Branch House, with a a display of Hydrangea, circa 1913-1915. Vintage photograph Courtesy Paul Petersen.
Paul Petersen, the great-grandson of Lee and Jamie Snow Branch, recently shared these photos of his family in Quitman. He wrote that they were: “… passed down from my Grandmother (Lalla Branch Kirkpatrick) to my Mom. They now reside with my sister in North Carolina. In a strange coincidence, my sister was viewing these photos just last week, which she has not done in years.“
Jamie Snow Branch (1875-1937), circa 1913-1915. Vintage photograph Courtesy Paul Petersen.
Lee and Jamie Branch met a tragic end in this house at the hands of Jamie’s brother, Livingston Snow Branch, in 1937, and the case was sensationalized by local and national media. Paul added: “My Mom passed away 5 years ago along with any direct familial memory of events. She was not yet born when her Grandparents were killed, so she has heard the stories from her Mother. The article you wrote matches with the description of events passed down from my Grandmother to my Mom. From our families side we speculate that Livingstone was perhaps bi-polar or schizo affective…“
Lalla Branch Kirkpatrick (1910-1993), circa 1913-1915. Vintage photograph Courtesy Paul Petersen.
Lalla was 27 at the time of this tragedy and long gone from Quitman by then. She married Charles Cochran Kirkpatrick in 1932, and they lived in numerous locations, as her husband was a rising officer in the United States Navy. He was eventually promoted to rear admiral.
Lee Whiting Branch (1871-1937), Lalla Branch, unidentified friend, Jamie Snow Branch, circa 1913-1915. Vintage photograph Courtesy Paul Petersen.
Lalla was undoubtedly devastated by the loss of her parents and I’m sure these photographs were difficult reminders of their lives in Quitman. I’m grateful to Paul for allowing me to share them. They show the family in happy times, as a means of putting a human face on his grandmother and great-grandparents, beyond the headlines.
Milan is located in Dodge and Telfair Counties, one of many Georgia towns with such a distinction. It was settled in the 1880s due to the arrival of the railroad in the area. It was named for Milan, Italy, and of course, has a Georgia pronunciation. It’s “My-lun”, not “Muh-lan”. Many people have asked me over the years why Georgia has such unusual place names, and it’s not just Georgia. The reason is because common names, especially surnames, were already in use and the post office department wouldn’t allow towns with the same, or even similar, names.
Milan became the focus of unwelcome national attention during the summer of 1919, known as Red Summer. The story is graphic, but as Black history is being officially censored in Georgia and many other states, it should be told. And to be certain, Milan was not alone in regards to such atrocities.
On 24 May 1919, two white men, John Baptiste Dowdy, Sr. (1894-1919) and Levi Evans, attempted to break into the home of a Black woman, Emma McCollers, with the intent of raping her two young daughters. Dowdy’s father, Rev. William Dowdy, was the mayor of Milan. When the family refused to allow them in the house, Dowdy fired his gun.
The girls fled to the nearby home of Emma Tishler and were followed by Dowdy and Evans. During the chaos, Ms. Tishler hid in a well. Berry Washington, a 72-year-old Black sharecropper, heard the commotion and attempted to defend the girls. Dowdy fired at Washington, and after a struggle, Washington killed Dowdy. Washington turned himself soon after the shooting and was transferred to the jail in McRae.
The next day, Deputy Sheriff Dave McRanie handed Washington over to a lynch mob who removed him from the jail and in the early hours of 26 May 1919, hanged him from a post at the site of the shooting and riddled his body with gunshot. His mutilated corpse was left in public view for at least a day, no doubt as an ominous warning to the local Black community.
Wishing everyone a safe and happy 2025! It’s been another great year traveling around Georgia, looking for the obscure, as well as the well-known places and people that make our state so interesting. As always, I’m grateful to you all for coming along with me. From murder and mayhem (always popular for some reason) to soul food and some preservation success stories, I think I covered a lot this year.
Pleasebe aware there is offensive language contained in this post, in the form of contemporary quotes.
