1901: Notice to Teachers

The following article appeared in "The New South" dated March 21, 1901.....

Teachers who closed their school are required to send in their accounts at once or as soon as they do close. No teacher will be allowed to carry any time over for the summer term. It must be reported at the close of the spring term. I can't say at this time whether we will be able to pay for all of the spring term or not. We have just paid sixty percent of all the time up to February 28 and we hope to pay the balance due the teachers soon.

All teachers who have graded their schools will please make out a program of the same and send it in to my office at once. I would like to have suggestions from all teachers as to our Institute work this summer as to the best time and the general workings or should we go to another county.

The library books will be ready in a few days for distribution. As soon as all are called in teachers of the county can get the books and let  the children have them and by this means we can use the books all the time not only through the school term but during vacation also. Our library is going to be a success.  We will have about 200 books to begin with and I want every boy and girl in the county to use them.

J.E. Phillips

The Fire at Douglasville Grammar School

Think about Church Street for a minute. 
 
What are the main focal points as you mentally go from one end of the street to the other?

You might mention the large Regions Bank building, City Hall, the new conference center and parking deck or even the former First Baptist Church building.

The Douglasville City Cemetery might be your focal point or the recently vacated jail or even the armory building.

All of these are worthy focal points, but why don’t we zero in on the space between the church and the armory building.

Today we know a fire station sits there, but between 1918 and 1955 the space was home to Douglasville Grammar School, a three-story brick and wooden structure housing 25 classrooms and anywhere between 600 to 800 students.

From the pictures I’ve located it was a lovely building. Even though it wouldn’t meet today’s education needs, it would be a nice structure to connect with our past for offices, meeting rooms or even a boutique hotel of some sort.

Sadly, we lost the building forever on January 27, 1955 when a slow moving fire took it from us.

The fateful day was a Thursday.  Students and staff had already gone home when Jimmy Gable, a high school student at the time, noticed smoke billowing from the building as he traveled down Church Street around 5 p.m.

A newspaper article a few days later advised several surrounding communities helped with fighting the fire including Austell, Marietta, Villa Rica and even Atlanta, but the fire was too far out of control.

Even though the building was a total loss, a few of the high school boys and men on the scene were able to remove some of the desks from the basement classrooms and, most of the school’s lunchroom equipment was saved.

There had been some initial speculation that water-pressure had been an issue in fighting the fire, but it was ruled out. The cause of the fire was thought to have started in the school’s boiler room.

The school’s principal, Mrs. H.N. Kemp and Board of Education Superintendent, J.E. Walton scrambled to provide a place for the students to finish out their school year. Double sessions began at the high school with the older students attending class from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the grammar school students were in class from 1 p.m. until 4:30 p.m.

A new grammar school that had already been planned was quickly built, and as you already realize – Douglasville Grammar School did not rise again along Church Street.

The school became a memory for the hundreds of students and teachers who called it their educational home for 37 years.

Fed Hudson and The Midway School

Every July my father’s family gets together for a family reunion.  At some point during the gathering I always take a moment and scan the room full of folks from Canton, Cartersville, Waleska, Atlanta and from as far away as Texas to realize that we all came from two particular people – my great grandparents, James William Johnson Land and Amanda Emaline Allred Land.  It's amazing to me that we can all trace our roots back to two particular people.

My family isn’t alone….many families across the nation get together for reunions including the Hudson family who meet in Villa Rica every year on the last Saturday in July.  Like me, members of the Hudson family look back to one man and woman.  In their case they trace their lineage to Fed and Amanda Hudson.

 

Fed Hudson’s grave along with his wife’s is located in a very small family plot located near the intersection of Liberty and Cole Roads in western Douglas County. The Douglas County Cemetery Commission has the family plot listed as Hudson-Dobbs Cemetery.

Most of the graves are unmarked, but Fed and Amanda’s  graves have a six foot marker with the words “gone but not forgotten”.

 

While the Hudson family hasn’t forgotten him, Fed Hudson has been lost in the Douglas County story and his contribution has only been known to a few.

Fed was born in 1839 according to the marker on his grave, but of course, it’s hard to know for sure since records weren’t always maintained where slaves were concerned.

Charles Hudson, Fed and Amanda’s great-grandson indicates family research has led him to a ship leaving Sierra Leone in 1767 with 65 slaves. The ship was classified as a sloop named Dove, and the master of the ship was Harrison Hudson.

