METEORS OVER MIDDLE GEORGIA

Lighting Up The Night 

On any clear night if you look long enough, you will probably see a streak of light flashing across the sky. From time to time, especially in mid August, mid November and mid December, the Earth travels through zones of meteoroids in a perpetual orbit around the Sun. These stony and iron objects strike the Earth's atmosphere at tremendous speeds. Most of these extra terrestrial objects are vaporized before they strike the ground, but a few survive the impact with our atmosphere. 

Perhaps the most remarkable year for meteors over Middle Georgia came one hundred and twenty six years ago in 1880. It was a quiet night in Macon as the month of June was about to come to an end. A small gathering of men was standing on the corner of Second and Cherry Streets when an intense light illuminated the city. One of the men, a reporter for the Macon Telegraph, described the light as "not like the sun, the moon nor a gas light. It was nearer the electric light, yet a thousand times more powerful." The light was so bright that trees cast shadows on the ground and all heavenly stars were dimmed. Moving from directly overhead in the direction of Milledgeville, the "shooting star" changed to a brilliant red light at 45 degrees from the horizon and then into various shades of green. The whole spectacle only lasted five seconds and was undoubtedly witnessed by late nighters in Laurens County. As the meteor began to change shades, it began to emit sparks and then vapors of smoke. At thirty degrees above the horizon, the light disappeared.

After three minutes, of silence a thunderous boom reverberated for at least thirty seconds. Witnesses described the sound as metallic and not like the normal sound of thunder. Many reported that the Earth shook. About five days later, the meteorite, said to be the size of a man's head, was found in the forks of a tree some distance from town. If it was indeed the actual meteorite, it is strange that the object has not been documented by scientists. Furthermore, the report of the meteor was probably similar to the sound of a sonic boom caused by an airplane - not by an impact on the ground. If that was the case, it corroborates the belief the meteorite landed about 40 miles away from Macon. Officials in Eatonton reported that the meteor struck south of the town along the southwestern horizon. Coming in the heat of the 1880 presidential election, the meteor was dubbed "The Hancock Meteor," in honor of Winfield Scott Hancock, the former Union hero of the Battle of Gettysburg, but a man who had been embraced by Southern Democrats who were seeking to be relieved of the shackles of Northern Republican policies and politicians.

Nearly two months later, at ten minutes until ten o'clock on the evening of August 26th, a meteor appeared in the southwestern sky. Witnesses in Brunswick reported that the meteor broke into two equal fireballs, each appearing to be the size of a man's head. The phenomenon lasted for just over a minute. Maconites reported that the meteor threw off brilliant fireballs of red, blue and yellow as it disappeared into the northeastern sky. Witnesses in Columbus reported three distinct balls, the first one sporting a long luminous tail. There were no reports of impact as the meteor faded out of sight.

One of the most remarkable celestial events in the recorded history of Middle Georgia came on the late autumn afternoon of December 9, 1880. It was about 5:30 when citizens over Central Georgia and as far north as Atlanta observed a brilliant streak of light following the usual northeasterly course. Observers in the capital city described the fireball as the size of a common cannon ball. When it passed directly overhead, Atlantans saw the meteor break into several fragments until they disappeared from sight. The event lasted only a minute. The resulting trail of smoke remained in the twilight sky for a full five minutes. While viewers in Macon reported that the smoke lasted ten minutes, those gazing upon the rare phenomenon in Dublin stated that they saw the smoke trail for at least twenty minutes before the Sun set. There were no reported sounds of impact, though some residents of Macon reported that their windows were slightly jarred by the passage of the fireball.

Less than forty hours later on the following Saturday, another day light meteor was seen in Savannah. Witnesses reported that the meteor streaked seemingly just about the tree tops from the direction of Dublin toward the Atlantic Ocean. Those who saw the light repeated the same description as the Hancock meteorite over Macon. When the meteor passed over the city, a group of men saw it explode as if it were a sky rocket. A policeman, walking his early morning beat on Bryan Street, watched the meteor for nearly a minute in "the most dazzling sight I have ever seen." No sounds were audible and no impact site was observed.

If you want to catch the best glimpse of a meteor shower, go outside this Friday and Saturday nights, late, or early in the morning I should say. Look toward the constellation Perseus in the northeastern sky. Unfortunately, a nearly full moon will diminish the brilliance of the shooting stars, which have been numbered as much as a hundred per hour. For nearly two thousand years, humans have observed what has become known as the Perseides meteor shower. The bright streaks of light you will see come from dust from the Comet Swift-Tuttle. These dust particles, traveling at more than 132,000 miles per hour, illuminate the entire sky with nature's greatest summertime fireworks show.

