No, this is not a move review.  Despite the headline, I am not going to write about Patrick Swayze, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.  I am going to tell you a few stories about our forgotten past.  I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed putting them together.

It was one hundred and five years ago when the editors of a newspaper saluted "one of the most pleasant social events the young people of the city have enjoyed in some time."  Fifteen couples danced in the dance hall of the Henry Building until their self-imposed curfew sent them home after their Friday evening fete.  But, times change.

It was in the months following the end of World War I, called by victorious politicians and generals as "the war to end all wars."  Young men were jubilant and wanted to celebrate, especially in the company of the city's most attractive young women.  These men formed a club and called themselves "The Stags."  No, it wasn't the first instance of a gang in the Emerald City, but it was an association of young men seeking to have a good time by ignoring their inhibitions and dancing until, well until their dates had to go home.

The Stags did not just want to have a dance once a month.  They wanted to dance with the young ladies on every Friday evening.  They even had the audacity to stage a street dance as the finale of "Dollar Days," a downtown wide mercantile event.  The leader of the Stags secured permission to stage a dance in front of the courthouse on a Wednesday night.  It didn't take long for word to reach the pastors of the local churches.

Dr. R.L. Baker, pastor of First Baptist Church, warned his congregation that any member caught dancing in public would be subject to banishment from the church.   Rev. L.A. Hill of First Methodist Church was more blunt on the subject.  Rev. Hill called the event a "public hugging game, which would be a blot on the fair name of the city."  He asked the men if they would allow their wives or daughters to dance with hoodlums, ragtags, and bobtails from all over the county.  He denounced the houses of ill fame located just across the river in East Dublin.  Rev. Hill believed that the women of Dublin would enter into a public dance with all innocence.  However, according to statistics in his possession, nine out of ten fallen women began their fall by dancing in public.  Rev. Hill was not directly opposed to dancing in public, as long as the men danced with men and women danced with women.  It's funny how things change. 

John A. Harvill and his wife had just sat down by the fire on a cold December evening in 1882.  The newly wed couple were distracted when they heard a noise which sounded like a squeaking old wagon.  They ignored the discord as a mere passerby.  After a moment, Harvill thinking the continuing commotion to be strange, sprang to his feet and opened his front door.  

To his utter dismay Harvill observed what appeared to be a very large dog with a torch or lamp attached  to the top of its head.  He called out thinking that he must have been the brunt of some of a candid camera joke, of course, television cameras wouldn't be around for more than five decades.  When no reply was received, Harvill did what most terrified men of his day would do, he picked up his gun and shot at it.  He shot. He shot again. The dog didn't move.  In the words of a writer of the Dublin Gazette, "there stood the specter as steadfast as the rock of Gibraltar."    Harvill couldn't believe his eyes.  Was he seeing things?

It didn't take long for the neighbors to come rushing to the scene of the skirmish.  Harvill pointed out the apparition to friends, hoping that they would see it as well. Reportedly, they did.  The brave generals in the crowd consulted each other and devised a plan of attack.  Everyone who could, grabbed a torch and began their advance.  As the first wave of the assault reached the ghostly canine, the pooch resumed his squeaking stride into the oblivion of the night.  While the reporter for the Gazette was covering the calamity, a neighbor came up to him and confirmed that he had also seen the dog, without the squeak.  

Minnie Howell and Charles Jones were deeply in love.  They couldn't wait to get married.  They rode into Dublin on a Sunday morning in February 1914.  As they drove their buggy through the streets of Dublin, they desperately looked around for a "man in black," either a minister or judge, both of whom traditionally were donned in a black suit or wearing a black robe.  They wanted someone to marry them and quickly.  It was then when they spotted the newly elected Judge K.H. Hawkins, judge of the superior court of the Dublin circuit, walking to the First Methodist Church for its morning service.  The startled judge honored the anxious couple's request and legally joined their hands in marriage as they sat on the seat of their buggy.  Had Minnie and Charles been able to wait until January of the following year, they may have spotted one W.H. Brunson on his way to church. Brunson, who had only been practicing law for three months, easily outpaced a field of older and more well known candidates to win an election to fill the vacancy in the office of Justice of the Peace of the Dublin militia district following the death of Judge Chapman.  Brunson, a twenty-two-year-old attorney, was the youngest Justice of the Peace in the State of Georgia.

It was a quiet day at the Park-N-Shop in the Shamrock Shopping Center on the last day of January 1974.  City Alderman Glen Harden was manning the cash register at his store as he usually did.  A trio of customers came through the door.  Harden didn't pay too much attention.  He thought he recognized them, or at least one of them.  But that wasn't unusual  because Harden knew a lot of folks.  

But there was something strangely familiar about the man.  Glen knew he recognized him.  He asked the man if he was who he thought he was.    He had seen the tall dark stranger on television before. He had listened to his voice on records.  The man acknowledged his identity and introduced his wife and mother-in-law to Harden.  The trio were on their way to Savannah for a concert that night.  In today's day of interstate highways, we tend to forget that most people traveling to Savannah from anywhere west of the port city had to come through Dublin to get there.

The customers purchased some groceries and had a good time talking with Harden, so much so that they promised to stop back by on their return to their home in Nashville.  Oh, they also bought a pair of scissors, a pack of needles and a few spools of thread, possibly black thread.  For you see the trio who stopped in one of the city's first modern convenience stores was June and her mother Maybelle.  The man, of course, was the world's most famous "man in black," the iconic legend, Johnny Cash.  

OTHER DUBLINS IN THE UNITED STATES

OUR ALTER EGOS
Dublins Around the Country


What do a soft drink, a hamburger and an almanac have in common?  They all come from the city of Dublin, not Dublin, Georgia, but from other Dublins around the country.  During this St.  Patrick’s Festival, the nation’s longest celebration of Irish heritage,  let’s take a look at three Dublins and what they are famous for.

