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Clay Co., GAGenWeb Project
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©Copyright 2007 -
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By Mattie Thomas Thompson
Some time ago I read in the Journal's Sunday
Magazine an article on "Lost Towns of Georgia", and ever since then my
thoughts have been going back to the historic old town of Cotton Hill, in Clay
County, Georgia. Cotton Hill exists only as a mass of ruins now, but it
used to be a wide awake town where a famous co-educational seminary was located.
The President of the school was Prof. Cooledge, uncle of the President of
the United States.
Cotton Hill was about fifteen miles from either
Cuthbert, Fort Gaines, or Eufaula, Alabama, near the point where the three
counties Clay, Quitman, and Randolph join.
I grew up familiar with the history of the town because
my mother was graduated from the Cotton Hill Seminary just before the War
Between the States, and when I was fourteen years old, she took me over there to
attend an old-fashioned "protracted meeting conducted by Rev. Thomas Muse,
a dearly beloved pioneer preacher of Southwest Georgia, known as "Uncle
Tommy Muse".
I still remember the beautiful and hospitable homes of
Jester, Shivers, Boyette, Oliver Morris, Green, Ray, Watson, Crozier, Adams,
Kimbal, Beauchamp, Davir, wealthy farmers whose plantations were the show places
of Southwest Georgia.
Many parties were given all over the countryside for my
mother and the half dozen girls and boys she had brought with her from Eufaula,
and we rode to them in carriages drawn by fine horses. There were also
picnics and concerts, for music had been stressed at the seminary where most of
the residents were educated.
Cotton Hill Seminary at the time Prof. Cooledge was president
of it, ranked with the best institutes in the South. There have been many
conflicting stories published concerning the relation between this well-known
teacher and Calvin Coolidge. The facts, however, as my mother told them to
me, are: About 1854, the Cotton Hill school was without a president, and the
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, T. P. Jester, who had himself taught in
the school, advertised in several southern and eastern newspapers for a
president for the school.
The advertisement was answered by Norman Flavius
Cooledge, of Vermont, who had come to Georgia three years previously to enjoy
the southern climate. He was the eight of the twelve children of Luther
Cooledge, of Vermont, and the brother of John Coolidge, father of the President
of the United States.
Norman F. Cooledge accepted the proposition made him by
the Cotton Hill School, and under his presidency the institution became a famous
seminary with a large faculty of fine teachers.
During the second year of the War Between the States
one hundred and three young men, students of Cotton Hill Seminary, joined the
Army. Prof. Cooledge, discouraged, stopped teaching to go into business.
The glory of the school then vanished, as did later the
wealth of its patrons and supporters. After the war, Prof. Cooledge went
to Dalton, then to Norcross where he lived until his death in the nineties.
He was the grandfather of Atlanta's prominent citizen and well-known
businessman, F. J. Cooledge.
The difference in the spelling of the names of Norman
Cooledge, and his nephew, Calvin Coolidge, occurred by accident when the former
went into business after the War Between the States.
Norman Coolidge began operating a grist mill in
Norcross when he found that teaching was unprofitable. He ordered a
hundred sheets of business paper and fifty envelopes from an Atlanta firm and
directed that these be marked with his name. When the stationary arrived,
it was found that the printer had made the mistake and spelled the professor's
name with an "e" instead of an "i". This was right
after the war, when nearly everyone in the South had lost his fortune, and
Professor Cooledge could not afford to have the work done over. The
printer also insisted that he could not afford the expense of correcting his
error, and so, to avoid confusion, Professor Cooledge adopted this mode of
signing himself.
It was my pleasure recently to talk with two of the
former pupils of Professor Cooledge, John Eugene Lanier now of Cuthbert, and
Mrs. John J. Jolly of Valdosta, both of whom are over eighty-fives years of age,
and both of whom, like my mother, were profuse in their praise of "Mr.
Cooledge," whom they extolled as a Christian gentleman of superior
intelligence and culture.
In the old days, the church at Cotton Hill was the
place of worship for wealthy planters who came to service in great style.