In 1958, most White families in Terrell County earned less than $4000 a year. James C. Brazier (1926-1958), a WWII veteran, and his wife Hattie Bell Brazier worked five jobs between them, and earned at least that much. This was an exception among Black families, who only averaged $1300 a year, but the Braziers were an exceptional family. They knew they had to work extra hard to just get by, and they thrived. They owned their own home and James had purchased two new cars between 1956-1958. The mere sight of James driving around town in his new Chevrolet Impala triggered rage in some of the most virulent racists in the county, Dawson police chief Howard Lee, officers Weyman Burchle Cherry (1926-1970), Randolph McDonald (1910-1995), and sheriff Zachary Taylor “Z.T.” Mathews (1892-1984), prominent among them.
The Braziers weren’t involved in any of the Civil Rights activities just beginning to simmer in 1958, even though as a successful young Black man, James Brazier was often the target of overzealous law enforcement, having been arrested on trumped up charges at least a half a dozen times. He had sustained physical violence requiring a hospital visit after at least one of the arrests, in 1957. When Brazier asked Cherry why he was being treated so badly, the officer replied, “You is a nigger who is buying new cars and we can’t hardly live. I’ll get you yet.” After more physical intimidation, Cherry warned, “You’d better not say any damn thing about it or I’ll stomp your damn brains out.”
On Sunday, 20 April 1958, after spending the day with his family at I Hope Baptist Church near Dawson and later at Mt. Mary near Sasser, Brazier dropped Hattie and his children off at their home on Ash Street and proceeded to take his sister’s children home.
I Hope Baptist Church, where the Brazier family attended church. The church standing at the time of Brazier’s death was burned during the widespread local church burnings in 1962. Marvin Milner, along with two other white men, actually served prison time for this act.
On his way back to Ash Street, James encountered his father, Odell Brazier, being hit over the head by officer Randolph McDonald. He pleaded with McDonald to stop hitting his father, but the officer drove away with the senior Brazier under arrest. James drove Odell’s car back to his house, explaining to Hattie what he had seen. Soon, McDonald and officer Cherry arrived at the Ash Street residence. They dragged James outside, in front of his family and his neighbors, hit him in the head with a blackjack, and kicked him in the groin. James, Jr., attempting to help his father, was callously pushed to the ground by Cherry. The officers bore no warrant, but of course, in the Jim Crow South, they didn’t really need one. They told him he was being charged with threatening an officer and interfering with the arrest of Odell Brazier.
James Brazier was still wearing his Sunday clothes when he was booked into the Terrell County jail, though they were stained and bloodied by this time. A perfunctory exam by Dr. Charles Ward, the county medical officer, declared Brazier intoxicated. His speech was slurred, but this was due to his serious head injuries. In this sense, Ward was as complicit in Brazier’s eventual death as anyone else. Other prisoners at the jail later recalled that Brazier was taken out during the night by Cherry, McDonald, and other law officers. After a protracted absence, he returned naked but for an army blanket, bloody, and incoherent. He was not even physically able to walk into his sham hearing in mayor’s court the next morning and had to be carried out of his cell. Mayor Verma Lee Singletary (1908-1981) ordered the trial postponed, noting that Brazier seemed intoxicated. Upon seeing her husband near the end of the “trial”, Hattie let out a scream and was thrown out of the courtroom. She later stated “He was sitting in a chair, slung over, and his tongue was hanging kind-of half-way out and a long sleet of white slobber was hanging out his mouth.”
After the sham trial, Hattie rushed James to the Terrell County Hospital, where Dr. Ward (the same Dr. Wardwho had proclaimed Brazier to be drunk the night before) suggested Brazier, by now completely unconscious, be taken to a specialist in Columbus. He died on 25 April 1958 at the Columbus Medical Center. His cause of death was officially listed as cerebral necrosis and hemorrhage related to head trauma. He was buried with military honors at I Hope Cemetery.
Headstone of James C. Brazier, I Hope Cemetery. (c.1926-1958)
The Braziers left Dawson a few months after James’s death, but they fought hard for justice. As his son lay dying in Columbus, Odell Brazier drove to Atlanta to report the case to the FBI. Hattie spent years seeking justice for her husband. Racial violence continued to be perpetrated by local law enforcement. Just months after the lynching of Brazier, officer Cherry shot Tobe Latimer at a juke joint and killed another Black man, Willie Countryman soon thereafter. Sham arrests continued to taunt the African-American community, and though more FBI investigations continued, little came of the efforts. Terrell County was getting a lot of negative attention in the national press, but nothing changed at the time. Dawson News editor and future mayor Carl Rountree’s (1904-1985) local response to these shameful events was thus: “At the moment without a ‘Little Rock,’ The Washington Post and Times-Herald must have a whipping boy…And so they have chosen Dawson, on the basis of rumor, as its new target…The negroes of Dawson have nothing to fear.”