All Dublins in the world derive their name from the ancient capital city of Ireland.  Dublin, Georgia holds the distinction of being the second Dublin in the United States.  It was named by Jonathan Sawyer, the town’s first postmaster.  Sawyer named the post office in the summer of 1811 in honor of the ancestral home of his wife, the former Miss Elizabeth McCormick.

Dublin, Texas, with it’s population of 3,250, lies near the geographic center of the Lone Star State.  Of all of the Dublins in this country, its history is most like that of Dublin, Georgia.  James Tucker opened a store there one year before the southern states declared their independence from the North.  J.M. Miller laid out his cotton field and began selling lots in 1881.  By the end of the 1880s, Dublin was home to two railroads, a bank and a newspaper.  Like Dublin, Georgia, Dublin, Texas owed its life to cotton and the railroads, which kept the money flowing and people coming.

For all of the 1940s and 1950s, Dublin, Texas was the home to the World Championship Rodeo, made famous by Gene Autry.  The nearby “Lightning C” ranch covered a dozen thousand acres, making it the largest rodeo ranch in the world.  Dublin is the home of Ben Hogan, one the greatest legends of golf.

But by far, Dublin, Texas is known as the home of Dr. Pepper, which was first bottled in Dublin in 1891 by Sam Houston Prim.  Every June the citizens of Dublin and surrounding areas turn out by the thousands to honor the soft drink and its plant, which is the only plant which still uses the original pure cane sugar recipe.  There is a circus with shows at “10, 2 and 4" in keeping with the slogan of Dr. Pepper.

Dublin, Texas also holds a St. Patrick’s festival.  The three-day affair features a carnival, food festival, softball tournament, art & quilt show, parade, Little Miss Dublin contest and tours of the town museum and bottling plant.  Dublin, which is located 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, is known for its dairy farming, peanuts and cattle farms.

Dublin, Ohio,  the second largest of all Dublins in America, lies among the northwestern suburbs of Columbus.  During the 1970s, Dublin was engulfed by the urban sprawl of Columbians, the completion of I-270 and the development of Muirfield Village Golf Club,  a course designed by Jack Nichalaus.  This Dublin’s origin dates back to a 400 acre village on the banks of the Scioto River in the second decade of the 19th Century. On every Memorial Day weekend, Dublin hosts a golf tournament which draws the best players on the PGA tour.  Dublin, Ohio is also the home of Wendy’s Hamburgers, founded by Dave Thomas.

Dubliners from Ohio love festivals.  There is the requisite St. Patrick’s Festival, where the Lion’s Club hosts a pancake breakfast followed by a 5K Leprechaun run and a parade.  Sound familiar?  Dubliner’s let it all hang out at the Rockin’ Barney Blash.  But the celebration of Irish heritage doesn’t end there.  In early August, there is the Dublin Irish festival, an event which began in 1988.  There are Irish goods of all kinds, as well as exhibits which feature the cultural heritage of Ireland.  Of course, there is a feast of Irish food and drink. What kind of festival would it be without stew, breads and beer?  On the first weekend of each December, known as Holly Days, everything that glitters is green.  The lighting of the city’s official Christmas tree opens the festival before the city’s merchants throw open their doors where nearly everything is on sale.

The first Dublin in the United States was founded as one of the highest villages  in New Hampshire in 1771.   In 1792, another Thomas, Robert Thomas, began publishing the Old Farmer’s Almanac.  The annual almanac is the country’s oldest continuously published periodical.    Despite also being the home of The Yankee Magazine, which publishes a variety of travel magazines, Dublin, New Hampshire’s population is around 1500 people.

Dublin, North Carolina, located in Bladen County, is located between Fayetteville and Wilmington in the southeastern part of the Tar Heel State.  About a quarter of a thousand people live in Dublin.  The big festival in the community comes during the third week of September, when everyone celebrates the harvesting of the peanut crop.




 

       A few hundred miles to the northwest is Dublin, Virginia.  Founded by the Henry Trollinger family in 1776, the community was first known as Newburn Depot and later Dublin Depot.   On May 9, 1864, southwestern Virginia’s most vicious battle of the Civil War took place in and around the depot.  Confederate troops under the command of Gen. J.C. Breckenridge foiled Union attempts to capture the vital railroad depot.

               The area around Dublin, California was first settled in 1822 by Jose Maria Amador.  In 1877, a church, two hotels, a blacksmith shop and a shoe maker’s shop was built.  The community, first known as Doughtery’s Station, is located in the Armador Livermore Valley.  Dublin, California was incorporated in February, 1982 and is located 35 miles east of San Francisco. It’s population, now the largest of any Dublin, is buoyed by the fact that Dublin lies at the intersection of two major interstate highways.  The country’s westernmost Dublin is driven by rapidly growing technological and medical businesses.

Dublin, Indiana, a small town of less than a thousand people, is located along the Ohio line in the middle of the state.  It was the site of the first women’s rights convention in Indiana in 1851.   The annual highlight of the year is the volunteer fire department’s fish fry on Memorial Day weekend.

Once there were or still are Dublins,  post offices or just places along the road named Dublin in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York and Pennsylvania. What you may not know is that there have been two other Dublins  in Georgia.  There was once a Dublin community in Butts County, which changed its name to Cork. The third Dublin, Georgia is now known as Resaca. 

STILL MORE SNIPPETS

s

More than Trivial Pieces of our Past


During the 1930s, more and more political and military leaders foresaw a great war being fought in Europe.  In 1919, one Dublin man, S.M. Alsup, predicted  another world war, twenty years before it happened.  S.M. Alsup was a clerk with the American Forces in Treves, Germany.  On February 2, 1919, Alsup wrote a letter to his wife.  Alsup talked with German citizens and observed what was going on around him.  Alsup predicted "that if Germany is allowed to run her manufacturing plants and other industries to the extent of making it possible for her to pay the huge debt that she is supposed to pay, she will be on top again before we know it; at which time the war of all wars will be fought."  Alsup went on to write, "I certainly hope I am wrong, but my opinion is that in 1940 there will be another great war, if not earlier."  Alsup's prediction was right on the money - twenty years before Great Britain declared war against Germany and World War II began.  Dublin Courier Herald, June 20, 1940.

