Shaw.

Dr. Pierce Hubert billed the estate of Francis Marion Shaw $5 for two visits to the deceased during his last illness leading up to his death. Image courtesy of Bryan Shaw.

Ray City, GA., March 1st, 1923

Mr. F. M. Shaw

In account with
Dr. Pierce Hubert

1922
Sept 20 Visit &c self 2.00
” ” Night Visit self    3.00
                                   $5.00
Georgia, Berrien County
Personally came before me Dr. Pierce Hubert, who being sworn says the above account of Five dollars is for professional services rendered the said F. M. Shaw, during his last illness and that the same is due, just and true and unpaid.

Sworn to & subscribed
before me Mch 2nd 1923 Pierce Hubert M.D.

 

Dr. Hubert was also among the men present at the start-up of the Ray City Power Plant in 1923.  The operation of the first electric lights was a big event in the small town.

Dr. Pierce Hubert grew up with his family in Warrenton, Warren County, Georgia. He was born in 1854 in Georgia, a son of Dr. Robert Wallace Hubert and Ann B. “Nancy” Turner.  He attended medical school and graduated in 1876 from the Medical Department of Georgia University (now known as University of Georgia), as a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.).  After achieving his degree, he returned to his parent’s house in Warrenton, GA and began practicing medicine.

In 1877 Dr. Hubert married Stella Hill Cody in Warren County, GA.  Her father, James Cody, was a retired dry goods clerk.  The 1880 census shows the young couple living in his parents’ household at Warrenton, GA.

In 1880 Dr. Hubert was a member of a small, private charity group of four prominent Warrenton citizens, who contributed to the Hood Orphan Memorial Fund.  The fund was to provide for the ten orphan children of Confederate General John Bell Hood. 

Orphan children of Confederate General John Bell Hood.

Orphan children of Confederate General John Bell Hood.

After the Civil War, General John Bell Hood moved to Louisiana and became a cotton broker and worked as a President of the Life Association of America, an insurance business. In 1868, he married New Orleans native Anna Marie Hennen, with whom he fathered 11 children over 10 years, including three pairs of twins. He also served the community in numerous philanthropic endeavors, assisting in fund raising for orphans, widows, and wounded soldiers. For awhile he flourished. But his insurance business was ruined by a yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans during 1878–79 and he succumbed to the disease himself [on August 30, 1879], dying just days after his wife and oldest child, leaving 10 destitute orphans. 

Personal mentions in the Atlanta newspapers noted in November 1880 Dr. Hubert visiting in Sparta, GA, about 24 miles southwest of Warrenton.  His wife, Stella Hill Cody Hubert, died about September 15, 1882, and was buried at Warrenton Cemetery.

It appears that by 1884, Dr. Pierce had established his household at Sparta.  He joined the American Legion of Honor, a Fraternal Beneficiary Society, which was active in the late 19th century and early 20th century.   On July 17, 1884, at the Savannah meeting of the Georgia Grand Council of the American Legion of Honor, Dr. Hubert was elected Grand Secretary of the state organization. In 1888, he was again elected Grand Secretary; at that time, he had returned to reside in Warrenton, GA. He attended the annual meeting of July 16, 1891, in Griffin, GA and was returned to the post of grand secretary; he had moved to Louisville, GA by that time.

In its heyday, the American Legion of Honor was one of the best-known benefit societies. Membership was open to white men and women eighteen to fifty years of age. Originally the upper age limit was sixty-four, but this was reduced in 1885. There were initiation ceremonies but, if the candidate objected, these could be dispensed with, and a formal obligation could be taken at any time and place. Like Woodmen of the World and other fraternal benefits organizations, the American Legion of Honor provided life insurance to its members.  The Legion reached its membership high point at the end of 1889 with 62,457 members. Like many fraternal organizations, the Legion ran into financial difficulties in 1895 and 1896. These were caused by a number of factors, including the Panic of 1896, an increased death rate, increased expenses and debts, “unusually high” assessments in 1896 and a lack of new members.  The order went into receivership in August 1904.

About 1886 Dr. Hubert married Carrie De Beaugrine. She died in 1889 and is said to be buried in Sallie Hill Cemetery, Warrenton, GA.