The most famous and magnificent meteor shower ever recorded in Georgia came on the evening of November 12, 1833. As the Earth entered the path of an ancient comet, hundreds and hundreds of meteors radiated out of the constellation Leo every hour. The superstitious and the uneducated believed the world was coming to an end. From the skies above Laurens County and all around the world, people were sent into a frenzy. The Leonids meteor shower returns every year on the evenings of November 12 and 13. Approximately every thirty-three years, the shower reaches peak intervals, the last ones being in 1999 and 2000.

For thousands of years meteors have become a fascination and a consternation for observers of the nighttime sky. Composed of particles of iron, stone and comet dust, these spectacles have come and gone, like clockwork literally reigning down pieces of the solar system's most distant past.

Lighting Up The Night 

On any clear night if you look long enough, you will probably see a streak of light flashing across the sky. From time to time, especially in mid August, mid November and mid December, the Earth travels through zones of meteoroids in a perpetual orbit around the Sun. These stony and iron objects strike the Earth's atmosphere at tremendous speeds. Most of these extra terrestrial objects are vaporized before they strike the ground, but a few survive the impact with our atmosphere. 

Perhaps the most remarkable year for meteors over Middle Georgia came one hundred and twenty six years ago in 1880. It was a quiet night in Macon as the month of June was about to come to an end. A small gathering of men was standing on the corner of Second and Cherry Streets when an intense light illuminated the city. One of the men, a reporter for the Macon Telegraph, described the light as "not like the sun, the moon nor a gas light. It was nearer the electric light, yet a thousand times more powerful." The light was so bright that trees cast shadows on the ground and all heavenly stars were dimmed. Moving from directly overhead in the direction of Milledgeville, the "shooting star" changed to a brilliant red light at 45 degrees from the horizon and then into various shades of green. The whole spectacle only lasted five seconds and was undoubtedly witnessed by late nighters in Laurens County. As the meteor began to change shades, it began to emit sparks and then vapors of smoke. At thirty degrees above the horizon, the light disappeared. 

After three minutes, of silence a thunderous boom reverberated for at least thirty seconds. Witnesses described the sound as metallic and not like the normal sound of thunder. Many reported that the Earth shook. About five days later, the meteorite, said to be the size of a man's head, was found in the forks of a tree some distance from town. If it was indeed the actual meteorite, it is strange that the object has not been documented by scientists. Furthermore, the report of the meteor was probably similar to the sound of a sonic boom caused by an airplane - not by an impact on the ground. If that was the case, it corroborates the belief the meteorite landed about 40 miles away from Macon. Officials in Eatonton reported that the meteor struck south of the town along the southwestern horizon. Coming in the heat of the 1880 presidential election, the meteor was dubbed "The Hancock Meteor," in honor of Winfield Scott Hancock, the former Union hero of the Battle of Gettysburg, but a man who had been embraced by Southern Democrats who were seeking to be relieved of the shackles of Northern Republican policies and politicians. 

Nearly two months later, at ten minutes until ten o'clock on the evening of August 26th, a meteor appeared in the southwestern sky. Witnesses in Brunswick reported that the meteor broke into two equal fireballs, each appearing to be the size of a man's head. The phenomenon lasted for just over a minute. Maconites reported that the meteor threw off brilliant fireballs of red, blue and yellow as it disappeared into the northeastern sky. Witnesses in Columbus reported three distinct balls, the first one sporting a long luminous tail. There were no reports of impact as the meteor faded out of sight. 

One of the most remarkable celestial events in the recorded history of Middle Georgia came on the late autumn afternoon of December 9, 1880. It was about 5:30 when citizens over Central Georgia and as far north as Atlanta observed a brilliant streak of light following the usual northeasterly course. Observers in the capital city described the fireball as the size of a common cannon ball. When it passed directly overhead, Atlantans saw the meteor break into several fragments until they disappeared from sight. The event lasted only a minute. The resulting trail of smoke remained in the twilight sky for a full five minutes. While viewers in Macon reported that the smoke lasted ten minutes, those gazing upon the rare phenomenon in Dublin stated that they saw the smoke trail for at least twenty minutes before the Sun set. There were no reported sounds of impact, though some residents of Macon reported that their windows were slightly jarred by the passage of the fireball. 