When producers of "Return to Macon County Line" began looking for a town in which to film the movie, they chose Forsyth, Georgia because of its resemblance to a 1950s town.  Back in the 1960s, Dublin businessman Earl Cannon told TV star Dan Blocker, of Bonanza fame, about his 1956 pink Eldorado Cadillac.  Blocker told the producers who contracted with Cannon to rent his car for the movie.  The producers paid Cannon $40.00 per day for the use of the car and its driver, Earl Cannon, Jr.  The car appeared in a scene early in the movie when co-star Don Johnson meets a car load of cheerleaders, who are driving the classic pink car.   Although the movie's stars, Don Johnson and Nick Nolte went on to bigger and better films, the movie, like most sequels, was not a big hit and can now be found on the clearance rack in video tape stores for about the cost of one blank video tape.

The Dublin High Tip Off Club sponsored a pair of basketball games to raise funds for Dublin High basketball on January 2, 1971.   The first game was between current Irishette players and former Irishette stars, a usual type of game for fund raising.  The second game was not so usual.  The nightcap was a game between the Atlanta All-Pros and Irish coaches and alumni.  Tom Perry, one of Dublin's greatest all time players, led the Dublin team with 22 points, followed by Lawrence Davis with 21 points.  Also playing for the Dublin team were Marvin Tarpley, Ben Snipes, Bill Roberts, Tal Fuqua, Earl Farmer, Ray Toole, Jim Richardson, Roy Hammond, and Louie Blue.  The Atlanta All Pros were a ten man team composed of non-basketball players.  Although they didn't play basketball for a living, they were among the better athletes in the country.  The All Pros were a team composed mainly of players from the Atlanta Braves.  The Atlanta All Pros lead all the way.  Bob Didier, a 21-year-old catcher for the Braves, shot two long range bombs and the baseball players never looked back.  Didier's 28 points were only exceeded by his battery mate, Ron Reed, a 6' 6" tall pitcher, who pumped in 34 points.  Sonny Jackson, the Braves shortstop, scored 11 points.  Also playing for the All Pros were pitcher, Jim Nash, Earl Williams, who would become the National League Rookie of the Year in 1971, and last but not least, Bob  Uecker, who managed to score four points.  Uecker, whose exploits on the field have been eclipsed by his unique brand of humor as a television and movie star, as well as a long time Milwaukee Brewer announcer.  The Atlanta All Pros were coached by Clete Boyer, an all-star third baseman who played for the Braves and the last great Yankee teams of the 1960s.  The Atlanta All Pros led by six at half-time by the score 45 to 39.  The Pros pulled away to win by the final score of 95 to 78.  The game was played in the old Dublin High gym, now known as the Junior High gym. Dublin Courier Herald, Jan. 4, 1971.

The City of Dublin refurbished the former Hilton Hotel on the courthouse square into a city hall.   John Kelley, Dublin's premier contractor, was hired to do the work.  As a part of the renovation work, Kelley and his crew installed a one ton bell in the top of the courthouse.  The bell was dubbed "Big John."  The fire department devised a process where the number of rings of the bells indicated what quadrant of the city the fire was occurring.  Alarm boxes were placed at various locations throughout the city.  When the alarm button was pushed, a particular box rang in the fire department office.  Then the bell was sounded to reflect the location of the fire.  There is one old tale of a man who always kept his ear open for the sound of the fire bell.  Upon the ringing of the bell, the man would proceed rapidly to the fire, climb on the roof, and break open holes in the roof with his ax.  Ignorant of the draft he was causing in doing so, many houses were lost.  Some sarcastic Dubliners stated that the motto of their fire department was "we never lose a chimney."    When the City of Dublin moved to its new quarters in 1959, the old city hall was doomed to demolition.  In 1960 the building was razed.  A local scrap metal dealer, P.M. Watson, Jr., purchased the bell.  His workers had an extremely difficult time in taking the bell out of the building.

The bell remained at Watson's place of business until Alonzo Boardman of Augusta came along.  Boardman had to have the bell.  He bought it and made arrangements to have it shipped to his garden fifteen miles from Augusta at Bath, near the notorious Tobacco Road.  Boardman's garden, known as Austrian Valley, was a 47-acre tract with lakes, fountains, terraces, and a hillside lodge.  Dogwoods, azaleas, and other varieties of plants adorned the Boardman home, which was modeled on an Austrian village.    Dublin Courier Herald, Feb. 2, 1967.

It looked like a scene out of World War II.  A B-26 bomber with flames coming out of it was falling to the earth.  The plane, a part of an outfit known as the Confederate Air Force, developed trouble on a flight from Louisville, Georgia to its home base of San Marcos, Texas.  The pilots jettisoned the cockpit and crash landed the bomber into a field belonging to M.O. Darsey.  Both pilots survived.  Dublin Courier Herald, May 13, 1976

She was not your typical southern police officer.   Kathy Hogan worked in the Dublin police department as a dispatcher.  That position was normally held by a female.  There were no female cops.  Many said that they couldn't handle the demands of the job.   Kathy, a resident of Dudley,  began to train for a position as police officer.  Within twelve days, she had completed the requisite courses and was sworn in as a officer of the Dublin police department on August 27, 1979.  Hogan's training would continue during her first year of duty.   Officer Henderson later advanced her career.  She has served on the Georgia State Patrol for nearly twenty-five years.   Dublin Courier Herald, August 28. 1979.

MORE FALLEN HEROES

A List Too Long

It was on a warm Sunday afternoon, some 14 plus years ago, on May 21, 2000  when the members of Laurens Leadership dedicated their project to honor those Laurens County law enforcement and public service officers who gave their lives in the performance of their duty to serve and protect our citizens.  The group raised a generous $50,000.00 in donations.  

The Dublin-Laurens community came together, as it always does, to ensure that no one would ever forget their lives they gave for us.

