Narration: There’S No Better Place in the Whole World Than Right Here, Traveling a Backroad in Georgia

GEORGIA PUBLIC BROADCASTING MORE GEORGIA BACKROADS CAPTIONING SCRIPT

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Narration: There’s no better place in the whole world than right here, traveling a backroad in Georgia. Backroads can take me anywhere my heart desires. Through beautiful landscapes – to the hearths of small town friends – even into the past.

Stand-Up: My name is Larry Jon Wilson and I was born and raised on a back road just like this one. My music takes me all over the world but places like this always call me home to Georgia.

TITLE SONG: I’ve seen the road to ruin, the road to fame, The high road and the low road and the road to shame And the road that leads me home again, That’s why I made this song. The Georgia backroads I’ve called home so long.

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UNDERWRITER Narration: More Georgia Backroads was made possible by a generous grant from the Ray M and Mary Elizabeth Lee Foundation, and by Viewers Like You. Thank You!

Narration: We’ll start our backroads adventure in the farmlands of southwest Georgia. Generations of farmers have worked these fields, their lives tuned to the seasons and the weather. But more than cotton, peanuts and pines spring from this soil. Here the backroad traveler can find elegant courthouses - quaint small towns - scenic rivers -and lots of surprises – some of them centuries old.

Matt Bruner The temple mound is the oldest temple mound in the state of Georgia. It is three stories high. It took over two million basket loads of dirt to make. The American Indians that lived here used weaved baskets. They toted them several miles and it’s believed it took several years for them to build it.

Narration: This is Kolomoki Mounds State Park, near Blakely. Native Americans lived here from 250 AD for about 700 years.

Matt Bruner #27 [04;11;07;00] There isn’t another site in Georgia that the dates date this far back. Also there isn’t a village area this size anywhere else. This is around 400 acres, 2000 people, seven mounds and it’s very significant to the archaeologists that we preserve this site so we can learn more and more for the future generations.

Narration: The temple mound towers over the site. From here Kolomoki’s priest chiefs could survey their domain: the plaza, which was probably used for religious ceremonies - the village, now being excavated from the woods – the four ceremonial mounds - and the burial mounds.

Matt Bruner They’re unique because of the remains inside of them. They have the chief priest buried in them but there was also a lot of sacrificial burials that went on here. The chief took his male servants with him, he took his wives with him, he took the pottery with him that are in shapes of animals, like ducks, bobcats, turkeys, all of the animals that we have here in Southwest Georgia and that the American Indians had at this time.

Narration: The most important piece of pottery is a rare human effigy. It was among the artworks stolen in 1974 when thieves broke into the museum. Professional collectors returned most of the pottery from flea markets and artifact sales. Now the treasures help to tell the story of a long-gone culture in the land of the white oaks, Kolomoki.

Narration: This part of Georgia was the last to be ceded by the American Indians. The fertile farmland soon attracted white settlers, and cotton was planted where the American Indians had grown their corn, beans and squash. Many towns were founded and flourished during the era of King Cotton. Among them was Cuthbert, which was named the Randolph County seat in 1831. It quickly became a center for business and for education.

Among the new schools was Andrew College, which was started by the Methodists in 1854 as a four-year college for women.

Karan Pittman In the 1860’s, it started a physical culture program and the physical culture program is of course physical education and we were the first college in the United States to offer physical culture to the young women.

Narration: By the early 20th Century, Cuthbert was home to an elegant courthouse and many fine homes. Georgia’s first pecan tree is said to have grown in the garden of the McDonald house. The town was thriving and so were the businesses on the square.

Brooke Hixon The building has always been a hardware store but it was also a doctor’s office upstairs, and also the funeral home. So they took you from the cradle to the grave.

Narration: Randolph County has been home to a number of famous people, including heavyweight champion, Larry Holmes and NFL star Rosie Grier. But one of its best-known native sons was bandleader Fletcher Henderson, who was born in Cuthbert in 1897.

Mary Kearney His family was a very strict family, careful about the way they walked, talked and they were always supposed to be at their best. And his father was a principal here. His mother was also one of our teachers and she was the music person, so she taught all of her children, all three of her children to play the piano. His father became like a father for a lot of the people in the community. They would sweep their yards, tidy up their fronts and everything for him. So it was a lot of respect.

Narration: Fletcher Henderson earned a science degree at Atlanta University then moved to New York for graduate work. Instead he launched a musical career by playing piano on a Hudson River Boat. Henderson’s musical arrangements laid the foundation for the Swing Era and his own bands were among the most successful black jazz bands of the 1920s.

Narration: As a bandleader, he helped the careers of saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and an up and coming trumpet player named Louis Armstrong. He later arranged music for Benny Goodman and influenced a host of other musicians, as the unofficial King of Swing.

Mary Kearney So the people that played with him or socialized with him or mingled with him, those are the ones that really kept his legacy going.

Narration: Henderson died in 1952 and lies beside his family in Cuthbert’s Greenwood Cemetery.