Hattie Bell Brazier. Courtesy Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project via Veda Brazier Bush. Public domain image with no known restrictions.
Outside pressure continued to focus on Terrell County, but with little hope of real justice, it went nowhere. Witnesses to Brazier’s beating changed their testimonies out of fear, and one, Marvin Goshay (c. 1937-1961), was found dead in a local funeral home, apparently asphyxiated. Not that their testimonies would have mattered. Racists were so entrenched in Georgia’s political and legal system at the time, from Senator Richard B. Russell and Governor Herman Talmadge right down to local judges and lawmen, that legal actions in the Brazier case were hopeless from the start. Hattie filed a civil suit against the Terrell County officers, but it also failed to get justice for the Brazier family.
James Brazier in his Navy uniform. Courtesy Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project via Veda Brazier Bush. Public domain image with no known restrictions.
Hattie Bell Brazier eventually moved to New Jersey to be near her daughter, Veda. She remarried and became Hattie Watson. She died in 2005. Her legacy is the tireless work she did to right a wrong that should never have happened.
Z. T. Matthews remained sheriff of Terrell County until 1969. Weyman Cherry, who was promoted to police chief soon after the Brazier case, remained in that office until being killed in a car crash in 1970. The county eventually moved on to the point where Black politicians and law enforcement officers were commonplace, but this story should never be forgotten.
At a time when Black history is being purged from schools, I feel the worst stories of the Jim Crow era deserve as big an audience as possible. We don’t need the schools to share these stories, nor do we need to dwell on them, but their censorship by politicians speaks to the fact that for many, these views haven’t ever changed. They are painful reminders, but important to our shared histories.
Sources/Suggested Reading. The following sources are excellent introductions and much more detailed than mine.
“He is never far from any of us”. One of at least ten “story windows” installed at Mount Mary in 1963.
Mount Mary Baptist Church in Chickasawhatchee, a forgotten settlement near Sasser, shares a similar history with other Black churches in the area. It was an active congregation founded by freedmen and their descendants in the late 19th century. [I’m still confirming details about the history of the church and will update when I learn more].
In 1962 Mount Mary was used for voter registration meetings by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and like Shady Grove in Leesburg and Mount Olive in Sasser, it was burned to the ground in retaliation. In fact, it was destroyed on the same day as Mount Olive, 9 September 1962. It was rebuilt in 1963. The stained glass windows are the most notable feature of the church, which was designed by Atlanta architect Joe Amisano. Trappist monks of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers are credited with the windows. I’m not sure if the other churches feature the “story windows”, with verses and illustrations. I am trying to learn more about them.
Mount Olive Baptist Church was established in Sasser in 1896 by freedmen and their descendants. In 1962, as the Albany Movement spread beyond the borders of Dougherty County with the intention of registering voters and raising civil rights awareness, it played a central role in the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. Many Black churches were resistant to the movement due to the potential for retaliation by White employers and law enforcement and many of those fears were realized at Mt. Olive, with the unapologetic support of Terrell County sheriff Zachary Taylor “ZT” Mathews. Mathews was an avowed racist and particularly irredeemable character who had most notably led the coverup in the lynching of James C. Brazier.
Because of Mount Olive’s prominence in the community, it was the primary site for the mass meetings of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and its allies, organized by Charles Sherrod. On 25 July 1962, Sherrod led a meeting at Mount Olive, with White activists Ralph Allen and Penny Patch also present. The SNCC activists were well aware of the attention they had attracted by local law enforcement but continued their work. As noted in the SNCC digital archives: Mass meetings at churches were under constant surveillance. Police sometimes stood outside the churches, taking the names of people as they entered. In Sasser, Georgia, a tiny town in Terrell County, Sheriff Zeke Matthews and a dozen deputies stormed into the Mount Olive church during a mass meeting and went from pew to pew rubbing their pistols; they then stood scowling in the back. Reporting on this for the New York Times, Claude Sitton quoted Matthews as telling him, “We want our colored people to go on living like they have for the last hundred years.”
