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Saturday, 17 May 2008
For some time now, I have been asking J. R. to ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ And now for his remembrances:
Gordon, I've had to erase this thing a half a dozen times, but I think I'm going to try to get through it this time. Go For It..... First thing I want to do is say a few words about Edison. Edison was bought into being in 1886. In the early years, the first 30 or 40 years, Edison had only two stores and dirt streets with trees growing in the streets. There was one main street going through town and there were hitching rails in front of both stores. and people would come to town on mules and wagons, drive right up in front of the stores, park, hitch the mules to the hitching rail and go in and do their business. There were no cars to amount to anything at that particular time and very seldom would you ever see a car. But anyway, on up into the 1930s, most of the country people came to town on mules and wagons. It was only after world war !! that economy picked up and the country got to flourishing. But, like I said, these two stores were the primary places of doing business in Edison, those and also a blacksmith shop. Now one of the two people here, as I said before, were Mr. Homer Hammack, he came from Coleman, Georgia, about 20 miles away from Edison. He set up a store, The other was Mr. Henry Turner who also set up a store. Mr. Homer was married when he came here but Mr. Turner was not but in 1884 he married Clair Ann Tennels, These were different type people, I understand. Mr. Homer opened up a bank, grocery store and a saw mill and went about his business. On the other hand, Mr. Turner was more civic minded than Mr. Homer Hammack seemed to be. Mr. Turner was instrumental in the formation of the Edison Baptist Church and served as Sunday School Superintendent for many years. He also served as mayor of Edison for several years. As mayor, he was the judge of the city court, He was known as a man who was very lenient on minor transgression of the law. He didn't jump down a person's throat for stumping his toe or something like that. He seems to have done well both civically and as a business man. Mr. Turner seems to be one of the main people who brought Edison into being, providing moral and civic guidance.Now, in competition with Mr. Turner, Mr. Hammack put up a big sign in front of his store which said,
And Mr. Turner in turn put a sign up in front of his store that said,
When he died, Lee Miller, the only attorney that I've ever known being here beside Willis Duval, wrote in the Bethel Historical Association newsletter about Mr. Turner. Mr. Turner is one of the few people I thought this would apply to. I never knew him of course, Mr. Miller wrote about Mr. Turner, "NO MAN HAS EVER LEFT A MOREPG 1
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