It may just be a wild coincidence that the captain of the slave ship was Hudson….but then again he could have been related to the man who owned at least one of Fed Hudson’s great-grandparents.

Records reflect  51 slaves actually reached Savannah.  It was very common for slaves to die along the harsh journey across the ocean….conditions were brutal. I’ve written about the Middle Passage in my post titled Door of No Return, here.

The Hudson family believes one of Fed’s grandparents was on that ship because the manifest lists the location of the slaves or their tribal names.  Notations such as FEDr, FEDeyoh, LahFEDay, FEDay, etc. were made.  Of course, this could be a reason why Fed had such an unusual name, but again this is pure speculation.

It does seem plausible, right?

There has been no confirmation regarding the man who owned Fed, but due to census information from the year 1880, we do know Fed indicated he was born in 1839.  Fed also indicated he was a mulatto. There is speculation that his mother was a slave and his father was his master, but to date there is no proof.

In 1864, Fed was freed along with millions of slaves across the south due to the Emancipation Proclamation followed by the 13th Amendment. The Hudson family believes upon receiving his freedom Fed was given $100 and 100 acres  in the Bowdon area for him to make his own way, and it appears that he was successful!

By 1869, Fed Hudson decided the Bowdon area needed a school for blacks. He built what would become known as Fed Hudson High School on his property using his own timber.

In 1879, courthouse records indicate he paid taxes on 178 acres. By 1880, the land where the school sat was donated to the Carroll County School System and the “high school” became an elementary school by the same name.

A past West Georgia newsletter titled The Journey discussed the elementary school in Bowdon.  It says:

Hudson [Elementary] was named in honor of a former slave, Mr.Fed Hudson, who organized Bowden's first school for African Americans in 1880 and donated the land for it. Mr. Hudson's original school was located on Highway 100 adjacent to New Hope Methodist Church.

At some point between 1880 and 1900 Fed and Amanda Hudson moved to Villa Rica.  Fed bought 101 acres (Land Lot 82) in 1908 for $1,000, another 101 acres (Land Lot 83) in 1910 for $1,000, and in 1912, he paid $500 more for the remainder of Land Lot 82.

The land was in the vicinity of Liberty and Cole Roads.

Deed records at the courthouse indicate three acres of the total were excluded which means a school and/or church building might have always been school might have already been there.  We do know that the building was used as a school after Fed Hudson owned the land. 

Of course, Mr. Hudson held education in high esteem. He would be pleased to know that many teachers among his descendants including Dr. Roy D. Hudson who is a past president of Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia.

Last year the cemetery commission uncovered the foundation and bricks from the chimney for Midway School.

I want to thank the Cemetery Commission led by Sandy Whittington for their work  preserving and documenting the many family cemeteries around the county including the Hudson-Dobbs cemetery and the foundations for the Midway School.  I also wish to thank Charles Hudson, Fed Hudson's great-grandson, who was so kind to meet with Elaine Steere, a local genealogist regarding the Hudson family.

As you can see there are several questions that remain regarding Fed Hudson, but what a great contribution he made concerning early education for the black community not only in the Bowdon area, but in Douglas as well. 

The hunt for information will continue……

A Few News Snippets from the 1880s

Over the last few months I've periodically buried myself in newspaper research mainly with Atlanta's Constitution to see what was said about Douglas County and Douglasville during our earliest days.

We are mentioned fairly frequently, and it's fair to say by reading these snippets we can get a good picture of what our own paper at the time - The Weekly Star - was publishing since the text of their articles is what was published in the Atlanta paper.

Here are a few entries in chronological order printed in italics along with my reactions and explanations.

September 10, 1882 - The first new bale of cotton was sold [in Douglasville] today at auction by Dr. G.W. McLarty and was bought by Mr. M.B. Watson, one of the first merchants of the place. It will be shipped to J.M. Watson, Atlanta, and sold at Cumming's exchange next Wednesday at two o'clock at the First Bale of Douglas County for 1882, and the first new bale for the year shipped over the Georgia Pacific Railroad.

G.W. McLarty was George Wilson McLarty and M.B. Watson would be Mathias Bates Watson.  Watson was born in 1855 and married Lillie J. Vansant. Her father, Young Vansant was the man who donated land that would become Douglasville. The picture below shows M.B. Watson and Lilly on their honeymoon.  Sadly, Lillie would be dead a year later.