On 9 September 1962, Mount Olive fell victim to arson, with no immediate aid from firefighters or law enforcement, begging the question of their own involvement. Zeke Mathews’s responses to journalists covering the crime were predictably despicable, blaming the arson on outside agitators. He was quoted in the 10 September 1962 edition of the New York Times: “It’s unusual for white folks to go down there living with n___ – pretty unusual. The n____s are upset about it, too – the better n___.” And he told the Atlanta Constitution: “People here are disturbed because some of these white boys are living with Negroes. I think that has more to do with the fires than this voter registration business. People here know that the Negroes just don’t care anything about voting.”
While real justice in the case(s) was questionable, the congregation of Mount Olive persisted, and with the aid of funds raised by Jackie Robinson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was rebuilt in 1963 during the pastorate of Rev. F. S. Swaggott. It remains active today.
Shady Grove Baptist Church was established in the late 1870s by freedmen families, and in 1880 members James Harris, Paul Tracy, Billy Pope, and Boss Scrutchins purchased the land on which the congregation still worships today. Rev. Samuel Lamar was the first pastor.
On 14 August 1962, Shady Grove was the first of four Black churches (including Mt. Mary, Mt. Olive, and I Hope) to be burned by arsonists in Lee and Terrell Counties. Unsurprisingly, local officials who inspected the Shady Grove site dismissed arson as a cause, blaming it instead on “faulty electrical wiring.” The FBI disagreed and in October charged domestic terrorists Jack Smith and Douglas Parker with the crime.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who visited the ruins of the church, wrote (in part) in the September 1962 issued of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Newsletter, in an essay entitled “The Terrible Cost of the Ballot”: “Tears welled up in my heart and my eyes not long ago as I surveyed the shambles of what had been the Shady Grove Baptist Church of Leesburg, Georgia. I had been awakened shortly after daybreak by my executive assistant, the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, who informed me that a SNCC (Student Non violent Coordinating Committee) staffer had just called and reported that the church ·where their organization had been holding voting clinics and registration classes had been destroyed by fire and/or dynamite.
Lee Count y is one of the three southwest Georgia counties where for years an attempt to register to vote has been tantamount to inviting death...
The naked truth is that whether the object of the Negro community’s efforts are directed at lunch counters or interstate busses, First Amendment privileges or pilgrimages of prayer, school desegregation, or the right to vote, he meets an implacable foe in the southern white racist. No matter what it is we seek, if it has to do with full citizenship, self-respect, human dignity, and borders on changing the “southern way of life ,” the Negro stands little chance if any, of securing the approval, consent or tolerance of the segregationist white South.
Exhibit “A”: The charred remains of the Shady Grove Baptist ·Church, Lee County, Georgia. This is the terrible cost of the ballot in the Deep South.”
Shady Grove was one of the three burnt churches to be rebuilt in 1963, with Dr. King present at the groundbreaking ceremony. Fundraising efforts successfully netted $70,000 (over $700k in 2024 dollars) and were led by baseball star Jackie Robinson, who along with Dr. King helped bring attention to the problem. Joe Amisano, representing the Georgia branch of the American Institute of Architects, designed the new church, as well as those at Mt. Mary and Mt. Olive.
Lena Baker Mugshot, Georgia State Prison, Reidsville, 2-23-1945. Public Domain. No Known Restrictions. Via Wikipedia.
The mugshot above is a haunting reminder of the failures and atrocities of the Jim Crow government that dominated Georgia well into the 1960s. Made at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville just ten days before Lena Baker became the only woman to be executed in Georgia’s electric chair, it instills a sense of fear and sadness. This was, ultimately, a legal lynching.
Lena Baker was born near Cuthbert in 1900 to a family of sharecroppers and followed the typical employment pattern of black women of her time, working as a maid for little pay for middle class white families in order to support her three children. She was later forced into a sexual relationship with an elderly white employer, Ernest B. Knight. It was well-known and frowned upon throughout the county. When Knight realized that Ms. Baker was determined to end the relationship he locked her in his gristmill, as he had done many times before. When she tried to escape, they “tussled” over his pistol which fired and killed him. She immediately turned herself in and claimed the shooting was in self-defense. She also admitted that she drank alcohol with him, but also, not by choice. Not surprisingly, the all-male, all-white jury in the ensuing sham trial found Ms. Baker guilty of capital murder and sentenced her to death. This is likely due to the fact that the family of Ernest Knight was embarrassed by the breach of social order the case represented, even though Knight’s proclivities were already well known. It was a neat way, on the part of a white family, to put this sorry episode to rest at the expense of a woman’s life. She was executed at Reidsville on 5 March 1945 and buried at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church near Cuthbert. Her last words were: “What I done, I did in self-defense or I would have been killed myself. Where I was, I could not overcome it…I am ready to meet my God.”
