Memoirs and Family Stories

Chapter 46... Family and the Mountain

2009-11-03T13:14:00.002-06:00

This is the final chapter -

One day I went to the woodpile with a hatchet, hewed out parts, framed and built a pretty decent gate for the front yard. The General (Ira Foster) seeing how successful I was got me to build two double gates for the farm. I was running at that time a little sawmill on a branch near the house. Could only run when there was much rain and there was very little rain then. I would often go to the mill before breakfast and run for 2 or 3 hours. Had an upright saw. The neighbors would haul in logs and I would do the sawing without any help. There I sawed the lumber and built a nice gate, hauled it down to the bottoms (where Guntersville Lake is now) and put it up.

I remember the General said, “Now, Albert, you and John Bolton can haul the two gates to the bottoms, put them up, then run to the mountain, to a line gate and repair it.”

“Why,” says I, “it will take much more than a day to do that.”

“Oh no,” says he, “I will go along and show you”. He went along and the second day at sundown we finished it.

At that time most of the hauling was done with oxen.

There were no buggies on the mountain save one we had. I remember the horse ran away and broke it up one day. I took it to the blacksmith, Dave Moore, close by and together we fixed it.

Dave had many children, he named the first one Alpha, the next one Omega, and then went on and had about a dozen more! I think he could have made a whole Greek alphabet except the first and last. The boys and girls mostly went barefoot. I remember coming up from the sawmill one morning, two sixteen year old girls were getting water at the spring, just as I got opposite and only a few yards away one of them got to searching. I suppose for a tick on her hip. I tried to get by noiselessly, but my foot struck a rock and both girls looked up. Both of these girls are grandmothers now.

A Sunday School was established on the mountain (at the Baptist church, but I don’t believe he ever actually JOINED that church as he helped organize the Episcopal Church in Guntersville) and I was the first Secretary-Treasurer. The collections at first included eggs. I am still Secretary-Treasurer, which now is self-supporting and has been for years. It is the Baptist church which my father-in-law, Ira R. Foster built before he died. My wife is a Baptist.

Some years ago when on a visit to Macon, finding that my parents had neglected to have me baptized, I had the Episcopal minister to do so and also became a member of Christ Church. Almost all of our family are Episcopalians, but there are no others on the mountain. Times have changed very much since we first came here. Not only are there buggies, but some autos too and the last ox has disappeared. (He should see it now!)

Twenty-five and thirty years ago (around the turn of the LAST century - 1900 or so) politics were in a great stew in Alabama. It seems to have been the black belt against the white counties. The people were divided into Democrats, Populist and Jeffersonian Democrats. At that time very few Republicans in this a white county. In the elections the white counties all went Populist but the black belt counties returned enough Democratic votes, which of course were never cast, but counted to overcome this situation.

The farm which my wife and I now own is very valuable. By the system of renting out to tenants year after year and continually planted in corn as gone down so it is not nearly as productive. However, the valuation on the tax books has increased so that now it takes about half the rent to pay the taxes.

I have always considered myself pretty well off, but the older I get, the poorer I become. The failure of the bank in Guntersville in which my wife and I were largely invested sunk me some $5,000. Then on top of that, excessive lawyers fees. Lately a lady to whom I loaned money and went security for her on notes and whom I thought was perfectly reliable and well off - refused to pay. Her refusal to pay has sunk me thousands more. Fortunately my wife owned some property in north Gadsden and also an adjoining county farm, sales of which we are able to live on.

My wife and I live at the old place (house burned in 1987) with our son (Albert M. Ayres II - my grandfather) who looks after the farm. He is married to a lovely lady (Margaret Miller Ayres - my grandmother) and they have four sons Albert III, Asher - my father, William [Bill], and James [Jimmy]), so there are eight of us in the family. I have lived here… on what is known as Georgia Mountain… a little over 44 years.

We have no servants… have for sometime had an auto until now. Not a single horse or buggy on the place. We have had a fine apple orchard, but it has gradually gone down. We have pecan trees bearing, plenty of grapes, a good garden, hogs and cows. So, we can live at home without having to buy very much.

We have our health, our home and our family…which is the important part…as we really have much for which to be thankful!

Chapter 45.... Marshall County

2009-11-02T13:56:00.002-06:00

First let me say that there are only this and two more chapters, but I got sidetracked by 'life'. I do want to finish this and go on to some other family stories.... so here you are - Chapter 45....

About this time our County Supt. of Education ran away, much in debt to the county. Jasper Smith and I were his bondsmen and had to make good to the county. Eventually I didn’t loose so much as I had taken a farm on Brindlee Mountain, but just then I had started to build a mill dam and I had to stop that. For building a road, rebuilding a dam and keeping the mill in running order for years, Mrs. Alford had deeded me 80 acres of mountain side land and the old mill. The road was a very costly one, much blasting and a mile and a half long leading to her part of the farm. The mill was run by a 30 foot overshot wheel and a small stream. A great cave in the mountain side finally blocked the road the mill now is nothing but a wreck.

Chapter 43.... Interesting Family Notes

2009-09-26T15:07:00.004-05:00

My brother Asher was married in Macon shortly after I saw him at the World’s Fair. It was to be a church wedding.

The day appointed and invitations sent, but that day he was on the jury, trying a most important murder case, known as the Woolfolk case… a young man who had murdered a whole family.

Shortly after the appointed wedding date, the jury was dismissed. Asher called the Sexton, had him ring the bell and notified his friends and that very day he was married. He and his bride went to Decatur and took a steam boat and spent their honeymoon with us (on Georgia Mountain). His wife bore him two children, a boy and a girl. His son, also named Asher, was my godson. The son I lost was also named Asher (as were my father, his grandson; two of my sons, his great-grandsons; and my grandson, his great-great grandson).

I met one of my father-in-law’s old commanders in the Seminole War. He told me all about the General (Ira Foster) being wounded and killing the Indians, and then the General was carried many miles on a litter.

Often there would come to my home in Alabama some man who claimed to be one of those litter bearers. The General was Quartermaster General of Georgia in the Civil War. In 1864 he went to Virginia with clothing for the troops. It was amusing to look at the reports years after the war. I remember one high artillery officer wanted a shipment of drawers (underwear). The officer afterwards became the head of a great railroad system. The report from his battalion I gave to my uncle who was a member of that command.

My son's wife’s father (Daniel Jackson Miller) was with us a good deal, he also was a 49er and told interesting tales of his travels on the Pacific coast and down into Mexico. Also, my wife had a cousin living in Gadsden who often visited us and was also a 49er and told some very interesting tales.

Chapter 42... World's Fair.... Chicago

2009-08-21T08:31:00.001-05:00

In 1893 our family….three children (Albert, Asher & Ira) my wife, two of my wife’s nieces and I…all went to Chicago to the World’s fair and spent six weeks there. At first we stayed with an English family, then with some railroad friends who were on the Southern Road. We were there on Chicago Day and I suppose that was the largest number of people ever there…750,000 visitors that day reported by the paper. We were in the southern part of the city, not far from the fair.

