TALIAFERRO COUNTY, GA - HISTORY Crawfordville Farmers Alliance ***************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm *********************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Jim Carey generalmanager@econelec.com Names of Crawfordville Farmers Alliance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following names are listed as members in the minutes of the Crawfordville farmer’s alliance 1888-1893. This book is interesting in that it reads much like the Baptist Church records of the area. A few deaths are mentioned along with charitable donations made to families. Each member was investigated before they were admitted, unless they were admitted by “card” from another alliance. A few names are not listed here because they were rejected by the membership. Those of you who are descendants of these individuals; I hope I got the names correct. If not then let me know. Also if you would like to add additional information, then please be my guest. http://www.econelec.com/Carywebpage/cary/ E.J. Anderson P.G. Veazey Wm. T. Flint A. J. Chapman Ross Gunn J. W. Asbury H.D. Murden W. C. Rhodes S. A. Chapman T. L. Chapman V. S. Allen S. W. Chapman D. A. Saggus or Saggers W. R. Gunn E. D. Hadaway S. J. Chapman T. N. Chapman Jas R. Ogletree Benjamin Jones S. E. Gunn Wm. N. Gunn D. W. Atchison N. A. Allen J. N. Akiss W. A. Hill J. S. Chapman D. W. Henry J. T. Harrison B. T. Wynne J. D. Lunceford W. C. Taylor J. W. Allen Jocob Rokir O. M. Saggers T. B. Taylor E. H. Ogletree J. J. Chapman H. A. Poss J. O. Bentley John T. Cox Wm Gordan Arthur Ogletree Clem G. Moore W. D. Ogletree E. L. Bentley S. G. Jones G. H. Mitchell John T. Cooper Dr. L. A. Stephens John L. Henry H. M. Allen Wm. T. Chapman S. H. Rhodes R. R. Roy C. A. Cox W. C. Chapman J. J. Lyle G. B Stewart S. S. Ellington J. A. Evans Joel Hall C. C. Rhodes G. T. Rhodes W. J. Ellington. NOTES from Harris Hill harrishill@starband.net In the late 1880's and early 1890's, the country was in a depression. Cotton prices had sunk to an all-time low. There were sentiments amongst the farmers to withhold cotton from the market to force the price up but there was no real unity and the effort was ineffective as many had to sell to feed their families. There are numerous stories in the old Schley County News issues about cotton and cotton warehouses mysteriously burning. As a result the Farmer's Alliance was formed as sort of economic union to provide the unity that was missing. They also acted as cooperatives to market their crops collectively. Some formed banks, built grain elevators, cotton gins, etc. The effort was unsuccessful and the Farmer's Alliance eventually became part of the Populist Party movement. The following was taken from "A History of Greene County" by Dave Buckhout. http://www.inheritage.org/almanack/c_greene_04 .html Agrarian Uprising . It all began as the Farmer's Alliance, a grassroots, rural-commerce movement rising out of Texas in the 1880s. Initiated as an alternative to the virtual slavery many small farmers felt in relation to their creditors, by 1890 the Alliance had drawn up a political platform and had spread across the rural agrarian South like wildfire. Two suspicions lay at the movement's root: a bitter distaste for the draconian power wielded by the reigning Democrats - C. Vann Woodward in his Origins of the New South quoted a Georgia Alliance-backed paper accusing "the silk-hat bosses of deserting the wool-hat rank and file" - and a hostility towards lenders and their source: Wall Street, the very symbol of northern banking interests. By 1889, there were 104,000 Alliance members in Georgia alone. Greene County, the majority of its population of the small-landowning and tenant farming class, became a hotbed of the uprising. When Alliance-backed Democrats were soundly defeated in the elections of 1890, mainstream party loyalty having swamped this upstart challenge to the "redeemers," the result was the splinter Populist Party. There was an Alliance in Schley county and from what I could determine from old newspaper accounts, it resembled a union and seemed to have formed in part for political clout.