Schley County GaArchives News.....Uncle Johnnie Irish 1893 April 21 1894
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Harris Hill http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00011.html#0002514 May 31, 2004, 5:32 pm

The Atlanta Constitution   
The Atlanta Constitution   April 21, 1894

SOME GEORGIA STORIES
Old Uncle Johnnie Irish, of Schley county, is, perhaps, the fleetest-footed 
man in the state of his age, and he is now seventy years old.  He walked, or 
rather ran, from his home to Buena Vista, twelve miles, for the purpose of 
getting the contract for carrying the mail from Buena Vista to Oglethorpe on 
foot.  The mail on this route goes three times a week and the distance is 
thirty-six miles, which would make that many miles to be covered on foot every 
day except Sunday, but Uncle Johnnie thinks he can make it.

He lives fourteen miles from Ellaville and says he has often made the trip in 
two hours.  On one occasion he was going to Ellaville to meet a priest who was 
to pass at a certain hour on the train.  On the road he passed a man in a 
buggy who offered the pedestrian a seat with him in the buggy.  Uncle Johnnie 
thanked him very kindly, but said he was in a hurry that morning, and trotted 
on uphill and through sand beds and left the gentleman in the buggy far in the 
rear.

He seldom walks when he is on the road, but trots and makes six or seven miles 
an hour easily.  His advantage over horse travel is that his gait is steady 
and travels hills and sand just as he does on level roads.  He says he can 
cover five miles in half an hour.

He is a lively lod gentleman, and as spry as a cat.  He can relate many funny 
experiences concerning himself.  He says he used to pull the plow while his 
wife held the handles, and on one occasion he took a notion he would have some 
fun, and began to whicker and paw the dirt with his feet and ran away with the 
plow.  He does not pull the plow any more now, but has risen to the dignity of 
plowing a steer.



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