By 1891, Pierce Hubert had moved to Louisville, Jefferson County, Georgia, where he was elected to serve on the county Board of Education in 1896.

In 1896, Dr. Pierce Hubert married a third time, to Hunter V. Fay. By the census of 1900 he appears with his wife and family in Louisville, Jefferson County, Georgia.10 He remained a resident and practiced medicine in Louisville for the next twenty years. In addition to his practice, he continued to serve on the Jefferson County School Board, his name appears in the Georgia Department of Education Records for 1897, and in 1904 serving a term through 1908.

When the American Anti-Tuberculosis League met in Atlanta, April 17-19, 1905, Dr. Pierce Hubert was a delegate from the 10th congressional district of Georgia.  There were representatives appointed by the governors of every state in the union and from many foreign countries – No representatives were named from South Georgia. Governor J. M. Terrell tendered the Hall of the House of Representatives to the Georgia State Capitol for the use of the League during the meeting, and he delivered an address to the League at the opening session. [ It should be noted that at the time, nearly 80 percent of all tuberculosis deaths were African-Americans, but the medical response to the disease was as segregated as every other aspect of American life in the early 20th century.  It was not until 1909 that a Colored Anti-Tuberculosis League was formed in Georgia, and among its stated purposes were shifting the burden of cost for care to African-Americans and reducing transmission of the disease from blacks to whites.]

In 1908 a Pierce Hubert appears in the Official proceedings Grand Lodge, Free Accepted Masons, State of Georgia, as a member of Stonewall Lodge No. 470.

Dr. Hubert, a serious devotee to the game of checkers, was regarded as one of the best players in the state of Georgia. He played in the first championship match of the Southern Checker Association in Atlanta in 1908.

Checker Match. The first championship of the Southern Checker Association was played in Atlanta in 1908. Dr. Hubert Pierce, who later practiced medicine at Ray City, GA was among the finalists.

A Classic Checker Match. The first championship of the Southern Checker Association was played in Atlanta in 1908. Dr. Hubert Pierce, who later practiced medicine at Ray City, GA was among the finalists.

The tournament was played in the firehouse at the corner of Washington and East Hunter streets, directly opposite the state capitol.

The Canadian Checker Player, a monthly magazine devoted to the game of draughts, reported the results of the 1908 Southern Checker Association tournament. Dr. Pierce Hubert ranked 13th in the region.

The Canadian Checker Player, a monthly magazine devoted to the game of draughts, reported the results of the 1908 Southern Checker Association tournament. Dr. Pierce Hubert ranked 13th in the region.

 

In 1910, the Huberts were in Augusta, GA.  The Atlanta Constitution, November 27, 1910, reported,
Dr. and Mrs. Pierce Hubert and General John W. Clark, accompanied by his wife and a few friends, went down to Savannah for the unveiling of the Oglethorpe monument.  John W. Clark, a Confederate veteran, successful businessman, and one of the most prominent citizens of Augusta, was among the foremost promoters of reunions and monuments to honor Confederate soldiers.

Dedication of the monument to General James Edward Oglethorpe, unveiled Savannah, GA, November 23, 1910

Dedication of the monument to General James Edward Oglethorpe, founder of the Colony of Georgia, unveiled Savannah, GA, November 23, 1910

Dr. Hubert was a founding member of the Jefferson County Medical Association, organized February 7, 1911, and was the group’s delegate to the state association.

In 1917, Dr. Pierce Hubert was one of four men appointed by Governor Nat E. Harris to the WWI Draft Registration Board for Jefferson County, GA.  In Berrien County, the men appointed were Sheriff Joe Varn Nix, Clerk of the Superior Court James Henry Gaskins, Ordinary Joel Ira Norwood, and Dr. Lafayette A. Carter.

Sometime before 1930 Dr. Hubert retired from his medical practice. He and Mrs. Hubert moved on to Valdosta, GA. He died at the age of 78 on March 15, 1933, in Bibb County, Georgia. He was buried at Warrenton Cemetery, Warren County, GA.