Less than forty hours later on the following Saturday, another day light meteor was seen in Savannah. Witnesses reported that the meteor streaked seemingly just about the tree tops from the direction of Dublin toward the Atlantic Ocean. Those who saw the light repeated the same description as the Hancock meteorite over Macon. When the meteor passed over the city, a group of men saw it explode as if it were a sky rocket. A policeman, walking his early morning beat on Bryan Street, watched the meteor for nearly a minute in "the most dazzling sight I have ever seen." No sounds were audible and no impact site was observed. 

If you want to catch the best glimpse of a meteor shower, go outside this Friday and Saturday nights, late, or early in the morning I should say. Look toward the constellation Perseus in the northeastern sky. Unfortunately, a nearly full moon will diminish the brilliance of the shooting stars, which have been numbered as much as a hundred per hour. For nearly two thousand years, humans have observed what has become known as the Perseides meteor shower. The bright streaks of light you will see come from dust from the Comet Swift-Tuttle. These dust particles, traveling at more than 132,000 miles per hour, illuminate the entire sky with nature's greatest summertime fireworks show. 

The most famous and magnificent meteor shower ever recorded in Georgia came on the evening of November 12, 1833. As the Earth entered the path of an ancient comet, hundreds and hundreds of meteors radiated out of the constellation Leo every hour. The superstitious and the uneducated believed the world was coming to an end. From the skies above Laurens County and all around the world, people were sent into a frenzy. The Leonids meteor shower returns every year on the evenings of November 12 and 13. Approximately every thirty-three years, the shower reaches peak intervals, the last ones being in 1999 and 2000. 

For thousands of years meteors have become a fascination and a consternation for observers of the nighttime sky. Composed of particles of iron, stone and comet dust, these spectacles have come and gone, like clockwork literally reigning down pieces of the solar system's most distant past. 

THE SNOWFALL OF THE CENTURY, ALMOST

          In our distant past, newspaper reports of substantial snow falls were relatively uncommon.  The accounts and consequences of those ancient snowstorms are few and far in between.  Because of our geographical location and prevailing meteorological conditions, snow falls of more than a couple of inches are somewhat rare.  In order for us to have snow, we have to the right combination of warm moist air and cold air converging at the same time.  It is only in the last fifteen years that more measurable snowfalls have been on the rise.

This is the story of the snowstorm of February 25, 1914, said to be the greatest of the 20th Century.  And so it was until February 9, 1973, when all of the requisite  weather conditions came together at the critical time leaving Laurens County under 14 or more inches of snow.

The greatest snowfall of the 19th Century in Laurens County came on February 13, 1899.  It was perhaps the coldest day ever recorded in the history of the county when temperatures fell to at least five degrees below zero.  Thirty mile per hour winds blew across four inches of snow and caused the wind chill temperature to drop to thirty-three degrees below zero.

The 1899 storm had no negative effect on Valentine’s Day activities.  In point of fact, the day was transformed into a sentimental journey into the past like the country’s  northern regions when the day was once celebrated with sleigh riding and snow ball throwing.  Instead of following the ancient custom of drawing a name of girl and pinning a badge on their shoulders, the young men of Dublin took to the streets to celebrate and play.

Few people had snow sleds.  The ingenious and clever boys went to work, improvising by attaching a cracker box to barrel staves for a sled.  Others took wheels from their buggies, ran the axle through wood and had sleighs pulled by horses.  Ben Hooks had the most fun.  He constructed a sleigh drawn by four horses with a wagon body filled with hay.  All day long, the kids rode up and down the streets throughout the winter wonderland. Boys were boys as sporadic and random snowball skirmishes broke out in all parts of the city.

On a cold Tuesday evening on February 24, 19145, snow began to fall north of town in Milledgeville, which would receive 9 inches in all.  All during the night and throughout the day snow flakes covered the ground.  As the snow slowed, temperatures plummeted down to 20 degrees.

Not a hint of snow was in the short term forecast from weather experts in Washington, D.C.. In fact, fair weather was predicted for Dublin and Laurens County.   When it began to sleet right around midnight, no one had a thought of any dumping of a white blanket of snow.  The previous snowfall on Thanksgiving Day in 1912 was primarily remarkable and puzzling, but all too fleeting.

Bands of snow extended from New Orleans, which hadn’t seen snow since 1901 to Charleston.  Millions of people living in the northern half of the nation were shivering and suffering in the grips of yet another severe snowy storm.

Dublin’s total snow fall by the time the Courier-Herald was published stood at three inches. By the end of the day, that depth would double to six inches and climbing at 6:00 p.m.  -  a record which stood for nearly sixty years until the Great Snow of 1973.  The snow fall that day, 100 years ago,  still stands as the second greatest recorded snowfall in the 200 years of Laurens County’s history.