That morning I took a Wabash Car and went down into the city about six miles. Very few people on the car going to town, but the car coming south was jammed. I went to the end of the line so I had no trouble getting on a car to come back. When we got to Wabash Avenue, the car line was a sight. The avenue was straight for miles and car after car was in sight and not a particle of any car was visible, the sides and even the roofs were covered with people. I remember how crowded I was, but I did have a seat.

My wife and niece went in at another gate. At one time my wife got so jammed that the man next to her was afraid she was going to faint. My niece, a girl about grown, who was standing in the path of some man, was just picked up bodily and placed behind him!

Chapter 41... Fish and other Creatures

2009-08-14T14:08:00.004-05:00

While at McCrea’s I fished in Gum Swamp which is the largest tributary of the Little Ocmulgee. Had a boat on one of the large lakes and caught Jack and catfish. Went all around the lake in a boat and put out lines to limbs hanging over the water. Caught a good many large catfish. Went one day to examine one set of lines…on one I found a large eel. He had kept winding himself up on the line until he reached the limb to which it was tied and there he was tied in a solid knot and dried in the sun like a bone.

One time I went in a boat down the little Ocmulgee and got into a narrow shallow run that carried me out to a big lake in the river swamp. The young man with me and I fished for sometime without any luck, then they began to bite. We had to leave our poles on the shore, but poles and hang the strings of fish on the poles. He got one and I got the other. That’s the way we carried them home. We had 50 white perch and they are the largest perch there is. The white perch is not at all a game fish. Catching them is like pulling in so much dead weight.

In the tide water in the creeks of New Jersey I have caught a good many eels by what they call bobbing. Run a stout thread lengthwise through the worms, then tie it in a big know. When the eel bites, just throw him over your head back in the marsh. As soon as the line slacks, they are off.

I've caught doves by tying a grain of corn to a string with a good sized piece of paper at the other end. The bird would cut up with really queer antics.

My “man about the place” (on Georgia Mtn) for years was named Tim Malone. He was telling me about an incident that happened to him when he was a young man. One day he and a girl (I think he was rather sweet on her) were haying together in a field and a lizard ran by the girl’s leg… she had on only one garment and the next moment it went up over her head!! She was seen running to the house without any clothing! Tom said that girl couldn’t look at him afterwards.

How different was the girl who lived with my sister-in-law. She came quietly to the house one day and spoke, “Aunt Erie, I wish you would unbutton the back of my dress and take off that lizard!”

Once, traveling with a boy down in the wiregrass country, I discovered a ground rattlesnake on my bosom! I rose up very hurriedly!

Another time I went to a spring to get a drink of water when I discovered a rattlesnake just over the spring. I drank very carefully so as not to disturb him until I had my drink!

Another time I was in swimming….was tired and making for the bank, but when I discovered a moccasin on a limb I was reaching for, I changed directions immediately!

I have often had snakes crawl between my feet. Ordinarily I would kill only poisonous snakes, but sometimes when a black snake frightened me, I killed it.

I often had northern boys working with me and they had a great fear of snakes. I remember one time when we stopped to rest and as we were leaving, discovered a big rattlesnake. I remember one of the northern boys remarked that hereafter when we stopped to rest he was going to climb a tree!

The Chief Engineer under whom I worked always wore boots that reached up to his hips.

I found most snakes rather harmless and not apt to strike unless attacked. I remember as a small boy, I was inside and when I started to go out saw a large black snake lying across the doorstep!

My grandmother had a devilish young Negro boy named “Ned” and one day going through the flower garden, he captured a small garter snake. He managed to fasten it’s head and tail together and called Maria, the cook, that he had brought her a string of beads…slipping it around her neck, much to her gratification. But when the string began to squirm around her neck, she snatched it off quickly. She was a rather scared person.

I well remember the first rattlesnake I killed. It was lying at the mouth of a gopher hold where I suppose it had spent the winter. I shot it with a little rifle I carried, but I never wasted another load of ammunition after that and I killed many.

Speaking of gophers, they were plentiful.

One of the largest and first contractors on the old M&BR Railroad was a convict lessee and shortly after they came, there were few gopher holes left, but quite unsightly excavation where the holes had been. Also, the fox squirrels disappeared. Around the convict quarters were great piles of squirrel skins. I even had a fur tanned myself.

I remember a funny little incident. We had a little darkey in court. He got hold of the hind feet of a gopher one day and really hung on! The gopher started down his hole and had carried a frog, head and shoulders in when one of the men came up and caught the frog by his legs and drew them both out of the hole.

In the Piney Woods no wheat was raised. I remember what a treat it was to us when we found a miller who had a crop of rye. Little corn was raised, but everybody raised potatoes and cane.

In front of nearly all the houses was a mortar and a swinging pestle to pound rice. In the fall, the sugar and syrup makings were somewhat merry makings. The cane juice was always cooked in an open kettle.

There were no evaporators in those days. The skimmings were made into a very good beer and everybody would chew cane and drink cane juice. Sometimes when it was inconvenient to make syrup in the fall, a man would bank up his cane and make it in the spring. I remember two syrup makings particularly.

We were camped at Mrs. Leslies, an old Scotch lady who could still speak the Gaelic. Her daughter, Abbie, and I took the old horse and buggy and started to go about seven miles. It was a cold day and we had to cross the turnpike (?) and there we found it was very deep fording. I ran over a stump and bent the axle in front of a house but got an ax and hammered it straight.

Abbie’s relative, a young man, then finally cautioned me that I’d better be going that it was just about sundown and it would be very hard to get over that road in darkness. It was a murky and cloudy day and I had not noticed the time. We started right off and made the first crossing of the creek all right in daylight, but at the second crossing it was dark and we just had to let the old horse make his way. It was a long ford (going through the creek waters), three deep runs at one time. I thought we were in the creek and it got so bitterly cold, I just hung the lines on the dashboard and wrapped Abbie and myself in a blanket. I remember when we got home and I laughed, it took sometime for my mouth to get straight it was so cold.

Another time, she and I went another way in the fall and had to cross Sugar Creek. When we got to the creek, to our surprise, it was way up. We stopped sometime on the bank considering whether we should try to cross. Finally, Abbie got up on the seat with her arms around me to steady her and I with my feet on the dashboard, we went in! It was perhaps a hundred yards or more through with very deep runs. In the deep runs, the water came almost to the buggy cushions, but we finally got through to the sugar boiling. On the way back, we got onto the wrong road and went a mile or two out of the way.

Chapter 40.... Hunting

2009-08-07T14:28:00.004-05:00

I have always been a great gunner and fisherman, as a young boy I had father’s double barrel and I shot mostly robins. After awhile I got to shooting mostly doves, which then were very plentiful in middle Georgia.

After I went to the Piney Woods, I kept that up, but having a good setter I began shooting partridges and quail. I also hunted squirrel and killed a great many with a shotgun…the small gray squirrels. The fox and black squirrels I also got a great many, using a long barrel rifle with hair trigger.

In Macon I used to get many snipe on the lands below the city. One remarkable shot I made, I killed two snipe flying in opposite directions at one shot. I remember going out with Dr. Matthews once about where Camp Wheeler is now. I noticed two summer, or wood ducks, flying over him. At the first puff of smoke, I saw one duck come down, but at the second puff, the other duck flew on. When I reached him I found out the first duck fell right in his face as he fired the other barrel. He was an excellent shot.