The memorial, designed by local architect David Woodburn, featured four half pyramid, black marble markers surrounding a star in the middle.    With the recent improvements to the area of the Bicentennial Plaza, the marker was removed with the plans to place it in a more suitable place, complete with a flag pole and appropriate appurtenances. After much study, the decision was made to permanently place the enhanced memorial between the Bicentennial Clock and the Railroad Park.

Now comes the part of this story that no one wants to talk about and that subject is new names.  Thankfully, no one has lost their lives since the first unveiling of the monument.

Through the efforts of the Laurens County Historical Society, more names can now be honored and added to the list of names of the fallen law enforcement and public safety officers of Laurens County.

As you may remember, the original marker contained the names of Laurens County Deputy Sheriffs, Kyle Dinkheller, Kip Brown and Wesley Stubbs, the latter of whom was killed in a car crash.  Stubbs, as he left the city limits, surrendered his title as Police Chief of Dublin and by agreement became a Laurens County Deputy Sheriff.    Three city policemen, John J. Webb of Dudley, Joseph E. Fennell and John Faircloth, both of Cadwell,  were all killed in the line of duty.  Danny Badgett, an EMT, lost his life while traveling to the scene of a deadly tornado which struck just across the county line.  Constable W.F. Pierce, at the time, thought to have been the first Laurens County law enforcement officer to have lost his life in the performance of his duty in 1904.  County Policeman W.E. Hathaway was killed in a liquor raid in East Dublin on Christmas Eve, 1919.  State Trooper, John D. Morris, a Dublin native, was killed while traveling to the scene of an accident. County Work Camp Warden John Coleman, who was killed in an accident,  rounded out the original eleven  honorees.

George Crawford was a law man.  He was a son of a lawman.  His daddy, a county sheriff, was slain while attempting to apprehend a prisoner.  Before this day, May 21, 1921,  was over, George too would take his last breath in the performance of his duty.

Laurens County's commissioners hired their own policeman to enforce the state law against moonshining.  Sometimes these officers conducted raids in conjunction with state and federal officers.  This time, county policeman George Crawford and his deputy, E.M. Osborn, set off to look for a still, which they believed was operated by one Math Holsey or his daddy, ol' man Green Holsey, way down in the lower extremities of Burch's District.

Ol' man Holsey burst into the breeze way brandishing a shotgun.  Crawford instinctively wrestled him to the ground and took his gun.  Osborn, out of the corner of his best eye, noticed the senior Holsey reaching behind  a crookedly hung picture frame and pull out an object. At first, he did know exactly what the old man had in his hand.  He was about to found out soon, frighteningly soon.

Crawford and Holsey fiercely fought for control of the weapon.  Deputy Osborn ran around to the other side of the scrum and beckoned to George, "What's he got George?"  Crawford screamed out, "He's got a gun!"

The officers and the occupants of the house continued to struggle.   A shot struck Crawford. "George was still breathing, but he never spoke and he died in two or three minutes," Deputy Osborn recalled.  

Crawford, described as a fearless officer,  had been a Laurens County policeman for two years.   This acclamation was attested to by the fact that during the entire clash with Green Holsey that he did not draw his gun, not once.  When the morticians were preparing his body for the funeral, they found Crawford's leather billy still secured in his pocket.

George Crawford was known to have been a policeman who fervently sought out makers of illegal moonshine.  It cost him his life and the eternal misery of his widow, his eight children and a host of friends.  But, no murder of a law enforcement officer would stop the fight to end crimes, whenever and wherever they occur.  The county commissioners recognized the magnitude of the moonshine problem.  So, they appointed not one, but two,  officers to carry on the battle.  Within two weeks of George Crawford's tragic death in the performance of his duty, Judson L. Jackson and J.K. Rowland stepped in and picked up the torch of justice to carry on the fight the rid the county of the evil demon rum.

The saddest day of the year 1888 came on a Monday, November 5.  On the Sabbath evening the night before, for some unknown reason, W.M. Scarborough, in a stuporous state took offense to his arrest by Dublin Town Marshal N.K. Watson.  As Marshal Watson pronounced that Scarborough was to submit to arrest for being drunk and disorderly, Scarborough plunged a dagger into Watson's neck, severing his jugular vein, spewing blood everywhere.  For five agonizing minutes, the city marshal lay dying.  It was the first time in the recorded history of our county that a public safety officer was killed in the line of duty.  Nearly two years later, Scarborough was exonerated by a jury of his peers.

George Martin, a convict guard at the Laurens County Prisoner of Work Farm, died an accidental death while in the performance of his duties on March 14, 1922.  Martin was attempting to clean an old pistol to be used in his duty as a guard.  After attempting several times to make the gun work, Martin handed the bothersome pistol over to Dewey Bedingfield, brother of County Warden, George W. Bedingfield.  Bedingfield, while tinkering with the pistol, accidentally caused the gun to fire.  A sole mortal bullet struck Martin in the abdomen, severely damaging his intestines and his kidney.  Despite all efforts to save the guard, Martin died in a local hospital a few hours later.

As we re-dedicate the Law Enforcement and Public Safety Officers' Memorial at the gateway to downtown Dublin, let us all hope and pray that never again shall any more names shall ever be added to the list, a list too long.

CLIPPINGS FROM OUR SCRAPBOOKS

Saving Our Past One Piece at a Time

Scrapbooks have been around for just a little more than two hundred years.  President Thomas Jefferson was one of the more notable early scrap bookers.  Jefferson clipped newspaper articles pertaining to his presidency for future compilation into a book.  Today, scrap booking is undergoing a revival.  It has become an art.  Entire stores are devoted to its most passionate participants.  The greatest compliment I receive from my readers is that they “cut my column out of the paper and saved it.”  No other blessing justifies the fruits of my passion for the past.  Let’s take a look at some pieces of scrap paper assembled by a foresighted ladies, who clipped previous pieces of our past so that we can remember them today.

