[Turn of the century Fayette

County was a world away from what is now our congested suburban community.

Although it was a poor farming area, the people that built the towns were

proud people, striking characters whose faces if not for the early development

of photography would have been lost forever.

Those black and white photographs

captured the times and the flavor of the people that developed this county

during the past century. Here are some of the untold stories behind those

intriguing but otherwise silent pictures.]

F. B. "Tobe" Brown

served as sheriff of Fayette County from 1904 to 1918. The daughters he

raised for some time in the upstairs living quarters of the Fayette County

jail grew up and began having his grandchildren while he was still serving

as the county sheriff. He also owned a farm just south of the Fayetteville

town square along what is now known as Ga. Highway 85 South, in the area

of what is now Melear's Barbecue.

The store he and his wife Bunch

owned on the square was now also his son-in-law's pharmacy. The sheriff's

daughter Lois ran the pharmacy while her husband, Dr. E. C. Seawright,

traveled the county treating patients. The upstairs portion of the store

was a silent movie theater.

Dr. and Lois Seawright had

began their own family, having two daughters, Mildred and Evalyn.

Mildred was a lively, free-spirited,

vivacious brunette who became very popular around town as well as anywhere

else she went. Mildred Seawright was bright, energetic and enjoying the

times which, to her, were progressive and exciting.

Born in 1908 and during her

young life in the town of Fayetteville, she had experienced the introduction

of electricity in their homes, running water, phones in their kitchens

and perhaps the most significant advancement for her, the automobile.

She had grown up watching her

grandfather perform the office of sheriff, traveling the county on horseback,

and her physician father, Dr. E. C. Seawright, serving the people of the

county by traveling by horse and buggy to their homes.

In her lifetime she would see

travel advance by leaps and bounds with the introduction of the motorcar.

When Mildred was a young girl her Aunt Louvalle took her for a ride in

one of the first automobiles to hit Fayetteville. At the young age of

4 she could not imagine how the new contraption would change her life.

In the early 1920s Dr. Seawright

brought home to the family a new Ford motor car. For Mildred the possibilities

for travel were now endless.

Although the advancements in

Fayetteville were not quite as dynamic as things going on in urban America,

the young people of Fayetteville were excited by the quality of life they

were now enjoying compared to lifestyles their parents had experienced.

Mildred was making the most

of it with her friends and their new-found freedom to travel comfortably.

When Mildred was born, a trip

to some places in Fayette County could be a day's ride on rough roads

riddled with deep ruts and washes from heavy rains. Not only were roads

improving but her mode of travel had greatly advanced. She was now not

only able to travel Fayette County but anywhere in the state of Georgia

with just a few hours' ride in her family's Ford.

Mildred was as exciting as

the times she grew up in. She was the gorgeous daughter of the town doctor

and granddaughter of the county sheriff. The looks she inherited from

her mother and the sweet Southern charm she enjoyed in spite of that same

mom left her difficult if not impossible for men to resist.

Mildred Seawright would serve

as significant a purpose to the community as any male leader of her time.

As her mother and grandmother had done before her, she would reach outside

her home county to find a man of character and live with him in her small

hometown where he would make her home his home. The husband she would

bring to Fayetteville would dedicate himself to improving the quality

of life in the small town she grew up in and where they would together

raise their children.

Meanwhile, about a hundred

miles southeast across the state, another prominent family had great plans

for a beautiful daughter who possessed great poise and refinement. Joe

and Mary Sheppard of Milledgeville were in a position to raise Lillie

Sheppard with all of the amenities that come with means. Lillie was turning

heads in Milledgeville. One of those heads turned was Jack Day, an up

and coming businessman in Milledgeville.

Neither of these families had

anything to do with Fayetteville but the courtship of John and Lillie

would eventually change that. The name Jack Day would soon be a household

word in the growing but still small town of Fayetteville.

NEXT INSTALLMENT: Transplants

begin to make history.

Bruce L. Jordan is the author

of two regional best-selling true-crime books, "Death Unexpected,"

about 100 years of murders in Fayette County, and "Murder in the

Peach State," about famous murders in Georgia history. Both are available

from Amazon.com. You may e-mail him at [email protected]. Lt. Col.

Jordan heads the Criminal Investigation Division of the Fayette County

Sheriff's Department.

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