Narration: Leave Cuthbert in any direction and you’ll see pine trees. Tree farming is big business around here. For most Georgia farmers, working on the land is much more than just a job. For some it’s even a family tradition that goes back several generations.

Wynfred Morgan James My great grandfather Nathan Morgan purchased our farm in 1886 from Mr. Alexander Windsor and it has remained in our family ever since then. First great grandfather Nathan, then grandfather Milton, and my father, Carranza Morgan, have all owned this farm.

Narration: The Morgan farm is one of just a few black-owned farms in the state’s Centennial Farm program. Back in 1890, Nathan’s sons hauled lumber from a sawmill seven miles away to build the house that is home today to Nathan’s great grandson, Tony. Several of the original outbuildings have also survived, along with a host of discarded farm equipment that tells its own story of working the land.

Wynfred Morgan James It’s just amazing that they haven’t been destroyed or anything. Each time something is no longer in use it was just taken to a certain place to remain there.

Narration: George King can remember a time before any of the tractors when he worked for Wynfred’s grandfather, Milton.

George King He would feed me right here in that kitchen, I ate dinner here every day and he paid me a dollar and a quarter a day ploughing them mules from sun up to sun down.

Narration: Over the years, the Morgan Farm has been a source of pride for the family and community, and a favorite gathering place, especially during the time of Carranza and Mazie Morgan.

You could take them biscuits and sop them.

Carolyn Thompson And I can just see the long table and long benches. That’s where we all sat, you know. The boys would wait for the ladies to be seated. She demanded that and they’re just very, very pleasant memories. 5

Wynfred Morgan James It’s a special feeling when I return here. There are special plants that my mother put here and there are special trees and things that still remain here, that were put here years ago. So it has a really, real special feeling for me.

Carolyn Thompson Many years ago, down this road farther it was all a completely black community. They moved away. Their families let the property go. But at least the Morgan heritage is being carried on.

Narration: The Mother of Georgia’s Pecan Industry may be back there in Cuthbert, but her offspring shade many a backroad in this part of the state.

Narration: Our next stop is the neat little town of Leslie, which has a big surprise in store for us. The town is served by the SAM Shortline rail service from Archery to Cordele.

Narration: Often hundreds of people pour off the train here to visit The Georgia Rural Telephone Museum, housed in an old cotton warehouse. Tommy Smith, the longtime owner of Citizens Telephone Company, started the collection back in 1951 when crank telephones became obsolete.

Tommy C. Smith And the old phones, a lot of the companies were taking and piling them up and burning them. I was afraid to do that and I was afraid to put them in the river, so I decided to just keep them. And I kept them in an old warehouse and as time went on I just started hanging a phone or two around on the wall and really it just got out of hand.

Narration: There are now more than 5,000 telephone items hanging on the walls. Displayed in cases and in everyday settings, they tell the history of the telephone industry, starting way back in the late 19th century.

James Hines The first telephone, actually that they developed was the Gallows phone. They named things after things they were used to seeing and using in everyday life. The Gallows phone had sound but it was unintelligible.

Narration: Not very useful, but, back in 1875, it was close to a miracle.

Narration: The box phone was invented in 1877. Only two originals exist – one in the Smithsonian and one here in Leslie.

Narration: Operators and exchanges soon followed. The woman who used this 1882 equipment must have had a strong neck. It weighs 32 lbs!

Narration: By 1889, the operators’ jobs were threatened by an unlikely – and suspicious - inventor named Strowger who dreamt up automatic switching.

James Hines He was an undertaker. He picked up the paper one morning and found out that somebody else had his best friend’s funeral and so he wanted to get around the telephone operator because whoever did the telephone operator the biggest favor got the business.

Narration: Other highlights include a case full of elegant candlestick phones from the first few decades of the 20th century …

.. and Bell telephone’s last manually-operated switchboard, retired on Santa Catalina Island, California in 1970. Many people are still nostalgic for the era of the operator.

Tommy C. Smith You know, when the fire truck comes through town, all your lights on your switchboard light up – everybody wants to know where the fire engines are going and whose house is on fire – they give them all that information – and of course you don’t have that anymore. You just have a machine in an office somewhere and you mash some buttons and that’s all there is to it.

Silver dollar. Half dollar.

Tommy C. Smith If we don’t save something of history, whatever it may be, telephones or whatever we’re into, then it won’t be here for anybody else to see. So this is what we try to do here.

Hello, this is Bubba the Bear. Thank you for visiting with us at the Georgia Rural Telephone Museum We hope you have enjoyed all the exhibits and will come and visit with us again soon.

SW SONG Old man won’t you show me how to work this land to be my own man someday You’ve bent your back down all them years and never looked to no man for your pay You say working the land don’t make no man. It ain’t what you need to hear Sewing and reaping and laying by and cropping and chopping maybe gets you by for one more year The old man said, the old man said

Narration: Farming has been the way of life for folks in southwest Georgia for thousands of years. There have been good times and bad times on the land. Years of plenty and years of sorrow and hardship. In the 19th century, many of these fields were part of large cotton plantations, worked by slaves. In the early 20th century, after the cotton boll weevil struck, black and white alike struggled to make a living here. Today farmers can do well growing cotton and peanuts, but it takes a special kind of person to face the hard work and uncertainty.