Not used to such heavy snow, nearly all businesses ceased operation.  Students were excused from classes.  There were few, if any traffic jams.  In 1914, traffic jams in Dublin were almost as rare as snow falls.   Most people walked everywhere in town during those days.

Snow fall totals seemed to heaviest from the southwestern part of Central Georgia northeast to Augusta.  Sandersville’s paper boasted a state high of ten inches, while neighboring Tennille’s yardsticks dipped only 8 inches from the ground to the top of the snow.

Baxley to our southeast reported a single inch, while Americus and Fitzgerald each reported a half foot of the white, wet stuff.  Macon’s measurers came up with roughly the same half foot levels.

It was a day when any kid who was allowed to spent the day frolicking in the snow.   Over the next century, we have had some snowfalls of 1-3 inches, usually no more than two or three of them in each decade.

February 25, 1914 was an exception.  It was the greatest, well almost the greatest, snowfall of the 20th Century.

RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY

        On just about any hot August night, most everyone in these parts is praying for a rainy night in Georgia.  But nowadays, most folks are hoping that the rain will go away and the good Lord will let the sunshine in.

At the end of January of this year, it appeared that we here in Central Georgia would have to endure yet another dry year.  Only an inch of rain in a relatively rainy month seemed to indicate that the two-foot plus deficit in the preceding two years was bound to continue.

But then someone let the rain come down.  In nearly half of the year’s shortest month, rain gauges measured 12.18 inches, three times Laurens County’s normal February rainfall.

The St. Patrick’s people prayed for a dry month in March and they got what the asked for, nearly an inch below normal in a mere eight rainy days.  That trend continued in April and the prospects of bountiful  May flowers were seriously in doubt.  Tropical Storm Andrea dumped more than four inches on the county on June 5-7,  initiating the wettest summer in our county’s history.     

Then it was in the days which followed the summer solstice when the dread of another hot dry summer began to change.  On June 22 and every day for the next twenty- three days it rained.    Beginning on that day and for the next five weeks, more (way more in certain areas) than a foot of rain fell, all without the aid of a tropical rain.  Normally during that period we average about five inches, mostly from pop up afternoon thunderstorms.   There is no such thing as an all time record rainfall as official records go back less than 125 years.  But, I think I would be safe in saying that never in the recorded meteorological history of our state has it ever rained for twenty-four days in a row in the first four weeks of summer.   

Here is where I have to say that there is only one official rain gauge in our county and it is located at the Laurens County Emergency Management Center.  It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, that it does rain in other places in the county when rain doesn’t fall into the official measuring tube.  There was one day in July when it rained more than two inches in northern Dublin while less than a quarter of an inch was officially registered.

Normal conditions returned in late July and throughout the first thirteen days of August less than an inch of rain was recorded. Rainy day feelings were fading away when here came the rain again. 

Out of nowhere, it seemed as if every old man in the county started snoring and the twilight skies starting pouring,  dumping rain out of the heavens.  Virtually no one saw it coming.   Just about eight o’clock, it came a flood.  The gully washer continued nonstop for 90 minutes.  In less than a length of a baseball game, we exceeded our average August rainfall of 4.84 inches.   Again, there are no accurate all time records. But, six or more inches in 90 minutes, now that’s a downpour worth remembering. And,  the rain kept coming, another six or more inches in northwest Dublin in three days.

Weathermen love records.  Extreme weather readings give forecasters a barometer  (I couldn’t resist punning here) to inform their readers and viewers of forecasts and trends.  

July is the wettest average month with 5.00 inches, closely followed by March and August.  The wettest official month ever in Dublin came in January 1925 with 14.4 inches.  August 1928 with two tropical storms dumping rain in buckets gave that month 14.07 inches.   As of press time with 12.94 inches, this month of August may set an all time monthly official  rainfall.  On the opposite end of the spectrum,  there was no rain in the rain gauges in October 1961 and September 2005.

The wettest official day ever came on January 19, 1943 when 7.15 inches of rain was recorded.  I remember the 2nd day of June in 2007, when there was more than eight inches in my rain gauge - the official number that day was 6.84.  In some places in eastern Laurens County more than 10 inches fell when Tropical Storm Barry passed through.  On average, the wettest days come in mid January and in early August when tropical storms are prone to come through.

On average, the wettest meteorological season is Summer followed by winter, spring and fall.   Before this year, the wettest winter came in 1912, the spring in 1991, the summer in 1928 (26.98) and fall in 1929 (19.53).  Already this year, the accumulated summer rains are approaching 31.58  official inches with six days to go, making this the wettest season, official or not, in the history of weather records in Dublin.  

