Now last summer I was a-plowin’ over yonder in the field and I got a big piece of pretty pot about as big as my hand where my plow had hooked it and jerked it off. Back when I was a boy, in the fall of the year when we’d plow these bottoms and it’d rain through the winter, you could go in there and they was just beads everywhere. You could just pick up every kind of bead, and they found a carved camel, you know, and all kinds of things. But you don’t hear of much being found any more.
[The reason I’ve kept all the books and papers and photos I have kept is that] the old resident people have meant more to me than anything. I know of these people that Lawrence R. once spoke of, but they’re gone to everywhere else. If it wasn’t for these records here, they’d been a forgotten race of people. Grandpa told about all of them—how many children they had, their names and who they married. That means a great deal to my age, but to children under me it don’t mean anything to them. To people my age and to people all over the country my age, that’s the most important thing of the whole outfit is to remember these old people. It’s just a background of the county here. Of our township.
In other words, if it wasn’t for these writings here and the history of these folks, the age behind us would be gone. This here just keeps it brought up. It’s important for the simple reason that that’s the history of what went on. That’s our county as it was, and without some of us knowing about it, why, the early part of the history of the creek is a dead issue. This keeps it alive to people of my age.
PLATE 57 John Singleton took this photograph through the back of a rocking chair of his grandfather and Wig looking at some papers.
PLATE 58
PLATE 59 The Tusquittee Valley as seen from Frank’s front porch.
Back when I was a little boy, my daddy sold goods and they all come to the store; all these people he’s talkin’ about, I knew. I was just a little kid, but I knew them.
Now years and years from now, people that you’d heard about from all of my generation won’t amount to anything if somebody doesn’t keep a record of it for your children. Someone’s gotta keep it alive.
I love to preserve history. It means so much to me now. All my childhood life—without preserving it—it’s gone. I’m living in a new age. I’m living in a age now where I’m nearly a stranger in my own county. People’s moving in here by the hundreds, and not twenty or thirty years ago I knew everybody in Clay County by name. Used to serve on the school board and every committee that’s ever been in the county. Sold goods for twenty years right here and round about. But now I go out and I’m a stranger.
Without this history, you’re losing out. If someone doesn’t keep a record of it, you’ll know nothing. These things have to be passed down or you lose out.
THE PATTON D. QUEEN STORE
During the early 1900s when the town of Mountain City, Georgia, was still called Passover, a tiny general store was owned and operated in that town by Patton D. Queen. This fact was brought to our attention by Jack Queen, a local resident who is the grandson of P. D. Queen and who owns several of the old store ledgers.
The store was no longer standing when Jack was born, so he could not tell us very much about it. He referred us to his aunt, Mrs. Ollie Queen Glore. Mrs. Glore was a young girl when her father, P. D. Queen, ran the Passover store. Her descriptions, along with a number of photographs she had and the store ledgers, helped us to piece together a short history of the store.
She told us: “My dad owned a little store at the foot of the hill where we lived at that time. The store was stocked with food and other items that the average family needed. Candy, gum, and soft drinks sold good.”
The store itself was of wood construction. The interior consisted of one large room. The store closed at dark because there was no electricity.
PLATE 60 Patton D. Queen, the owner of the store in Passover [now Mountain City], Georgia.
PLATE 61 The Queen family. Front row, left to right: Lamon, Hattie, Gervace, Annie, and Ollie Queen Glore.
Back row, left to right: Cecil, Ernest Glore (Ollie’s husband), P. D. Queen, his wife, Ada, and Lizzie.
PLATE 62 A letter, showing the Passover return address, written by P. D. Queen to a supplier in Atlanta. The letter reads in part, “Gentlemen, Please send me by mail 1 Doz Lamar’s Mayapple Liver Pills. I enclose stamps to pay for the pills …”
A ledger was used to keep account records. There was no cash register. What cash came in, Mr. Queen kept in his pocket. Mrs. Glore said, “Sometimes people would say, ‘I’ll pay you Saturday,’ and Saturday never came.”
Since money was scarce, there were several other ways of paying up one’s account. Trading goods between store owner and customer was one option. Items traded included: hogs, wool, manure, syrup, rye, lumber, loads of wood, and coffee. Coffee was bought at the store green. If one’s account needed paying one could resell green coffee to the store owner. Peaberry was the most popular coffee then.
Working for the store was another way of paying up an account. People received fifty cents for a full day’s work. Jobs included: hauling logs, gathering corn, digging ditches, plowing, and planting. Sometimes people also bottomed chairs and received credit for that. These jobs were listed in the person’s account as credits.