Rusty Harris They’re a very innovative breed of person, they’re very optimistic. For a guy to go to a bank to borrow as much money as he does and put as much at risk as a farmer does, and still remain optimistic and feel that year in and year out, hurricane after hurricane, that he’s gonna do a good job and make a good crop, he’s a very special breed of person, that Worth County really embraces.

Dennis James You gotta be an expert mechanic, expert tractor driver. You gotta know how to do figures, gotta be a chemical expert. Every day I dread it, but at the end of the year you get a good yield of crop, and you’re proud of what you done, you’ve got some money, it makes you feel good. You take pride in something you own like farmland.

Narration: Dennis James farms land that’s been in his family for over 75 years. His father still helps him bring in the peanut crop.

Dennis James: Combining peanuts is real slow. And you have plenty of time to look around and just think, and figuring, plan on what you want to do, what you need to be doing, watching the clouds for the rain. It gives you plenty of time to think.

Narration: Since the Depression, peanuts have been the number one crop in Worth County, which claims to be the Peanut Capital of the World.

Bill Yearta And we’re real proud of that, and of course, peanuts are the backbone of our economy in Sylvester and still mean a great deal to our community. In my business, I can tell if the peanut farmers had a good year or not. [laughs] Christmastime they come in, and if it’s not a good year, you don’t see as many. [laughs] 8

Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the 41st annual Georgia Peanut Festival in Worth County, Georgia.

Narration: Every October, during the peanut harvest, Worth County turns out to celebrate its favorite legume.

Narration: The Peanut Festival kicks off with a parade through Sylvester’s historic downtown streets.

Rusty Harris That’s what we hang our hat on around here, is the peanut, and we’re proud to say peanuts are what we do best.

BRIEF NATURAL SOUND SEQUENCE

Narration: Peanuts have been important in Georgia for about a hundred years, but cotton has a much longer history, going back to the late 18th century. Cotton farming has had its ups and down in many ways, but today it’s a beautiful backroad sight and a big business.

Mark Mobley You know, a lot of your farmers today are consolidated because of economies of scale. You have bigger farmers now. You know, when I first got in the gin business twenty years ago, your average cotton farm was 500 acres. The average farmer now is 1800 acres. In season, when you’re harvesting and planting, and getting everything in, you start at daylight, and you may not come home until 8, 9, 10 o’clock at night. It’s nothing for us to work 80, 90 hour weeks, but when you grow up in that, you know, you’re used to it.

Narration: Several generations of Mobleys have farmed in Colquitt County and they are one of the county’s biggest businesses. Mark Mobley runs the family’s cotton gin.

Mark Mobley All we’re doing in the cotton gin is the same thing Eli Whitney invented over 200 some years ago. We’re separating the fiber from the seed. He had a wooden peg, that would come through two ribs and pull the fiber off the seed. We do it with saws now, and we do it a lot faster. .

Mark Mobley Some of my best times are when I can come out and just walk the fields, you know you kind of get back to the land, get back to what you’re used to doing, because I grew up, you know, on tractors and with equipment and, you know, working the land, and you love to get back out and do that. 9

Narration: From snowy fields of cotton to wide southern rivers, the backroads of southwest Georgia offer many eye-catching scenes and friendly places to stop and rest a while. Here you’re a long way from any big city, so slow down and take in the sights.

BRIEF MUSIC SEQUENCE TO END SECTION

EAST CENTRAL

Narration: This part of the state, East Central Georgia, is where my heart is. I was born and raised here and I know these backroads like the back of my own hand.

STAND-UP: It’s a region of farms and small towns - some that have seen better days. But there is a richness and depth of history here like no other. From the rolling hills of the Piedmont in the north, to the flatter land further south, every acre has a story to tell.

Narration We’ll start our backroads tour of this region at one of its oldest and most curious sites – the Rock Eagle.

Narration: The Rock Eagle 4H Center nestles against the Oconee National Forest. At more than 1,400 scenic acres, it’s the largest 4-H center in the country. It takes its name from the mysterious rock mound that it harbors.

Grant Crumbaugh: What is the Rock Eagle? A very large pile of quartz stone in the shape of a bird. .The Rock Eagle is a mystery, to be honest. There is a lot that we do not know about it. This is one of two effigy mounds found east of the Mississippi. Why are there only two?

Narration: Over the years, the two sites have provided more questions than answers. Experts think they had a ceremonial or religious purpose, but nobody is sure. Estimated to be about 2,000 years old, the Rock Eagle lay undisturbed until 1877, when Georgian, Charles Colcock Jones, Jr., surveyed it for the Smithsonian.