Corporal punishment, brutally severe by today’s standards, was the order of the day in the early years of Laurens County.  In1812 a cattle thief was found guilty by a Laurens County judge.  The judge ordered  the convicted man be taken immediately to the public square and that his shirt be stripped off his back and his hands tied to a tree.  Thereupon the officer of the court administered thirty-nine lashes across his bare back.   The process was to be repeated the following day and the day after that.  After the third round of lashings, the court ordered that the thief be branded, much like the cattle he stole, with the letter “R” on his shoulder.  There was a way out.  The defendant could escape the lashings and the branding  if he paid the court costs, the sheriff’s fee and the charges of those who popped the whip and pressed the branding iron against his naked, bruised and slashed back.  Though “cruel and unusual” punishment was banned by both the Federal and Georgia constitutions, the practice of lashing wasn’t terminated until years later.

In order to protect escapes between lashings and other punishments, the Inferior Court of Laurens County ordered improvements to the jail in 1832.  The justices ordered that a ditch, five feet deep, be constructed around the perimeter of the jail.  The ditch would be of sufficient width to hold a vertical line of one-foot-thick timbers, which were to protrude from the ground to a height of three feet along the exterior walls.  The interior walls, also to be made of the finest heart pine timbers, were constructed of timbers laid in  horizontal positions to a height of one foot above the surface, to prevent tunneling by those who feared the whip.

In one of the most unusual cases of grand theft ever reported in Laurens County was the actual theft of a church. No, I did not say a theft of something in the church. I said the entire church building.  On September 12, 1952, the Deacons of Ebenezer Baptist Church appeared before Justice of the Peace Hill G. Thomas to swear out a warrant for the thief, or should I say the alleged thief, whom they accused of stealing their church building.  Deacon Ivey Stanley testified that when he was ill during the month of August when he abandoned his work on repairing the church.  Upon his return to the job, he found, much to his dismay, that the church building was gone.  Stanley formed his own one member posse and scoured the countryside for the missed church.  He found the transformed structure in the southern part of the county.   After an intense interrogation, the deacon found that Belle Coley sold the building to a Jab Haynes.  Haynes then dismantled the structure, moved the materials to a remote location and assembled them into his personal residence.  The duo was convicted of the theft and receiving stolen goods respectively.

In the days before our country became cognizant of our homeland security, airplane hijacks were fairly common events, especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  A Delta Airlines Super DC-9, carrying a crew of five and seventy-seven paying passengers, was headed to Savannah.  The flight, which originated out of Chicago, was about halfway from the Atlanta airport and its destination when an armed male passenger in the rear seat informed a stewardess that he was armed and wanted to go to Havana, Cuba.  At the time the plane was flying in a southeasterly direction directly above Laurens County.  The pilot of Flight 435 radioed F.A.A. officials and reported that the plane was being hijacked.  He yielded to the hijacker, who was carrying a bomb, and turned the plane in a southerly direction toward Havana, where the aircraft  landed at 10:34 p.m., some seven hours after it took off from Chicago.  The hijacking, which occurred on August 20, 1970, was the first of four hijacking of American planes in a five-day period.

It was a hot Sunday in 1950 when a Cuban army plane was forced to land at the Laurens County Airport.  For three days and over the July 4th holiday, the Cubans endured the hot heat of Georgia in July and enjoyed the warm hospitality of Dubliners while their plane was being repaired.  In his haste to leave Dublin and return to Cuba, Dr. Sanchez Arranga, the country’s Minister of Education, left a thousand dollars in cash in American money and considerably more in Cuban currency, along with his passport in his room at the Fred Robert’s Hotel.    Alberta Quilchey was cleaning Dr. Sanchez’s recently vacated room when she found the minister’s valuables.  She sprightly ran downstairs and reported her find to the hotel manager.  The astounded manager, recognizing the urgency of the situation, jumped in his car and dashed to the airport, just in time to present the grateful leader of a group of Cubans who were returning from a vacation in the North Carolina mountains.

Some hotel guests in Dublin didn’t receive such royal treatment.  Georgia governor Hugh Dorsey was the antithesis of ostentatiousness.  He was a plainly dressed man and looked like any other gentleman traveler of his day.  Governor Dorsey was due in Dublin on the day after Christmas in 1919.  The governor was in town at the invitation of the Chamber of Commerce to address the county’s businessmen on his plan for the Georgia Cotton Bank.  When the governor arrived at the depot on South Jefferson Street, he noticed the large crowd gathering on the piazza of the New Dublin Hotel anxiously awaiting his arrival.  He stepped from the rear of the train and decided to walk the short distance up the street to the hotel at the end of the block.  Hotel manager Stubbs Hooks noticed the visitor coming up the street.  The thought that he might be the eagerly awaited dignitary never crossed his mind. He expected only an exalted entourage would be accompanying the governor of Georgia.    In a matter of respect to the guest he told the man that he better go ahead and eat because a large banquet was about to take place.  The governor, not wanting to embarrass Hooks, told the anxious manager that he would wait and eat with everyone else.  As the governor began to mill around in the crowd, someone approached Hooks and informed him that the man he had just talked to was the man the reception committee had been waiting on.  Stunned and stymied, Hooks recovered from his blunder and greeted the governor in the appropriate manner, all the time thinking to himself, “how could I be so stupid.”

PROJECT BLUE BOOK

The Search For UFOs

Could four Dublin women, who saw five strange objects flying over the western skies over the city, really believe that what they had actually seen were unidentified flying objects? To them, they were real.  They had to be.  After all, they saw them with their own eight eyes.

The year 1952, it has been said by those people who study such things, was the year of the UFO.  It was no wonder that with movies such as The Day the Earth Stood Still,  The Man From Planet X, The Thing, It Came from Outer Space, and The War of the Worlds that a wave of sightings of flying saucers flowed into law enforcement offices and air force bases across the land.  Many believed that the mysterious things out there were flying saucers with little green men inside.

In 1952, the U.S. government established Project Blue Book.  This top secret project had two goals.  First and primarily, the agency set out to determine if these objects were threats to national security. And secondly, the Air Force wanted to gather as much data as possible relating to the sightings to explain their true identity.  Of the 12,618 sightings over an eighteen-year period, 701 still remain as a mystery, even to the most highly trained investigators.

