Stephens-Franklin-Habersham County GaArchives News.....Biographical Sketches--Col. W. A. Bailey October 15, 1908 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: June McNew http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00030.html#0007420 January 23, 2012, 8:56 pm The Toccoa Record, Toccoa, Stephens County, Georgia October 15, 1908 The Toccoa Record, 15 Oct 1908, p. 1. Biographical Sketches—A feature of THE RECORD for the next few months will be a series of biographical sketches of prominent citizens of Stephens County. In most cases a portrait will accompany the sketch. We inaugurate this department this week with biographies of Dr. J. L. Pendley, the well known jeweler and optometrist, and Col. W. A. Bailey, Clerk of the Superior Court of Stephens County. Col. W. A. Bailey. To no man in Toccoa public life perhaps could the old trite saying, “He’s self-made,” be applied with more correctness than to Col. William Asbury Bailey, at present clerk of the Superior Court of Stephens county. Col. Bailey is yet a young man—born in the lower part of Franklin county, April 28th, 1875—scarce yet at the prime of life, and his public career, yet young, is destined, so his friends and followers think, to grow in emolument each year, for as Court Clerk he has made an enviable record. The large popular vote given him in his 2nd and 3rd race attest this fact, for he has carried the county by a large majority each time, having practically no opposition . . . [missing words] And Col. Bailey is entirely a “Toccoa product,” if such a term can be applied to a man. He came to Toccoa in 1895, first as a clerk with the firm of Vickery, Canon & Co., where he remained during 1896 and ’97. During the following year he had the Texas fever, and went West; but his heart yearned too fondly for the “hills of Habersham,” and he stayed west only a short while, returned here and was with Vickery Bros. and W. C. Edwards a few months, at the desk, when he seemed to have made up his mind that he was not destined for business. We find him in Atlanta, a clerk in the legislature during the fall session of 1898. Afterwards he read law under Col. Chas. L. Bass, who was at that time located in Toccoa, and later completed his legal readings under Judge Jones, was admitted to the bar in June, 1901, and was buckling down to a legal life, when the fight for a new county [Stephens] came on. In this he took an active and efficient part, and was selected by the vmters of the new county to become its chief clerk. Col. Bailey is a prominent Odd Fellow, a good Red Man, and a Royal Arch Mason, being a member of the Commandery at Gainesville, and Yaarab Temple, A.A.O.N.M.S., Atlanta. He is a constituent and useful member of the Baptist Church here, and besides an upright and useful citizen, is a valued member of Toccoa’s social world. Indeed, we do not know but that the near future may see him led from the paths of lone bachelorhood into the vast sweet ways of the Benedict, and some fair Toccoa lassie the leader, though of course as to that we have no authentic data. [The other biography on this date was of Mr. J. L. Pendley. Photos of both men appeared at the top of this article.] Transcribed by June Coker McNew, January 2011. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/stephens/newspapers/biograph3183nw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/gafiles/ File size: 3.6 Kb