When I moved to Alabama, my brother Asher would come out and bring some friends with him. A few gunners in the vicinity, notably my friend Robert Coles, from the north side, hunted incessantly and we killed many, many quail. My brother would use a 10 gauge shotgun and shot a tremendous charge of powder. One of the first days hunting in the bottoms (where Guntersville Lake is now), a dove flew up in front of us, none of them ever took their gun from their shoulder. Asher, who was walking in the rear and killed it much to the surprise of the others. They remarked that if they had a gun like his they could have killed it too.

One other time two snipes flew overhead and he killed them too, much to everybody’s surprise. He was an expert with the rifle. Someone would throw up a silver dollar and he, using a little target rifle, would hit it in the air. He left a dog with me and I hunted a great deal in the bottoms, especially for birds.

When I was on the Elberton Road we had two pointers in camp and of course had many birds. Down in West Florida I did some unsportsman like shooting. I shot for birds and not for the sport. I got one of the young men to run my instrument for a short time and in a flat piece of ground, I killed a dozen snipes on the ground. I killed a few woodcock out there and my brother killed more.

One morning out on the Elbertson Road my dog followed some sheep to the house near by. I guess it was the first sheep he ever saw. The man came out and wanted to do some dog killing and I had to enforce my protection by bringing my rifle down.

While at Toccoa I hunted frogs in the ponds against the railroad banks with a rifle. While up there I saw the last flocks of wild pigeons and killed some of them. One day I was hunting in the edge of Oconee Swamp and saw a flock of birds which looked like doves. While flying over they kept up a great chattering and lit among the weeds. I shot one and found it a bird of gorgeous plumage. It turned out to be a parakeet. They sometimes came over from the West Indies islands to the Florida coast.

One day I killed a wild pigeon and a woodcock. I told a man nearby he couldn’t tell either bird. “Oh yes,” he said, “one is a dove and the other a snipe.”

Once at MacArthur’s we went deer hunting. I was a long way from the other hunters and heard the dogs barking in a bay. I walked toward it and directly saw what at first I took to be a buzzard, sailing along from the bay about ten feet from the ground with spread wings. I discovered my mistake just as it got opposite me about 70 yards off. Fortunately one of my buckshot passed right through it.

Once in the edge of the Oconee Swamp, hiding behind a fence, I saw a flock of turkeys marching through the weeds. At the first fire, I saw feathers fly and the turkeys all jumped up about 10 feet and then settled down. My other barrel miss fired on account of a defective tube and while I was trying to fix it they made off.

Here at home (Georgia Mtn in North Alabama) I found the turkeys were coming into a field of mine a short distance away. I built a turkey pen and going over there one day, I saw a big gobbler strutting about. I crawled along the fence, laid my rifle on a rail, took good aim and the gun missed fire…he ran off and I walked down to the pen and found one in the pen and one on the outside. I was alone and I tried hard to shoot the one in the pen. Though I could see his head, he never would keep still enough so I finally had to shoot it through the body. Afterward I went to the pen with a neighbor and found another in it, went again and found a number of turkeys outside the pen. Some neighbor had visited it ahead of me! The last turkey I saw, I was coming up the mountain from Warrenton. They used to be plentiful here.

Dr. Gunn was here (Georgia Mtn) from Gadsden doing some dental work for my wife. (Imagine, the dentist coming to you.) Late in the afternoon he would go to the top of the mountain and shoot squirrels. One afternoon he went, got after one and chased it to a tree… stood perfectly still until the squirrel came around the tree to investigate. Shot the squirrel and at the same time a turkey flew out of the tree which he killed with the other barrel.

He found out where the turkeys roosted and all hands went there before day the next morning. They put Tom Malone, my hired man under the tree and when daylight came, he shot and missed. The turkeys flew up and lit on the hillside next to the road on the opposite side of the hollow. Howard Gunn was standing in the road and one ran directly to him and he shot it.

After breakfast, all hands went again…the doctor promising to call them up. My nephew, Ayres Conner went to sleep in his stand and the turkeys woke him up scratching in the leaves near his head. He jumped up, fired his gun, took after the turkeys, ran them down the hill to where our neighbor John Vice was waiting with his gun and he killed several of them.

At one time there was a deer in the neighborhood. Our dogs would get after it and run it at times. One time they ran it to the river and in it plunged.

My greatest delight was to shoot the hawks that came for our chickens and also the crows…but the latter were almost all poisoned by a neighbor and now scarcely ever is one seen.

We didn’t have a sufficient supply of meat, so one afternoon I took one of the Negro hands, let him take my shotgun and I took the rifle and we shot squirrels in the swamp. I remember we heard a queer croaking and discovered it was a lot of young alligators.

The first squirrels we shot astonished me. At first I found they were breeding, but then I remembered it was the wrong time of year and noticed that all of them, male and female were alike…they had fattened on live oak acorns.

The rafters had gotten some distance ahead of us and I was delayed by trying to get a turkey until it got perfectly dark. Across the woods, I could hear the rafters ahead of us, sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left by the creaking of their oars. Finally we swung around a point and there was the long straight stretch of river…a large boat with a white chimney and 6 rafts. I reached the first rafts and threw them half the squirrels and then went on to the raft ahead. Those squirrels were so fat that they needed very little fat to fry them.

I remember another little incident on that raft ride. As we were moving along, I noticed a good big stick of square timber lodged against the bank. I, at once, put off for it in my skiff. I worked for sometime before I could get it loose from the bushes. Finally, after much hard work I got it out in the river, then I got the bow of my boat on one end and paddled away with the stick straight in front of me…caught up to the raft and fastened it to the side. I believe it bought me a good pair of boots in Darrin.

I remember one time while I was at work on Dodge road, I hunted squirrels in a canoe. They were in cypress trees that were growing in the lagoons. I would get under them and try to shoot them so as to fall in the boat. Sometimes I would have to hold out the barrel of the gun so that striking it they would fall into the boat.

One time in a boat on the Tennessee, I saw what I supposed was a duck. It was near the shore and when I got near I found it was a squirrel’s tail. I ran along side and lifted on it. I could hardly believe it could have made it to shore, it was so near exhausted. It never moved when I put it in the boat and when I got land I put it in the fork of a tree on Cumberland Island at Brunswick.

I used to shoot marsh hens, moving along the edge of the marsh. They make a very harsh noise, something like a guinea.

While I lived in the Piney Woods I fished a great deal. At first I caught only small fish, like perch…with a pole, hook and line. At Lumber City I used to go often and in a few hours catch 25 or more… red and yellow bellied perch and bream. Later, I got a spinner and bob and trolled for trout. I well remember the first day I tried the spinner… some boys wanted to go to the swamp and shoot squirrels. I persuaded them to let me take my pole along and try for trout. In using one of them, the fisherman gets the longest pole he can find, sits right in the bow of the boat and trolls in and out from the bank, as the boat moves slowly along. The line is very short, not more than 2 feet long. The river below Lumber City is just like a lake, no current and deep water for two miles.

