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Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005 | ||
What do you think of this story? | Putting history on the map - literally
By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE There are usually good reasons for a county to honor a citizen by naming a boulevard for him or her: To foster a sense of history, perhaps, or to express pride or appreciation. Or is that so? Casual perusal of county maps reveals name after name that shows up in no history book, made no headlines. They're family names, and became attached to roads simply because the family that bore them first acquired a plot of ground somewhere and cut a road in to it. Soon the county map came to reflect the family's name, and by the time neighbors moved onto adjacent properties and the county was petitioned to pave the road, it was legally registered as Reese or Jenkins or Christopher or Robinson Road. Never mind that history does not record who the Reeses or the Jenkinses or the Christophers or Robinsons were: A public thoroughfare forever bears their names. Similarly, roads are named for the communities they connect, or a local mill, ferry, or water source - places which themselves immortalize a founding family or honor an historic figure. (Unfortunately, local historians also report recent efforts by some subdivision developers to rewrite history for sales appeal.) But let us consider first who inspired the deliberate naming of a few of the streets and roads of Fayette County, beginning with our home state of Georgia. As early as 1722, the name Georgia was proposed for an English settlement westward along the 33rd parallel to honor King George I. When English sovereign George II granted the state's charter on June 9, 1732 - establishing as a colony the region between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers all the way to the Pacific Ocean - it was named in his honor, using the Latinized form for a place name. Appropriately, the Greek word "georgia" also means agriculture. Georgia, of course, is an avenue in Fayetteville, as well as part of every state highway designation in any county. Fayette and Fayetteville are namesakes of the Marquis de Lafayette, the French military leader and statesman who fought on the side of the patriots during the American Revolution and helped raise funds for their endeavors. His return tour of the young nation in 1824-1825 sent Americans into a frenzy of honorifics. There are no fewer than 15 Fayettevilles in the United States, two of them in Pennsylvania. Washington St. and Jeff Davis in Fayetteville need no explanation. It may be presumed that Carver St. in Fayetteville honors American educator and agricultural innovator George Washington Carver and that Lanier Avenue memorializes Georgia's noted poet-linguist-mathematician-lawyer-musician Sidney Lanier. Southern patriotism would account for Fayetteville's Beauregard Blvd. (for Confederate Gen. Pierre Beauregard) as well as Stonewall Ave. (for Gen. Stonewall Jackson). It is less certain, however, that that city's Grady Ave. is named for Henry W. Grady, noted journalist and spokesperson for the New South who convinced many Southern leaders of the need for reconciliation and economic recovery following the War Between the States. In Coweta County, roads named for local families or heroes often use the given name as well as the surname - Andrew Bailey, Lora Smith (a man, not a woman), Gary Summers (Bob Summers still lives there) - while Fayette sticks with last names, in most cases - Burch, Adams, Trammell. The exceptions are of relatively recent vintage. One is Jimmie Mayfield Blvd. in Fayetteville, named to celebrate a Fayette native who, while an officer with the Georgia State Patrol, worked closely with Fayetteville officials in developing and training the city's police department. Gruff and forbidding in uniform, Mayfield is remembered by family members as one who "could never say no to anyone," especially to children. He died of cancer in 1986 at the age of 43. Another is a stretch of Church St. in Fayetteville, renamed Melissa Segars Way in memory of a young woman whose courage while awaiting a heart-lung transplant inspired wide community support. She did not survive surgery in 1993. But Peachtree City takes the risk of naming thoroughfares for citizens who are still around to enjoy the honor. Joel Cowan and Floy Farr, each of whom drive over parkways named for them every time they go out of town, were the movers and shakers who brought the western Fayette city into being. Cowan accepted the challenge - to build a city from scratch - of developer Pete Knox while still a Georgia Tech student, and persuaded landowners to sell the project 15,000 acres. In 1959, Cowan became the city's first mayor. Banker Farr, scion of an old Tyrone family, was instrumental in pulling together the project's finances, established Peachtree City's first bank, and still serves on local boards of directors. McWilliams Dr. and Huddleston Rd., in Peachtree City, are named for early families there, as are Redwine, Ellison, and Harp roads in unincorporated Fayette - families whose contributions to the county have memorialized them in many ways. Similarly, Grooms, Porter, and Padgett roads recalls families still well known in their communities. A millpond in northern Fayette County, documented in the 1870 census as belonging to a man named Faver, was purchased in 1915 by W.J. Lee. His son, J.M., developed it into a popular recreational spot, complete with rented cabins and picnic grounds. J.M. Lee also ran an extensive milling operation there until 1932, giving Lee's Lake, Lee's Mill, and two roads his name. The mill was in use until it burned in about 1957. Rivers Rd., however, recalls not a waterway but a Fayette family that sent many of its sons to battle under the Confederate banner. It is ironic that a pond between the counties as well as a Peachtree City street have the name of a very early settler's descendants, but the man who gave refuge to the children of Chief McIntosh has, until recently, gone uncommemorated. Brig. Gen. William Alexander Ware, on the awful night when McIntosh was burned out of his home and shot dead by other Creek chiefs for signing a treaty with the white man, took the chief's terrified wives and children into his home on Line Creek. Ware was a Virginia veteran of the Revolutionary War who became one of Fayette County's first justices and was elected to the state legislature in 1822. A surveyor, he apparently had no children of his own, but descendants of relatives named Wynn are remembered in Wynn's Pond and Wynnmeade Parkway. Several years ago, however, an Alexander Ware Place under construction near Quarters Rd., was named for a family whose old home place foundations are said still to be traceable there. Since Brig. Gen. Ware's farm was several miles to the west, it is doubtful that this was the location of any of his holdings, but may actually have belonged to another member of this rather large and well-to-do family. A road in Fayette goes a bit further than being merely the site of an old home place. A descendant of Jim Massengale says that while the family property was indeed situated on Massengale Rd. - part of which itself overlies the original McIntosh Trail (see below) - the road was also named to honor the fact that Jim Massengale drove a county school bus for many years. The spot in Fayette County that probably appears in more state calendars and scenic collections than any other is Starr's Mill, named for one of many owners of the mill, and by no means the most recent. A large family of Starrs lived in the area and the name stuck. Some old-timers believe that "Starr" may also have been the correct original spelling of the "Star" in Rising Star Church, although others are just as certain this is not the case. There is little doubt that Rising Star Rd. took its name from the little church, but if the proponents of the family-name theory are correct, then church and road, as well as the county's brand-new middle school, should indeed be Rising Starr. Not so, says Fayette County historian Carolyn Cary. A lifelong member of Rising Star Church told her that the congregation started out in an edifice in Spalding County. When high water in the Flint River kept the faithful from attending, the decision was made to relocate to the church's present Old Greenville Rd. site, where a patriarch declared, "This church will rise like a star," and so the church was named. These are just a handful of the stories of roads and people in Fayette - far more have been left out than included. Many of the residents are still alive and well, like Kenny Melear, for whom Melear's Way was named. (Why not? It runs hard by the Fayetteville barbecue pit in which Melear has smoked pork for several generations of his neighbors, as well as for a couple of U.S. presidents.) There's also Fayette County's Goza Rd., named for a family that has produced a respected educator, a judge, and a pediatrician. And Woods Rd., where Vernon Woods, former county commissioner, yet lives. And Coweta's Baggarly Way, remembering the founder of little Senoia, but also honoring a family that continues to make its contribution. Whatever their names, wherever "their" road lies, all have helped weave the history of a community, all have helped draw the map that will guide their children's children into the future. | | |
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