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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 ‘'l - I 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 //atonic county scat n hast to /abroad o/ - and(Aa o/s/on to /add <7 ynat/uturc 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