DUBLIN AND SOUTHWESTERN RAILROAD

Stock certificate of the Dublin and Southwestern

Railroad, forerunner of the Wrightsville &

Tennille Railroad. Ran from Dublin to Eastman.

Train Photos - Vintage - Dublin, GA

M.D. & S. RR Engine, Dublin, GA.



W&T Railroad Engine, East Dublin, GA




M.D. & S. Railroad - Cars - Dublin, GA.

THE FIRST AUTOMOBILES

Dr. E.B. Claxton and daughter Irene, circa. 1921.





On Tuesday, April 29, 1902, an automobile suddenly appeared on the streets of Dublin. It was the first of the horseless carriages that was ever seen in Dublin, it attracted a great deal of attention. Many Dubliners knew of the automobile but had never seen one. The automobile was in the charge of two young men who are traveling about the country advertising a chill and fever cure. The car came from the direction of Macon and darted down Jackson Street at a rapid rate of speed. Nearly every small boy in town and many others who seemed to come from a distance were soon behind the machine. People who were on the street stopped suddenly and gazed at the noiselessly moving vehicle, not quite certain that their eyes were not deceiving them. The doors of the business houses were soon filled with proprietors and employees and all business ceased.

The dray horses, which seldom had anything but the usual to break the monotony of their lives, were taken too much by surprise and performed several tricks unrequested by their drivers. The interest in the automobile was no greater in Dublin than it was in New York when the first one appeared there. Eldrid Simpkins continued his tour of Georgia. On May 1st the engine of the car caught on fire in Millen. The car was a total loss as were six buildings and eleven horses which perished in the fire.

Several years went by before the automobile became a common sight on the streets of Dublin. Obviously, the wealthiest men were the first car owners. In 1906, before there were many cars in Dublin, H.H. Smith led a movement to build a 5 mile speedway starting at the Railroad on Academy Avenue, thence to the Cotton Mill where it turned down Kellam and Roberson Streets. Running across northern Dublin the 60 foot wide track was planned to run into Washington Street, where it made its final turn back to Jackson Street. The $1000.00 track was never completed.

Rause Wright Miller, who came to Dublin in 1895 to open a bicycle shop, opened the first car dealership in Laurens County. He sold his first car, a Cadillac, on February 23, 1907 for $800.00. Frank Corker, President of the First National Bank, is thought to have been the first person in Laurens County to own an automobile. In 1908 Lewis W. Miller, brother of Rause Wright Miller, raced the train of the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad from Tennille to Dublin. Miller had to go slow in some places over bad roads. Miller in his Cadillac beat the train back to Dublin by ten minutes. Of course, cars needed gasoline to fuel their engines, so the Miller brothers installed the first gasoline tank and thereby established the first service station in Dublin.

The Dublin Auto and Machine Co. was incorporated by T.B. Darley in 1908. Frank F. Scarborough was the manager. A large sale room and repair shop was erected in the building now occupied by Charter Communications on South Jefferson Street near the railroad. By 1910, there were two hundred automobiles in Laurens County, seventy five percent of which were in Dublin.




Homemade Car - 1919 - G.T., Lena and Tom
Daniel


Charles W. Brantley established the Laurens Automobile and Repair Company in 1910. Brantley built a two story - 50 x 100 foot - garage on Lawrence Street. The building is now the home of Allgood Services. The lower floor was an agency for Maxwell, Oakland, and Hupmobiles. Brantley was also an agent for Michelin Tires. Frank F. Scarborough was the manager. The upper floor was the garage, which remained open day and night for repairs. The garage was filled with windows which gave the mechanics better lighting. The garage had a capacity of fifty cars which were lowered and raised by elevator.

The automobile rapidly became a status symbol among Dublin's elite. In the early days purchases of new cars often made the newspaper such as W.B. Rice’s 1909 purchase of a 30 horse power Cadillac, the most powerful car in Dublin. Frank G. Corker and A.W. Garrett made the newspaper when they received their White gasoline cars in 1910. As early as 1909, Dubliners, who had been caught up in the fever of car racing in Savannah, staged races to Atlanta and back.