We went through each account in both of the ledgers that Jack gave us, and made a list of all the items sold in the store and their prices. By far, the most purchased item was tobacco. Other popular items were things that could not be grown or made, like candy, soft drinks, sugar, flour, and hardware.
The dates of both ledgers extended over nine years. In this time period there was little or no price change. Also, another sign of the times, very few women held accounts at the store.
Master List of Items Sold in the Store, as Written in the Ledgers
January 26, 1898-October 10, 1907
chicken frye [$] .10
window hinges .10
crank rollers .40
stove chimeny .35
cow and calf 23.00
elbow for stove .20
hand saw 1.00
roping .07
wagon tire 1.51
water bucket .20
plow stock 2.25
turnip seed .10
box sprigs .05
butter (1 lb.) .12
hog 2.25
shirt buttons .05
jelly (2 glasses) .25
comb .05
pills .25
union buttons .20
grinding stone .98
bought stove 10.00
fodder (1 bushel) .01
whetrock .25
brace and two bits .84
drawing knife .75
vermifuge .20
gingham (1 yd.) .06
diamond dyes (3 packs) .30
coffee pot .10
cane seed (2 bushels) 1.37
coppers (copperas) .02
honey (2 lbs.) .10
collars (2) .15
tincture .10
ball thread .05
sulphur .05
soda .05
lamp oil .13
shirt .85
mutton .50
potatoes (1 bushel) 1.80
meal 1.82
lard meat .50
corn (½ bushel) .40
flour (sack) .75
sheeting 1.02
planking 4.25
pepper .05
gun 4.00
oranges .20
vassanater [fascinator] .50
cabbage (17 lbs.) .17
flannel .60
spool thread .05
syrup .10
caster oil .05
crackers .05
sole leather .27
soft drink .05
tomatoes .10
turpentine .03
matches .05
chamber pot .35
bucket .10
Japanese oil .50
baking powder .05
tobacco (1 box) 3.00
paper en
velopes .10
chewing gum .05
Beau’s caster oil .20
sardines .05
canned peaches .10
dope drink [Coca-Cola] .05
clock 1.00
oysters .10
shoe polish .10
stockings .10
knife .25
starch .05
box candy .25
hop ale .10
pie pans (2) .15
pins .05
dipper .18
needles .20
worm syrup .25
kerosene (1 barrel) .85
Ramon’s relief .25
bluing .15
mill file .15
canned beans .02
axel [axle] grease .05
medicine .10
pants 1.95
calico .25
meat 1.35
shoes 1.50
paper .05
cotton seed .35
flour (50 lbs.) 1.50
wool 1.00
dressing plank 2.15
soap .05
suspenders .30
handkerchief .10
seed corn (2 gal.) .20
suit 10.50
bleaching (2 gal.) .20
ham meat 1.00
snuff .05
lard .13
socks .10
beans (1 peck) .90
smoking tobacco .05
potted ham .05
ax .70
healing oil .25
goobers .05
ginger ale .10
carteridges [cartridges] (5 shells) .10
wash pan .13
gritter .10
root beer .10
dish soda .35
soda crackers .25
sweater shirt .75
spice .05
pencil holder .10
log chain 2.25
chestnuts .05
leather .55
string leather .03
rice .15
salmon .25
cologne .10
pepper sauce .10
tin cup .07
scissors .08
medicine powders .25
cook stove 12.00
Batesman drops .05
sheep 2.50
hoe .40
cigars .25
sifter .10
knives, forks, spoons 1.10
We also made a list of the various items we found listed in the ledgers that were accepted as payment on accounts:
ham [$] 1.53
mutton .35
pork (23 lbs) 1.72
eggs (15 dozen) 1.05
corn (½ bushel) .35
onions .10
turnips 1.75
potatoes (1 bushel) .50
beans (½ bushel) .25
peaches (½ bushel) .35
chestnuts (½ gallon) .10
sauerkraut .15
biscuit .25
cabbage plants (2,000) 2.00
onion buttons .30
tobacco (1 bushel) .25
flour (1 sack) .70
rye (1 bushel) .60
fodder (20 bushels) .30
butter (2 lbs) .70
syrup .15
oxen (1) 25.00
calves (3) 13.80
rooster (1) .15
hogs (8) 10.00
wool 2.35
cloth (6 yards) 1.50
socks (2 pair) .50
boards .57
wood load .50
work (1 day) .40
work in ditch .15
We made these lists straight from the P. D. Queen ledgers. There may be some discrepancies due to smudged handwriting, misspelled words, and lack of knowledge of how the ledgers were kept.