It was about 5:30 on a warm Wednesday afternoon, the third day of September 1952.  Four young ladies were visiting with each other in their front yards, somewhere in the northwestern section of Dublin, probably around or near the Moore Street neighborhood.  The sky was clear except for a few small cumulus clouds.   Visibility was measured at 15 miles.

Government officials would later black out the names of the witnesses of what was about to unfold.  So, I will call them Mrs. X, Mrs. Y, Mrs. Z and Lady M.    Mrs. X, a 23-year-old woman, had just taken her kids for a stroll around the block, she sat down to rest a minute before preparing supper.  She stood up for a moment when her neighbor Mrs. Y asked her to look at a large open space with no trees.  She noticed five peculiar objects approaching from the southeast and moving in a straight line at an angle of 45 degrees above the southern horizon.  Mrs. X assuredly described the quintet as five distinct objects, flat and round, with a bright aluminum color,  further noting that they were as brilliant as diamonds and appeared to be two to three miles away.  Investigators noted that she was not intoxicated and did not wear eyeglasses.  Mrs. X told air force officials that she had no particular interest in “flying saucers,” but only knew what she had read about them in newspapers.  When asked to illustrate what she saw, Mrs. X drew five elliptical shapes with one flying in front and two rows of two following close behind and appeared to be as large as bicycle tires.

Mrs. Y, who had been out in her yard for forty-five minutes,  saw the objects first and quite by accident.  “I looked twice before I brought it to the attention of Mrs. X,” said Mrs. Y, who asked Mrs. X  to take a look at the object which appeared to flying in the direction of the V.A. Hospital.  Mrs. Y reported that the objects first appeared to be a dull color and seemed to look as if they were the size of an ashtray at the limit of her arms.  When they simultaneously tilted, they all became a brilliant color for a few seconds and then turned back to their initial dull appearance.  After five minutes, she said the objects, with two in front followed by three in the rear of the formation, disappeared into the southwestern skyline. Mrs. Y concluded her written questionnaire by stating, “I have never seen anything in the air that looked like these things.  I have no idea what they were,” the assured witness wrote.


Mrs. Z was talking with her neighbor, Lady M, when she shouted, “Look at those funny things!”  In confirming Mrs. X’s description of bright, shiny, round, and flat  objects with one object flying in the front of the formation, a true depiction of what the ladies saw began to take shape.

Twenty-eight-year-old Lady M confirmed the depictions of Mrs. X and Mrs. Z and added that they appeared to be two-feet wide as compared to something at the limit of her reach.

After the initial excitement, one of the ladies ran into her house and called radio station W.M.L.T.  She reported what she saw to Sara Orr Williams, the station’s secretary, who promptly alerted the station engineer, the most scientific minded person in the station that day, and they set out to the scene of the sighting.  Mrs. Williams, a former secretary to three United States senators and who also worked as a newspaper journalist, listened to their stories, paying attention to details, as she had been trained to do.  Nearly three weeks later, she reported to Major Robert E. Kennedy at the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.  Mrs. Williams told the major that although she didn’t see the objects, she earnestly believed their stories.  “So earnest were they in their stories, and so apparently convinced what they had seen was not jet planes, etc.,” said Mrs. Williams. “I deemed it proper to telephone the Air Force base at Warner Robins,” Mrs. Williams wrote.  Williams was met by two officers from the base the next day and took them to interrogate the ladies who saw the mysterious objects.

Reports of the sighting were broadcast during the evening news at 6:00  and  7:45.  After the last broadcast, a caller, who refused to divulge his identity, called into the station and reported that he saw five jet air planes flying toward Dublin around 5:00.

Air Force officials immediately contacted the control tower at Warner Robins to inquire as to the presence of both military and civilian aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting of the objects by the four women in Dublin.  Weather balloons were immediately ruled out.  It was reported that a bulldog flight of five B-29 bombers from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana were flying in the vicinity of Warner Robins on a circuitous route from Albany to Macon to Athens to Atlanta and back through Tuscaloosa.  Lt. Col. Ben Crain contacted Cochran Field in Macon and found that the first plane was over Macon at 4:21 p.m. and the last came over at 5:33.    With this flight record in hand, the Air Force concluded that what the ladies saw in Dublin were the five bombers.

But how could it have been?  Each of the four ladies reported that the planes were flying in a tight formation.  It seems certain that the first plane was not seventy-two minutes ahead of the last one.  If the planes were flying from Albany over Macon to Athens, they would have been flying on a northeasterly course and not a westerly one.  The one doubter in Dublin reported that the planes were 12 miles from town at 5:00.  Even flying as slow as the fastest car, the planes could have traveled sixty air miles in the next thirty minutes.

And what about the massive sightings for more than one hour  in Marietta just two days before by 37 people, including an artillery officer and B-25 gunner? And what about  eight people, including a pilot and bombardier, in Warner Robins two weeks later who saw a bright yellow-white light moving over the skies for twenty minutes?

No one knows what these ladies saw.  It may have been extraterrestrial and it just may have been a formation of military aircraft.  No one will ever know.  But perhaps, if you are one of the four ladies that were out in your yard on the afternoon of September 3, 1952 and saw these objects, call me immediately!

THE NAUGHTY AND THE NICE

  December 1913 was a rather eventful Yuletide season.  There were days of pleasant and nice news.  And, there were nights when the naughty ran amuck. 

The final month of the year brought the good news that everyone in Laurens County already knew. For the third year in a row, the county led the state in the production of cotton with a 50,000 plus bale crop.  

Accordingly, the banks of Laurens County reveled in their prosperity.  The county's six banks saw a one-third increase in their deposits.  Most pleasing to their stockholders was the virtual elimination of all bank debts.   The six-story First National Bank building was open for business. 

The Brandon triplets were all christened by Rev. W.R. Smith, a former minister of the First Methodist Church.  The impressive ceremony was the first known and probably only triplet christening in the history of the city.  

Once the Sun went down and the nights turned cold, things began to change.