Laurens County is located at the southwestern end of an area from Dublin to Augusta which is the driest in the state and has between 47 and 49 inches of rain annually. 

The all time record annual rainfall came in 1912 with 70.31 inches, augmented with the presence of five tropical storms in the state.  Right behind that record was 1964 with its 68.28 inches and its five tropical storm rains. So  far this year with only one tropical storm, the total official rainfall stands At 54.22 with a little more than four months to go.  Statewide the year 1964 was first with 70.66 inches,  with 1929 coming in at 70.01.  That year, Dublin measured 70.8 inches with  only 1 tropical storm.

The wettest-five year period in Georgia  in the last 120 years occurred from 1944 to 1948.  The driest came exactly a decade later from 1954 (the driest year ever) to 1958. 

During this year, we have had at least eighteen days with more than an inch of rain.  The highest came on August 14 with 5.75 ( six to seven in some places, and none in others - remember this is a real big county.)  The plus side to this torrential record is that the official temperature has never risen above 95.4 degrees, that was on June 12. For the year and for the summer, for a change we are right at normal average temperatures. The negative side is all of the leaking roofs, unless you are in the roofing business and then you are smiling.  

As this month comes to an end, the official total at press time through August 25 is  12.78 inches and counting .  In many places in the northwestern section of Dublin, from August 11 to August 18, private rain gauges registered at least eight inches more than the official total bringing the August total in my rain gauge, here in the edge of Hunger and Hardship Creek  to 20 plus inches.  From August 14  to August 25, there was measurable rainfall. 11  Days in a row.  Wow!  

It looks like we won’t break the official record, but I dare you find some one who won’t claim that it rained way  more than a foot during the month.   I’ll stop talking now, because nobody can stop the rain.  And, I will just say, rain, rain go away, come again another dry week. 

In the months to come, we can expect the dry weather to return and much needed rainfall will soon be desired.  Three and three quarters of an inch are normal for September and  just more than two and one half inches is an average for October, typically the driest month of all.   Then we can stop crying about  the rain.  Or will we?

THE WAR OF THE WORMS

The worms were coming! The worms were coming!

To some, the sight of a wriggling, writhing, wormy caterpillar is a wondrous event in nature's metamorphosis. To others, like the farmer, who sees his life-sustaining, family- feeding, bill-paying crops devoured in front of his very own eyes by legions of this loathsome larvae, it was an abhorrent abomination.

Farmers in Laurens County and southern Georgia had already heard of the voracious armyworm. They were used to dealing with all ranks of pesky, pernicious pests which threatened their crops. Dire forecasts of a weevil invasion had been heard for years.

But this time, in the summer of 1912, it was war.

That spring, W. D. Hunter, in charge of all field crop investigations in the South, warned of the dire consequences to come. Despite the fact that all evidence to that point indicated that the abnormally harsh temperatures of the previous winter had all but destroyed the moths, Hunter expected another invasion emerging, perhaps from South America.

The initial ground invasion was launched by the dreaded legion of the Spodoptera frugiperda. J.D. Williams, an enterprising, veteran farmer of Bulloch County, was hoping that 1912 was going to be another banner year for his cotton and corn crops. On a Sunday afternoon, in the last week of spring, Williams was out in his cornfield, some three miles from Metter, when he discovered the presence of thousands of creeping caterpillars crawling up and down his immature corn stalks.

"The field looks as if no corn had been planted there save for the young stalks lying on the ground," Williams reported on Tuesday. The worm, which cuts off the corn stalk at the bottom, destroyed nearly 50 acres of corn, which was rivaling cotton as the main cash crop.

Alarms were broadcast to the region's farmers. who immediately instituted frequent inspections of their plants. The invading army moved to the Ohoopee District of Toombs County, where they, with their mandibles mashing everything in sight, devoured the entire 20-acre cotton field of R.B. Cowart in a single, profit-erasing day.

Lawson E. Brown, state president of the Farmers Union, sent out the word far and wide of how to attack the writhing larvae. He told farmers to dig a row between the plants. When the worms crawled into the row, the farmer would drag a log down the row and bury them. Another method was to apply a mixture of Paris Green and flour and sift it onto the plants. More than 100,00o circulars were sent out to farmers around the state detailing how to deal with the invading larvae.

By the end of June, State Entomologist, E. Leo Worsham, began to report that Georgia farmers were winning the battle, although massive damages were inflicted in and around Thomasville, Tifton, Baxley and Hazlehurst. Worsham thought, at best, the cotton crop would be about two-thirds of the normal yield. By the end of June, reports of widespread devastation were coming out of Central Georgia in Bibb and Houston counties.