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Dr. Charles X. Jones ~ Ray City’s First Elected Mayor

Dr. J. A. Fogle of Alapaha, GA

Dr. Francis Marion Burkhalter Died in France

Ray City Connections of Young Dr. Folsom

Dr. Julian ~ Railway Surgeon

Black Doughboys and White Sparrows

Dr. Sloan Had Ray City Roots

Obituary of Dr. L.S. Rentz

Dr. H.W. Clements and the Doctor’s Roadster

Dr. Motte Arrives at Franklinville, GA, 1836

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Death of Ben Furlong ~ Was it Suicide?

October 28, 2017 at 12:08 am (Furlongs of Berrien, Law and Order, Remedies and Medicine)
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Ben Furlong (circa 1854-1886), Desperado of Berrien County, GA

As Halloween approaches we revisit the scene of Ben Furlong, who was perhaps the most infamous ghost ever to haunt Berrien County.

After the 1886 death of Ben Furlong some said his ghost still haunted the scene of his final, heinous crime. In life, Ben Furlong may have been Berrien County’s most notorious outlaw.  Furlong, a sawmill man when he wasn’t on the bottle, frequented the communities along the tracks of the Brunswick & Western Railroad – Alapaha, Vanceville and Sniff.   He was a wife beater and a murderer wanted for dozens of criminal charges. His infamous deeds were published around the globe.

Furlong died on Friday, September 24, 1886, from an overdose of laudanum, also known as tincture of opium. The compound was commonly available in the drug stores of Berrien County and elsewhere for just five cents a bottle.

Laudanum bottle

Laudanum bottle

Certainly, by the time of Furlong’s death, the dangerous potency of opioids was well known. Still, some assumed Furlong’s laudanum overdose was accidental.

The prevailing opinion in Alapaha, GA, the community that perhaps knew Furlong best, was that he intended to take his own life, either out of a guilty conscience or to escape the hangman.

The October 2, 1886, edition of the Alapaha Star examined the question:

Alapaha Star, October 2, 1886 questions death of Ben Furlong

Alapaha Star, October 2, 1886, questions death of Ben Furlong

Alapaha Star
October 2, 1886

Was it Suicide?

    There is a difference of opinion as to whether B. W. Furlong committed suicide, but the preponderating belief is that he did. The murder of the colored man, the closing of his mill by his creditors and the effects of a severe spell of drinking were amply sufficient to —- —– —-perate step of his life – that of self-destruction.
    It is reported that he drank two bottles of laudanum Thursday night, about twenty hours before he died, and that when he sank into the last sleep, his breathing indicated poisoning. Every effort was made to arouse him. He was walked about, slapped and rubbed vigorously, but the seal of death was upon him, and he breathed his last about four hours after he fell asleep.
    We are satisfied that Furlong while temporarily insane from the causes we have mentioned, took his own life.

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James W. Talley, Milltown Doctor

January 28, 2017 at 12:41 am (Faith and Begorrah, Remedies and Medicine, Uncategorized)
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Revised:

The Talley family has a long history in Berrien County, Georgia. Reverend Nathan Talley came from Greene County, GA to Berrien County with his wife, Martha Travis, some time in the 1850s.  The Methodist minister resided in the vicinity of Ray’s Mill.  He was a neighbor of Keziah Knight, daughter of William Anderson Knight, and her husband Allen Jones.  Also residing with the Talleys was Dr. John W. Turner.

In 1861, Reverend Talley was serving as minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Milltown (now Lakeland), GA. He gave the invocation and led hymns for the Grand Military Rally for the Berrien Minute Men at Milltown, GA on May 17, 1861.

Two of Reverend Talley’s own sons were among the medical men of Berrien County.

Dr. Hamilton McDuffie Talley (1834-1902) practiced medicine in Nashville and Valdosta, and also called on residents of  Ray’s Mill (now Ray City), GA.  In the Civil War, Dr. H.M. Talley served as Captain of Company E, 54th Georgia Regiment, one of the infantry units raised in Berrien County. 

