Moss Methobapterian Chapel
Location:

N 34º 32.663 W 084 º 51.934
Pine Chapel Road
Gordon County, Georgia

This church is located out in the county, but it definitely meets the definition of vanishing. The roof is falling in, windows have been removed, and the masonry is crumbling. A descendent of the builder told me that it was probably going to be bulldozed. She was going to try and recover the marble plaque before the church vanishes.

I first encountered the crumbling church on a birding trip out on Pine Chapel Road. It was the plaque that caught my eye and tweaked my interest. Cut into the stone was the following inscription:
MOSS METHOBAPTERIAN CHAPEL
BUILT BY
C.L. MOSS 1937

For a few minutes I sat and wondered about this denomination. I could not say that I had even been in or heard of a Methobapterian church. I hate puzzles and word searches, but I was able to see the obvious roots of the name. Metho - came from Methodist, Bap from Baptist, and - pterian from Presbyterian. Boy did I think I was smart. I asked a couple of my friends that are more blessed in theology and the such and they had never heard of a church with this kind of name. Time passed and I had just about given up on learning anything more about the little church until I met a descendent of C. L. Moss out in front of the church. I did not ask her name – shame on me -- but the information she gave was very valuable. The chapel was built by her great grandfather Columbus L. “Lum” Moss as a nondenominational church to serve the people that worked on his farm. Mr. Moss was quite the agricultural giant in Gordon County. He was also a very influential politician serving at the local and state levels. The farm was the Old Governor Brown farm and apparently was very large. In 1866 Governor Brown’s Gordon County holdings were in excess of 1500 acres. Mr. Moss’s holdings must have been equally impressive. It was said that over forty families once lived and worked on Mr. Moss’s farm. So, while Mr. Moss and family attended Calhoun First Methodist Church the spiritual welfare of his workers was being attended to in a chapel dedicated to the honor and memory of his parents.

Sources

Bicentennial History of Gordon County, Georgia, 1976, Edited by Burton Bell

Joseph E. Brown, About North Georgia, http://ngeorgia/com/ang/JosephEBrown, assessed 1/15/09

Oothcaloga Mill

Oothacaloga Mill

This mill was built by John P. King in 1850. Mr. King was a prominent citizen of Oothcaloga Depot – the small hamlet that was soon to become Calhoun. The mill was located on Oothaloga Creek west of town. This location is just south of the present Highway 53 Connector bridge and it would also be just south of the covered bridge built over the Oothcaloga in 1853 by Stephen M. Jones.

The story of the mill parallels the story of the development of Calhoun. Not long after construction of the mill the citizens of Oothaloga Depot were competing to have their town named county seat of Gordon County. A negative aspect of the geographical location was the proximity of the town to Oothalooga Creek and the millpond associated with the mill. The locals feared the miasmatic conditions of the millpond. The miasmatic theory held that stagnate waters and putrid smelling air were the source of diseases like swamp fever and malaria. Mr. King squelched the fears of the people when he donated a 30 acre strip of piney woods that separated the mill pond from the growing town. This wooded strip became known as “The Thicket” and was thought to buffer the people from the disease-ridden area.

The mill exchanged hands several times. Before the Civil War it was owned by James Carter Longstreet. This Longstreet was the first cousin of the famous Confederate General James Longstreet. He was also a prominent lawyer and was appointed Solicitor General of the Cherokee Circuit in 1856. Two year Longstreet was dead at age 29 and was buried in the Longstreet Cemetery on the hill on the opposite side of the creek from the mill. After the Civil War the mill was owned by an A.P. Bailey. In 1873 he was in litigation pertaining to debts that he had incurred to make repairs to the mill. Whether the damage was associated with the Union activity in the vicinity in 1864 is not clear. There is a 1920 reference to Coley’s Mill and a 1928 reference to the mill as Long’s Mill. The mill was demolished in 1955.


Sources

Bicentennial History of Gordon County, Georgia, 1976, Edited by Burton Bell

Printup vs. Barrett, Reports of Cases of Law and Equity argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Georgia at Atlanta, Part of July Term 1872, Vol. XLVI

The Longstreet Society, http://longstreet.org/childhood.html, accessed December 26, 2008.


Vanishing Georgia, Georgia Department of Archives and History, Office of the Secretary of State, gor008, Photograph of Coley’s Mill, Gordon County, Georgia, ca. 1920.

Vanishing Georgia, Georgia Department of Archives and History, Office of the Secretary of State, gor261, Photograph of baptism, Gordon County, Georgia, ca. 1928.


Vanishing Georgia, Georgia Department of Archives and History, Office of the Secretary of State, gor318, Photograph of Oothcaloga Mill, Gordon County, Georgia, ca. 1980-1890?.

First Day of School at CHS

The students that entered our doors Thursday morning did not look like these students. This photograph is of the 1910 or 1912 graduating class of Calhoun High School. The students are identified as C.C. Wills, Robert Chastain, Henry Jones, A.C. Hull, Etta Rossetta, Blanche Gardener, Dollie McLain, and Mildred Cantrell.