"Never before in the history of Georgia has a pest of this nature been checked so quickly," contended Worsham, who credited the farmers of the state and the work of his office in eradicating the enemy.

Worsham's back patting didn't bring a complete halt to the armyworm's offensive actions. Terrell County farmers suffered considerable damages. Ravenous armyworms destroyed Sumter County's entire and critically vital melon crop. One innocent lad in Putnam County brought a big jar full of the havoc-reeking creatures to a farmer, not even knowing of their dangerous proclivities.

By mid-July, the worms were infiltrating the growing fields of Baldwin, Greene and Putnam counties. Even the hay fields were not immune to attack. Congress was considering Federal aid to fight the onslaught.

As reports were published of attacks closer to Dublin, cautious Laurens County farmers banded together and did not wait on their national government to take action. More than 6,000 pounds of Paris Green was purchased at a cost of nearly $800.00. A committee was formed to sell the chemical mixture to local drug stores, which couldn't afford to carry that much poison in stock. Reports of wide spread infestation in the county were coming in during July.

On the negative side, Paris Green is a copper-based, highly toxic compound, first used to kill rats in the sewers of Paris, France. When used as a pesticide, Paris Green often killed the grass and trees where it was applied. So much for any organic corn eaters.

Congress appropriated a token amount of $25,000.00 and even sent a Federal expert, Dr. W.F. Webster, to the South to examine the problem.

But, W.W. Kicklighter, a farmer from Groveland, Georgia, wrote a bold letter in red ink to the United States Congress. In a simple-termed letter, Kicklighter respectfully asked that he be given a check for the $25,000.00 appropriated to get rid of the army worms.

He explained it to the politicians like this, "I had ten acres of corn and the armyworms had just started in." I drove my turkeys into the field and they ate the armyworms up in two days," wrote Kicklighter, who went on to proclaim that if he had not turned out his turkeys into his cornfield that he would have lost 500 bushels to the pesky varmints. Kicklighter's reward never came.

J.R. Dixon, of Parrish, Bulloch County, Georgia, too saw first hand the neutralizing force of his turkeys. He turned a flock of them into his field and at once they began to seek out and devour every wiggling worm they saw. Dixon scurried all around the county, borrowing turkeys to aid in his defense of his 20-acre corn field.

The idea of using turkeys to eat the caterpillars was nothing knew. Thomas Affleck had published the same and his very own theory in a widely published letter back in 1846.

At the 66th annual convention of the Georgia Agricultural Society, held on August 14 and 15 in Dublin, E.R. Worsham gave a belated speech on the eradication of the army worm, which was finally coming under the control of Georgia farmers. Worsham then began to supervise the state tax payer paid funding of thousands of pounds of powdered arsenate to finally eradicate the thoroughly dreaded Lepidoptera

The war of the worms was soon won by the farmers of the South. The same could not be said for the war against the boll weevil, which followed on a second front and almost singlehandedly, weather and economic conditions excepted, wiped out most of the cotton crop in Georgia in the mid 1910s, sending agricultural communities around the state into a Great Depression more than a dozen years before the Stock Market Crash in 1929.

THE NIGHT THE STARS FELL

THE NIGHT THE STARS FELL

On any given clear night you can see roughly 1500 stars with the naked eye.  On a cold November night in the year 1833, residents of the Eastern United States began to believe that the sky really was falling.   It was on that night, one hundred and seventy nine years ago tonight, when it seemed that at least thirty thousand and as many as many as two hundred thousand stars were falling every hour.  And, if the skies are clear this Saturday night you will get a chance to see just a small glimpse of what people all over the country saw on ‘the night the stars fell.

For billions of years, the comet Tempel-Tuttle has been orbiting the Sun.  Every thirty three years or so, the Earth passes through the densest section of the tail of Tempel-Tuttle.  Although the number of visible meteors currently is  substantially lower than in 1833,  the resulting meteor shower,  called the Leonids,  comes to a peak on November 17 of each year.

In the days leading up to November 13, 1833, the weather in Georgia had been somewhat mercurial.  On a rather warm Saturday and part of Sunday a steady rain fell.  After a Monday morning fog evaporated, the skies cleared.  As the sun began to set on Tuesday afternoon, temperatures began to plummet. Wednesday, like Tuesday, was a perfectly clear, crisp autumn day.   As the Sun set, a thin crescent moon hung low in the sky.  

Once the moon disappeared below the western horizon, the pitch black sky was speckled with its usual compliment of stars and planets.  All was normal or so it seemed.