Livingston Snow, 1908 Emory College Yearbook,. Via Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. Public domain. No known restrictions.
On 17 December 1937, Livingston Snow (1886-1966) walked into the dining room of his sister and brother-in-law’s house [pictured below] and executed them at point blank range. The story made headlines across the South and was all the buzz on the streets of Quitman. One of the more macabre notices, in the Tallahassee Democrat read: Each is Shot Through Head at Breakfast. By all accounts, Snow was “raging”, indicating he was criminally insane.
The victims were Lee W. Branch (1871-1937) and his wife Jamie Snow Branch (1875-1937), Livingston Snow’s sister. Research suggests that the family once owned the magnificent farmhouse that draws photographers to the area to this day. Jamie’s father was Dr. S. N. Snow (1840-1905) and her mother Scotia Livingston Snow (1848-1904). The Branches were quite successful; Lee Branch was a prominent attorney who had once practiced in Washington, D. C., and had formerly been president of the Georgia Bar Association. This was a powerful position that connected the family to the most influential people in Georgia. At the time of his death he had been recently appointed to the state board of education by Governor E. D. Rivers. The Branches were survived by a daughter, Lalla Branch Kirkpatrick (1910-1993), who was living in the Panama Canal Zone at the time. Her husband was the highly decorated Navy Rear Admiral Charles C. Kirkpatrick (1907-1988).
Branch House, Quitman, designed by the architectural firm of Hentz, Reid & Adler
According to contemporary accounts, “The shooting took place at the breakfast table, where Mr. and Mrs. Branch, and Snow’s brother, Russell Snow (1888-1966), were seated. Branch and his wife were killed instantly. Each was shot through the head. Grady Marable, Quitman officer and the first to reach the scene, said: “Someone phoned me from the residence to come at once and I was met at the door by Mrs. T. R. Moye, a neighbor and wife of a physician. Inside the house I found Dr. T. R. Moye and Russell Snow wrestling on the floor with Livingston Snow. I told them I would take him into custody and after a scuffle I overcame him. Russell Snow had knocked the gun from his brother’s hand. Livingston Snow was raving. I understand that he was mentally ill and plans were being made to take him to an institution. Mrs. Branch lay dead in the doorway between the music room and living room. She evidently had gotten up when the shooting started. Mr. Branch sat dead at the breakfast table. He sat upright, leaning slightly to one side. There was bullet wound in the back of Mrs. Branch’s head. Mr. Branch was shot just above the left eye. The bullet came out near the temple and fell spent on the floor. Sheriff Colin Clanton and Police Chief George Clanton of Quitman came and the three of us took Livingston Snow to the Brooks County Jail…Friends of the family said Russell Snow, a lawyer for many years associated with Branch, had come here from Cocoa, Fla., his home, for a brief visit.” –Tallahassee Democrat, 17 December 1937.
Russell Snow, with whom Livingston had been living in Florida, gave a slightly more graphic account of the unfolding tragedy: “All of us had known for some time of his mental condition and his subsequent melancholia. He knew of the plan for him to leave this morning with me and friends for Milledgeville where he was to be given treatment. Early this morning I was awakened by Livingston leaving the Branch house. He returned about 8:15 and called to me upstairs that sister was waiting breakfast and to hurry on down. We had concluded breakfast and I was waiting for the cook to bring me a cup of coffee when Livingston suddenly pushed his chair out, stood up quickly, and said ‘I’m so sorry about this,’ and fired point blank into the head of Mr. Branch. Mr. Branch remained in a seated position and except for the look appeared as if living…My sister fled into the reception hall and Livingston followed, firing a bullet at close range through her head. I believe both were killed instantly…Then began a terrific struggle for possession of the pistol. In the fight, I was thrown violently to the floor and as he stood he fired at me and missed and then the pistol snapped twice. The failure of the last two cartridges to explode saved my life. As soon as I could get to my feet, I rushed at him, after he had broken the pistol, ejected the shells and was reloading the weapon from cartridges. In the struggle I tripped him and we fought on the floor. Finally I jerked the pistol away, threw it into a corner, and then began choking him into submission. He was on the floor and I was on top of him trying to subdue him when Dr. T. R. Moye, who heard the shots, ran to my assistance and then the police came.” -via uncredited contemporary newspaper account on Findagrave.