We went several hundred yards, the boys very impatient to get to the swamp, when my first fish struck. In getting it in, we nearly upset the boat. Then the boys were anxious for me to continue. Going down to the swamp, I caught four and on returning, caught one. The five fish weighed 22-1/2 pounds.

The next afternoon I went again, caught more, but they only weighed 16-1/2 pounds. After that I caught many.

Perhaps the queerest fishing was for red fin Pike, a small fish only found in smaller streams. I have often fished for them with only a strip of white paper on the hook. They would jump clear out of the water for bait. Only fish for a few minutes in one place then they would stop biting altogether.

The queerest hunt we ever made was one day when a man living at Warrenton induced us to each load a couple of shells with buckshot and then go out on the mountain where we heard birds in the open woods and take stands. He was to drive up the mountain with some hound puppies he had. Well, we went up and took stands, I remember my stand was at a big pine tree. I leaned my gun against it and hung my sack of shells on a stump.

Directly I heard the man on the stand just behind me shoot and I supposed he had found a fox squirrel but the next moment I saw the deer. Smith fired and shouted and then the deer, three of them running abreast, came directly toward me. Twenty yards from me, to pass between a clay root and a tree top, they had to double up and then I fired. I suppose every one of the six buckshot went into a deer and the hindest one dropped in his tracks. We followed and got another wounded one. The other one found there in the woods afterwards so I guess I must have killed them all.

After awhile the man with the little hounds arrived and began to quarrel with us for deserting our stands when one of our party pointed to the two deer hanging up.

I hunted a great deal. Any day in the winter I could go to the bottoms and bring back ducks.

Chapter 39.... Alabama Surveying

2009-08-06T17:07:00.001-05:00

About this time, I did a good deal of surveying. Worked much at Gadsden laying off town lots, also at Guntersville laying off Wyeth City. Then I went on another railroad survey. My same people on the Southern had charge of the work. A survey south from ???????? . I was to locate the road. Capt. Wallace from Selma was to run the preliminary lines. I found my party some miles south from Tuscumbia, camped on a large creek. The cook’s tent was right on the bank of the creek and we went then to supper. To get back to our own tents after supper we had to wade pretty deep water. The cook, I remember lost his rooster, it was swept away in the sudden overflow.

After the termination of the Sheffield survey, I came from Tuscumbia to Decatur expecting to go early the next morning on a boat up the river. Stopped with a man who promised to get me up in time to go, but he failed to do so. So, I took the train up to Huntsville, then took private conveyance to Honey on the north back of the river opposite of our farm. That was my last railroad work. I did some surveying of roads, lands and laying off lots and blocks after that, then settled down to life on the farm.

Chapter 38.... Brunswick

2009-08-04T13:32:00.001-05:00

I believe I have never told of my trip to Brunswick and vicinity. My uncle, Henry Johnson, a merchant, spent about ten days in Cumberland. At that time no one lived there except the Bunkley family. We hunted and fished. I remember one of the old men and I went down to the mouth of the inlet at the tide and gathered a lot of oysters. Then we would go hunting ducks at a pond close to the ocean, about 5-6 miles away. It was a mile from Bunkley’s house to the beach and to the beach we could all walk. It was about as much as the pony could do to pull the wagon through the deep sand.

Arriving at the beach, we would all pile into the wagon and away we would go. The wheels would not make the first impression in the sand, it was packed so hard and firm. We killed a few ducks, but young Bunkley, who was at the deepest part of the pond complained that the alligators got most of his. Cumberland Island has gotten to be a great resort since then and there are more conveniences.

I went to Brunswick to survey and lay off the bloom and lay line(?). A large body lying just outside of the turn. I think I laid off some 600 acres into streets and blocks.

Sid Lanier, who married Mary Day, came down while I was there.

I got one of my great surprises while there. I found the man who rode through Lumber City…Harkinsville and Perry to Macon with me in 1863…keeping a boarding house there. A rather good looking woman was also a boarder and one day I was last getting to the table and I made a motion as though I was going to kiss her. Well, my great surprise was that I did kiss her.

Kenneth, with whom I boarded, was a hunchback. Sallie Forbes, a relative who lived with the family, was also a hunchback and both of these deformed people were jolliest beings imaginable.

My brother, Asher, came to visit me and to hunt with me. He was a very good shot and together we killed hundreds of squirrels and ducks.

Chapter 37... train Wreck

2009-08-01T11:35:00.002-05:00

Finally there was no engineer on the road except myself and my assistant. The only crook was at depot grounds at Macon, and the tunnel between Dallas & Rockmart. The latter gave me a great deal of trouble. There was a cave-in near the southern entrance, and it was a long time before we got it stopped. The earth would slide and crash the 12 inch square timbers like matches. Finally we got it stopped. One day I was standing near the mouth of the tunnel when I noticed a gang of convicts had gone. I asked a guard what had become of them and he said a train was off the track said he guessed a pair of wheels. Maybe a track was off. But I soon learned that Raccoon Trestle had gone down with a freight train.

I went then immediately, built me an office out of broken cars. Established a telegraph office and then we went to work to rebuild that trestle. The trestle was about 800 feet long and at the highest was 87 feet. We called all the bridge gangs from Cleveland to Brunswick. Had also a hundred convicts.

At first as the wreck was cleared I ran levels and determined the height of the new trestle. Found that the middle in top part of ??????????? had only had the tops broken off, so I lightened some a foot and shortened others a foot. Slid the timbers that came from the south down a chute we built. Telegraphed and picked up all the loose timber above the line, had some saved in the piney woods. Put the bents together and drew them upright with an engine on the track in north side. We were delayed some by rains, however, we got the new trestle containing about 500,000 feet of lumber in about 10 days.

I found the cause of the wreck to have been a broken car wheel. The train was going south and the wheel broke just as the train reached the trestle. It soon cut through the trestle then struck against the cups and pulled everything forward. The conductor was riding with the engineer and he, looking back saw and understood. He pulled his engine wide open, pulled the train into a car length back of the engine and he and the engine crew went ahead safely. There were 4 men went down with the cars and one of them after in a serious condition for weeks, finally recovered. All the rest were killed instantly.

While the work was going on at the wreck, Alec Stephens, Governor of Georgia died and I went down to Atlanta to his funeral. I went to Macon to see about some work being done there and while there my assistant at the tunnel wired me that the workers had met at the center of the tunnel and line and grade met perfectly.

Chapter 36... Side-wheeler.... the "Asher Ayres"

2009-07-30T17:37:00.002-05:00

Right after the war Father and his partner Dan Baldwin of Savannah had built a river steamer rather large for our river………the “Asher Ayres”, a side-wheeler, built to carry 1500 bales of cotton. She brought a cargo up to Hawkinsville. I believe the freight rate was 3-1/2 cents a pound up, down freights were much cheaper, only $8.00 a bale. Many boats could float down, few could come up.