Grant Crumbaugh: He was a wealthy fellow that went around a lot and worked on a southeastern collection of native artifacts. Today we would call him a looter. At that time he was associated more with archaeology. 10

Narration: More modern archaeology was done in the 1930s and ‘50s. A quartz tool and a few human and animal bones were found, but they threw little light on what is probably one of the oldest sites in the state. So, the big questions still remain. Why was the Rock Eagle built? And who built it? For now, at least, the Rock Eagle is keeping its secrets.

Narration: Just south of Rock Eagle, lies the old town of Eatonton, home of authors Joel Chandler Harris and Alice Walker.

From Eatonton, scenic Georgia 16 wanders East, offering views of Putnam County. It roughly follows the route of the Oakfuskee Trail, a prehistoric trading path through the southeast.

Narration: Just south of Lake Sinclair, we cross the Oconee river into historic Hancock County. This land between the Oconee and Ogeechee Rivers was opened to white settlers in 1784.

John Rozier With the invention of the cotton gin, Hancock became a great cotton producer in the fairly early 1800’s. And at one point before the Civil War, it was the largest cotton producer in the state of Georgia. It became a very wealthy county.

Narration: Today, the antebellum elegance of Sparta, the county seat, is much faded, but its fine old buildings can still tell some fascinating stories.

John Rozier There’d been this famous trial that old timers still talked about and remembered. And of course all that was fresh news to them – the big trial about David Dickson’s estate. It was a big event – it drew reporters from across the country and the New York Times said it had made Amanda America Dickson the richest colored that was – their words – the richest colored woman in the United States.

Narration: Amanda Dickson was born in 1849 on the Dickson Plantation. Her mother, Julia, was a 12 year-old slave, who had been raped by her master, David Dickson. Dickson was by far the wealthiest man in Hancock county, an innovative farmer with extensive plantations. He made Julia his housekeeper but gave Amanda a privileged and protected life.

Kent Anderson Leslie She’s unusual in that she could read and write. Most women in Georgia from 1849 to 1892 couldn’t read and write. Most people in Georgia couldn’t read and write. She could play the piano. She’s very unusual in that she is a bi-racial lady in a culture for which that category really doesn’t exist.

Narration: Amanda married a white first cousin, but the marriage didn’t last and she returned to her father’s house. Eventually, David Dickson also married.

Kent Anderson Leslie She came into a situation where Julia was in charge of everything that went on, and there was David’s daughter and she asked her husband to send them away and he wouldn’t and so she herself leaves.

Narration: When Dickson died in 1885, he left most of his huge estate to Amanda. And so the scene was set for the famous trial.

Kent Anderson Leslie Seventy of his white relatives from all over the country signed a petition to throw the will out. They stooped to any level to try to break the will because it was such a huge amount of money. And of course we were very fortunate that the trial transcript wasn’t destroyed. You can hear these people arguing and trying to think it through.

Narration: There was no Georgia law stopping an illegitimate bi-racial child from inheriting, so Dickson’s will proved watertight and Amanda became the richest black woman in the country. She bought a large house in an elite section of Augusta, where she married again and died in 1893.

More than a century later, the presence of Amanda, Julia and David can still be felt in Julia’s Sparta home, now a museum - and on the Dickson Plantation.

Kent Anderson Leslie It’s a very eerie thing to walk through that pecan grove that’s there and think about her and think about Julia being there, to wonder where the rape took place, to wonder about people getting up in the morning, seeing the sunrise, experiencing the heat there as real living, breathing human beings living in such a complicated situation.

Narration: Its plantation wealth long gone, Hancock County is now one of the poorest counties in the state – but it is still rich in natural beauty, history and hope.

John Rozier Fortunately, the charm of the town and beauty of some of the houses has attracted people who are there restoring some of them. That’s encouraging to me, makes my heart glad.

Narration: The Ogeechee River flows along Hancock County’s eastern border. It is one of the last undammed major rivers in the country. On the other side lie Warren and McDuffie Counties, which grew up with the railroads.

Although Putnam County claims to be the dairy capital of Georgia, Warren and McDuffie also have their fair share of cows.

NARRATION: The multitude of small family farms, has become just a few large dairy businesses, but you can still find families whose roots go deep. The Rodgers have run Hillcrest Dairies since 1941.

Mark Rodgers Cow numbers have grown in this area. There’s just two dairies left in this county, us and Whittaker Farms. And between the two dairies, we’re probably milking more than all the existing dairies were back from the 40s and 50s. Whereas it was mostly real small family farms milking 30 or 40, we’re both milking a little bit in excess of 300. The cattle feed us, and we feed the cattle. It’s a mutual beneficial system for us and it’s a good location, and a good place to raise a family.

Narration: Just down the road from Hillcrest Dairies, is a family farm of a very different kind. McCorkle Nurseries started out small in 1942, but has grown to be one of the state’s largest wholesalers of ornamental plants. They stretch as far as the eye can see – about 14 million of them – destined for stores and nurseries all over the southeast.