Once the railroad was operational Douglas County cotton would be loaded on the train and sent to Atlanta for auction. "Cumming's" mentioned in the above article was J.F. Cummings & Company located at 37 Broad Street in Atlanta. The company dealt in cotton, grain and meat futures.

Along with several others J.F. Cummings was one of the men who incorporated the International Cotton Exposition. It was similar to a world's fair and was held in Atlanta from October through December, 1881.

December 6, 1883 - From an article titled "Newspaper Change" - Dorsett & McElreath have disposed of the "Star", to W.A. Breckenridge, who will continue its publication. Mr. Breckenridge is the proprietor of the "Fairburn News - Letter" and the "Dallas News Era", which with the "Star", makes him proprietor of three of the best weeklies in west Georgia.

Dorsett & McElreath would be Samuel N. Dorsett and Samuel A. McElreath. Unfortunately, I've not been able to find out more about W.A. Breckenridge, yet. It is interesting that ownership of the paper ended up in hands outside of Douglasville though. I'm sure the editors continued to be local citizens.

June 15, 1884 - From an article titled "Newspoints From Douglasville" - Tom Edwards showed a blue sparrow [in Douglasville] this morning that he had caught. Dr. T.R. Whitley, who has lived in Atlanta the past five years, has moved [to Douglasville] to practice his profession. Mr. T.J. Smith of Gadsden, Alabama passed here today in pursuit of Joe Blalock who had stolen his horse. W.J. Camp of this county has a field of cotton that will average two feet high.

Catching a bird, the height of cotton, and a move from Atlanta to Douglasville seems like rather mundane news to us today, but the pursuit of a horse thief is rather interesting. Note that Mr. Smith is pursuing the thief himself. No mention of the police is made.

Those were the days, huh?

Once he moved to Douglasville, Dr. T.R. Whitley was very involved with various things including the establishment of Douglasville College which was located approximately where the armory is located on Church Street today.

October 1, 1884 - The crop outlook in Douglas County is above average. The small grain crop is good, while there is an abundant yield of corn. The indications are that, while the cotton crop is late it will be much better than was anticipated.

With a population of one thousand inhabitants it has about thirty stores, the proprietors of which [have] a thriving business. All of the merchants are classified as gilt-edged.

Within the past year many improvements have been made. Notably among them being the three...brick store houses by S.A. McElreath and Brother, J.M. and M.B. Watson and Selman, Smith & Co.

The cotton receipts of the past year were 5,000 bales and this year they will probably reach 7,500 bales.

There has been much immigration to this county of the smaller farmers from the "stock law" counties.

The taxable value of the property in the county has increased over two hundred thousand dollars as shown by the tax books during the past year.

In Douglasville there is no ad valorem tax and there is now source to ascertain the increase of the town. The entire revenue of the town is derived from the licenses exacted from bar-rooms. This is placed at such a high figure that it runs the entire expense of the municipal authorities. They now have under advisement and it will  soon be a certainty, of establishing a complete system of water works that will furnish water for the whole town.

Douglas is a new county and has many resources that the completion of the Georgia Pacific will develop.

The most interesting part of the above article that jumped out at me was this particular sentence, "The entire revenue of the town is derived from the licenses exacted from bar-rooms."

Seriously?!?

What an interesting bit of history!  In the early days the City of Douglasville was funded almost exclusively by liquor licenses during the saloon era.

You might also be wondering what was meant by a "stock law county". Basically, it has something to do with fences and folks who might allow their cattle and other livestock to roam freely. A section of the law provided that land owners could keep any livestock that might wander onto their land if you were in a "stock law district." Apparently, Douglas County was NOT a stock law county in 1884.

December 5, 1884 - In Douglas County, West Summerlin is charged with the offense of committing an assault with intent to murder on the person of Tom Williams. Both are negroes. Summerlin only has one arm. Yet the evidence shows that he made Williams "tote the fast mail".

I've done some checking but have been unable to discover what "tote the fast mail" might mean, but considering Williams was assaulted Summerlin must have had the "upper hand", even if he only had one.

He most certainly had the matter "in hand".

April 15, 1885 - Real estate is being rapidly improved in [Douglasville], and is held at good prices. The population is being increased at the rate of about four per week - with new babies. The farmers are staying severely at home, planting, hence trade is dull. The merchants, however, say they had rather see them preparing for the fall payments than loafing around town now.