I was rafting in the little Ocmulgee as she passed the mouth of it going down. A few miles farther as she got into the ????????, a fire broke out. She had 1056 bales of cotton, about 25 passengers and a lot of other freight. She struck the bow on the right bank with only one wheel going. As the limbs swept the pilot house, old Red Hawkins, the pilot, grabbed a passenger and she never got into the water at all.

Mrs. Hayes of S.C. caught on a limb. Her head would be out and then under water. A Negro on a limb above saw her predicament. He swung down from his limb, let his body float out and put his foot right to her face and she grabbed the foot and was drawn up on the limb.

A little Negro girl who had never been in the water before swam right out, said she did just like she had seen the frogs do.

I went to Macon the day after the fire, rode in a seat with the messenger carrying the news, knew nothing of it until after I got to Macon.

The boat was insured, but all the insurance was in the company and that company went broke about the time the boat burnt.

Chapter 35... The Southern Road... In Rockmart

2009-07-29T08:25:00.004-05:00

I was amazed when I went to take charge of Capt Wallace’s party next to Atlanta. He pointed to the profiles and said “this surely is an air line, in the air” that is to say mostly on line just to the tops of the hills and crossed the valleys and streams on enormous trestles. It was cheaper to build these high trestles than build the big banks and it could be done a good deal sooner. Often steam shovels and trains could fill these trestles.

About this time the company promoted me and made me Principal Assistant with charge of all between ?????????? Junction and Rome…50 miles away. They furnished me with a light buggy and pair of mules.

One day I started out from Atlanta, stopped and took dinner with one of my wife’s cousins, Al Pickett, then crossed the Chattahoochee and spent the night at Major Monroe’s camp. The next day I went with him as he was running a difficult grade. Then I went on to McCluskey, he had the hardest division. The tunnel came in his work. Then I went on to see Hines Smith who had the part next to Rome.

The company rented for me a little stone house in Rockmart and I made that my headquarters. That is as soon as construction commenced. I located the tunnel in McCluskeys division and also a short tunnel further south. As soon as the line was located, the contractor was moved in and there were quiet a number of them.

Al Pickett, my wife’s cousin, was in government service and the company paid him a little extra to watch the liquor business along the line.

One of the first things the company did was to stretch a telegraph line, this even before the right of way was cut out. They gave me an operator and one day when I was in Atlanta the company said I must also have a clerk. That day I meet an old schoolmate, Wallace Poe, and he told me quite a hard luck story and I took him back to Rockmart as my clerk. I allowed him to have a bed in my little rock building. Of course, in cutting the right of way my line (telegraph line) was out of commission most of the time.

Poe would notice Lovelace, the operator, trying the line to see if there any current on. He did as he saw Lovelace do, first try the key and quickly put the end of the line in his month. I suppose lightening must have struck the line somewhere for it swung him around and he called to Lovelace that he sure had a current on then.

The company sent my old instrument man up to me as an assistant.

I took one of the parties and located the line coming into Rockmart. I was always fond of making a bold location and at this point I put in the longest ???????. A mile and half on the road. The line emerged from the hills and was a mile in on grade to the depot grounds at Rockmart. But the work was a little heavier than they cared for. I pleaded with them to let it stand.

One day the chief in Atlanta wanted to know how soon I could make the charge, a week? I replied that I shall do it.

“No” he says, “we don’t want anything done that it takes a week to do.”

I replied that I could do it in less time, but I had other work to do just then.

He said nothing more and I hoped my line would stand but the chief engineer came up shortly afterward and put in three curves where I had the long straight line.

I used to send my notes in to Atlanta and they would plot the time there and make out the profile. In notes the usual way to denote where a curve commences is with a P.C. and a ??????? or straight line with a P.T.

One day I went into Atlanta and Pennington says to me, “Here you have missed sending me some notes”

“How is that,” says I.

“Why,” says he, “look here is a P.T. and it is a mile and quarter before the next P.C.”

“Well,” says I, “that is right”, and he laughed outright. To think I had that much straight line in that hilly country.

My wife and two children were now with me at Rockmart. In walking on the line one day I got completely exhausted by the time I reached Ruben’s Camp. (He was afterwards postmaster at Atlanta.) Owing my condition he gave me a drink of whisky….the first I took with me on the road. I had sworn off sometime before that in Macon.

I remember George Height and I were up in the observatory (in his father’s house in Macon) the last night in the year and I noticed it was close to 12 o’clock. I wanted one more drink and I told George to wait a minute and I went down the stairway to the dining room in a hurry. On the sideboard stood three decanters…one rye whiskey, one Cognac brandy and one M??????? wine. That was my last drink of strong liquor for a long time. I got back to George in the observatory and the clock struck 12 just as I got there.

Father would always take a drink before meals but after that he’d say, “Well, I believe you have quit.”

I remember George met me when I got home but I behaved pretty well.

One time I went down the river with Machold, an old German friend in a ??????????? with a “river rat” to paddle for us. We could go out to the different stations on the ???????? and Broad, and we sent back home 78 ducks, most of which I killed. It was bitter cold northern ice in all the still places on the river. Machold carried my claret for me to drink.

Another time I went down to Lumber City with Machold & Dave ????????. Before daybreak the pigs disturbed Dan and he got up & threw an empty bottle. In the morning we got up found a dead pig at our front door. Another day Dave and I went down to Lumber City and caught a very large trout. As we went home, Dave had to stop along the way to display his big trout. I would always take a drink of claret, but I found when I got home that even claret if taken frequently enough will produce results.

While at Rockmart I learned to send by telegraph, tho’ I never learned to receive. I sent some messages to my wife from the tunnel. I liked to stop at the tunnel because Mrs. McCluskey was a much better cook and housekeeper than her husband was engineer.

And I liked to stop too at Dallas where we all boarded with Braswell who afterwards became the company’s claim agent. He had bees and apple butter.

The Engineer who stopped with him in construction was a one armed man. I was amazed at the manner in which he stopped a train on the Airline road. He was agent at a small station and he received orders one evening to stop the south bound train and have them go on the siding to let a fast bound special pass going north. He filled his lantern and started out. It was nearly time for the regular.

He found on trying to light his lantern that they had sent him lubricating oil instead of illuminating oil and just then he could hear the regular train coming. He had little time, placed one foot between the rails, drew his pistol, shot out the headlight and jumped away. The engineer jumped off lightening mad and meant at first to whip him, but learning how matters stood, got his train on the side track just before the special thundered by.

One of the engineers told me this experience. He went on a picnic trip from Athens. A number of them rode on the cow catcher, on a sharp curve they ran suddenly on a cow, none of them was hurt, but the cow was ripped open and the contents scattered over them.

In all my surveying experience I got along nicely with my boys. I believe the only time they fell out with me was once on the Elberton road when I refused to quit work so all hands could go to a public hanging some 10 to 15 miles away. I always made it convenient to carry them to work in the wagon and bring them back when they had any distance to go.

There was a riot at the tunnel on the Southern road. At the foot of a hill was a little grocery store, kept by a man from Rockmart. The Negroes and some whites at the tunnel became incensed at this man and one day they pounded down the hill, killed him and I suppose looted the store which had plenty of mean whiskey…then pandemonium commenced…firing was going on constantly. I was at McClutchen quarters nearby, would hear some objections, then a pistol and rifle shot. There was large magazines at the tunnel, both powder and dynamite and my great fear was that some stray shot would set them off! We had the Sheriff of the two counties there and finally, without trouble, we managed to quell the disturbance.

