Grady-Thomas County GaArchives Biographies.....Dowsy, Aaron Wiley unknown - living in 1913
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 1, 2004, 9:10 pm

Author: William Harden
p. 1072-1074

   WALTER BLAIR RODDENBERY. Born, on the plantation in Decatur county, now in
the new county of Grady, which he now occupies and cultivates, and which his
father attained years ago when all the land was covered with forest, Walter
Blair Roddenbery has unusual and prominent relations with the agricultural and
civic affairs of his locality. He represents the third generation of a family
which has resided in southern Georgia, and the family is one that has furnished
men of ability not only to the agricultural and business affairs of the state,
but also to the larger public life.

   A special distinction belongs to Walter Blair Roddenbery as one of the prime
movers in the formation and organization of Grady county. This movement, which
was brought to a successful termination in 1906, met with a great deal of
opposition from both Decatur and Thomas counties, neither of which wanted to
lose some of their best territory. Mr. Roddenbery worked unceasingly, being
convinced that the best interests of the locality would be subserved by a new
county, and after the county had been created he became a member of the first
board of county commissioners and chairman of the board. In this capacity he had
much to do with the building of the present magnificent courthouse at Cairo, and
continued as chairman of the board until that structure was built and paid for.
It is believed that no county in Georgia has a finer courthouse building than
Grady. Mr. Roddenbery is also president of the Roddenbery Hardware Company of
Cairo, and of the Cairo Guano Company. He is a scientific farmer and a very
successful one, raising diversified crops, but principally sugar cane, and every
year from his own crop of cane he manufactures several thousand cases of syrup
which he markets under the brand "Nigger in de Cane Patch." In the other
important relations which he bears to his community, Mr. Roddenbery is chairman
of deacons in the Baptist church, and for several years has served as
superintendent of the Sunday School.

   Walter Blair Roddenbery was born on his father's plantation near Cairo, on
the twenty-eighth of April, 1862. His father was the late Dr. Seaborn Anderson
Roddenbery, who was born on a farm in Thomas county, Georgia, in 1834. The
paternal grandfather was Robert Roddenbery, a native of South Carolina, where
for so far as known his parents spent all their lives. Two of the brothers of
Robert Roddenbery also came south and located, one in Georgia, and one in
Florida. Robert Roddenbery was a young man when he moved to Georgia, and began
life in this state just even with the world. He had been reared to habits of
industry, and after coming to Georgia, became a wage earner, saving his earnings
and with the money buying land which in those days sold at very low prices,
sometimes as low as $1.00 per acre. He bought a large quantity of land near the
south line of Thomas county, where he built a log house in the woods, and with
the labor of his own hand cleared land and cultivated it. He was one of the
successful men of his time, and acquired a large estate. Before the war he owned
many hundred acres of well improved land, and worked the plantation with the aid
of slaves, freeing nearly a hundred of them at the close of the war. Late in
life he moved into Thomasville, where he remained until his death, which
resulted from his being thrown from a carriage. The maiden name of his wife was
Vicey Anderson, who was born in Thomas county, where her father was a pioneer
and she survived her husband several years, passing away in Cairo. They are both
buried on the old home farm in Thomas county. The seven children in that
generation were named Louisa, Mary Ann, Seaborn A., John K., Nancy, Margaret and
Georgia.

   Dr. Seaborn A. Roddenbery attained his early education in the rural schools
of Thomas county. It was his desire to become a physician and there is a matter
of curious interest in the disagreement between himself and father as to which
school of practice he should adopt. The father wanted him to study homeopathy,
and offered to pay his way through medical college, but the son was determined
to follow the regular school of allopathy, and in consequence he cut himself
loose from dependence upon his father, and secured a clerkship in a Thomasville
store. After earning sufficient money he entered Oglethorpe Medical College at
Savannah, where he was graduated M. D. in 1858. He then began practice in
Decatur county, and engaged board and lodging in the home of Samuel Braswell, a
planter living four miles northwest of the recent site of Cairo. He soon
afterwards bought a tract of land at the "cross-roads," two miles from the
present site of Cairo, and there built a log house. Into that humble shelter, he
brought his bride and it was in that home that Walter Blair Roddenbery and other
of the children were born. Dr. Roddenbery built up a very large and successful
practice in his vicinity and like all the pioneer doctors he had to undergo the
hardships of almost constant riding and driving across the country with few
roads and with very inadequate accommodations for man or beast. This exposure
and hard work undermined his health, so that in 1870 he moved into Cairo and
engaged in the merchandise business. After that he practiced only when called
upon by the families whom he had doctored for many years, and who refused to
accept the services of any other physician. He continued as a farmer and
merchant, until his death in 1896. During the last year of the war Dr.
Roddenbery was called out with the Georgia militia.

   Dr. Roddenbery married Miss Martha America Braswell. She was born on the
south side of Thomas county in 1837, and now resides at the old homestead with
her son Charles D. Her father was Samuel Braswell, who came from North Carolina
to Georgia, being one of the early settlers in Thomas county. About 1845 he
moved to Decatur county, and bought land four miles northwest of the present
site of Cairo. In that locality he spent the rest of his day. Dr. Roddenbery and
wife reared five sons and two daughters, named Walter Blair, Bertha, Robert S.,
Seaborn A., Jr., John W. and Charles D., and Kate. Bertha, now deceased, was
first married to Dr. A. B. Coffman, and second to Charles W. Beale. Charles D.
is a cigar manufacturer in Cairo. Robert S. is engaged in the real estate and
insurance business at Moultrie, Georgia. Seaborn A. Roddenbery, Jr., an attorney
at Thomasville, is one oŁ the prominent men in public life of Georgia, and is
.now representing his district in congress for the third term.

   Walter Blair Roddenbery as a boy attended school in Cairo, and was then sent
to Prof. 0. D. Scott's school in Thomasville, where he prepared for college. He
entered the University of Virginia, and was a student there for two years. It
was his intention to enter the law, but his father's ill health turned him aside
from professional life, and he returned home to take charge of the store, a
business to which he later succeeded. He has also become owner of the old
homestead. Since his proprietorship he has supplanted the old residence with a
comfortable and attractive rural home, and with many excellent farm buildings
and improvements all of which are suitable evidence of the excellent manner in
which he does his farming. He keeps a home dairy of jersey cows, and each season
buys a number of stock cattle for fattening. He raises grain, cotton, vegetables
and fruits but as already stated sugar cane is his chief crop.

   Mr. Roddenbery was married June 1, 1887, to Miss Maude Bostwick. She was born
in Homer, Louisiana, a daughter of Elijah and Rebecca (Scaife) Bostwick. Her
maternal grandfather was Rev. Jimison Scaife, a pioneer of the Methodist
ministry in Georgia. Mr. and Mrs. Roddenbery have four sons, named Albert C.,
Julien B., Walter Blair, Jr., and Frederick W. Mr. Roddenbery is a member of the
Baptist church and his wife of the Methodist.


Additional Comments:
From:

A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA
BY
WILLIAM HARDEN

VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1913

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