Colquitt County

It has already been said, herein, that the pioneer women of Colquitt got a rather raw deal at the hands of Fate, when their menfolks brought them to the wilds of Colquitt, It has been seen how such men as Elder Crawf. Tucker carried their guns to their Saturday meetings, for the purpose of bringing down a deer or a wild turkey, which they might run across on their way home. And practically every man was a hunter, and worked at it. For instance, John Tucker, big land-owner and politician in a local way, killed, so it is still said, more deer than any man that was ever in the county, frequently hunting with Robert Bearden, his neighbor and friend.

Then the men went rather often to such market towns as Albany, Thomasville, St. Marks, Tallahassee and Columbus; but their women generally stayed at home with the children and "the stuff." Too, the men have been seen to have had some rather agreeable contacts with Judge Hansell and the visiting lawyers, twice a year at the "Big Court"; but from these the women were strictly barred. In fact, a real nice woman thought it grossly improper for a woman to go about the courthouse, when court was in session.

Then, from the time Bob Bearden and "Aunt Sallie" opened a general store at Moultrie, in the fifties, alcoholics were obtainable, at low prices, and practically all the men drank, more or less. But the women did not drink, for one reason that the men would not stand for it. The reason for this general objection was that they knew that prudence goes out, as liquor goes in; and they wanted no doubt to exist as to the matter of the fatherhood of the children.

However, the women generally used snuff, or plumply chewed tobacco more or less on the sly, generally agreeing among themselves that "Terbacker shore is a heap of company to a body." Then, too, as has already been observed, herein, while the monotony and the isolation of life to the housewives was terrible, a remedy was found in the average big family of the period. The women "raised their com-pany."

At all this, however, at the beginning of the present century, statistics showed a larger percentage of farmers' wives in the lunatic asylums of this nation than of any other class of our population, the reason being that the business of being a backwoods farmer's wife, and cooking his meals for forty or fifty years, three times per day, including leap years, is likely to become a bit wearing on the nerves. Anyhow, it is our firm opinion that, when the true historian comes along, he is going to decide to drop consideration of the doings of the men; and write several books about the farmers' wives of this land. So feeling, we are going to keep telling about these pioneer women of Colquitt right on to the end of this chapter, at least. Out of the hundreds of these women, we introduce just a few: Susan A. Tucker, wife of John Tucker, and daughter-in-law of Patriarch Crawford Tucker, was before marriage

Susan A. Stephenson, born near Raleigh, N. C, on September 28, 1835, coming to Colquitt, soon after her birth, with her parents. Notwithstanding her handicaps, she reared a fine family of children. Of course, neither she nor her children had much education, as there were no schools within reach; but her pictures show her to have been modest and dignified. We also know all this from the fact that she gave to Colquitt a lot of fine girls. It was a good day's work for Colquitt when John Tucker went a sparking of her.

The reader, if he has followed us closely, already knows how Susan Jane Tucker (alia dicta "Babe") stands with this historian. We have seen how John Tucker, her father, pitched the biggest wedding party for her that Colquitt ever saw—before or since. We have seen how Susan Jane took life as it came to her, staying by her man till his death, in 1896. John Tucker, before her marriage, boasted that she could run a straighter furrow than any man on the farm. It is still told how that when a colt fell into a well on the home place, she superintended getting it out, claimed it for herself in virtue of this accomplishment, and took it away as a part of her marriage portion; while, just the other day, a man told us that, on occasion, she would drive a two-horse team to Thomasville and back with her own hands, in order to obtain a load of supplies.

It will occasion no surprise, therefore, when the reader is told that, in the interval between the death of her husband, in 1896, and her own death, in 1932, no sheriff ever levied a paper on anything on her farm, and no mortgage ever encumbered any of her property. Best of all, she finished raising her eleven children in the years of her widowhood, and turned them all out into Colquitt's citizen-body, as creditable members. She was born, in 1857, being the first-born of her parents; and during her last years was full of good works and alms-deeds. Having been called "Susan Jane" and "Aunt Babe" by scores of her relatives and neighbors, a whole country-side called her "Mammy," during several years next preceding her death. This tribute is paid to her memory, with all the gladness in the world.

Ruth Tillman Norman, the wife of James M. Norman, was born in South Carolina, on September 18, 1798, and died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. A. J. Strickland, in Colquitt County, on March 8, 1884, having survived her husband a full twenty years. She was the mother of the six Normans whose group picture is placed at the end of this chapter, and of a seventh son, John Tillman Norman, who reached adulthood, reared a family, and died in the year that Moultrie was incorporated. She also had five daughters, as follows: Emily Susannah (Mrs. John A. Alderman), Dica (Mrs. Eurrell Baker), Hettie (Mrs. Henry Gay), Elizabeth M. (Mrs. A. J. Strickland), and Zilpha (spinster).

