GEORGIA - NEWSPAPERS Convicts of Georgia 1893 Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Linda Blum-Barton Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm THE WEEKLY JOURNAL: ATLANTA: GEORGIA: TUESDAY MAY 2: 1893. CONVICTS OF GEORGIA THEY ARE TO BE INVESTIGATED BY COLONEL JONES. PRINCIPAL KEEPER OF THE PENITENTIARY. He Will Talk to Every One of Them. Something About These Wards of the State – Where the Women are at Work – How They are Cared For Colonel George H. Jones, principal keeper of the penitentiary, left the city recently to make a personal inspection of the various convict camps in the state. He will be gone about a month, and during that time he proposes to look every convict in the eye and to hear from him the story of his wrongs if he has any. The colonel will listen with patience to every story that is told him and will investigate thoroughly every camp and the treatment accorded to the convicts confined there. TO START AT THE SOUTH He will begin his tour of inspection at the camps in the southern part of the state and will conclude it at Dade coal mines in the extreme northern portion of Georgia. It will be a matter of interest to the people to know just where the different camps are located and how many convicts are working at each one of them. This can be seen by mapping out the route to be taken by the principal keeper on his tour. On leaving Atlanta he goes to Watertown, a camp near Waycross where about seventy-five convicts are engaged in sawing lumber for Hon. Lem Johnson. From there he goes to Offerman, another lumber camp in Pierce County where there are about eighty convicts working for Dale, Dickson & Co. After talking with each one of the men at both these places, he will go up to Fawcett, in Liberty County, where there are fifty convicts working for the Liberty County Manufacturing company. Although Liberty is a sandy county there is a streak or two of clay running through, and down one of these streaks the convicts are employed in making brick. HUNDREDS MAKING LUMBER On leaving Fawcett he will visit Joslin, in Liberty county, where there are 100 men engaged in making lumber for Dale, Dickson & Co.,; Chancey, where there are 70 men working Anderson's saw mill; Amoskeag, where there are 65 men sawing lumber for the Amoskeag Lumber company; Dempsey, where 65 men are working in the saw mill of Avery & Co., and to Mr. G. V. Gress' camp in Wilcox county, where there are 90 men working in the big saw mill. He will go from there to Pitts in Wilcox county, a new camp where Avery & Co. have ten men, but they will soon move all the men from Dempsey to the new camp. Then Richwood, in Dooly county, will be visited. There the Chattahoochee Brick company has 150 men at work in a big saw mill. STILL OTHER LUMBER CAMPS. After a stop in Milledgeville to see his daughter, Colonel Jones will go to Hodo, in Johnson county, where Mr. T. J. James has sixty-five men at work in his saw mill, and to Adrain, in Emanuel county, where the same man has thirty men at work in another saw mill. MR. SMITH'S CONVICT FARM. From Adrian the colonel will skip over to Oglethorpe county to the splendid farm of Mr. J. M. Smith in Oglethorpe County. This is possibly the finest farm in the state and Mr. Smith has made it so and has made piles of money by working convicts on it. He now has eighty men at work there and they make the finest crops in the state. BELIEVES IN WOMAN'S WORK. From there Colonel Jones will go over to the farm of Mr. W. H. Maddox in Elbert county, the progress of which has been watched with a great deal of interest all over the state. This farm is on the Savannah river, and splendid crops are made there every year. The interesting thing about it is that only women work upon it, for Mr. Maddox prefers to have women over farm hands. All the female convicts in the state are sent to this farm. There are now sixty at work there, fifty-eight Negro women and two white women, Alice White and Pearl Pendergrass' sent from Savannah for kidnapping a little girl and carrying her to a disreputable house. WHAT THE WOMEN DO. Alice White is quite a young girl, and as she is not very strong she is employed in carrying dinner and water to the other women while they work. Pearl Pendergrass has developed quite a muscle since being on the farm, and she works in the field, putting in as good work as any of the Negro women. All the Negro women, plow, hoe, drive wagons and ride horses and do anything else that man does on a farm. Mr. Maddox says he would rather have women to work on the farm than men and he would like to have one hundred if the state can furnish that many. THE KING CAMP OF THE STATE. On leaving the farm of Mr. Maddox Colonel Jones will go up to Rising Fawn, the iron mines operated by the Dade Coal Company. Here seventy men are employed and they turn out one hundred tons of iron ore a day. Then Colonel Jones will go to Durham mines in Walker county near Chickamauga where the Chattahoochee Brick company has 300 men engaged in turning out iron ore. Then Dad mines, the King camp of the state will be visited. There the Dade Coal company have 500 men at work digging coal. THE CLOSING VISIT. After making a thorough inspection of their camps and talking with the little army of convicts, Colonel Jones will pay his final visit to the Chattahoochee Brick Company's camp on the river. There are about 150 men at this camp making brick. On his return the colonel will have been gone about four weeks, and he will be ready to make a report of his visit to the governor. During his absence the business of the office will be in charge of Assistant Keeper Wright.