The company stopped the work at Macon, then I went to Rome and inspected the road clear to Macon, making notes to indicate what the road needed to put it in perfect condition.

I walked the first fifty miles from Rome and here I came across a singular accident. It seems that a pair of wheels had gotten off the track for a good long way but finally jumped on the rail again and no one on the train knew a thing about it. Every tie was marked by the wheels.

From Atlanta to Macon I had a little money bag stolen. The first day, I started in the afternoon and only got to Moore’s Mill. I went up to Moore’s house to spend the night. The next morning when I started to pay my bill, I found out it was gone. I had only $17 in it. Had to go to the station close by where one of my old men was agent and borrow from him. This finished my work on the road and with my wife and sister started for Tennessee. Went to Rome and down the river to Gadsden and then by private conveyance on home.

My wife’s sister was by former marriage and much older than she. Their mother (Millie Creighton Crooks Foster) died shortly after she came with us from Atlanta.

My little daughter was born (Aunt Sweetie, born 1885) while I was still on the Southern Road. The chief engineer came by one day and said he must get to Ohio to see his young child. I told him I had one I had not seen.

“Well,” he said, “You shall”, and he wired at once to the head of the system and soon I had a pass to go. I got nearly to Decatur and found that my pass was for one way only. I remonstrated with the conductor but he was rather abusive and said perhaps they didn’t want me back. But, on telling him what position I held on the road, he went with me to the agent in Decatur and on my return I found my pass there alright.

At Rockmart, one right of way agent, Charlie Smith would often stop at the hotel where I boarded and it was interesting to me to listen to reminiscing by him and Col. Seaborn Jones who stayed at the same hotel. Charlie Smith was the ????????? of Bill Arp who was a great humorous writer. One of his sons was a division engineer and two others were assistant engineers. At times, Col. Jones was a 49er in California. However, he didn’t go there for gold mining, he started before the gold was known about, to go to San Francisco and buy lots there. When he got there, the gold fever was on. He told of his trip home and that was very interesting to me.

He started down the Pacific coast on a steamer, before they got to their crossing place they stopped at the mouth of a river, but found no one there. The people had committed some act against the British and in fear of a gunboat they had moved back from the mouth of the river. The Captain took a row boat and some passengers and went up the river a little way and found a city. There, he found an Irishman who was anxious to cross. Jones and a young doctor paid his expenses to drive a cart, they procured horses and concluded to ride across. They expected to go right across and get a vessel for the U.S., but the trio of them spent years in that country.

The Col. says they had guns, but a short distance when looking ahead they saw a company of cavalry just beyond a small stream. They rode across and neither of them could speak Spanish, but they noticed one man sitting carelessly on his horse and as they rode up he approached them and greeted them in English. He was an American officer counsel or something similar. They found the company had been sent out as an escort and he says they were treated royally at every stopping place, good quarters, and the best of food awaited them…with no pay.

Arriving at Nicaragua they stopped sometime and the colonel wrote to the San Francisco paper discussing the route. As a consequence, here came the miners from California. They made things quite lively.

The ???????? wanted to know what to do. “Should he put a ball and chain on them to work the streets?”

Jones told them, “No, they would tear this town to pieces if they came that and found any of their comrades in such condition, just put them in the calaboose and fine them.”

The two Americans both accepted light positions under the government and stayed there until a revolution drove them out.

My father died while I was on the Southern Road.

Chapter 34... Courtship

2009-07-26T13:33:00.001-05:00

My courtship of my wife continued very slowly...didn't seem to make much progress.

I went to church with her one day and hurriedly stuck my pipe in my pocket and burnt a hole in it.

And another time, I was called on as “Brother Ayres” (Nancy Foster….his future wife was Baptist thru and thru, whereas Albert Ayres was Episcopalian…quite a difference) to take up a collection and I guess that old preacher was astonished at the size of the collection. I went around among the boys with my hat extended and to each one said: "ante up boys"…and they certainly did ante up.

Chapter 33... Macon-Augusta Railroad

2009-07-23T18:31:00.001-05:00

I was engaged for awhile in track laying on the Macon and Augusta railroad. It was a road built with many false grades when the track was first laid. Starting from Macon it crossed the river just below the mouth of Walnut Creek...then a short distance on level ground to Baggy Branch Swamp. The grades began to rise and many miles it was a 45 foot grade to the mile. We crossed that swamp on a pole trestle....round poles driven down and occasionally braced.

At McCalls Mill we had the first false grade. The cut then was intended to be about 40 feet deep but in fact was only 5 to 6 feet deep at the top. We ran through the cut to the top of the grade of 160 feet to the mile and the same at the far end where we were in perhaps 10 feet of the Central Railroad track...then we ran somewhat parallel to the Central Railroad, but rising faster...their grade was only 30 feet to the mile. A mile or two further on, we crossed the Central at a big cut on a diagonal bridge. When we examined for the foundation and found it to be rather soft mud, however, I doubled the number of sub-sills under the track and we crossed with the train and it settled very little.

The next false grade was at the deep cut intended to be 40 feet going through the ridge between the Ocmulgee and the Saver(?) a half mile before getting to the cut we were to have a bank 40 feet high. However, we built a 200 foot bank and on that a 20 foot. The cut we managed as we did the other one but found the bottom of it a treacherous slippery mud. Put the cross ties in it three deep and laid track through the cut. The engine started for the cut with a rush and went through it, the ties had mostly disappeared and only here and there did the track show. We found out there was some sand on the top of the cut, put hands to shoveling it down and surfaced up the track with it. Soon after I left the road I heard that the track was taken down with steam shovels and the trestle on top of the bank filled in.

Fortunately the track was not detached from the trestle for that night there came a heavy rain and the next morning the trestle stood out...the dirt had slid away.

I witnessed an amusing event one evening. We were coming in a Saturday night with all hands and Sunday night when we reached McCall’s where the tracks of the Central were so close, there stood a Central passenger train and the passengers pouring out. I suppose the engineer heard the whistle of our approaching train and forgetting or not knowing there was another road, supposed it was a train on his own track.

I did a great deal of mapping in MacArthur, Dodge and Eastman and some surveying too. Built a road from one mill just below Eastman. Also Gardiner and I ran a railroad survey from Eufaula, Alabama to Greenwood in western Florida, intended to go to St. Andrea's Bay. Got down low and round in Florida to get into the land of oranges and fish.

Returning to Eufaula we came up the Chattahoochee river on a steam boat. Butler, from Eufaula was one of our men; and Cooper, from the Georgia coast was his Rodman. Going into a little town on the river one day, Cooper pointed out to Butler a very pretty woman. Butler asserted as to her good looks and then Cooper was astonished to see Butler go up, take her in his arms and kiss her. She was his brother's wife! She had just come down on a boat. Went with Butler to his father's house and also visited

Marianna....crossed a river on a long, open bridge and couldn't see a bit of water. There's no water there except during a freshet. It's a subterranean stream at the bridge, tho' a considerable stream above and below I believe it is navigable for small steamers. It is the Cupola river. Butler and I also paddled about in a boat on Spring River. A river which starts a considerable stream right at its source and the water so wonderfully clean, in a boat you seem to be floating on air. In deep water we could see the big turtles crawling about on the bottom and the big fish swimming around.