Some of the items sold in the store were things that we had never heard of. After we made the master list, we asked Mrs. Glore what they were:
PLATE 63 This is j. L. Hamby’s account. It was opened on May 7, 1898. The presence of nails, “winder” hinges, a stove, a stovepipe, a stovepipe elbow, a brace and two bits, a handsaw, a drawing knife, a whetstone, a plow, a shoe nailer, a grinding stone, some crank rollers, some rope, a pan, two tin plates, chickens, hogs, a coffeepot, and oil indicate that Mr. Hamby was probably setting up a homestead.
PLATE 64 Page two of the J. L. Hamby account. Charges are kept in the left column and credits or payments in the right.
PLATE 65 This account, opened by Vergel Green on March 17, 1904, is more typical. It shows purchases primarily of coffee, sugar, salt, flour, lamp oil, and some clothing such as shoes, a shirt, and pants; and it shows payments made primarily with meat, chickens, eggs, and butter.
Japanese oil—a liquid medicine for headaches. “It came in a flat extract bottle. People would either rub the oil directly on their temples, or they would drink minute amounts with sugar water.”
Vermifuge—a liquid medicine for worms. “It had a strong odor and a harsh taste. People never ate anything greasy after taking vermifuge because the grease would counteract the medicine.”
Diamond dyes—a cloth dye. “It was poisonous and was used strictly for dyeing cloth.”
Gritter—a snuffbox-shaped object with ragged holes punched in it. “It was used to grind spices like nutmeg and cloves.”
Box sprigs—sprigs of rooted boxwood.
Fascinator—a crocheted, triangular shawl covering the head and shoulders.
We have included several pages from the ledgers to give some idea how the accounts were kept. One can learn things about a customer through his account. For instance, it is safe to assume that J. L. Hamby was building a house because of all the hardware, the wood stove and its fixtures, recorded in his account.
We learned another thing from the ledgers. If a person who did not have an account in this store came into the store to buy something without any money, he could charge it to a friend’s account. It would be recorded like this: “coffee by Dellah Bets.” Then this person would pay either the account holder or the store owner. Also, the store owner would lend cash directly to the customer. Then the loan was recorded in the ledger as a regular debt.
Article by Sarah Wallace
MARTHA AND ED ROANE’S STORE
Learning about the P. D. Queen Store made us curious about other stores of that era in Rabun County. We asked Martha and Ed Roane about the store they owned during the Depression in Tiger, Georgia. Martha began by telling us a little about her family, her childhood in the Persimmon community in Rabun County, and how she met her husband, Ed. [For the complete interview with Martha, see Foxfire magazine, Winter 1983, pages 238-47.]
Interviews by Tammy Jones, Tracy Speed, Sarah Wallace and Ronnie Welch. Photographs by Chris Crawford and Sarah Wallace.
We don’t know much about this, but I think way back [my ancestors] settled in Virginia. My father has always said that my great-grandfather Isaac then moved to Waynesville County, North Carolina, and then came on into Rabun County and settled in the Germany community. People didn’t call that little valley up there Germany then, but some Germans later settled there and it was called Germany. My great-grandparents came in there and they built log houses with chimneys. They had I don’t know how many children, and my grandfather was one of them. My great-grandfather bought one of the big land lots [that were available when Rabun County was opened up for settlement].
My grandfather, Andrew Jackson Justus, and his brothers and sisters divided the [land lot] up. Then later my grandfather went over on Persimmon Road and bought a land lot. He had eight children, four girls and four boys. My father was the oldest one.
I was born in Persimmon [community] on November 11, 1901. I had three brothers and one sister. I am the oldest. My brother-in-law’s gone, but we were very lucky. Our family’s all [lived to be] in their seventies. I’m beyond that now, four score and one, if you know what that means.
I was raised over on Persimmon in a nice log house. We had two big fireplaces, four rooms downstairs, and two stairways. They took these big wide planks and hewed them
out and put them on the outside [when they built it]. Then they had to dress the big long planks and seal [the house] inside some. We had white oak floorings. We cleaned those floors with cornshuck mops and sand. [To make a cornshuck mop,] we’d pull tough cornshucks through a board with holes drilled in it. We’d just scrub with that sand and then sweep it out with brooms made out of straw. I remember when I was a little girl sweeping that house out.
We had a big old springhouse and troughs you could set your milk in. [There was a shallow trough for little dishes] and then a deeper one and a still deeper one for jars of milk and pickled beans and kraut. I never did care too much about pickled beans, but some of them liked them.
Foxfire 9 Page 14
