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CARROLLTON’S "GRAND OLD NAN”
Dr. William Washington Fitts, Grandly Glorifies His Fourscore Fears as a Christian Physician and Citric Leader.
VERY community that is worth while in
our Christian civilization has in it some
venerable citizen who has sown such
life-principles in the hearts of his neigh
bors and lifted such ideals in the sky of
its youth that ne is to that community
what Gladstone was to England —“Al-
bion’s grand old man.”
The September opening of the Public
E
Schools of Carrollton, Georgia, brings afresh to that
progressive little city the weight and worth of her
“grand old man” who, at eighty years, is still active
as President of City Board of Education —a position
he has neld by the enthusiastic love of the people
for a quarter of a century.
As a Christian physician Dr. Fitts has carried into
the homes all over that section healing for the body
and balm for the soul. While the snows of eighty
winters have piled theii' white upon his head the
dew of youth is fresh and crystal within his heart.
He has kept young by living and working for the
youth of his community.
With sense enough to be Governor, religion
enough to be a preacher, and tenderness enough and
firmness enough to be a mother and father in one,
Dr. Fitts presents a life story worthy the attention
ana study of every boy who wants to be effectively
great by being intelligently and progressively good.
The Carroll Free Press gives the following delight
ful story of Carrollton’s “Grand Old Man.”
WILLIAM WASHINGTON FITS
was born in Elbert County, Georgia, November 3,
1830. In 1833 his father moved to Pike county, in
this State, where young Fitts did farm work and at
tended “the oldfield schools” of that period, from
which he obtained an excellent rudimentary educa
tion, which has since been supplemented by that of a
broad business training, which has rendered him the
gentle, polished man of affairs that has characterized
his long business life.
In 1855 and. the two subsequent years he was the
medical pupil of Drs. Westbrook and Shackleford at
Bowden, Carroll county. He attended lectures at
tne Atlanta Medical College, and was graduated from
that famous old school in 1860.
The long-dreaded ordeal had come. I, a defence
less young widow, with four little children, had my
own home surrounded by the troops of the Federal
enemy. They were at work despoiling everything
on the little farm, and numbers of them pressed into
the house, frightening my children almost into con
vulsions. With the baby in my arms, I pushed
through them to the porch and made a half piteous,
half indignant appeal to the commander of the band
for protection from his men. “I will put a guard
around your house,” he said, and this he did at once,
but not before the soldiers had broken into pantry
and safe and had taken everything eatable, smash
ing plates and cups and laughing boisterously at
their destruction, all the while uttering course, in
sulting remarks.
As the day wore on the children cried for food, for
they had had no breakfast, but there was not a
mouthful left in the house, and I was afraid to leave
my place by the fire to attempt to secure anything
for them to eat. Later they begged piteously for
water, and one of the guards kindly took a bucket,
and by using his bayonet, he managed to force an
opening to the spring.
“They are taking all our corn,” sobbed my little
girl. “And they are digging the potatoes, too,” said
her brother. I pressed my race against the window
and beheld my little corn patch swarming with
“Blue-coats,” greedily wrenching off the ears from the
stalks and leaving my orphan children without bread.
Under other circumstances it would have amused me
to see them twisting the potatoes out of the ground
with their bayonets, while they laughed and sang
IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY
A True Sketch of My Experience With Sherman ’s Men.
The Golden Age for September 1, 1910.
He was married at Bowden in 1855 to Miss Augie
Brown. By this union there were ten children —five
boys and five girls, five of whom are now in life.
After receiving his medical degrees he became a
resident of Calhoun county, Alabama, where he pur-
DR. W. W. FITS.
sued his profession until hostilities between the
States.
He entered the Confederate army as Surgeon of the
44th Alabama Regiment, with the rank of Major, and
discharged the duties of that office with devotion to
the cause and honor to himself.
He became a resident of Carrollton in 1863. The
half century of his residence here is marked with the
impress, of his energetic personality. It may be
and shouted and swore, but I had no appreciation
of the ludicrous that day, and turned away blinded
with bitter tears.
