Chambers County AlArchives News.....Ol' Man River on Langdale June 28 2004
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ron Williams hopewellroad@yahoo.com July 18, 2004, 9:46 pm

Vaqlley Times News: Past Times
Ol’ Man River on Langdale

"Ol’ Man River" says... was an article that appeared in the Chattahoochee 
Valley Times in the late 1940's. It was sponsored by the Friendly Half Hour, a 
local Sunday afternoon radio program put on by Valley people. Floyd Tillery 
organized the radio program and wrote interesting articles about the people of 
the valley for the paper. He is believed to be the voice behind "Ol’ Man 
River", which took a look at local history from the Chattahoochee River’s point 
of view, and they are written as though the river itself is speaking.

A few of the articles that I located from 1949, as well as one article written 
by Tillery about Pat McGarvin and George H. Lanier, offer a few interesting 
facts about the Langdale Community.

With the recent opening of the cornerstone in the courthouse at Lafayette and 
the recently published book which lists and preserves its contents, I thought 
that it was interesting that Ol’ Man River recorded the contents of the 
Langdale Mill cornerstone which, according to the articles, was opened in 1947 
by Mr. George Lanier and some of his friends.. 

Langdale Mill was built in the mid-1860's and re-built in the late 1880's after 
a terrible fire. Ol’ Man River says that the people of the sixties and eighties 
placed a Holy Bible, a Masonic handbook, a West hymn book, a West Point 
newspaper, a dime, a nickel, a "coppy" (which I am supposing is a copper 
penny), and three little glass vials of samples of the building materials used 
in constructing the mill.

The flood waters of the river and most likely Moore’s Creek had pretty much 
destroyed the paper documents but enough fragments were left to distinguish the 
contents.

Another of the interesting facts that Ol’ Man River left us involves pioneer, 
Mirandy Hines. Mrs. Hines planted the first weeping willows along the bank of 
Moore’s Creek. Those trees eventually led to the community being 
nicknamed "Willow Town", but Mrs. Hines wasn’t only interested in willows. As 
the Bible and hymn book from the cornerstone indicate, the people of Langdale 
were concerned about spiritual matters.

Mirandy Hines is the person responsible for the first church services in the 
village. She instigated the need for a building and sent the men and boys into 
the pine thickets of the area to gather limbs to build a brush arbor for Sunday 
School and church services. The brush arbor stood where the present-day 
Langdale Methodist church stands.

You will remember that the village of Langdale was named after the beloved 
superintendent, Tom Lang, an Englishman. Well, it was Mr. Lang who arranged 
with Lafayette Lanier to build a real church building in 1885.

"‘N do you know one thing", says Ol’ Man River, "De Langdale folkses like to 
all been ‘Piscopalaians! For Mr. Lang had dat kind of religion, ‘n he brung 
a "Piscopalian preacher from Atlanta down dar once a month to hold services, ‘n 
dat was all de kind of Gospel dey had for a while."

"But de Langdale folkses, dey didn’t like dat so much, specially de way 
de ‘Piscopalian preacher wore he collar hind part before. So, purty soon, de 
Methodist and ‘n de Baptist got busy, ‘n got ‘em some religion like what dey 
was used to. De Baptist, dey got Preacher Brannon, from Roanoke, to come 
down ‘n Gospelize to dem once a month; ‘n de Methodist, de got old Brother 
Dowling to s’ply fer dem twell the de conference could send ‘em a circuit-rider 
named Mr. Culver."

Going back to the founding of the mills, Ol’ Man River tells us that the mills 
in the Valley would not have been possible if had not been for Mrs. George 
Huguley and a former slave. 

George Huguley had stored more than 200 bales of cotton in a warehouse in 
Huguley, the community named for him, and he also had some cotton hidden "down 
in the swamps". The bales had been in storage since the year just before the 
Civil War had started.

It was just after the war that the Federal Government sent agents into the 
South to confiscate anything made with slave labor, and the 200 prized bales of 
Huguley cotton fell into that category. Mr. Huguley was away on business when 
the agents arrived at the Huguley Plantation and were greeted by Mrs. Huguley.

Even though the war was over, many of the former slaves remained loyal to their 
former "owners", and Mrs. Huguley summoned the "head man mongst the slaves" to 
pick up an axe and follow her. She then went down to the gin house to greet the 
agents and inform them that if they so much as touched one bale of that cotton 
that the axe would be used for purposes that it had not been intended for. She 
also told them to get off of her property "in a hurry" and not to ever come 
back. Being the understanding gentlemen that they were they did just what she 
said.

When Mr. George Huguley returned and heard the news, he loaded all the cotton 
in wagons and headed for Augusta, where he sold the cotton to British buyers 
for more than a dollar a pound in solid gold. This money was used to build the 
first cotton mill in the Valley (at Riverview).

Speaking of money, the wages of the employees was also discussed in an article 
by Tillery. Mr. Pat McGarvin, whose father came originally to the Valley with 
John Parnell, the peach grower, started working in the mill when he was 8 years 
old and was still employed 60 years later.

McGarvin’s first job came when he was eight when he cleaned bricks for the 
building of the new Langdale Mill. He made thirty-five cents a day, and that 
was BIG money for a boy. The next year he started in the mill in the spinning 
room making ten cents for a twelve hour day. By 1900, McGarvin was in the Weave 
Room, working sixty-six hours a week, and bringing home nine to twelve dollars 
for two weeks work. In 1949, he was "bossing a sanding-machine gang" and made 
about twelve dollars a day. Today, just over 50 years later, the few workers 
remaining in the mills average making in one hour what Mr. McGarvin made in one 
day.

Finally, Ol’ Man River reminds us that he was the key to the success of the 
Valley and her cotton mill heritage: "In 1870, Ol’ Man River done all de work 
of turning de water-wheels of de mills. Today, he does the job in a different 
way, jes by turning de turbines dat makes de power to turn de machinery in de 
mills. So don’t never forget dat Ol’ Man River is how come all dis is here 
today makin’ textile stuff for de whole world." 

Thanks for the memories, Ol’ Man!



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