The emergence of automobile traffic accelerated the need for paved streets in Dublin. The horseless carriage couldn't handle the mud like the tried and true horses and mules. The automobile also forced the location of the Confederate Statue from the intersection of Jefferson Street and Jackson Street to its current location off the street. The first traffic signals were primitive and were placed in the streets. It wasn't until decades later when modern day traffic signals were installed.

In April of 1910, a automobile hill climbing contest was held at the Turkey Creek Hill near Dudley. The cars sped from west side of the creek to top of the hill. The top winners were 1. White Star Car - Charles Eberlein - 35 seconds; 2. White Gasolene - Marshall - 37 seconds; 3. Buick - L.W. Miller - 37 seconds. 4. The Ohio - Izzie Bashinski - 40 seconds.





Haywood Leland Moore, circa. 1914.


Car races were usually held around the holidays. The greatest races were held on Bellevue Avenue. The race began on Bellevue Road at its intersection with Roberson Street at the current location of the Dublin Center. From there the racers would speed down the 1.6 dirt road course back to the finish line at the Carnegie Library, now the Dublin- Laurens Museum. Spectators by the thousands lined the course. The cars were timed, one at a time, by electric timers and telephones and averaged about 65 miles an hour with top speeds at 75 m.p.h. In 1910, the winners were A.M. Kea and F. Dunnel of Dublin, and Herbert Wilson of Hagan. The grand prize was $100.00. Motorcycles were also included with one Indian Motorcycle winning its division by averaging over 85 miles per hour. The enthusiasm lasted long after the race forcing the police chief to assign police officers with stop watches at different intervals to catch speeders. The rest of the story is history. For the last ninety five years, the automobile has been an integral part of our daily lives.

Tom Daniels in his garage.

Photographs from the Vanishing Georgia Collection, Georgia Department of Archives and History, Georgia Secretary of State and Laurens County Historical Society.

BLACKSHEAR'S FERRY

Blackshear's Ferry, ca. 1930s, Rawls Watson,
Ferrykeeper.

Legends and Mysteries

The first of a series of ferries owned by War of 1812 General David Blackshear and his sons came into operation in 1808. Two centuries later, eroded by rushing waters, remnants of this mystical place still remain. Most of the people who ever rode across the rushing waters on the rickety ferry boat are gone now. For those who did, their recollections of their youth have now faded. Like the ancient proverb says, Blackshear’s Ferry never gives its secrets." So, let us take a look at some the ancient mysteries which surround Blackshear’s Ferry, some four crow fly miles north of Dublin on the Oconee River.

One of the most enduring mysteries goes back more than four centuries. English colonists under John White settled on Roanoke Island along the coast of North Carolina in 1587. When White returned three years later, he found the colony completely deserted, except a small sign on which was carved the word "Croatoan." One of the myriads of theories as to what happened to the lost colonists was that they traveled south into what would become Georgia some century and a half later. Legend tellers would swear to you that these wanderers made their way across the Oconee River at the shoals, some quarter of a mile down the river. While the legend sounds good, like many legends do, you decide for yourself, though logically this legend is probably not true.

Even more cryptic is the legend of the "Indian Spring Rock." Julia Thweatt Blackshear saw the rock. She described it as four feet high and seven feet long. One of the sides of the rock, which lies about a mile north of the ferry, has been carved as smooth as if were cut by a marble cutter. Mrs. Blackshear reported that across the face there are written, or carved, mysterious hieroglyphic letters. Likened to Egyptian characters, these letters have been said to form a long line across the entire surface of the rock. This legend is true. What remains a mystery is where the rock is. Did Mrs. Blackshear mean true north, which would put the rock somewhere in the vicinity of Springfield, the home of General David Blackshear. Or did she mean, north along the river near where Blackshear’s original ferry once was located? If so, on which bank did she mean? For all you mystery solvers, this is one you solve. The trouble is, with the ever changing course of the river, the legendary "Indian Spring Rock," may now be submerged waiting for millennia before someone deciphers its ancient message.