Even now I recall with a shudder the insults that
I was forced to hear in silence when my woman
hood, my widowhood, and my helpless situation
should have appealed so strongly for protection. I
ignored their coarse jests and shrank into my cor
ner with the children gathered about me. Every
now and then one more daring than the rest would
attempt to elude the guards and gain entrance to
the house. But these sentinels performed their du
ties faithfully. Many times during the day they
found it necessary to bar the entrance to the house
with their rifles, and to this day I remember their
service gratefully, and how they stayed at their
posts until the blue lines were fading in the dis
tance.
When they, too, had departed, I got up and viewed
the scene of devastation. Only those who have suf
fered by the ravaging hand of w r ar can appreciate my
mental anguish when I found myself robbed of the
last rasher of bacon and peck of meal. Even a
“milling” of corn that had stood in the chimney
corner outside was carried away. The fields were
stripped of their ripening stores, and the house of
its valuables. Even the combs and brushes had been
purloined, and the knives and forks, together with
the cooking vessels, were missing. I couldn’t find
a milk bucket to take to the cow-pen when one of
the cows that had escaped the Yankees’ bullets
crept up to the bars and low’ed pitifully. She had
run for her life, and was still quivering with fright.
truthfully said that no event marking the growth or
upbuilding of Carrollton has been accomplished with
out his aid.
RIP VAN WINKLE AWAKES.
The first event to arouse the hamlet from its Rip
Van Winkle lethargy was the proposed building of
the Savannah, Griffin and North Alabama. It was at
this period that the genius of Dr. Fitts manifested
itself to a degree worthy of an industrial captain.
In common with Patrick Garrison, Benjamin M.
Long and John W. Stewart, they labored long and
earnestly with the authorities of the Central Railroad
to prevent the proposed road from going to Lowell,
which fact was accomplished by this celebrated quar
tet. Carrollton got the road, thanks to their fore
sight and diplomatic skill.
Dr. Fitts was made one of the directors of the road,
and by his untiring efforts secured the present ele
gant depot, although vigorously opposed by the Cen
tral Railroad authorities, who held a mortgage on
the new road.
The crowning work of his long and useful career
was the part he took in securing for the city its pres
ent splendid school buildings. In this, like all other
public matters on which he set his head and heart,
he, with other good men of the city, set himself
assiduously to the task of floating bonds. This ex
cellent task was accomplished, and as a result the
city has a splendid public school system.
As a champion of popular education, his fellow cit
izens have honored him with the presidency of the
Carrollton Public School Board for the past twenty
five years.
In the building of a waterworks and sewerage sys
tem he lent his influence to building these most ex
cellent public utilities.
As a closing remark it may not be amiss to say he
was an active practitioner of medicine for fifty years,
during which period he won the confidence of a large
clientele.
His long and useful career has been marked by a
sixty years’ membership of the Baptist Church. Dur
ing these years his walk has been upright. It may
be said of him: “He is an honest man—the noblest
work of God.”
An old hen and her chicks that had hid under the
hearth was so frightened that they did not venture
out in three or four days.
Indeed, I was in an awful plight. Not a mouthful
of food left, and the children crying for something
to eat. I was putting on my shawl to go down the
road to the mill after a couple of sacks of meal that
I had ground a few days before, when mother came
running over from her house to tell me that she
had saved half a dozen hams by hiding them in the
loft.
While we were rejoicing together over this piece
of good fortune, a soldier, who had been foraging at
the mill, stopped at the gate and asked for water.
He was bending under the weight of two bags of
meal. To my dismay I recognized the sacks as
mine. Half crying I told him it was my meal he w r as
carrying, and it was my only prospect for bread for
my children. He kindly (?) dropped one of the sacks
from his shoulder, and when he was gone I hastened
to cook some bread and fry some ham for the hun
gry children. Then kneeling down, w T e thanked God
tor preserving our lives, and begged that He would
care for us in this hour of need.
ELLYS BUNTON MORRIS.
Written for her mother, Mrs. Buntyn.
THE NATION’S DEBITS AND CREDITS.
Last year all Christians gave fifteen million dollars
lor foreign missions, and the saloons of New York
state gave the same amount for license to destroy
our own people in one state.