In October, 1884 the population hovered at one thousand and six months later four babies a week are being born. Well, it would be easy to surmise what the folks were doing in their free time, right? They were most certainly planting seeds of various kinds.

October 3, 1885 - Douglasville, with a population of one thousand, has but one foreigner and two citizens born above the Mason and Dixon line. All are lawyers, merchants and physicians and were raised in this and the adjoining counties. We have an emphatically Georgia town.

Oh my! Two Yankees.  I think my research has identified them, but that's a story for another time, but seriously...a foreigner?  I will keep my eye out for an identify.

April 18, 1886 - From an article titled improvements in Douglasville - The spring improvements have begun. A.W. McLarty has let out contract for the erection of two fine brick two-storied stores, while S.N. Dorsett will match them with one similar to them. This will give Douglasville a block of fine brick stores. Besides these there are five new dwelling houses in process of erection.

Samuel N. Dorsett was one of Douglasville's first merchants and was a co-owner of Dorsett, Price an McElreath. He also co-owned The Weekly Star before it sold, was the city's second postmaster and was on the City Council in 1889. We also need to add Superior Court Clerk, County Treasurer, and he served on the committee to secure a bank.

February 10, 1887 - From an article titled "Douglasville's New Council" - The new municipal officers were installed last night. J.C. Wright was elected mayor pro tem, S.M. Cash, marshall; W.T. Roberts, city attorney; and W.M. McElreath, treasurer.  Messers. E.H. Camp, J.J. Haynes, A.R. Bomar and W.J. Camp are attending the state agricultural convention at Americus. There are two flourishing agricultural clubs in [Douglas County].

September 28, 1887 - Can you imagine checking into an Atlanta hotel and it making the paper? Well, apparently in the 1880s The Constitution regularly published the names of people who were in town and staying at the local hotels. A blurb from September 28th indicates S.N. Dorsett was staying at The Markham. Apparently Markham House was a very nice hotel in the 1880s located close to Atlanta's Union Station. The hotel had 107 rooms and central heat. The building was lost in a fire in 1896.

August 10, 1889 - The headline read Farmers Alliance Day - Today is a great one at Piedmont Chautauqua. The Piedmont Chautauqua in Lithia Springs was in full swing. The article goes on to advise the 8 p.m. address for that day would be given by Colonel J. G. Camp on "Women and Her Influence". Mr. Camp is one of the most gifted orators in Georgia.

Joseph G. Camp was known as the orator of the south.

The advertisement states, "His splendid graceful periods are interspersed with enough humor to prevent a surfeit of beauty." Maybe so, but somehow I think Mr. Camp and I would have differing opinions on the subject of women and their influence.

Well that's some of the local news from the 1880s - I hope you enjoyed it!

1902: It's a Marathon Commencement

As I write this my daughter is off to her last official day of high school.  It’s all downhill from here. The next few days leading up to Friday’s commencement ceremony will be filled with graduation practice, but her thirteen years of academic classes including kindergarten are over for her.

For the first time in twenty-two years I will not have to worry with excuse notes, teacher conferences, or deal with report cards. I will never be a room mother again, a PTA officer, or participate in a school fundraiser as a parent.

No more homework wars or the never-ending battle to get someone out the door before the tardy bell sounds. No more agonizing fraction lessons or mad dashes to the drug store for glue or poster board when a forgotten project is suddenly remembered at 9:30 at night.

Fairly soon back to school clothes shopping will be replaced with dorm room shopping, and she will be making that trek for school supplies on her own, in our immediate future is the commencement exercise–the graduation ceremony.     

My son’s graduation ceremony a few years ago was the first one I had experienced since my own in 1980, and I have to be honest here–the overall atmosphere had changed.

Back in my day–gee, did I really use that phrase?  Well, back in my day I remember my own ceremony being a bit reverent, fairly quiet and you could just sense the importance of the occasion. In fact, all of the graduations I went to as a young girl were rather sedate rites of passage whether they were held in a gymnasium, on a school lawn, or auditorium.  My sister’s graduation in 1974 was held at the old Municipal Auditorium in Atlanta where Georgia Championship Wrestling made its home for a while. Her ceremony was nothing like a wrestling match. I remember a stern admonishment from my mother regarding talking and fidgeting, so I had to forget thoughts of a takedown or a half Nelson pin.