Narration: Back in the late 18th Century, naturalist William Bartram traveled through Georgia and described the landscape around here as covered with stately and sublime forests. There are few places he would recognize, but this is one, Kiokee Creek in Columbia County

Narration: Here, in 1772, Rev. Daniel Marshall founded one of the first Baptist Churches in Georgia. It was a brave move that would have long-lasting consequences.

Steve Hartman He was told by the authorities in Georgia, which was an Anglican state, to not cross the border. He did, and founded Kiokee Baptist Church. And as a result, was arrested. He was on his knees in prayer and the authorities came, hauled him to Augusta, and the magistrate at the time was a gentleman named Samuel Cartledge, who, five years after Marshall’s arrest, was not only converted, but became a member of Kiokee, was baptized here, and became a deacon in the church.

Narration: Kiokee’s first two buildings were short-lived, but, in 1808, the congregation moved into its third church. They added the balcony twenty-five years later, so that slaves could attend the services.

From its humble beginning, Kiokee became an important influence in the Baptist church.

Steve Hartman: . It was responsible for the founding of the Georgia Baptist Convention, which is the state convention. And one of the churches that grew out of Kiokee, the First Baptist Church of Augusta, was the birthplace of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest Baptist denomination.

Narration: Today, Kiokee is honored as the oldest Baptist congregation in the state, the mother church of Georgia Baptists.

Narration: Over the centuries, this sleepy east Georgia landscape has proven fertile in more ways than one. From this soil sprang writers, musicians and one of the world’s comic geniuses.

Frances Hardy Newby I never fail to tell anyone that when they ask, well who was you before you married, and I say, Oh, I’m a Hardy. I’m Oliver Hardy’s third cousin. And they say, oh no! Oh no! [laughs]

Movie clip Oliver Hardy: Well, how about a nice cool drink.

Stan Laurel: Well that's great. I will just put me in the mood. 14

Frances Hardy Newby Just an adorable person, to say the least. We still think of “Cuddin Oliver” as part of our family.

Narration: Oliver Norvell Hardy was born in the little railroad town of Harlem on January 18th, 1892.

Kathy Ham His father passed away when he was only ten months old, and the mother packed up the family and moved to Milledgeville. At that point, she started running a boarding house in Milledgeville, Georgia, and that’s where he actually grew up and went to school there. He had a beautiful singing voice, and loved to sing, so, in the lobby of the hotel that his mother ran, he would entertain troops that came through.

Narration: In 1910 a movie theater opened in Milledgeville and Hardy found a new obsession. Three years later, he moved to Jacksonville, where movies were being made, and soon appeared in his first film. In 1917, with more than 150 movie credits to his name, Hardy moved to Los Angeles, where he would meet Stan Laurel and become a movie legend.

Movie clip: Didn’t I tell you to quit that?

Despite Hardy’s short time in Harlem, the town has claimed the comedian as its own. Since 1989, Harlem’s 2,000 residents have welcomed up to 30,000 fans for the annual Oliver Hardy Festival.

Hello there, how are you? Welcome to Harlem.

Kathy Ham We have visitors from all over the world that come, people that just are very excited that we are here. They’re very excited to find us. They had no idea that we were here.

Gino Dercola Some of the spots here in Harlem are just overwhelming for me, just to be a part of, to see where he was born, to see Ollie’s Laundry, which was there, near that spot now. I just love coming down and being near that.

Narration: For diehard fans and casual tourists, the Laurel and Hardy Museum in the old post office, opens a window on Stan and Ollie’s lasting appeal.

Gino Dercola Just the timing of the scenes that they did, and the comedy that they had, and the relationship that they showed on screen, has been unmatched as far as I’m concerned by any comedy. And it’s like the Mona Lisa. It’ll always be appreciated a thousand years from now, 15 because beauty never dies. Their films are like that. They’re made by geniuses. Their comedy will always last. Movie clip Stan Laurel: Goodbye Oliver Hardy: Goodbye Stan Laurel: Where are we going? Oliver Hardy: I have no idea.

EAST CENTRAL SONG Farmhouse leaning and the barn is rotten My back is bent now from chopping cotton I’m aching, I’m aching From boxing pines and cropping tobacco A wore out mule and a no-count tractor quit now This is it now The land has brought me pain and sorrow The Trailway’s coming through tomorrow And I’m leaving, just as quick as I can, Lord From this wore-out farmland …

Narration: This same worn-out farmland inspired one of Georgia’s most important writers. In the 1920s, Erskine Caldwell was starting out at a newspaper in Wrens. As he explored the farming country around here, Caldwell saw the poverty and despair of the sharecroppers and day laborers and told their heartbreaking stories in more than sixty works, including the best sellers “Tobacco Road” and “God’s Little Acre”.

Narration: In Caldwell’s day, Wrens was a busy railroad town.

Dollye Wren Ward There was a guy called Uncle Charley that would tell everybody, the train’s coming, get the mailbag ready. And many people would gather around the depot, which was the center of town at that time, and there was a lot of activity and conversation, probably solved all the world’s problems at the time.