Livingston Snow told Sheriff Clanton he “intended to wipe out the family and then commit suicide.” Russell Snow swore out a lunacy warrant against his brother. In short order, a commission judged him insane and ordered him committed with a detainer filed in the event he should recover. The next day, the solicitor, Sheriff Clanton, and county commissioner Turner Brice took him, handcuffed, to the state mental hospital in Milledgeville. It was common practice among upper class whites of the time to dispose of such issues in a quick and quiet manner. Considering the family’s connections, this was an expected outcome. Had this crime been committed by someone black or of the white working class, much more information would have come to light. Apparently, he remained institutionalized for the remainder of his life, as his death record notes that he died in Baldwin County, Georgia. He is buried in Madison, Florida, beside his parents and several of his siblings in Oak Ridge Cemetery. Lee and Jamie Snow Branch are buried in Quitman.
As to Livingston Snow the man, he attended Emory College [now Emory University] where he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Fraternity, was elected to what I presume was the student council, and played football and baseball. Some sources described him as a retired capitalist and others a retired pecan merchant.
My friend, Florida architectural historian Alyssa McManus shared these facts, which she discovered through extensive research: After his parents deaths, he and Russell were the legal charges of his sister Jamie and her husband. He was 14 at the time of his father’s death and ‘away at school’ in Valdosta. He seems to have attended college early. He attended Emory in Atlanta from 1906-1908…He was an avid bridge player. In 1910, he lived with his maid. I don’t know if she’d worked for the family. On the census, the relationship to her was ‘brother in law”, which is quite curious. He was involved with the establishment of a canning plant. He was a WWI vet. He threw parties and was in the society pages of Asheville frequently. He seemed quite sane to me. His sister visited him in Asheville frequently enough to have her own friends there. Makes me wonder what happened that they determined his was mentally ill…He had a funeral that was announced in the Tallahassee Democrat...I am imagining a Truman Capote type. He never did marry and never was a lady friend mentioned. I’m not assuming, but maybe he did not prefer ladies. He was best man or usher at several weddings. So far as a career, he worked for Armour packing and then Rogers Grocers, both times as a traveling salesman.
Beyond that, nothing so far. As to the Capote reference, it’s very possible that Livingston Snow was gay. Since he never married or had “lady friends” that seems a fair conclusion. Since being gay at the time was legally classified as a mental illness for which criminal penalties existed, that could have very well played into the perception by his family that he was insane. This is mere conjecture, but it hearkens to the interior turmoil of many gay men and women of the time. It certainly doesn’t justify what he did, but if he had been embarrassing the family with bizarre behavior, their decision to institutionalize him may have been all it took to push him over the edge. Whatever the reason, it’s a sad story.
John Evans House, Vintage Photograph Courtesy of Wayne Blue
The story that follows details the mysterious and unsolved death of Azzie Martin in Ashburn. It’s technically still a “cold case”. Was her death an accident? Was it intentional? Either of those theories is plausible based on the limited facts available. One thing seems certain: there was an attempt to hide the truth. The Turner County Project, an exceptional local history blog, has done a great service bringing this tragedy to light, and many of the facts I’m sharing come from their website. Please visit them to see the wonderful work they’re doing. They note, that: Sadly, despite the attempt by the Turner County Project, finding the location of Azzie Martin’s grave has been unsuccessful. The location of Glenwood cemetery has been lost to memory, even to those in the funeral business. Even more sad is that there is [sic] no investigation records that can be reviewed on the tragedy. My own interest in and knowledge of the story comes from my initial documentation of the house beginning in 2008.
Stairwell (Detail), John Evans House
Florrie Benton Smith Evans, daughter-in-law of John West Evans, was living in the house and renting the second floor to Ila Mae Hickox. On 10 December 1937, Ms. Hickox held a Christmas party in her apartment and hired Azzie Martin to cook chicken for the event. [Though newspapers referred to her as Azza or Essa, the name on her death certificate was Azzie. Azzie, who was born on 27 January 1911 in Arabi, was the daughter of Will Martin and Amanda Bryant, who came to the area from Macon County]. The party was apparently quite raucous, and varying stories, presumably circulated to exonerate its white attendees, note that Ms. Martin was intoxicated and hit her head. Another story relates that after refusing to dance topless for some of the party-goers she was struck in the head with a beer bottle. It is believed her death took place in the early hours of 11 December 1937. I think it’s important to note the names of those present at the party, in addition to Ms. Hickox. They were: Miss Susie Mae Anderson, Mrs. Cecil Willis, Mrs. Floy Watson Revell, Mr. Tom McNair of Ashburn, Hugh Humphries and Beverly Jones of Americus, J.B. Slade and Plezz Ray of Cordele.