Dr. James W. Talley (1826-1894), had a medical practice in Milltown (now Lakeland), GA. His first wife, the former Mary Jane Little (1836-1869), was a daughter of Zabud Marion Little, Sr. (1806-1851). They were married April 21, 1853 in Fayette County, GA and together, they had two children, Statira C. Talley (1853-1926) and Mary Irvin Talley (1865-1942). Mary Jane Talley died February 9, 1869; She was buried at Old Town Cemetery, Lakeland, GA.

Dr. James W. Talley, of Milltown (now Lakeland), GA
Dr. James W. Talley, of Milltown (now Lakeland), GA

The following biographical sketch of James W. Talley was written just before his death:

James W. Talley, M.D., was born February 22, 1826 in Henry county, GA, not far from Atlanta, and is of English ancestry.  His grandfather, with two brothers, came to this country, and the former, Caleb Talley, after serving during the revolutionary war, settled in Virginia. He was the father of seven sons, five of whom were Methodist ministers. One of these, Rev. Nathan Talley, of Green County, GA, was the father of James W. Talley. The later received a good academic education, and in 1850 began the study of medicine under Dr. William Blalock, of Fayetteville, GA.  In 1851, he entered the Medical College of Georgia, at Augusta, but took his degree from Savannah Medical College. 

Savannah Medical College, 1867.
Savannah Medical College, 1867.

He located in Milltown, Berrien, Co., where he has built up one of the most successful and extensive country practices in the state. During the war, Dr. Talley was exempted from military duty on account of his profession. Politically he is a democrat.  He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, of lodge No. 211, has been grand master, and is now past master.  One of Dr. Talley’s brothers, H. M. Talley, is also a physician at Valdosta.  Another, A.S. [Algernon] Talley, is a real estate agent in Atlanta.  For his first wife, Dr. Talley married Miss Mary Little, daughter of Zabot Little, of Henry county.  She died in 1867, and he afterward married Miss M. [Araminta Mississippi] Holzendorf, daughter of Alexander Holzendorf, of Cumberland Island, one of the best known planters in the state. [Her brother, Robert Stafford Holzendorf married Satira Lovejoy Lamb, widow of Major John C. Lamb who commanded the 29th Georgia Regiment during the War.]

Dr. Talley’s family consists of two sons and four daughters. His eldest son, Junius V., born May 8, 1872, graduated from the Louisville Medical college in June 1894; William T., born August 30, 1875, at home, attending school. The eldest daughter, born in 1854, is the wife of Huffman Harroll, a merchant of Valdosta; Mary I., born in 1864, married J.H. Bostwick [Bostic], a manufacturer of naval stores in Berrien county [and a trustee of Oaklawn Academy]; Effie C., born November 5, 1870; Lelia H., born September 6, 1873, is the wife of J.J. Knight, a merchant of Milltown.

“According to Old Times There Are Not Forgotten, he [Dr. James W. Talley] built the bungalow still standing on the northeast corner of Main and Oak Streets and raised a family…”  – Nell Roquemore

1-j-w-talley-house3

Dr. J. W. Talley’s son, Dr. Junius V. “June” Talley, after graduating from Louisville Medical College returned to Milltown (now Lakeland), GA where he also took up practice.

In October 1894, Dr. J.W. Talley was elected to the executive committee of the short lived Berrien County Prohibition Association.

Dr. James W. Talley died November 25, 1895. An obituary was published in the Tifton Gazette.

Obituary of Dr. James W. Talley, Tifton Gazette, November 29, 1895
Obituary of Dr. James W. Talley, Tifton Gazette, November 29, 1895

Tifton Gazette
November 29, 1895

Dr. J. W. Talley Dead

Death has again visited our community, and claimed as its victim Dr. J. W. Talley.  Dr. Talley came to this country in the year 1856, and has been a practicing physician here ever since. He was an exemplary citizen and a Christian gentleman, having joined the Methodist church in early boyhood, and leaves a large circle of relatives, friends and acquaintances, who were present today at his burial. The funeral services were conducted by Rev. E. L. Padrick and Rev. Wm. Talley, who read a short history of the deceased’s life. The bereaved wife and children have the deepest sympathy of the entire community.   BUTTERFLY.

Grave of James W. Talley, died November 25, 1895. Old City Cemetery, Lakeland, GA. Image source: Ed Hightower

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