Then about 9:00 that evening and continuing until the Sun came up the next morning, thousands and thousands of stars came screaming out of the calm, northeastern sky appearing to emanate out of the constellation of Leo, the Lion,  traveling at an estimated 156,000 miles per hour.

Those who believed in a higher being were sure that Judgment Day was at hand. Few, if any, people realized what was really happening. 

“The stars descended like snowfall to Earth,” an Augusta resident recalled.

“We were awaked by a neighbor, who had been aroused in a similar manner by one who supposed the World was coming to an end, as the stars were falling. The whole heavens were lighted by falling meteors, as thick and constant as the flakes which usher in a snow storm, ” a Georgia newspaper editor wrote. 

“Stars fell like snow flakes and fireballs darted back and forth in the heavens, like children at play,  making a grand and awe-inspiring display,” recalled  Rev. William Pate, of Turner County.

Settlers came from as far as 15 miles away to visit Rev. Pate’s home.  They stayed up all night singing hymns and praying as Reverend Pate read the scriptures.  Many confessed their most secret sins that remarkable night, truly fearing that the world was coming to an end. 

In an Alabama Heritage Magazine article in 2000, it was written that in a town in Georgia many profane people "were frightened to their knees,  dust-covered Bibles were opened and dice and cards were thrown to the flames.”

In Milledgeville,  the newspapers reported that hundreds and thousands of stars were shooting madly and vertically  from their spheres with several second-long trails of whitish light behind them.  Some thought that they must be fireworks instead of falling stars.  A few observers  swore that several of them had exploded.

A resident of Butler’s Island near Darien, Georgia wrote, “There were innumerable meteors in the skies, all apparently emanating from a focus directly overhead to every point of the compass, of various sizes and degrees of brilliancy, occasioned probably by their different distances.”  

One Morgan County farmer was transformed by the celestial phenomenon. As the shower intensified, the man ran out of his house, dressed only in his shirt and undergarments exclaiming, “The world is now actually coming to an end, for the stars are falling.”  His Negro servant ran after him as his master scrambled to take cover under the house.  

The farmers’ wife followed him outside and chastised her husband for his lack of courage.  The challenged the terrified farmer to come out and live or die with his family.  After he mustered the courage to come back outside, he gazed into the wondrous sight of thousands of burning meteors and vowed to himself and to God, “Well, this one thing I do know, escape or not - live long or die soon, I never will drink another drop of liquor.” 

Some Georgians thought the meteor shower had a more sinister political purpose than an astronomical phenomenon.  A  full scale political war between George M. Troup, of Laurens County, and John Clarke  had been raging for more than a dozen years.  Troup had been narrowly defeated by Clarke in two elections in the early 1820s.  Troup won a narrow victory of his own in 1823 and was narrowly reelected again in 1825 in the first popular vote  gubernatorial election in Georgia history.  

Following Clark’s death from yellow fever in October 1832, the struggle between the two rivals seemed to wane or simply shift to other members of the bitterly divided Democratic-Republican party.  

On Friday, November 8, five days before the meteor shower, Troup tendered his written resignation from the United States Senate from his Valdosta home in eastern Laurens County.  The first written accounts of the political icon’s leaving the Senate two years early circulating throughout the capital in Milledgeville on the 13th.  Although Troup maintained that his resignation was for purely personal reasons, some of his more ardent supporters thought that the evening’s spectacle was a sign of retribution if Clark’s followers regained political power in the state.

The longest lasting legacy of that starry, starry falling night was the beginning of the concentrated study of  meteors and the causes of meteors storms in particular.

So venture outside early this Sunday morning sit back and relax and turn your eyes upward and eastward and try to catch a glimpse of one of the grandest of nature’s fireworks, the Leonid Meteor Shower.  And, maybe one day, about 21 years or so from now, we all will witness the grand and glorious view of the night the stars fell.  

WHAT'S SHAKING?

 We Were!

Earthquakes are rare in Georgia, especially the ones which make our buildings and ourselves violently shake.  Two hundred years ago, earthquakes emanating from New Madrid, Missouri shocked the heartland of America, reaching all parts of Georgia. A century ago, even more earthquakes, although not as severe as the 1812 quakes, shook people all over the world.  In Georgia, the number of rattling quakes was at or near an all time yearly high.

It was a typical October day in Dublin.  Those around the city were coming down from the grand times at the 12th District Fair, which had ended only some ten days prior.  Several local people, who couldn't shake fair fever,  traveled by train to attend the ever popular Georgia State Fair in Macon.  

