Georgia Southwestern State University - Gale Yearbook (Americus, GA)

Page 11 text:

ln 1834 Americus began to as- sume more the semblance of a town, the county as well as the town was being settled up, and it became necessary, in order that the ends of justice might be met, to build a court house . . . It was not a very elegant building, but ful- ly answered the purpose for which it was built. . . . At this present writing, August 1869, there are more stores than there were families, and more shops and other places of busi- ness, than there were souls in June 1846, . . . . . . I wore the grey, and am nei- ther afraid not ashamed to own itg I still wear it - it's my favorite color, and I will wear it till my grey cloes are exchanged for my shroud. . . . Americus continued to improve rapidly, so much so, that in 1854 a council for the govern- ment of the city was elected ,... The October 5, 1854 Sumter Republican edited by Mr. C. W. Hancock reported: lt affords us pleasure to inform our readers that the railroad to Americus is com- pleted . . . Southwestern railroad. Though many, many envy, she has a large scope of rich country, settled by wealthy planters, to sus- tain her, and her prospects for the future are brilliant indeed . . . We have good churches and schools, good society, good health, and good water. In an article entitled Americus', in Ih-el Georgia Review fVol. IV, Summer, 1950 No. 21 by Daisy O. Mallard and Virginia M. Culpepper is extracted the following: When the new county of Sumter was laid out from a portion of Lee in 1831, Americus became the 7

Page 10 text:

5 ff t +- : F' ' . t A ,. . gig X 1 ., W 1: X A Short Outline Q' the History of Americus, Georgia compiled Au- gust 1869 by 'The Compiler gives the following: Sometimes about the middle of July, in the year of 1832, Messrs. Green M. Wheeler, James W. Bai- ley, Stephen Buran and, in three or four days after them, Mr. Wright Brady, encamped on what is now the cotton yard of the Southwestern Railroad Depot, with the intention of settling in and building up the town of Americus. Not long before this, a part of Lee had been cut off 6 from that county, by the Legislature of Georgia, formed into a separate county, and named Sumter, and a committee appointed by them to survey a suitable lot of land, on which to build a county seat, this they had just completed and named it Americus. The original size of the town was one lot of land, No. 156, in the 27th District. Here there was a town, casa vel populos ine civ- ities, neither house nor inhabitant, save these four campers, with the sound of whose axes the woods were now ringing, the trees falling and their logs assuming rapidly the shape of the first house in Ameri- cus, and if all tales we hear be true, a set of merry cusses they were, but fearless, honest, hard working man - men who worked with a vim unknown to the clerky, carpet knights of the present generation, in whose nostrils honest toil stinks, whose faces were never made to sweat with tillage, and whose highest aspirations are to be a noble police or a clerk in a shebang. . . .

Page 12 text:

Qilhurch of C11l11'i5f county seat. The county was in honor of General Thomas Sumter, distinguished commander of South Carolina troops in the Revolution . . . At that time he was the last living general of the Revolutionary War. . . . There were many private schools in Americus prior to the establishment of the public school system in 1872 . . . ln 1859 . . . The Furlow Masonic Female Col- lege KFMFCJ was incorporated. . . . The Masonic Lodge made provision for many girls to attend the school IFMFCJ who were not 8 financially able to do so. ln order to save these girls embarrassment, all girls attending the college were required to wear sunbonnets and to tie their hair with shoestrings in- stead of ribbons. All the girls who finished the school were not per- mitted to graduate - a number of fathers did not think it fitting for a young lady to appear on stage. . . . Churches were established in Americus soon after the public square was laid out 1 about 1 854 J. Q Georgia Review continues with information about small towns established in Americus vicinity. These towns, the story goes, were wide open, with their saloons, gambling halls, and prostitutes. The men were described as gun- totin, straight shooters, who drank hard liquor and voted the Demo- cratic ticket. The advent of the railroads ended these towns. With a record of fighting achieved in the various Indian Campaigns, Sumter County was alert to give both men and means to the Confederacy. Before the end