BULLOCH COUNTY, GA - HISTORY   Mineola Community

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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:
From: Carole Farr Drexel  <drexel410@charter.net>
Below you will find information about what happened to
some of the pioneering families that lived early on in
Screven, Bulloch and perhaps a few surrounding
counties before and around 1830 and after.  Sometimes
it helps to find this kind of information to help see
how families moved to different areas together, etc.  


1825-1987, pg.90

Dates of birth/death from gravestone -- LaVonta Sue
Caldwell

From Valdosta Daily Times, June 3, 1993 by Dean
Poling, Times Staff Writer:

"Most folks think of Highway 41 North as the road to
Hahira from Valdosta. But also along Lowndes County's
stretch of the highway rests the small community of
Mineola. Some folks don't even realize Mineola is even
on the road; nonetheless, this community has a rich
tradition following most South Georgia towns and
communities. 

Years after the Seminole and Cherokee Indians left the
South Georgia/North Florida area, a fellow by the name
of Remer Young bought a good bit of land in the
northwestern section of Lowndes County. He started a
plantation which covered most of what is now Mineola.
In the mid 1830s, Isaiah H. Tillman was a Hawkinsville
storeowner. He bought some of Young's land and lived
with one of the Youngs for a spell -- at least until
his own house was finished. During that time, Tillman
fell for Matthew Young's daughter, Arminta. Tillman
married her and together they moved into his new house
on his parcel of land.

Meanwhile, more families were moving onto land close
to the Young plantation. The Howell, Kendall,
Barfield, Dampier, Hodges, Scruggs, and Copeland
families were among these early settlers. By 1888, the
Georgia Southern and Florida Railroad took an interest
in the area and built a rail line though the
community. As in most towns' cases, a post office and
a depot soon followed. Considering the good fortune of
getting a railroad, John Young and J. T. Roberts built
a sawmill along the tracks near the depot named the
Mineola Station. In keeping with that name, the two
men named their sawmill Mineola Mill Company.

By the late 1890s, the Coleman family built a
turpentine still near the depot. Farmers shipped their
goods to Valdosta by train. The railroad made life a
little easier for the farmers. Before the train,
they'd have to haul their crops eight miles to
Valdosta by wagon. The coming of Highway 41 spelled
the end for the trains as most farmers took their
produce to Valdosta by truck. In the 1940s, train
stops were discontinued."


>From pg. 185 "History of Lowndes County Georgia 1825-
1941 By General James Jackson Chapter NSDAR, Valdosta,
GA, 1995:

Mineola "Among the early settlers of the county was
Mr. Remer Young, whose large plantation included the
present village of Mineola. It was here he reared a
most interesting family. John Young (later of
Savannah), Mrs. W. F. Pendleton, Mrs. John Roberts,
Mrs. Henry Peeples, Mrs. Jerry B. Jones, Jim Young,
Mrs. W. B. Fender and Mrs. Austin of Atlanta were his
children.

After the railroad came through that section, the
Mineola Mill Company was organized by Messrs. John
Young and J. T. Roberts, which they operated for many
years, later selling to W. S. Fender. Nearby lived
other early families, among them Mr. Isaiah H.
Tillman, who came to Lowndes County in 1834 from
Hawkinsville, where he had been a young merchant. He
stayed, until his own house was completed, in the home
of Matthew Young, across the river in that portion of
the county which later became Brooks. Having married
Arminta Young, a daughter of his host, he moved into
the new home where he continued to live until his
death in 1896. Mr. Tillman was a progressive farmer
and inspired his son, Henry Young Tillman, with the
same love of the land.

Other farms in this locality have been owned by the
Howell, Kendall, Barfield, Dampier, Hodges, Scruggs,
and other families. The Young farms are now owned by
the J. A. Dasher family, C. L. Smith, J. T. Mathis and
Henry Young Tillman, who owns also the farm north of
the Young place, formerly farmed by his father, Henry
Y. Tillman. Since the saw mill no longer operates in
Mineola, the only industry left is the turpentine
still now owned by Mr. Coleman, who has operated there
for many years