When it is considered that a woman in her day had only one career open to her—namely, looking after her household duties, and rearing children, and that this is still her highest work, Ruth Tillman Norman must in the light of her record as a mother be rated as one of Colquitt's great women. Her kindred have for nearly a century been builders in the county; and this applies to both her own descendants and to her brothers and sisters and their descendants. She was a sister to John Tillman and Joshua Tillman, both Colquitt pioneers, and she is therefore a great aunt of W. M. Tillman, the present Chairman of Colquitt's Board of County Commissioners. She sleeps by the side of her husband, in the Pleasant Crove Primitive Baptist Cemetery, two miles from Moultrie, on the Adel road.

Sarah Ann Norman, born a Dukes, in 1825, was the wife of Jeremiah Bryant Norman, senior, who was the oldest son of pioneer James Mitchell Norman. This couple had chil-dren as follows: Ruth E., James T., Julia A., Susan L., Sarah Ann, Zilpha, Jeremiah Bryant, junior, John S., Matthew H., M. D., R. L., and V. F. All these children reached maturity and married off, except John and Matthew, both of whom died within a few days of each other, as young children, in 1860. All the surviving sons became leaders among the citizens of Colquitt County in finance, politics, and religious affairs. The four daughters married, and helped to train large families of children, as follows: Julia married G. F. Newton; Sarah Ann married George Clark; Zilpha married Jeremiah Tillman; Susan married Miles Monk, Sr., and Emily Susan-nah married John A. Alderman. It is safe to say that no woman has made a larger contribution to permanent values in Colquitt County that has Sarah Ann Dukes Norman. She was born in 1825, in what was then Irwin County, in territory that was soon afterwards incorporated in Lowndes. This writer saw her once in her home at Norman Park. It was not long before her death. She is buried by the side of her husband at Pleasant Grove Church, near Moultrie.

Julia Norman was the third child of Jeremiah B. Norman, Sr., and his wife Sarah Ann Norman, of whom we treat in the paragraph of this chapter next above. She was born in 1851, and after the close of the Civil War, she married George F. Newton, a young soldier, who went to the war from Brooks County, left an arm at Gettysburg, and came a-courtin' Julia when he got home.

We have hitherto held that the acid test of wromanhood is her achievement in the way of "borning" and rearing chil-dren. In this regard, Julia A. Newton was not one whit be-hind her mother. Without any exception, her 10 children are blameless citizens of the communities in which they reside. Luckily for Colquitt, most of them reside within her limits.

Julia Ann Newton was a kind of Primitive Baptist saint. Luther Stallings, who lived in her house for more than a year, one time, says that she had the best controlled mind and nerves of any person he ever saw—that she never condoned wrong in any particular, but at the first signs of repentance, she began to make concessions to the wrong-doer, saying, "Well, we cannot tell the strength of the temptation," or "He might have been swept away when he was not on guard." A group of the contemporaries of her older children, speaking of her the other day, agreed, "Should we get to Heaven, we expect to find her, looking like she did for a generation of Sundays at Pleasant Grove Church; black dress, black poke bonnet, head slightly down on one side, looking intently over her specs at the Primitive Baptist preacher, as he was hold-ing forth."

From all accounts, practically the same thing can be said of her sister, Susan L. Norman, who was the second wife of Miles Monk, Jr., and of another sister, Sarah Ann Norman, who married Rev. G. F. Clark. Same type of children— same big families—same devotion to the cause of the Lord.

Mary McNeil was a native of Cheraw, S. C, being a daugh-ter of Major Neil McKay McNeil and his wife, Jane Johnson Pegues. She married W. C. Vereen, a young business man of Cheraw, S. C, casting in her fortunes with his at a time when to be broke was the hallmark of South Carolina aris-tocracy. The fact that she went cheerfully along with her husband into the woods of first Douglas, then Montgomery, and finally Colquitt County, where for six years she shared the cares and anxieties of a turpentine operator with him, entitles her to a place in the list of Colquitt's Pioneer Women.

This historian came to Colquitt, June 2, 1898, just a few months before the death of Mrs. Vereen, so that he has no recollection of ever seeing her. He was asked to accompany Hon. M. J. Pcarsall, a friend of the Vereens, to her funeral rites at the old Presbyterian Church. He did not understand all the circumstances, but enough got into his knowledge to impress him that this death was calculated to sweep the tenderest emotions of the human heart. There is yet present in our memory pictures of seven children in various stages of immaturity, running down to infants in arms.   Also, the indications of her popularity among the citizens of the town, who filled the church and its approaches. Also tender mem-ories of Mr. Pearsall, who was himself to meet a tragic death a few years later.

These noted women of Colquitt County have been picked out with some diffidence. A diffidence which grows out of our knowledge that there have been scores, and perhaps hundreds of other Colquitt women who in their backwoods homes have pursued the even tenor of their way, too much engrossed by the pressure of immediate duties to think of anything else, the majority of whom await the Resurrection of the Last Day in unmarked graves. But at that time they will be all right; for

"While Valour's haughty champions wait Till all their scars are known. Love walks unchallenged through the gate, And sits beside the Throne."

Source: Covington, W. A.. History of Colquitt County. Atlanta, Ga.: Foote and Davies Co., 1937.

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