Decatur-Randolph County GaArchives Obituaries.....Elijah A. J. Rich July 4 1925
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Gail Rich Nestor gnestor@charter.net July 24, 2003, 6:02 pm

Post-Searchlight, 7/9/1925, Page 1, Bainbridge, Decatur County, Georgia

Mr. E.A.J. Rich dies Saturday morning

The county was saddened Saturday morning by the announcement of the death of 
Mr. E.A.J. Rich, one of the oldest and most respected citizens of this section 
of the country.  Born in Randolph county November 16th, 1840 he came to this 
county at the age of three and one half years.  On April 25th 1867 he was 
united in wedlock to Miss Hattie Pierce who was born in Baker County but 
raised in Decatur County, and who still survives him and to whom eight 
children were born and six of these are still living and are among our most 
prominent people. 

Mr. Rich joined the Masons in 1870 and was the oldest Mason in the county.  He 
and Mr. Henry Ehrlich joined at the same time but in taking the initiation Mr. 
Ehrlich missed one night because of illness and Mr. Rich finished his 
initiation first and being therefore the oldest Mason in the county at the 
time of his death.

Mr. Rich joined the Bethel Missionary Baptist church September 20th, 1869 and 
for 56 years was a Deacon of this church.  In this little church and community 
was the story of his early life and struggles and in his latter days the care 
of the little church and cemetery was the one thought of his old age.  In 1886 
he and Hon. John D. Harrell ran for legislature and became the first 
Democratic legislators from Decatur county after the war.  While a member of 
the general assembly the state capitol was built, the Western and Atlantic 
road was first leased.  In the building of this capitol this legislature did 
not use the entire appropriation and many thousands of dollars were returned 
to the treasury.  In his service he became acquainted with a close friend of 
Henry W. Grady.  This was the most trying period of Georgia history and one 
this is ever replete with interest to the younger generation.

The descendants of this pioneer now consists of 35 grand children and 24 great 
grandchildren.  His body was born to its last resting place by his grandsons, 
Messrs C. C. Rich, P. T. Rich, R. L. Rich, E. G. Rich, C. R. Rich, Bill Rich, 
Jim Rich, and W. G. Powell, Jr.  The funeral services were held at the Bethel 
church in the presence of the life long friends and acquaintances of the 
deceased.  Rev. H. H. Shell and Rev. W. M. Parker were the ministers 
officiating.  One of the largest crowds in the history of the church attended 
the last rites of the deceased Deacon.

His sons living are Messrs. A. J. Rich, E. Rich, P. D. Rich, T. E. Rich, and 
Mesdames W. J. Bush of Colquitt and J. T. Powell of Brinson.

Mr. Rich enlisted in the Confederate army as a private and served nearly 
throughout the entire war.  Becoming wounded just before the endof the war he 
was sent home a first lieutenant, with the rank of captain, having been 
elected captain to succeed the captain just killed, he arrived home before he 
received his commission.

The story of this good man's life is the story of the men that made this 
nation.  A pioneer with all the burdens of a pioneer he proved to be a man to 
carry that burden.  He loved his people, his country, the birds, the animals 
and everything of life and flowers within its borders.  Men of his type are 
fast passing away and the younger generation will do well to take lessons from 
these men who loved and toiled, who spent their lives in their country 
churches, very happy in them and not at all worried by the lure of the city or 
the attractions that take men from their conviction off into a strange avenue 
of thought and endeavor.  Decatur county was a wilderness in his boyhood and 
where great farms florish now, he had in by gone days runted, free and 
untrammelled in the forests thereof.  His sons and his sons' sons are still 
citizens of the county, not a single one of the sons have seen fit to make his 
home elsewhere and they are taking up where he left off.  The subject of this 
sketch was blessed with that kind of a nature that allowed him to share his 
good things with the less fortunate and as well help them to bear their 
burdens.  He was a friend without guile or mental reservation.

A neighbor without envy, an acquaintance without guile, a soldier without 
fear, a public man without duplicity and a citizen with his hand over at the 
plow hands of progress and he will be missed in the county and his community.  
Of such men were prophets made in the days of old and of such men yet do 
nations rest their all.  The men from the soil who can be trusted with a 
nation's future.  The friends of the deceased pioneer do most sincerely 
sympathize with the relatives and descendants even to the third generation.

The Masonic order were in charge of the funeral services accompanied his body 
to the churchyard where he became a deacon one month after his joining the 
church and was until his death.  Holding this place more than half a century.

Additional Comments:
This person was my great, great grandfather.

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