Gardner and I went to Taccoa on the Airline road and run a survey from there to Elberton just 50 miles away. It was intended to be a narrow gage railroad...with banks 10 feet wide and cuts 14 feet. I was on that road just 12 months and 3 days. In that time it was graded from end to end. I located and cross sectioned every foot of it.

Chapter 32... to New York... on business

2009-07-21T15:42:00.002-05:00

When I was about to build Dodge Timber road, I went to New York to lay the plans before old Mr. Dodge, William E. and Mr. Meigs. I took dinner with Mr. Dodge on Madison Ave. After our conference, it was pretty late and I walked down Broadway several miles. Often we would walk a full block without seeing anyone.

I had been there before with Mr. McBarner in the interest of Waterworks. Stayed with him at Bergen Height…..two miles back from Jersey City.

Sometimes I would walk from the ferry out, but I generally went in the street car. One time I hurried from the boat as the others did and had to hang on to a strap. I noticed a girl in the same predicament…. a young man sat reading a newspaper and she look longingly at his knees. Finally she eased herself down on them...the young man glanced around his paper and then went on reading unconcerned.

I used to walk by some gardens, 4 acres of ground which was in litigation so rented out to gardeners at $600 a year. A friend told me that one time neighbors noticed them plowing up everything, a priest had tipped them off that there was to be a great Catholic festival and certain flowers were to be in bloom at that festival and they planted the flowers to the exclusion of the vegetables that year.

Mr. McB had a daughter...quite a pretty, modest girl and she was engaged to a Macon boy at the time and he was with them. The “Black Crook” was the great spectacular play at that time...a great big play and we all wanted to go except Louise. We crossed the ferry, got in a Broadway bus, Louise continually begging us to go somewhere else, but her Mother told her we had started to the “Black Crook” and there we were going...and there we did go.

On one of my trips to New York. I hunted up Mary Steele. Mary was a Lumber City girl who had been attached to the old Lumber Company. Her grandmother living in Portland, Maine and wanted her to go there. She never had seen a railroad, never heard a church bell and was just as green as green could be. Her cousin, MacArthur took her to Savannah, put her in the charge of a clergyman going to Boston...then the minister put her on the train to Portland.

Mary was now in New York, the matron of an orphanage asylum. I made an engagement to spend the next day, Sunday, in Central Park. The next day we spent in the Park and Mary and I talked. I asked her how she got along with her relatives in Portland...she said they showed her many things wonderful and astonishing to her...she thinks they got disgusted with her as she never expressed surprise about anything. She just didn't want to let them know how green she really was!

She was an attractive girl and it seemed strange to me after boating and fishing with her at Lumber City to be with her in New York. We returned and went to a little restaurant on Broadway and had our supper. I didn't know whether she ever returned to her Georgia family, if living, she's an old woman now.

On one trip to New York, I got on the Powell and rode up to Cornwall. I intended at first to stop with the old champion oarsman of the U.S. who lived down at the docks. I forget his name, but he told me of Ryder who lived just across the street from the old school and I got in the back and rode up there. Almost all the people living there took boarders during the summer. At the table I began to make inquiries.

Says I, “Mr. Ryder, what has become of Tom”

He replied that Tom was living in Pennsylvania, having gone to the war in a Pennsylvania regiment.

The daughter looked at me queerly and then asked “Isn’t that Joker”.

I remembered then his old nickname. The next day Ryder and I got a small row boat and took a trip on the river. The next day Miss Ryder and I climbed to the top of old Storm King. She told me much of the people I had known. The old Episcopal rector had finally to leave, he got to be too outspoken Southern to suit the people. There was no school at the old place but I noticed by the advertisements there is a large military school in the town.

Chapter 31.... Surveying Again

2009-07-18T18:39:00.004-05:00

I did some surveying along the river to decide the fall, which was considerable just above the city, with the idea of damming and conveying the power by endless wire repose to another large confederate building a mile or more distant. Transmitting power by electricity had not come then.

Another job was for Mr. Buth, some old ladies in Charleston owned 20,000 acres of land in Wayne County (GA), between Jessup and Brunswick. Buth had the deed from the state of Georgia for 20,000 acre tracts. But the old ladies had slept on their rights too long. I suppose there was at least a squatter on each 1000 acres and they thought they owned it. The first line I followed was next to the regular survey, this land was head (?) right and I think must have been surveyed by men on horseback. The corners were all right, but the last measurements did not agree at all. I don't think it was ever measured, just guessed at.

I would measure on the north side one day and on the south side the next and by so doing, I avoided the squatters, but they divided their forces one day. I had been hunting for the line from the one I had been running. I had followed the line until the marks gave out. I was disgusted and wanted to get rid of the whole thing.

The woods were very open and I could see a long way, I had gone with my party to a dried up cypress pond seeking shade. Away off I could see them strung out, some on foot, some horseback, with these long rifles on their shoulders.

"Keep still Smith," says I, “let's see what they do when they get to the end of my ?????????".

Then they spread out seeking a new line. At last, I told Smith to get up and shout and wave to them. They saw us and gathered in a body and came to us. They were polite enough at first. I had been on the railroad a long time and I think some of them recognized me. Then they told me very plainly that I must quit surveying there. I was mighty glad of an excuse to stop and I told an ole man if we were at Jessup we would treat him.

One important job I did was the location of a road just to haul timber to the river. I remember Dodge and I went down the road to a little station which had one stove. He bought a box of oranges and we got in the buggy and started for the location where he wanted the road built. In going through a creek, the water came in, busted the box of oranges and scattered them about the floor of the buggy. We got to a house where we spent the night and he spread the oranges down on the hearth before a good fire, afterwards he said he thought the box from the cigars had improved them.

We took a look at the surroundings and picked a place where we would top the river. I got hands enough to make the survey and he brought in the equipment of German Mills down on the river in Tatwell Co. The road was to be 3-1/2 feet gauge..soon located. The road ran into timber and he put hands to cutting it. A steamboat brought up a little locomotive with a 30" driving wheel and a mud Gunan or Engineer. Brought two carpenters from Macon and they put two flat cars...he also brought a pick driver and a sawmill.

We drove piles next to the river and placed the trestle and commenced laying track. When we got our track out to the timber, they had 7,500 shicks (?) cut.

I did my eating partly at the camp and partly with a native named Berry Powell. Berry's wife, Roxie, enjoyed reading and Dodge would come along and give us NY and London papers. Berry was an illiterate, a great hunter and fisherman and a river pilot. My young brother, Asher, came down and he and Berry hunted and fished out in the Piney woods. They killed squirrel and woodcock...on the river, they killed squirrel and duck...once they killed turkey and once deer. Sometimes they brought strings of white perch from the river.