Narration: But the trains stopped running during the Great Depression – and never came back. Today, Wrens is a quiet little town, except for the junction where Route 1 goes through town. That’s where you’ll find Hog Wild Johnson.

Lester Hog Wild Johnson This is your old buddy, Lester “Hog Wild” Johnson. Selling a heap, selling them cheap. Now’s the time to come see your old buddy. If you’ve got a quarter or fifty cent, I’ve got a deal for you. Eat more fruit and vegetables and protect your health.

Narration: South of Wrens, along the old stagecoach route, lies Louisville, the Jefferson County seat. The town was designed to be Georgia’s permanent capital and did serve as our third capital from 1796 to 1806, when it ceded the honor to Milledgeville. The only 18th Century structure left is the Market House in the center of town. Everything was traded here, including slaves to work in the cotton fields. Today Jefferson is a poor county but it has some very pretty backroads, well worth exploring.

Narration: Washington County lies across the Ogeechee River. It has also seen its ups and downs, but is currently up thanks to this - kaolin.

Narration: The historic county seat, Sandersville, is thriving. Many of its late- 19th century homes have been restored by newcomers who work in the kaolin industry, but there are still plenty of old-time families too.

Mary Alice Jordan: . In fact, my son is a seventh generation of the first Jordan who came in the late 1700s. When you have the history of the dirt that you are walking on, it makes it more personal. It’s such a comfortable, warm, loving place to live.

Narration: There were Jordans here back in 1864, when Yankee General Sherman took a nap on a couch at the Brown House during his March to the Sea.

And in 1915, when the boll weevil arrived and devastated cotton crops for the next sixty years. But the people of Washington County didn’t have to look far for their economic salvation.

Jo Cummings Well, the kaolin was waiting on us to need it, perhaps. The first that I know was a man named Luther U. Campbell, and he began mining it in the 1920s. But it was a small scale thing until after World War Two, when an admirable and diligent businessman who owned the Sandersville Railroad made it attractive for the people interested in kaolin to locate their processing plants at his railroad sidings. 17

Sam Smith: It’s one of just a few places in the world where high quality kaolin deposits are found. It’s in this location because about 50 to 100 million years ago, it formed up in the Piedmont from feldspar, and then it was washed down to what was then the edge of the ocean, and the kaolin settled down in lagoons and swamps along the edge of this ocean. Narration: Kaolin is found all along the edge of that ancient ocean – an area we call the fall line.

Sam Smith And what you do, you take cuts. So that you make one pit of a few acres and then you mine that out, then you make the next one, put the dirt back in that pit, so that it just keeps moving, and when you get down to the clay, the backhoes dig the clay, putting it on trucks and hauling it up to where it’s going to be processed.

Narration: Once the digging and hauling are done, trees are planted or a pond is created and the process moves on. Kaolin, also known as china clay, has multiple uses, ranging from paper and plastics to ceramics and paint. And Georgia’s kaolin is some of the best. The industry provides work for thousands of people, which is a great reason to celebrate. Each year since the 1950s, Sandersville has hosted a Kaolin Festival.

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Narration: Whether we’re celebrating kaolin, blueberries or bluegrass, we Georgians are festival experts - and there’s no better way to arrive than on a backroad.

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Narration: Southeast Georgia is a land of trees – live oaks on the coast, cypress in the swamps …

SOUTHEASTERN STAND-UP #46 03;41;58;00 – 03;42;30;18] .. pines just about everywhere. The past, present and future of this part of the state seem to be carved in wood.

Narration: Here the rivers have musical names that link us to the state’s first inhabitants: Ogeechee, Canoochee, Ohoopee - and, of course, the Savannah.

Narration: This is the Savannah River, looking much as it did back in 1734, when a group of German Lutherans landed here, fleeing religious persecution in their homeland. This was the upper limit of the 9-month-old colony named Georgia, 25 miles upstream from Savannah. General Oglethorpe charged the new arrivals with defending Savannah and gave them a swampy town site by Ebenezer Creek.

Rita Elliot They came from the Salzburg area, where you may think of The Sound of Music, the Alps, the mountains, the snow and they came to South Georgia where it’s hot and humid and there’s mosquitoes and malaria and alligators. So it’s they must have just thought that they’ve died and gone to hell, I can’t imagine.

Narration: Many of the Salzburgers did die at Old Ebenezer. Reluctantly General Oglethorpe allowed them to move to a more healthy bluff overlooking the Savannah River. There, in 1736, they founded New Ebenezer. Today it seems to be a ghost town - but appearances can be deceiving.

Rita Elliot Everything is still there, all the important stories are still there and the artifacts and the features underground. People walk over them everyday when they’re walking around Ebenezer and don’t realize that.

Dan Elliott It was a bustling place and it would have been lots of skilled tradesmen, blacksmiths, carpenters, lot of noise and pigs and smells that would have greeted you.

Narration: Led by Pastor Boltzius, New Ebenezer grew and prospered thanks to the hard work and discipline of the devout Salzburgers. They began to produce and ship silk, provided food to Savannah and as far away as New York, and made medicines.