A band of miscreants set their sights on the safe of the Bank of Dudley.  Housed in a simple wooden structure in the sleepy, isolated town of Dudley along the tracks of the Macon, Dublin and Savannah, the safe would be an easy target.  

As the criminals entered the town, they cut all of the telephone and telegraph lines, or so they thought.  They had hoped to be long gone before the town's residents could get word to the Laurens County Sheriff, some dozen crow-fly miles away in Dublin.  

The outlaws pilfered a railroad tool box, taking a pick and crowbar.  A local hardware store provided the necessary tools to pull off the caper, eliminating the need to bring their own explosives and equipment.   To their delight, the burglars found a cache of four shot guns and a half case of shells.  Twenty-five horse blankets were also taken in a futile attempt to muffle the explosion. 

The malefactors picked and hacked their way through the wall of the vault to find the iron safe.  When the nitro ignited, the safe door was blown clean off.   Inside, the hoodlums found the disappointing, but still rather large, sum of $412.00 in cash. What the culprits didn't realize was the bank kept most of its cash in a safer vault in a Dublin bank.   Leaving twenty dollars in small coins behind, the men dashed off into the darkness, confident that their scheme would be successful. 

A.P. Whipple, living nearby,  was awakened by three explosions of nitroglycerine.  He jumped from his bed, gathered his night clothes and sought out to investigate the source of the explosion.  Whipple spotted the band of yeggmen firing his gun and ducked as the fleeing felons escaped into the moonless, cold, rainy evening.  He suffered a slight wound in his thumb when the night watchman  fired back after Whipple refused his order to return to his quarters.   

Turns out, the rogues forgot to cut a single, yet critical line of communication, the main telegraph line of the Macon, Dublin and Savannah Railroad.  

As the town's folk rushed to the scene, a telegrapher was summoned, sending reports of the crime throughout the state.   Within minutes nearly every sheriff in the State of Georgia was alerted to the despicable act.  

As the dawn broke, quickly organized, heavily armed  posses set out on foot, on horseback and in automobiles to scour the countryside for any sign of the gangsters.  When the trail turned cold,  law enforcement agents gave up. 

Two days later, former railroad engineer J.H. Dover  and Thomas Daly, believed to have been the ring leaders of the Dudley robbery, were arrested when they arrived at the Central of Georgia Railroad Depot in Augusta.  Among their effects were portions of the money and checks taken from stores in Green's Cut on the night of the third of December, along with a quantity of nitroglycerin, guns and ammunition.  

Down the road in Cadwell, the theretofore silent Christmas night was shattered as Town Marshal John Owen went to the home of Henry Mullis to arrest one of his kinsmen.  When Marshal Owen attempted to leave the Mullis home, a multitude of Mullises pulled their pistols, furiously firing at the beleaguered marshal.  When the firing ceased, both Mullis's and Owens's bodies were bleeding a bright Christmas red all over the floor. Mullis was wounded by friendly fire from an inebriated ally.  Both men recovered.  Apparently, only F.M. Joiner was arrested and placed under a $1000.00 bond.

The Christmas season of 1913 was not so jolly for one Lewis Davis, alias Lewis McLaughlin.  Davis was tried  in August  and convicted of the 1904 murder of his wife Selma in the Brewton home of Ben Burney, the victim's father.  Davis, in the presence of several competent witnesses,  shot his wife three times and fled to Key West, Florida and Cuba  After a nine-year absence Davis returned for a picnic in Ocilla when the sister of his former wife spotted him and reported his presence to authorities, who immediately took the felon into custody.  

At his trial, evidence was introduced that Davis came in "talking big," that is until his wife and mother-in-law confronted him.  Davis, in his own defense, told the jury that his father-in-law attacked him with a stick of stove wood. Davis testified that he pulled his pistol and shot his wife  in self defense.  In the commotion which followed, Davis slipped away and wasn't seen in nine years.  

His attorneys appealed his conviction to the Georgia Supreme Court, which affirmed his death sentence on December 12.       On the day after Christmas, Judge Hawkins set his date with the hangman for January.  Despite the passionate pleas of Davis' attorney, R. Earl Camp, the execution remained on schedule.

As the January 24  hanging approached, Laurens County Sheriff J.J. Flanders began to make the necessary preparations for the indoor hanging in the Laurens County Jail.  To start out the new year right, Sheriff Flanders purchased a new grass rope which he boiled in tallow.  To make the hanging apparatus work properly, the Sheriff walked next door and picked up a tombstone from the  Laurens Marble Company, which was located in the former courthouse building.  The dense stone  made an ideal weight to hold Davis' flinching, wiggling, dying body until he drew his last gasp of breath.  

Davis's pastor made yet one final futile plea to spare his life.  He asked for a 30-day respite to allow the condemned man ample time to make peace with his God.  

  Promptly at 1:25 on a Saturday afternoon, Davis walked calmly to his death.  He confessed that he did indeed kill his wife with malice aforethought as he affirmed that he was ready to go straight to God's glory.  Twenty minutes after the trap dropped, the attending physicians pronounced that he was dead.  

EVERYTHING ELSE IS TRIVIA

When you think about it,  all news is trivia, at least to the apathetic and the ignorant.  Some things are well, much more trivial than others.  While these excerpts will never make their way into the historical annals of Laurens County, they are worth mentioning here, before time trivializes them into extinction.

NO HONEY BOO BOO -   J.B. Jones had a way of making things easier. He rarely made mistakes in his designs.   A bee keeper by avocation, Jones built his bee boxes in the normal manner.  To cut corners, Jones placed quart and half gallon jars on a partition in the middle of the box.  The jars had a hole so that the bees could crawl up into the jar, which was covered to prevent all light from coming in.  The bees would go up into the glass and fill each jar with the best honey.  When the jars were full, Jones simply flipped them over and put a air tight lid on to keep his product clean, fresh and oh, so sweet!   Springfield Missouri Leader, June 19, 1895.