Berry had a crowd of children. At night all hands would get in front of the big fireplace and pick birds or skin squirrel. At the table, the birds or squirrels would come on in big wooden bread trays and none of us thought of taking a whole bird or half a squirrel at a helping.

I moved farther than five miles from the river and boarded with an old acquaintance named Smith.

My oldest sister had married a federal officer, Capt. Simpson, who stayed with us while Wilson occupied Macon. My sister's schoolmates were at our house much of the time and they used to tease him. They moved to Michigan and there my sister died soon after the birth of her child (a daughter). This was while I was surveying on the Brunswick road. My sister Fanny and an elderly woman who was living with us at the time went and brought the baby to Macon (I can remember that this “baby” was an old lady when I was little, but I remember her, and we always called her Cousin Minnie. She had been raised by her Grandparents, Asher & Mary Ayres in Macon). The baby is now the mother (around 1920) of two grown children, one of them a soldier who was desperately wounded in France.

Mr. Dodge gave the present county, named for him, a court house. The county town was named for Mr. Eastman who built himself a good residence and lived there. I was there for sometime laying off the town, a good deal of which I laid off in curving lanes. Mr. Eastman called it a Villa City. Some of the curves were of such tremendous radius, I had to use bar and beam compasses. Indeed the railroad ran through the town about a mile on a 30 minute curve all the way and my principal road was parallel to that. I made a map of them from counties and did a good deal of the map work.

My future wife's father (Ira Foster) had established mills (lumber) at Eastman and I boarded with them a good while. In 1868 I was engaged on a railroad survey from Tuscumbia, Alabama towards Opelika, Alabama, was engaged on that for 3 months...it was then a very wild country. Ran 45 miles on a road built by Gen. Wilson between the Sipsey and Black water at the foot of the Narrow River.

We worked hard...sometimes we'd have hot dinner, sometimes none...when we made no stop. I was running the level crossing Coosa ridge while the party was all scattered around resting. I spied a young fawn under a bush. We made a rush and caught it. My Rodman wished it and I told him if he could tote it and at the same time manipulate a 14 foot rod to take it. A Negro came on a mule with dinner and he took the fawn to camp. It became gentle right off and my Rodman left it at his home which we passed by after the survey.

The party was a large one and every morning before going to work each one had a ration of whiskey and the same on our return.

One Sunday, one of the men and I drove 16 miles to Elyton which a few years after was the site of Birmingham. Crossing the Black Warrior river one afternoon at the mouth of Coal Creek, I stood my level on the flat rock...the sun was shining up the river and there seemed to be something crossing there. I turned my telescope to see what it was and discovered a string of school children with their clothes up around their waist. The sun was shining in her eyes, the tallest girl got on the point of rock after crossing, shielding her eyes from the sun, trying to make out what was in the water below. She made a pretty picture but didn't realize I could see her so plainly as if she was only 10 steps away.

We stopped the survey when we got to the Coosa River and tramped from there to Opelika. I didn't get a cent of pay for the three months. Only got railroad fare to and from home.

We met some queer specimen of humanity. I remember one evening, running behind the rest of the party, I noticed a man on the road I was surveying. I hurried up and met him...and inquired if he had any tobacco about him. He seemed to be a jovial fellow, hauled out a big twist with the exclamation: “Here you are, Walker Queen, well trusted and damn mean...help yourself."

We had run completely out of tobacco. I had found one plug in my valise but that didn't last long.

One morning a countryman came into our camp with a big hunk of homemade tobacco - 6-1/2 pounds - I gave him 20 cents a pound for it. After that, we would pull it off a leaf at the time...chew it and smoke it in our paper and roll some of it into cigars. There were no stores near us. We occasionally came across marks of the North & South survey. Afterwards the L&N Railroad, indeed our transit man Milner had been on that survey.

One day our chief came into our camp and said: "Ayres, I came across a body of land containing enough coal to last the U.S. for a hundred years and it can be bought for only $300."

"Why didn't you buy it?"

"Didn't have the money."

"Well, I have...you buy it tomorrow." But for some reason he neglected to buy it.

We were a jolly party, but I did have a hard time...ran the level and away behind, the transit party did not cut out much of a line and after I would have to take sights through some narrow opening seeing probably a foot of the target rod and rely upon my Rodman to call out properly and he did make fearful mistakes. When we broke up, I was the only one who had any money and they all had to rely upon me. I was glad to get back to Macon, but I didn't return any richer.

In locating and building Dodge's timber road, in going from the river, I used any kind of grade...in going to the river, I used very light grades, not over 30' to the mile. A few miles out from the river in deep sand hills, I crossed two branches, each had perhaps a 150' of marshy ground. In there, I found I could push a fishing pole perhaps its length in the soft ground. I was in something of a quandary how to go, but finally through a sand bank 3' high across, leaving a small opening for the branch to run through (no water ever run in the branches except in the springs at the head). The deep sand on either side soaked up the water as fast as it fell, even in the heaviest rains. At the creek crossing, I had to put in pile trestles. The road, after I left was extended to the M&B RR. The German Engineer managed to run off and kill one Negro. I was next on a railroad survey from Hawkinsville to Eufaula. Saw some long straight lines. The grading of the road commenced and was finished a short distance from Hawkinsville. We ran through Drayton, Americus and Preston. Were in Webster Co. when Susan Eberhard was confined in jail until she was hanged.

On this survey I encountered the greatest hailstorm I ever experienced. I was running in a curve at the time near Mr. Caby's house. Saw the cloud coming and grabbed up my instrument. Camp was only a mile away and I started at the head. Something struck the ground near me. I turned to call to the boys behind not to be so careless they might break an instrument. I was astonished to see the great stones falling. They would strike the bare fields, bury themselves, sending up a cloud of dust. We all piled over a fence and ran into a little blacksmith shop. One man ran under the bellows. In the midst of it, with leaves flying from trees, I saw a hen sailing down the road, flying.

The storm was soon over and we went into camp which was in a pine thicket...gathered and filled our buckets and had ice water for sometime. The largest stones, I could just reach around with both hands. I remember there was an old man living near who was in habit of telling big tales. He gathered up a sack full of stones and made for Hawkinsville, intending to back up his big tale this time. But when he got there and witnessed the destruction...the metal roof torn up, the lights knocked out, he sadly took the sack and emptied it behind the house.

We had with us Coupe Campbell from Griffin. His brothers were all preachers but he lacked much of being one. He used to tell me of some of his adventures. One time, being sent off by the yankee Commander of a small town in southeast Georgia for shooting a man, although in self-defense, he had done too much shooting. He found himself in Texas...being out in the plains hunting one day, he and another man strayed off some distance from the camp and were attacked by Comanche’s. They turned and made for camp as hard as they could, his comrade with an arrow in his shoulder. They reserved their fire until near camp. The consequence, the camp aroused, mounted and pursued the Indians. The Indian’s ponies were tired and their ponies were fresh so they killed most of the Indians. He said it was amusing to see the old Tonkawa Indian they had in camp, go around singing his songs and carefully scalping all the Comanche’s. The Tonkawa tribe had been almost wiped out by the Comanche’s.