The Christians in the city had just held a mass meeting.  There was trouble in River City.   Crusades against vice were spreading throughout the country and it was on the third Monday of October, when a crowd of sinner stoppers crammed into the courthouse to hear speeches from J.E. Burch, C. Whitehurst and Rev. C.M. Crumbley on the evils of liquor and vice.

Judge Burch asked the congregation to speak out in favor of laws designed to punish the evil people.  The judge complained out loud that the children of the community were allowed to roam the streets without supervision. Whitehurst and Rev. Crumbley railed against the proliferation of the illegal sale of alcohol which was rampant in the community.    

It was a quiet, warm, rainy Tuesday night in Dublin, Georgia.  Record rainfalls were still soaking into the dry October soils around the county.  It seemed that C.C. Hooks, one of Dublin's finest young men from one of its finest family, had no cares in the world, nothing to torture his soul.  The popular livery man went to his room, carefully removed the pillows from his bed, laid down diagonally, his feet hanging off the edge of the bed, put his pistol to his head and fired a single, fatal shot.

Forty five minutes later, the minute hand on the courthouse clock was touching the three, while the hour hand was pointing just to the left of the eight.  

Then, all of a sudden and without a hint of any warning, the Earth began to tremble. The shaking then became a sharp, decided jolt. Throughout the city the report of a thunderous explosion, blasted everyone into a panic.  The fireman of the Dublin Fire Department, sleeping in their bunks in the City Hall, then on the courthouse square, awoke in a sheer panic.  They gathered their wits and then their gear before venturing outside, scanning the horizons in all directions to detect the presence of a plume of smoke arising into the misty evening.

Elsewhere in the City Hall, the Light and Water Committee of the City Council of Dublin was in session.  H.A. Knight had just been granted the approval of committee members John Kelley, Vivian L. Stanley and Attys P. Hilton for a sewer line to his home on Maiden Lane when the government building began to shake, shudder and tremble.  Kelley knew the building well.  As the preeminent contractor in Dublin, Kelley renovated Hilton's former hotel, which according to the custom of the day, was named for its owner, possibly making it the first Hilton Hotel in America.   With the council chamber moving in multiple directions,  the council sprinted outside toward the open area of the courthouse square.

All around the city, those who were alive back in August 1886, realized what was happening.  That's the day when a massive earthquake struck Charleston, South Carolina.  The shock waves spread to Dublin, igniting rampant trepidation throughout the burgeoning city.

It seems that Dublin and Macon were at the epicenter of the quake.  A writer for the Dublin Courier Dispatch, succinctly reported the event by stating, "One sharp quake was preceded by a sound similar to thunder.  It lasted several seconds and there was a slight shaking and rattling of houses and buildings but no damage occurred."

In the Third Street home of Rev. T.F. Callaway in Macon, Minnie Hammock and Ray Stahle, had just said their wedding vows when the window panes of the Callaway home shuddered and shook.  Cherished vases fell off the mantel, causing widespread panic among the less than amused wedding party, especially the frantic bride, who had to be revived. 

In those days, there were few if any seismographs in use around the country, none in Georgia.  The residents of Jeffersonville, somewhat equidistant between Dublin and Macon, reported no perceptible evidence of an earthquake.  In Milledgeville, some 47 crow fly miles away, there was a noticeable jarring. The Spartans of Hancock County, reported only a faint reverberation. 

  Residents of Augusta and Savannah failed to feel even the slightest earthly vibrations that evening, and certainly nothing like the heavy shocks that the citizens of the two ancient Georgia capitals felt back on the 12th of June.  That quake, or a series of quakes, shook the entire South, but were concentrated in eastern Georgia.  Those people in Dublin felt some of the shaking, which peaked around 4:30 in the morning.   It was the second one for the coastal capital, the first one coming on February 3, 1912. 

Post quake analysts searched their memories to compare the October 22nd quake to others in the Middle Georgia area.  Few remembered the 1884 Thursday and Saturday early morning quakes of March 20 and March 22, when a slight trembling of the Earth awoke the citizens of North Macon, Clinton and Dublin followed by a Sunday evening jolt.  The quake of the 22nd,   was reported as "very perceptible and the noise accompanying  it was  that of a fast departing train." 

Minor quakes along the Fall Line in Middle Georgia were not rare, occurring on a somewhat regular basis, especially in the last quarter of the 19th Century.

But, no one forgot the 31st day of August, 1886, when the entire Southeast was shaken by a major earthquake centered on Charleston, South Carolina.  That day is long gone from most of our minds now. But,  let us all remember there are times, just when you least expect them, when the Earth will begin to shake, rattle and roll beneath our feet.