Concrete Doughboy

This landmark is not exactly in Calhoun and it is not exactly vanishing, but it is interesting to say the least. This guy is located on the right side of Highway 53 as one approaches the Sonoraville Baptist Church from Calhoun... He appears to be made of concrete and iron. The line of buttons on the front of his shirt is actually an iron rod. He appears to once have held a rifle in his right hand and rested it on his right shoulder. However, the hand is not gone and a flag pole is strapped to his arm and leg replaced the rifle. I call him a Doughboy because of the style of helmet that protects his head. I am sure there is a history here.

Two Unknown Irishmen of Chandler Cemetery

Took a visit this afternoon to the Chandler Cemetery that sits high above Calhoun. I saw an odd looking homemade tombstone with usual writing. But what was the most surprising was the following epitaph:

Two unknown Irish
Who died in a RR wreck
About 1849

At the foot were two small oval stones, each inscribed with the word “Irish”.
There is a story here

South Wall Street Water Fountain

Wall Street runs north and south through the heart of Calhoun. Directly in front of the present day Court House Wall Street is intersected by Court Street. North of the intersection Wall Street is referred to a North Wall Street and south of the intersection it is referred to South Wall Street. I found a photograph of a drinking fountain that was dated 1908. In the description of the photograph the drinking fountain was said to be in the middle of South Wall Street. Examination of the 1911 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map indicates the existence of landmark labeled as a well in the middle of Wall Street just south of the Courthouse. It appears from this map that the well would be in front of the present day Pete’s Music Store on the west side of the street and L’Palazzo on the east side of the street. I would imagine that the paving of Wall Street in 1918 and 1919 spelled doom for this fountain.

Madstone

This is story is not Calhoun related, but it is important to me. It represents the resourcefulness of the people I call my ancestors.

Many years ago my great-uncle Kenneth Ray of Greenwood Springs, Mississippi gave me a family treasure. He presents to me the “family” madstone. This rock-like object stayed in an icebox in the dining room of my great-grandparents house. This was a true icebox – no motor, no power. Put a chunk of ice in it and keep things cold. During my boyhood the icebox no longer was used for chilling food stuffs. It was the repository of seeds, papers, and the madstone.

Before being allowed to bring the madstone home I was given instructions on how it was to be used. According to Kenneth if one was bitten by a poisonous snake or a mad dog then one would come to Mammy’s house and request use of the madstone. The madstone was soaked in sweet milk and then placed on the bite. Kenneth maintained that when the madstone was used properly it had the ability to draw the poison out of a wound. It would stick to the wound and fall off after the poison was removed. Kenneth remembered the madstone being used successfully for years and years. There was even a story of a man that died from a rattlesnake bite to the head before the madstone could be brought to the rescue. It seemed like a fantastic story, kind of like witching warts away. However, I truly treasured every shred of the past that my relatives shared with me, so I thanked him and brought the madstone home in a brown paper sack.

What is a madstone? I once asked my students at Vidalia High School to answer that question for extra credit. This was way back before there was internet in every house (Apple IIE days). It was the end of the semester and several children needed to pass college prep biology, therefore I got several informative answers. Primarily, each student found out that a madstone was a concretion of sorts taken from the stomach of a ruminant that had reported curative powers.

A modern student will find much more at their finger tips via the Internet. For example the following text was taken from The History of Rabies in Texas at www.dshs.state.tx.us/idcu/disease/rabies/history/historyInTexas.pdf

Victims of an animal bite would literally ride for their lives to obtain a wad of partially
digested food from the stomach of a cow or deer. These wads of vegetable matter were
commonly known as “madstones for rabies.” In desperate pursuit, bite victims sought the
most coveted madstone, the stomach contents of a white deer. White deer being
uncommon, bite victims often had to settle for a less desirable alternative, a run-of-the mill buckskin. Once a fibrous glob of fodder was obtained, it was moistened in warm
water or, preferably, milk and applied to the wound. To be effective, the madstone had to
adhere to the wound a very long time in order to draw out the rabies poison. After the
madstone had become saturated with poison, it allegedly would no longer adhere to the
wound. At that point, it was put into warm or hot milk, which would turn green from the
poison. The therapeutic gastric contents were then reapplied to the wound. Madstones
were multifunctional. In addition to drawing out the hydrophobia (rabies) contagion
virus, madstones were purportedly effective in removing venom from a snakebite.
However, victims of snakebite were faced with unforgiving time constraints and usually
had to resort to some other remedy; only by the sheerest coincidence would a snakebite
occur in the proximity of a madstone. People bitten by a mad dog, hydrophobic skunk, or
other animal with rabies had the time and the motivation to ride a long way to find a
madstone. And ride they did.

Are the madstone stories in north Georgia? I would love to hear from you.