Martha Zeigler They had the first toll bridge and they had the first sawmill and they had the first gristmill, they had a rice mill and they had one of the oldest Sunday School buildings in America.

Narration: The Revolutionary War would end all that. The town was occupied and re- occupied by opposing forces and left in ruins. The Salzburgers began to move away and New Ebenezer had all but disappeared by 1855. Today the site is used as a retreat and conference center.

Dan Elliott You can see the church at Ebenezer today, that’s the only standing building from the Colonial Period in Ebenezer. There is a graveyard but none of the tombstones that you’ll see in the graveyard date to the Colonial Period. The oldest one, I think, is 1813. There is also a very well preserved Revolutionary War earthwork in the woods at Ebenezer. It was built in the early 1779 by the British.

Narration: The Elliotts have been digging at New Ebenezer since 1987 and have still only scratched the surface of this important site. The town may be lost from sight – for now – but the Salzburgers are not. New Ebenezer’s descendants live near and far and they keep the legacy alive. The Georgia Salzburger Society maintains some historic buildings and a museum on the bluff above the Savannah River. And the church, built way back in 1769, still has an active Lutheran congregation.

Martha Zeigler The past is important to me because of what we were and I’d like to know I could still take that great stand and be the type of person that they were.

Narration: This region is where our state began and the backroads offer many glimpses into our past .

The land here is sandy, thanks to the prehistoric sea that once covered this area, but it produces good crops, including our world-famous sweet Vidalia onions. Many of the crops rely on these – honey bees. Georgia is one of the leading bee-producers in the nation and nobody knows bees like Reg Wilbanks of Claxton. 20

Reg Wilbanks Wilbanks Apiaries came to be when my great-grandfather gave my grandfather four colonies of bees as a wedding present in the mountains of Northeast Georgia. My grandfather expanded that number from four colonies to three hundred with the help of my father growing up as a young boy and they produced honey and sold it in the mountains of Northeast Georgia and then the Atlanta, Georgia area.

Narration: After losing their mountain home to fire, the Wilbanks moved to South Georgia, which has a better climate for honey production. In the 1980s, mites killed off nearly all the wild bees causing a pollination crisis and the production of the bees themselves became more important than their honey.

Reg Wilbanks Presently we employ about twenty people and our beekeeping operation is spread over six counties and we run approximately 6,000 colonies of bees. They go into the colonies, find the queen and there’s only one queen per colony, then they set out the frames or racks of bees, place the queen back in the hive along with enough bees to care for the developing brood and what we determine as surplus bees we shake into this funnel which goes into a package and then a food source, which is high fructose corn syrup, is placed in along with a young queen that we’ve raised and they’re crated up and they’re ready for shipment. We produce about between 15 to 20,000 packages per year and raise about 60,000 queen bees.

Narration: Queen bees are raised in a special area by tricking nature. A larva that would turn into a worker bee is given royal treatment

Reg Wilbanks We graft it, or we remove it from the comb it was laid in, transfer it to a cell of larger size, put it in a queenless environment and the bees will change its diet, give it a rich diet of royal jelly and it will develop into a queen. We can raise them commercially and do large numbers of queens by this process.

Narration: Wilbanks bees are shipped worldwide, by truck, plane and the good old U.S. Mail. In this country, they become part of the 2 million or so bee colonies that are responsible for pollinating over 14 billion dollars worth of agricultural crops each year.

Reg Wilbanks Everybody should look at the bee and not think of it as something that stings and just produces honey because one out of every three bites of food you put into your mouth you can thank the honeybee for.

Southeastern song 21

Planted fields and grist mill wheels A plank bridge and a clay road Always make me feel at home I know I’m close to home.

A cane mill and a rosin still Sleeping to the sound of a whippoorwill Makes me feel I’m close to home Makes me know I’m home

Narration: Southeast Georgia is blessed with wide rivers flowing to the Atlantic, and the mightiest of them all is the Altamaha. Formed by the Ocmulgee and the Oconee rivers, the Altamaha drains almost a quarter of the state.

Narration: This is also a region of pine trees. For generations the pine forests rang with the songs of the turpentine crews, especially in Appling County, which was known as the Turpentine Capital of the World. The turpentine industry here began just before the Civil War. Back then, the pine tar and pitch, known as naval stores, were used to protect wood and ropes on sailing ships. By the end of the 19th century, hundreds of people were working in the forests, collecting gum from the slash and longleaf pines. [

Rooney Tillman I was born into the turpentine industry. I started working in it when I was five years old, helping my father and there was a lot of farmers here also and, and other kinds of businesses too but a big thing was the turpentine though. That’s where most of the money come from.

Narration: Turpentining meant hard labor, year-round. Many workers lived with their families in special shanty camps, buying supplies on credit from the camp store and rarely getting out of debt. A unique culture of words, songs and skills developed. In the spring they would prepare the pines. Each worker could be responsible for up to 12,000 trees.