Nowadays most graduation ceremonies are held on the school’s football field because of the large number of graduates and guests. While the atmosphere is still thick with the knowledge that an important milestone has been reached, and there is some seriousness to the occasion, the events are also loud with bullhorns, bells, whistles, cat calls, and sometimes it’s a little hard to hear your child’s name being called. Parents jostle for the perfect camera angle, people stand in front of the bleachers blocking your view, and if you don’t arrive at least three hours early grandma won’t get a seat.

Turn back the dials on my own version of Douglas County’s Way Back machine, and we might be attending the graduation exercises for Douglasville College.

Douglasville College was in existence from 1888 to 1914, and was founded at the insistence of Dr. T.R. Whitley, a citizen of Douglasville who wanted to educate his children locally. He was strongly opposed to boarding schools as the only means of providing higher education for youth. Unfortunately, his ideas were slow to catch on as many members of the town council were afraid to allocate any money for the school because they feared the idea would be unpopular with citizens.  They were wrong, of course, and pretty soon Douglasville College was built and opened where the armory sits along Church Street.  When I toured the Old Courthouse Museum several weeks ago I snapped an image of Douglasville College drawn by Steven Garrett and provide it here with this article...

THANK YOU for visiting “Every Now and Then” and reading the first few paragraphs of “1902: It's a Marathon Commencement“ which is now one of the 140 chapters in my book “Every Now and Then: The Amazing Tales of Douglas County, Volume I”. 

Visit the Amazon link by clicking the book cover below where you can explore the table of contents and read a few pages of the book…plus make a
purchase if you choose! 

 

History: Old Courthouse Museum Is Full of It

Before you travel outside of Douglas County to soak in a little history try stopping by Douglasville's own museum housed in the old courthouse located at 6754 West Broad Street in downtown Douglasville.

The old courthouse building is only fifty-five years old which in the whole scheme of history makes it a fairly young building, but once the Douglas County Courthouse moved to Hospital Drive some notation in the location had to be made so people  wouldn't arrive at the wrong place to file a deed, pay a fine, or get a copy of a birth certificate.

Since 2002, the old courthouse building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building passed muster to be added to the prestigious list because it was built in the International Style of architecture, a style that actually emerged in the 1920s and 30s and matured during World War II. Books regarding architecture advise the style characteristics include square or rectangle footprints and all facades have 90 degree angles.Building elements are made up of cubes. Even the windows tend to run in broken horizontal rows and forms grids.

The International Style is not without critics. Many call the structures ugly or sterile. Our 1956 courthouse certainly stands out among the older style buildings in downtown historic district, but I tend to like the clean lines the building possesses. From the Broad Street entrance the structure appears to have only one level, but it actually is a two-story structure with 52 rooms and over 36,000 square feet.

The spot where the Old Courthouse Museum sits today is the location of three previous Douglas County courthouses including the 1896 courthouse that burned. The Georgia Info website provides more information regarding the old courthouse and the move to today's Hospital Drive location.

Whether you like the International Style of architecture or not, our community owes a great deal of gratitude to the local Tourism and History Commission for convincing county government to save the old courthouse from demolition and to use the structure as a museum space. We have allowed too many structures to disappear from our past, and it's refreshing to know there are groups who will fight to save it.

From the museum's webpage:

The Douglas County Tourism and History Commission persuaded the Board of Commissioners to  save the building because of its unique architectural style and for use by the community. The old courthouse now houses the Douglas County Museum of History and Art which contain rotating exhibits of mid-20th century items from private collections to reflect the 1956 date of the courthouse.

Not too long ago I stopped by just to see what the building and museum had to offer, and for close to three hours I was enthralled as I went from room to room. I was amazed at the wealth of artifacts and information the museum contains. Steve Lawler stepped in as my guide, and I was more than impressed with his wealth of knowledge regarding the museum collections and Douglas County history in general.'

The Douglas County Museum of History and Art is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 5 p.m., but special arrangements can be made for groups who wish to tour at other times. School groups from the local area tour the museum as well as various club groups.

In the lobby you will find an exhibit regarding past time capsules that were stored in prior courthouse buildings.

Many of the collections the museum houses are on loan from area residents who are generous enough to allow the public to view their items. Some of the exhibits are quite extensive such as the Coca-Cola exhibit which contains several hundred pieces of memorabilia. Some of the items I recognized from my childhood while other advertisements, bottles, and promotional items were from the earliest days of the company.