Some of the stories in the local and national press regarding Ms. Martin’s death seem patently contrived, to me, as someone observing nearly a century later. One stated that a black man by the name of Worthy rolled her body in a rug and took it out of the house, but of course, Mr. Worthy is a ghost in the historical record. It was also said, contradicting Mrs. Evans’s account, that Azzie was taken, drunk, to Mr. Worthy’s home, which was about a mile from her residence. The implication I take away is that she didn’t die in the house but rather in the later presence of Mr. Worthy, who lived about a mile from her residence. [Amazingly, though he was briefly incarcerated in connection to the case, he was released. Had Azzie Martin been white, Mr. Worthy would have undoubtedly been lynched]. Azzie’s remains were discovered by turpentine workers on the Little River a few months later.
Mrs. Florrie Evans, the home’s owner and a highly respected citizen, stated: About 3 o’clock in the morning, I heard somebody start downstairs. I could tell by the way they were walking they were carrying something heavy. I got up and looked out my window. I saw two boys carrying a bundle. It looked like a trunk…I saw them put the bundle in the car, and these two and some of the others went off. She went on to say that those who left in the early morning hours returned and their party continued until around 6AM. Mrs. Evan, being of the local upper class, might just as easily have created a cover story for the house guests, but admirably, in my opinion, she was truthful and didn’t change her story as others did. In the press, challenges to her story could be expected and came out almost immediately, some even stating that Azzie left the house on her own accord. Shrouding racially charged crimes in mystery was the norm during this time, ensuring that a clear set of facts were all but impossible to ascertain. The story of Azzie Martin’s last hours is no exception.
Mixed in with the local lore is this, from David Baldwin: The young man that committed the crime was reported to have attempted suicide between December and March, but survived. He went on the live as a Christian but no doubt he had to live with this crime all his life. The boys there that night committed to forever hold a secret as to what happened and as far as this writer knows they have. The murdered lady is said to haunt the house by those that have lived there.
Fireplace, John Evans House
The following stories from the Ashburn Wiregrass-Farmer are valuable for some of the facts they present, but they are typical of the treatment of African-Americans at the time in that they are often full of obfuscation and contradictory statements. They made no effort to get Ms. Martin’s name right, nor her age. Even her death certificate was amended, a common practice in cases of this nature during the Jim Crow era.
16 December 1937 – Negro Woman Mysteriously Disappeared Saturday Nite
A party of young men and women of Ashburn, with a few invited guests from out of town, planned a chicken supper for a late hour last Saturday night [December 10, 1937], and secured the services of a Negro woman to do the cooking in advance. It is claimed by members of the party that upon their arrival at the apartment they found the woman intoxicated and that she had fallen down and hurt her head, necessitating some of the men in the party, carrying her downstairs and taking her home in an automobile.
Members of the Negro woman’s family claim she never came in at all Saturday night, and an intensive search has been going on in an effort to find her since, but as we go to press Wednesday noon, no trace of the woman has been found.
17 March 1938 – SKELETON OF NEGRO WOMAN FOUND TUESDAY – ABOUT 4 ½ MILES SOUTHWEST OF ASHBURN NEAR LITTLE RIVER BY TWO NEGRO MEN TURPENTINE WORKERS
Azza has been found. Ashburn’s mystery story of 1937 has come to light. The skeleton of Azza Martin, colored, was found Tuesday afternoon [March 15, 1938] at 6 o’clock by two turpentine Negroes, working for J. I. Faircloth.
Word was brought to Sheriff Alex Story, who had been working on the unsolved case since last December. He investigated and found the body near the banks of Little River, about 4 ½ miles Southwest of Ashburn, and about 1 ½ miles from the Coverdale road, which was identified by her clothes and dental work.
News spread like wildfire shortly after dark and the desolated spot became the mecca of hundred of people who visited the place, guarded by Negros placed there by Sheriff Story.
