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As we get closer to the Christmas holiday and
the cards, letters and packages that we will both send and receive, it’s
interesting to realize that mail service was available here in Colquitt
County even before the county was created!
It’s the only institution in existence today
that was here before there was such a place as Moultrie! Mail service was
available for five years before the county was incorporated.
In 1851, a one-room log house located where
Moultrie is today, was used as a post office. Letters were dispatched once
a week to Thomasville and bore the postmark "Ocklockney."
As the area attracted more settlers, the
mail delivery from Thomas County was changed to twice a week. By then,
sometimes as many as 100 letters a week were delivered by horse and buggy
to the few families scattered over the piney woods.
With the creation of Colquitt by the
legislature, Ocklockney was changed to Moultrie and old-timers boasted
"you could tell by the mail that Colquitt was growing."
The first regular post office to serve the
community was set up soon after Moultrie became a town in the store of
Millsap and McPhaul. Mr. W.B. McPhaul was made postmaster.
McPhaul resigned in 1894 and J. Frank Monk
was named postmaster although the mail was still dispatched from the
Millsap and McPhaul Store.
Monk served through the second term of
Governor Cleveland’s presidency, but gave way to Hugh Pierce in 1900 when
the Republicans were voted into office.
Pierce was in office through 1913, thus
attaining the honor of holding the job longer than any other.
He was followed by J. W. Adams, who also
served as postmaster under the Republicans. After four years, Adams was
succeeded by Charles Beaty.
During Beaty’s tenure of office from 1915 –
1919 – the post office was in the old Norman Hotel. Before then, it had
been moved from place to place.
An application was made for a federal
building while Beaty was in office. During that time, horse and buggies
were carrying mail over five rural routes.
Construction was started on a permanent
post office building in February of 1917 and the equipment was moved in
the new building late in 1919. By then, Oscar O. Owens had been appointed
postmaster.
When Calvin Coolidge was elected President
in 1924, he appointed D. M. McKee, father of the present postmaster,
Albert D. McKee. (Remember, we’re browsing in October 1956 Moultrie
Observer’s.)
The elder McKee served for 11 years, from
1924-1935, and was succeeded by Grady Adams in 1935 near the end of the
first Roosevelt administration. Adams was the brother of Moultrie’s fourth
postmaster.
When he became postmaster, according to
available information, it was the only case on record where two brothers
had served as postmasters, one under the Republicans and the other under
the Democrats.
Two years after Grady Adams took office,
the post office was given first-class rating by Postmaster James A.
Farley. This was on July 1, 1937.
Adams was in office when the first loss of
mail by fire occurred in this area. Georgia Northern Railroad caught fire
November 19, 1943, near Boston. Engineer Judson Ott, escaped, but the car
and contents went up in flames.
After serving as postmaster for nine years,
Adams was succeeded in 1944 by J. B. Monk, who was postmaster through
April of 1952.
We’ll learn more about the history of our
local post office next week!
By the way, if you’d like to travel to
Scotland us next summer, visit
http://electricscotland.com
and go to The Family Tree page. The trip information is right
at the top of our page! My life-long best friend, Marti Van Horne (who now
lives in Raleigh, North Carolina) is a Scots Travel Specialist. She and I
plan trips each summer. About half of the folks who go with us each year
have been with us before! We do have a good time! |