I really connected with the lunch box collection and quickly picked out the designs I carried to school as a young girl. I was amazed to see older forms of lunch pails that were used in the 19th century by mill workers and other laborers.

The children's record player collection also elicited a squeal of delight from me as I recognized many designs my friends owned including the round plastic containers we used to store our 45 rpm records. You didn't attend a slumber party without taking along your own 45 collection so the tunes could be played all night long!

One exhibit that taught me a thing or two was the TV lamp exhibit. These lamps were very popular in the 1950s and 1960s. During the early days of television it was generally felt having a lamp on while watching television would help the viewer from damaging his or her eyes. The light from the lamp would diffuse the light from the television. TV lamps don't have shades like regular lamps. A bulb is located behind it, so it actually casts a light on the wall behind the TV. The lamps came in all sorts of designs and apparently are very collectible.

While the museum collection mainly contains items that are contemporary to the building's time period, there is an exhibit dedicated specifically to Douglasville history where one of the first traffic signals in the downtown area can be seen along with many other artifacts dating back to our earliest settlers. One area contains many articles from R.L. Cousins High School which existed in the county during the struggle for civil rights and before integration.

Other exhibits include medical items and the desk of Dr. Claude Vansant, one of the county's first medical doctors, and an extensive collection from the Clinton farm including many household items and furnishings. Today the Clinton farm is owned by Douglas County and is part of Clinton Nature Preserve. If you are into music you will want to see the piano once used by Alabama's Jeff Cook and Jerry Lee Lewis.

I enjoyed my time at the museum very much.. In fact, the only reason why I left was because they were turning the lights off and locking the doors!

I highly recommend every citizen of Douglas County stop by and soak in a little history.

You can reach the Douglas County Museum of History and Art by email or phone:  info@douglascountymuseum.com, 770-949-4090

This post first appeared at Douglasville Patch on April 4, 2011.

Douglasville's First Schoolhouse

Last week my topic was the lawsuit that birthed the location and name of our fair city, and how it took two elections to finally settle things. During my research I stumbled over the fact that the very month and year Douglas County was birthed in October, 1870 our state legislature passed the Common School Act statewide.

Prior to 1870, the state allocated monies to academies in various counties. The academies were more like higher education institutions since they taught Latin, Greek, English literature and higher forms of mathematics. The students at the academies tended to be members of the wealthier families since tuition might be as much as $10 for the year, an exorbitant amount in those days. Poor rural children rarely entered a classroom. The Common School Act began to change that, but the change occurred slowly, and other forms of legislation had to be passed before large majorities of Georgia's children were being educated.

As far back as 1818 money from the land lotteries was invested in bank stock and interest was used to pay the tuition of indigent children for a period of three years. In order to get the tuition, families had to claim pauper status.

Times were different back then. Most families shied away from a label like that, and many Georgia counties chose not to apply for monies since this early system made no provision for elementary education. It wasn't until the Common School Act was passed in 1870 that the system began to straighten out, but again progress was slow.

W.A. Candler, president of Emory University, gave a speech in 1889 where he stated, "How far [the common schools] fell short of reaching all the people, may be inferred from the fact that in 1840 when they reached the number of 176, they had an aggregate attendance of only 8,000 pupils, though the children of school age then in the state numbered not less than 85,000."

Yes, there were children across the state not being served, but I'm so pleased to report that as of early as our first year of legal existence the children of Douglasville were being served by a common school and the building is still standing today.

The first public school in Douglasville stands at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Strickland Street. I've pictured it as it appears today at the beginning of this post. Today the building is a private residence. In 1870, the structure was built by the townspeople and bricks that were made right here in Douglas County covered the exterior of the building. Today the red bricks are covered with stucco and other changes to the structure include additional rooms, a second floor, and a porch. An earlier picture of the school is presented below.

There was no Board of Education in 1870. Common schools would be organized in various neighborhoods by parents...

THANK YOU for visiting “Every Now and Then” and reading the first few paragraphs of “Douglasville's First Schoolhouse“ which is now one of the 140 chapters in my book “Every Now and Then: The Amazing Tales of Douglas County, Volume I”. 

Visit the Amazon link by clicking the book cover below where you can explore the table of contents and read a few pages of the book…plus make a purchase if you choose!