Wednesday morning a Coroner’s inquest was held by J.L. North, at the place where the body was found. J.I. Faircloth, Carl Cannon, T.E. Kennedy, J.H. Bell and Waters Bell served on the Coroner’s jury. The skeleton was examined by Dr. J.H. Baxter, county physician, and Dr. W.L. Story, but no statement was made by them as their findings. Because of rain the Coroner and his jury came to the court house in Ashburn, and were asked by the Solicitor of this circuit, W.C. Forehand, to disband until next Tuesday, March 22, at 10 a.m., when the Sheriff was instructed to have all witnesses present, and go into the case thoroughly, to determine if possible how Azza came to her death, and by whom, if it was found that she had met with foul play.
As will be remembered, Azza Martin, colored, age 29, has been missing since Saturday night, December 11, when she was engaged to prepare a midnight feed at the apartment of Miss Ila Mae Hicox, at the home of Mrs. J.L. Evans. Miss Hicox was at that time manager of the local Elrod 5 and 10 cent store, but now of Montezuma. To this feed a number of well known local people as well as several from out of town were invited. Among those enjoying this midnight party were: Miss Ila Mae Hicox, hostess, Miss Susie Mae Anderson, Miss Cecil Willis, Mrs. Floy Watson Revell, Mr. Tom McNair of Ashburn, Messrs. Hugh Humphries and Beverly Jones of Americus, Messrs. J.B. Slade and Plezz Ray of Cordele.
Nothing out of the way was known or thought of the affair, until Sunday, when Azza was reported missing, by her relatives, to Sheriff Story. The young people stated, when questioned, that they had carried her safely home in the car, in the early morning hours, and stuck to this story throughout later investigation. Yet, none of her people had seen her, so they claimed.
H. Worthy, a Negro living about a mile from Azza’s abode, gave out the information that Azza had stopped at his home about two o’clock the morning she was missing, to warm, and that after warming for about thirty minutes she left. And no trace of Azza has been found until Tuesday when her badly decomposed body was found. Worthy has been held in county jail here since about the middle of January, pending further developments in the case.
Sheriff Alex Story, Solicitor General Forehand and the recent January grand jury investigated the case, had two or three present at the party questioned, but at that time were unable to get anywhere with the investigation.
Parlor, John Evans House
24 March 1938 – Azza Martin Inquest Held At Court House Tuesday – HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WHITE AND COLORED WERE LISTENING IN – White Solicitor Forehand Conducted Inquest Lasting Five Hours
Ashburn was crowded Tuesday morning with people from far and near, who came to hear the coroner’s inquest into the death of Azza Martin, colored, who disappeared December 11, and whose skeleton was found Tuesday, March 15, about 4 ½ miles Southwest of Ashburn
The inquest began promptly at 10 o’clock A. M., and lasted for approximately five hours. Solicitor Forehand examined around fifteen witnesses. The court house auditorium was jammed and packed with hundreds of people, both white and colored.
All witnesses examined that were present at the midnight supper from which Azza Martin disappeared, told practically the same story: that the services of Azza had been secured to do the cooking, that after she had been carried to Miss Ila Mae Hicox’s apartment at the Evans’ home, it was found that she had been drinking and unable to do the cooking, and that while in the kitchen she fell and hurt her head and that members of the party assisted her down the stairs and carried her home.
Mrs. John L. Evans, at whose home Miss Hicox had an apartment, was placed on the stand, and told of the hilarious party that lasted until six o’clock Sunday morning, and that around three o’clock she heard some of the party bringing something heavy down the stairs and after they had passed out of the house, she looked out her bedroom window and saw some of the party carrying a large bundle between them, and that they put it in a car and drove away, coming back and joining the party later.
Negro witnesses summoned, said that Azza appeared at their house around 2:30, warmed and left 20 minutes to 3:00, apparently none the worse for wear.
Coroner J.L. North, and his jury, after a short deliberation, found that Azza Martin had come to her death at the hands of unknown parties and requested further investigation.
George Farmer, local colored undertaker states that he has been ordered not to bury the skeleton until further notice by the authorities.
So as we go to press the Azza Martin mystery is just as much a mystery now as it was before her remains were found.
And the mystery continues. I will update this story as I collect more information. No one present is alive, and my purpose is to share a story I don’t believe should be forgotten.
