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Page 2B
City of Perry 175th Birthday, Nov. 17, 1999, Houston Home Journal
The first 100 years of life in practically perfect Perry
By BOBBE NELSON
Special to the Home Iqurnal
Are Perryans overly proud of their
175-year-01d1 7 5-year-old town? Perhaps, we’ve
certainly been accused ol it. I'd rather
think that thankful is a better word
to describe our appreciation for the
quality of life we enjoy in our unique
little city'.
Perry was the first town to be
incorporated in Houston County,
and its always great to be a first, but
175 years isn’t really very old in the
grand scheme of history. Perry’s won
derful nonagenarians like Aurelia
Evans, Jo Skellie, Nina Harper,
Carolyn Whipple, Ida Woodruff,
Dolly Newberry, Lillie Owens or
Parks Houser (and I’m sure there are
others) can remember most of the
history, for they lived more than half
of it. And any two combined have
been around more years than
Houston County.
Consider, too, that 200 years after
the founding of the Colony at
Plymouth this area was still the hunt
ing and fishing lands of the Creek
Nation. Even so, in this 175 years
two entirely diverse cultures flour
ished and disappeared before the
town as we know it could be born.
Of course, practically perfect
Perry didn’t just happen. It has
evolved through the efforts of each
generation to preserve the admirable
qualities in the foundations of the
past, to build toward the future with
vision and optimism and to elect
leaders with integrity.
In 1821, when Houston County
was brand new, the Justices of the
Inferior Court selected Lot 49 of the
10th Land District as the county
seat. The site was to be called
Wattsville, although no one seems to
know why. Three years later, on Nov.
25, 1824, the town was incorporated
by an act of the Georgia General
Assembly and renamed Perry to
honor Commodore Oliver Hazard
Perry, a hero of the War of 1812.
Pioneers were farmers who came
primarily from Virginia and the
Carolinas. Some came with land
grants, others had won their land in
iQI Cu* ~i&* r
a • ,|Jp
’ -J
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ONCE UPON A TIME A view of down
town Perry' in 1912. This photo is of the stretch of
the state land lottery or had bought
lots from the winners. Their obvious
priorities beyond a good cotton and
corn crop were family, religion, a
superior education for their children,
and efficient government priori
ties which made for a foundation
strong enough to sustain through the
turbulent years.
The little Perry village was first
governed by an appointed commis
sion, later voters elected a mayor, six
aldermen and a sheriff who also
served as postmaster after the post
office was granted in 1825.
The embryo of a business district
developed around the courthouse on
the square. A stagecoach stop where
the east-west/north-south stage routes
intersected may have been the real
beginning of the tourist industry' here.
In just two decades Methodist,
Baptist and Presbyterian churches
formed the heart of the residential
district. Their membership had a
profoundly sobering effect upon
local social love, government and
education. The Methodist congrega
tion sponsored the Houston County
Academy for boys and the Baptists
chartered Baptist Female Seminary,
which in 1854, became the Houston
Female College.
Having leaders of the churches
also serve as leaders in the town gov
ernment and schools let an ambiance
that precluded the rowdiness suffered
by other frontier towns. Life then was
an indefinable blend of hard work,
common sense and contentment.
The original settlement of about
20 families grew rapidly and orderly
according to its bylaws. When James
Averette Bryant surveyed the town in
1846, he designed wide streets to run
perpendicular and parallel, bordered
by sidewalks. The protection of the
town and appearance of its streets
were specifically delegated as the per
sonal responsibility of “all eligible
male citizens.” Taxpayers were fined
if these duties were neglected but had
their taxes reduced if they planted
trees and flowers along the roadways.
Although the first homes were
probably of logs or planks and wattle
Photo contributed by Bobbe Nelson
buildings directly across Carroll Street from the
court house square.
after the Creek fashion, by 1850
many homes reflected the affluence
of the large cotton plantations coun
tywide. This decade was the most
prosperous the area had known, so
that by 1856, the tax digest of
$9,742,960 positioned Houston as
the fourth wealthiest county in the
state.
Social life in Perry had moved
beyond the quilting bees, candy
pullings and house raisings, though
they were still part of the scene. Now
there were also organizations for
community service such as the
Houston Lodge # 35 for Free and
Accepted Masons, chartered in 1844.
The 1851 Perry Debating Society,
dramas performed by the
Shakespearean Society, the Houston
Literary Society, horse racing,
extended house parties, opera and
church socials were a few of the
pleasant diversions.
Houston’s 1860 epithet, “The
Empire County of the Empire State”
ignored the implication that the
nemesis of their society was inherent
in its source of power. The siave pop
ulation was three times greater than
the free and the impending emanci
pation legislation presaged a demise
of all former social structure.
Although half of the voters in
Houston sought negotiation of
North/South differences within the
framework of the Union, Perry men
and women wholeheartedly support
ed the Confederacy when Georgia
succeeded. Confederate Muster Rolls
tell sad stories of men and boys from
nearly every family who joined the
army, leaving plantations in the care
of the women and slaves, journals
and diaries from the times compli
ment the helpful black families who
loyally kept the farms productive and
provided food for all. The wisdom of
the “Cause” may be questioned, but
never the loyalty to it.
Four years of war and the subse
quent years of Reconstruction oblit
erated the second civilization as
irrevocably as the Indian culture had
vanished. John Donald Wade of
Marshallville poignantly describes
the local ambiance. “The sudden
and complete disruption of the sys
tem effected by the war created a
bewilderment so profound that the
community hardly realized what had
happened It was if a lone couple
should keep on waltzing long after
everyone else had begun some jazz
step or other and the leaden
poverty that necklaced everybody
hung the more securely upon a peo
ple who ii their very nature could
not learn the new and violent wrig
gles.” But i am they must.
Land ” hich had been the chief
asset of anti-bclium times had sud
denly become a liability. Land prices
dropped from $9 to $3 per acre. At
times a previously productive farm
would be won with a $5 lottery tick
et. Since Confederate currency was
worthless there was no cash, no
money for taxes, for labor,Tor plant
ing and harvesting.
Both the freedmen and the land
owners had to work together to make
Perry, Georgia
1824 - 1999
W&sa/ul&
fflau&tofis (Jaunty s
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The Houston County
Board of
Commissioners
J. Sherrill Stafford, Chairman
ThomasJ. McMiehael
Gail Robinson
Larry Thomson
H, Jay Walker 111
life bearable for each other. Most of
the freed slaves stayed on the planta
tions because that was home and
they had no where else to go.
Tenant farming and sharecropping
replaced the plantation system, and
skilled plantation orkers became
independent businessmen: barbers,
cobblers, blacksmiths and such.
East and west of Perry, African
Americans developed the first segre
gated neighborhoods, Old Field and
New Hope. Bv 1870 the Home
journal reported three new churches
were nearing completion there,
buildings which would also be used
as schools or for civic meetings and
social gatherings.
In 1871 military rule ended, the
Freedman’s Bureau closed and the
troops withdrew. Finally, a new Perry
was developing and the last decades
of the 19th century offered everyone
the opportunity for a better lifestyle.
See PERRY, Page 3B