Rooney Tillman They’d drop you out at 7 o’clock in the morning and we had to chip the trees at that time, all day long. And then after one month, they start dipping every month, dipping the tar up and hauling it in to the mill. In the fall, the last thing they do when they get, when it’s time to quit, they go in there and scrape anything that’s left on that tree off with a, with a scraper. They had steel scraper and that was a lot of fun too

Narration: At the still, the gum was distilled into turpentine for paint thinners and varnishes, and rosin for paper, soap, ink and other products.

Narration: Turpentine was Appling County’s liquid gold for more than half a century. But then, in the 1950s, the price of timber rose.

Rooney Tillman Originally each tree would produce its value each year in gum. If the tree was worth a dollar, you’d get a dollar’s worth of gum out of it a year. Well, after a while, it got to where that tree was worth twenty dollars, you know, and it wasn’t worth working it then.

Narration: Higher labor costs, foreign competition and new ways to produce turpentine weren’t far behind. Now, only one plant remains and most of its raw materials are imported.

The songs of the turpentine crews may have faded away, but their stories and culture have not. Baxley celebrates them every year with TreeFest. music

Narration: Forests, fields and wetlands still take up most of this region and people are thin on the ground. Back in the late 19th century, it was even more isolated, especially around the great Okefenokee Swamp. Here another unique culture developed – the swampers. They lived off the land, hunting, fishing and trapping, while their cattle and hogs grazed in the piney uplands around the swamp. This pioneer lifestyle is remembered at a number of places around the Okefenokee including Obediah’s Okefenok on the Swamp Road outside Waycross. The homestead, built around 1870, draws tourists and school students, learning about swamp lore …

This is a canebrake rattlesnake

Narration: … and Obediah Barber’s own family, learning about each other.

My mother was Stella Barber. Oh, I talked to you on the phone, didn’t I? No, you talked to our son. No, you talked to our son.

You don’t see a Tatum without we don’t kiss, we don’t hug and kiss.

He drove 85 miles to get here at 94 years old. That’s an accomplishment let me tell you,

Narration: Standing six feet six inches and strong enough to kill a bear with a stick, Obediah was known as the King of the Okefenokee. He populated his kingdom with 21 children. His 5,000 plus descendants always have new relatives to meet, many recognizable by the famous Barber ears.

I see you still got your ears on. Yes Sir! He's got those Barber ears.

Narration: Figuring out exactly how they are related is not always easy. Obediah had three wives. The first, Nancy Stephens, died of a stomach ailment, after bearing him eleven children.

Bobby Tatum His oldest daughter which was my grandmother, Mary Margaret, she had already married Matt Tatum and she was out and gone. They lived two miles down the road. So it was very convenient for Obediah to go out there and court his son-in-law’s sister.

Narration: Obediah had nine more children with his second wife, Mathilda, and also raised a child she had adopted. With such a large family living in such a small cabin, discipline was important.

Bobby Tatum But those children usually were well mannered, well behaved.. They knew what they could do, when they could do it, when to go to bed and when to get up. And sometimes there would be three or four people that slept in one bed.

Bobby Tatum They had everything that they needed, they had everything that the downtown people had but they had peace and quiet, they had piece of mind, they had good friends, And 24 almost everybody was related to each other in one way or the other through marriage or through blood. It was not all that bad. You know, you look around right now and you see nothing but beauty and that’s the way it was back then.

Narration: Life was simple and remote and everyone worked hard, but Obediah was by no means poor. By 1880 he owned more than 1,500 acres and was a respected swamp guide. In 1898, aged 73, Obediah married his third wife, 26 year-old Martha. They divorced, with no children, in 1907 and Obediah died two years later.

Bobby Tatum He proved that you could make it if you worked., make a living, get ahead, take care of his family and have pride. So I think he left a great, great heritage. I think he left a lot to us all.

Sabina Murray He was a very generous person that would help anyone and we need more people like that in the world. So hopefully there are a lot of descendants like him

Narration: Barbers, Chessers, Lees, Mizells - The Okefenokee bred lots of tough, resourceful people who shaped the past and still influence this part of our state. Any backroad that takes you to this rare and beautiful place, is one well worth traveling.

CLOSING STAND-UP Will Rogers said he’d never met a man he didn’t like. Well, I’ve never met a backroad I didn’t enjoy! The sights and sounds and people have inspired my songs for years and keep me coming back for more. From the mountains to the Okefenokee Swamp and from the Chattahoochee to the Atlantic, Georgia’s backroads promise rich experiences in the slow-lane of life. You know, I think I hear another backroad calling me right now!

TITLE SONG: I’ve seen the road to ruin, the road to fame, The high road and the low road and the road to shame And the road that leads me back home again, That’s why I made this song. The Georgia backroads I’ve called home so long.

UNDERWRITER Narration: More Georgia Backroads was made possible by a generous grant from the Ray M and Mary Elizabeth Lee Foundation, and by Viewers Like You. Thank You!

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