John's Photograph Gallery, Crossing at

Blackshear's Ferry, circa. 1890.

Interestingly just down the river from the ferry on the eastern bank of the river is another mysterious rock. Lying on the steep slopes of Carr’s Bluff is a limestone rock similar in size, but not in shape. Lying on its side, the rock resembles half of a perfectly split elongated heart. While there are no markings on this rock, which is similar in size, it is puzzling how this massive rock came to rest some fifty feet up the side of a near cliff. This rock does exist. The question remains, "How did it get there? Was it rolled down the cliff as an anchor by Jarred Trammel and James Beatty, who established their own ferry there at the point where the ancient Lower Uchee Trail crossed the Oconee River on it way from the Creek Indian lands in southern Alabama northeasterly to the area around present day Augusta on the Savannah River?

If you walk down the western bank of the Oconee you will find a ditch which runs parallel with the river and at times sinks to a depth of more than twenty feet from the top of the river bank. The trench, which spans out as wide as a hundred feet, runs in a southwesterly direction from the ferry down to the point where the Lower Uchee Trail intersects with the river bank at a tall near vertical bluff at Carr’s Shoals.

This is a mystery solved. In the early decades of the 20th Century, when river traffic was beginning to wind down, but when electric power needs were begin to swell, some thinkers proposed the idea of a canal from the area around the ferry down to Dublin. The canal would be filled with water. The proponents believed that since water flowed downhill that the resulting drop in elevation along the route could be utilized to generate electricity at the southern end of the canal. They also believed that in times of raging high waters and rocky low waters, flat boats, loaded with cotton and other valuable commodities could be carried by horse and mule teams along a tow path. To increase and diminish the flow of water along the canal, the builders built gates, one of which can still be seen about half way down the path. The project failed for the lack of money and utility.

Dr. Arthur Kelly, esteemed archaeologist of the Smithsonian Institution, called them "the most exciting and wonderful Indian mounds that he had seen on his exploration of the Oconee River." Situated near the river crossing was the ancient Indian village of Ocute. It was here in 1934, where Dr. Kelly and his party found an old Indian burying ground with at least eighty to one hundred graves. Strewn and scattered across the ground were arrowheads and pottery deemed by Kelley as "entirely different from any others found in Indian mounds across the state.

But just where were these mounds? Were they at the crossing site, which to his dying day Kelly, and his colleagues, believed was where the Spanish explorer crossed the Oconee in his journey in 1540. Were they further upstream or downstream nearer the Country Club? Even though Dr. Kelly warned Dubliners about commercial exploitation of the site and challenged them to raise a mere two hundred dollars to help establish a fund to explore and document the site in addition to Federal help with the labor and volunteer help by the ladies of the John Laurens Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Alas, Dr. Kelly went off to Macon to survey what became the Ocmulgee National Monument. The legendary village of Ocute, or whatever it may have been called, is still there, just waiting for the time when the next archaeologist comes along to reveal the truth about what was really there.

Julia Blackshear in her article in The History of Laurens County, 1807-1941 names the village as Kitchee, which according to her description would have located just to the north of the Dublin Country Club. She tells the story of the time when the final council of the residents of Kitchee was held. Three aged Indians appeared before the great white chief, General David Blackshear, and asked his permission to allow them to remain on the lands of the ancestors and to guard their graves until their deaths. The General graciously granted their requests and allowed the ancient and honorable scions to live there in peace. When the last of the trio died, the residents of the community buried him along the side the other two. Just where this ancient burial ground lies remains a mystery, perhaps for the remainder of time.

The area around Blackshear’s Ferry remains an ancient and mysterious place. Please remember that the area is privately owned and to ask permission before visitation. Despite the thoughtless efforts of the apathetic, the river, thanks to conscientious sportsmen and river keepers, remains virtually pristine. And keeping it that way along with respecting the remains of a long ago people should always be our goal.