Their carriages were attended by liveried coachmen, and the women and children
wore the most costly and fashionable attire. Even as late as 1878, when I
first visited the town, I saw evidences of the wealth of
"before-the-war" times.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1927, I rode over the site of the
old town, and what a change after forty-nine years! Only two homes in a
radius of five miles were occupied. The once flourishing town proper was
absolutely extinct.
As I rode through the main road, which had been the main
street, I saw on either side the once comfortable, elegant homes, now a mass of
crumbling and fallen ruins. That is, all but one, the fine old home of Dr.
Mark Shivers, a notable physician of the days of Cotton Hill's glorious past.
Until recently this old home was occupied by Mr. Thomas
Crozier, but it was too isolated and lonely for his family, and he moved to the
home of his father, Mr. Lum Crozier, three miles away.
Across the street from the Shivers home is the doctor's
office, desolate, but in a fair state of preservation. There was not a
human being in sight for miles; not even a bird was visible.
On the road leading to Cuthbert is the old church,
still standing on its pillars of huge rock. Beyond is the cemetery with a
hundred or more beautiful monuments and well-cared for lots, silent
corroboration of the story I had heard of how the descendants of the citizens of
that section gather at the church one day every spring to clean the place where
their kindred rest. They come from afar and near to assemble in the
historical church, look after graves in the cemetery, and talk over what Cotton
Hill was in the long ago.
As I stood in the churchyard on a perfect November
afternoon, a feeling of reverence came over me as I saw this fine example of
faithfulness and love which has kept beautiful and modern this old cemetery
lying in the shadow of the ruins of what was once a town of wealth and
influence.
An interesting fact about the home of the late Mr. Jack
Boyett, which is located about three miles from Cotton Hill, is that the home
now occupied by Mr. Eugene Boyett, his son, extends into three counties.
Two pillars of one room are in Randolph, two in Clay, and three in Quitman.
This is probably the only instance of this kind known. Mr. Boyett, former
owner of the house, was the father of seventeen children, all of whom grew to
manhood and womanhood and all were born in this house.
At the Shivers home on main street of the town, there
used to be a fine scuppernong arbor, the largest ever seen in this section of
the state. It was beyond the garden and covered a place large enough to
hold a regiment of soldiers. In ripening time great throngs of visitors
used to come to the arbor and were always given baskets or boxes of the luscious
fruit. There is no sign of the vine now.
Mr. T. P. Jester, whom I knew from childhood, was a
unique character, and a strong force in the church and community of Cotton Hill.
He was known as "Tommy Particular" because of his rigid rule for doing
the right thing on all occasions. Mr. Jester reared a large family at
Cotton Hill. One of his sons is now a Baptist minister.
The Lanier family, four brothers and one sister, were
all students at Cotton Hill Seminary under President Cooledge. They're
still living, James, age 89, in Quitman County; William 86, in Enterprise, Ala.;
John Eugene, 82, at Cuthbert; Mrs. W. H. Farrold, 79, in Jacksonville, Fla.
This family is remarkable for its health and longevity. John Eugene
Lanier, drives his car from Cuthbert to Eufala, Ala., a distance of twenty-six
miles, several times a week.
It seems strange that time should have obliterated
completely a town and community once so prosperous and contented. There
are several reasons for this. The passing of a single person or a single
faction in a community can disrupt a whole town because it is easy to follow an
enthusiastic leader. Cotton Hill was five miles from a railroad station
and the road was uphill and sandy. The coming of the automobile lured many
inhabitants to other inviting fields.
The school was gone. Older heads had passed on;
the pulse of the younger generation beat to the tune of activity. The
exodus began, and like sheep, the rest of the citizens followed, leaving only
the beautiful churchyard, the church itself, and a history of wealth, culture,
and contentment that abides only in the peaceful quiet of historic towns.
Copied
from THE HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY
with permission of the Library Board of Clay County.
Transcribed by Donna
Eldridge
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Clay Co., GAGenWeb Project
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©Copyright 2007 -
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