ONE STUPID POSSUM - Mrs. W. W. Lane was in her kitchen fixing breakfast one morning when she noticed something, seemingly alive.  Mrs. Lane noticed a real live possum under her table.  So, she asked Mr. Lane to capture the creature and take him to the pen to fatten up and clean out the mistaken marsupial for a fine dinner.  Huntington Indiana Herald, September 18, 1919.

PISTOL BLUE PERSUASION - John Hester loved Alice Cobb so much that he went to Mrs. Cobb to ask for her daughter's hand in marriage.  The problem was that John was 14 and Alice, a very mature 12 years old.  Mrs. Cobb sent John, swearing vengeance, on his way.  The next day, Hester, somewhat drunk, reappeared and vowed to take his beloved even if he had to whip an army.

While Mrs. Cobb was cooking a Monday night supper, Hester pulled out a pistol, pointed it at the shocked mother and demanded that she consent.  Fearing for her life, Mrs. Cobb agreed and the couple were married by a local parson within an hour and a half.  Huntington Weekly Herald, October 16, 1891.

THE FIGHTING FELLOWS OF FLAT ROCK - In the 1890s, Justice of the Peace Court was held at the militia courthouse at Flat Rock, a couple of miles south of present day Minter in Laurens County.  On every 4th Saturday, complainants and criminals were brought before the  local Justice of the Peace, whose courtroom consisted of a wooden desk and bench positioned under an umbrageous pine tree.  In one of the first cases on the docket, John Hester, possibly our determined suitor, and Louis Pope presented their case before the court.

Hester accused Pope of doing wrong.  Pope took offense and a tempestuous tussle ensued.   All of a sudden the fight moved to the bench scattering the judge and a stack of Georgia code books onto the sandy, pine needle laden soil  Justice Thigpen implored the combatants to bring order in the court.  Intent on mauling each other, the men continued their fray.   Bailiffs and law abiding citizens stood by and enjoyed the fracas until enough was enough and the matter was settled out of court.

Messers Barfield and Horton were next on the docket.  The two long time feuders realized the finality of settling their differences out of court, commenced to fight it out.  Barfield  pulled out his knife and charged his antagonist after Horton cursed at him.  Only the intervention of bystanders kept the men from killing or severely wounding each other.

Horton, still on an adrenaline high, began a quarrel with old man Beatty.  This time the bailiffs pulled out their bud nippers and ended the foolishness on the spot.  Amazingly, Justice Thigpen imposed no fines for contempt of court.  Atlanta Constitution, March 5, 1895.

ABSENTEE LAND OWNER  -. Crawford W. Long, the discoverer of ether, once owned a 202 acre tract of land in Laurens County.  Long and his brother-in- law, Giles Mitchell, were given the land by Long's father, James Long, in 1848.  The land, designated as Land Lot 287 of the 22nd Land District, was sold to Quinn L. Harvard in 1862.  Today you can find the land by traveling west from hte Dudley exit on I-16 beginning about a half mile west of the exit and extending another half mile, on both sides of the highway. Deed Book P, pages 15 through 17, Laurens County Records.

WHO CARES ABOUT IT?  - San Soucci Creek flows in the Buckeye District of Laurens County.  The creek, which is located along the northern part of the old Blackshear Place, gets its name for a obscure French phrase which means "without care." Deed Book 136, page 719, Laurens County Records.

BIG NIGHT AT THE OL' FISHING HOLE -  It was a fall day in October 1873 when Messers Fuqua, Scanlon and Montford went down to the Oconee River for some night fishing.  During the darkness, the men used a net to snare 13 sturgeons weighing in the aggregate 1712 pounds.  Macon Telegraph, October 21, 1873.

WATERMELON MAN - Thomas Fuqua loved to eat watermelons, but just could not figure out how to preserve them for eating many months later.  So, he tried packing one in a container of cotton seed.  The summer fruit was still fit for eating in March of the following year.  Here it will be said that it was his ancestor, Henry C. Fuqua, who is credited for discovering the  use of cotton seed as a fertilizer.  Macon Telegraph, March 5, 1878.

FAMOUS FRIENDS - Alex Moffett of Dublin served in the Confederate Army in Co. B of the 2nd Battalion of the Georgia Volunteer Infantry.  Moffett served with the Macon Volunteers from May 29, 1861 until he was discharged on Sept. 11, 1861.  One of his company mates who also transferred out of the company was a local Macon boy, who later became known for his poetry. He was Private Sidney C. Lanier.  Moffett's wife's sister married Dr. Joseph LeConte.  Dr. Leconte was known world wide as a leading geologist and chemist in the 1800s.  Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, Vol. 6, pp. 790-1.

STAR TEACHER - Enda Ballard Duggan, of Dublin, once held the position of principal and teacher at McRae High School where she was saluted by a student as his best teacher.   When the student grew up to be a successful man, he never forgot his favorite teacher, staying in contact with her on a regular basis. That student was a future governor of Georgia and United States Senator, Herman Talmadge. LCN  5/12/1975, p. 4.

IN MEMORY OF HEROES  - Laurens County built its first public hospital in 1952.  Ten years later in the fall of 1962,  Laurens County changed the name of its hospital to Laurens Memorial Hospital to honor those Laurens Countians who had died in all of the wars.  Two decades later, the hospital was purchased by Hospital Corporation of America and was renamed Fairview Park.  Portions of the building are now occupied by Middle Georgia State College.  DCH, 10/13, 1962, p. 1.

FAST MAN FOR FURMAN - Robbie Hahn starred with the great Dublin Irish teams of the 1960s.  Hahn played football for Furman University, where as a sophomore split end, he set school records for pass receiving. In 1966, Hahn was named Co-National Lineman of the Week. In 1966 Hahn set a Southern Conference record for most yards receiving in a game with 178. His 81 yard touchdown reception against George Washington University set a conference record for longest pass reception.   In 1967, Hahn set three conference records and tied another in 1967.  He finished his career being named to the all Southern Conference team, as well as honorable mention on the national All-American team. DCH 12/10/1966,  p. 3, 10/31/1966, 12/8/1967.