John Adams Reynolds

John Adams Reynolds

A Biography: As recorded and composed in 1989 by Helen Caroline Wellhoner Farmer, wife of Ernest Farmer the great nephew of John Adams Reynolds.

John Adams Reynolds was a well known and respected member of the Reynolds family. He was a man of many talents and interests, and was an inspiration to those who were associated with him throughout his long and useful life. He was known to many of us as "Uncle John A". Those of us who are old enough to remember him are very fortunate, but a large percentage of us can only remember hearing our parents and grandparents talk about him. He was a brother of Crawford Farmer's wife, Nancy Elizabeth Reynolds Farmer, and a brother of John P. Fricks' wife, Suzanne Reynolds Fricks. These two couples were the grandparents and great grandparents of many of the present day Fricks and Farmer families.

Nancy Elizabeth Reynolds, Suzanne Reynolds, and John A Reynolds, were three of the children of Benjamin Franklin Reynolds and Elizabeth Ward Reynolds, who moved to Habersham County from the old Pendleton District of South Carolina around 1850. "Uncle John A" was the first child born to them after their arrival in Habersham County, Georgia. He was born on March 12, 1851, and died in Clayton, Georgia, on January 31, 1936. He was married to Isabelle Jane Jackson, daughter of Jasper C. Jackson, a Baptist minister. John A and Isabelle Jackson Reynolds were the parents of Mary Trist, who married James Grant, a lawyer; Myrtle, who married O. A Gunter; Zedric (Zed) Ford Reynolds, who enlisted in the Canadian Army at the beginning of World War I, and his troopship was sunk in the English Channel en route to Europe (never married); Almeda, who married C. B. Brown; Ruth, who married C. R. Hendrix; James Jasper Reynolds, who was a World War I veteran and was wounded at Soissons (never married); and Edyth, who married James Frame, who was from New Hampshire. John A Reynolds and his wife, Isabelle Jackson Reynolds had fifteen grandchildren, including a baby girl of C. B. and Almeda Brown, who died in infancy.

Although "Uncle John A" had no formal training in Engineering, Horticulture, or Journalism, he earned his living for a large part of his life as a Surveyor, Apple Grower, and Newspaper Publisher. He lived at a time when a formal education was not readily available to the young people of the rural areas, but he took advantage of every opportunity for self-improvement. He enjoyed a reputation as one of the most highly respected surveyors in the state of Georgia. He surveyed many land lines in Habersham, Rabun, and Stephens Counties, and these lines remain unchallenged to the present time.

He surveyed and laid out the town of Demorest, as well as part of the town of Cornelia. When Stephens County was formed in 1905, he was selected to survey the county lines. He was assisted with some of this county line survey work by two of his nephews, Jake and Ben Farmer. On several occasions, in the course of his survey work, he located tracts of land which had previously been unclaimed, and was able to claim the land for himself. One such tract of land was on top of the mountain presently known as Allen Mountain, in the Mountain Grove section of Stephens County. He also received plots of land in payment for some of the survey work he did. Times were hard and people needing survey work done was glad to give a portion of their land in order to get it surveyed.

In 1898, he moved from Demorest to Clayton, Georgia, where he spent the remainder of his life. After moving to Clayton he bought a large tract of land in the Saddle Gap area, where he had a large apple orchard. He later promoted the sale of some of the property for home sites. Agnes Fricks Farmer remembered that he offered free lots to her husband, Marvin Farmer, and to her brother, Vernon Fricks, but she said that at that time, during the depression, they couldn't even afford to build a pigpen, much less a house! She said that "Uncle John A.'" thought if he could get some people to build on the property, it would be an incentive for others to buy and build.

According to Dr. A. J. Ritchie, shortly after coming to Clayton, John A. Reynolds established a newspaper, The Clayton Tribune, and published it continuously for many years. Dr. Ritchie said that "Mr. Reynolds deserves much credit for overcoming the many difficulties which he encountered in publishing the paper. There were no trains to Clayton at that time, and sometimes on account of the transportation difficulties, he would run out of paper. He was forced, several times, to buy wrapping paper from the merchants, and a few times he had to use such paper with advertisements printed on one side. He would print the Tribune on the blank sides rather than miss an issue of his paper. There was no type setting machines in that day. All the type was set by hand. Most of the work was done by the family of Mr. Reynolds while he was engaged in surveying the railroad and in other engineering projects. He was finally forced to suspend the operation of the newspaper, largely because his children were marrying and leaving home, and the revenue from the paper would not justify hiring labor with which to publish it."

Agnes Fricks Farmer, in recalling some memories of "Uncle John A." said that when her son, Irvin, was a baby, her grandmother, Suzanne Reynolds Fricks, came to Clayton to help her with the baby, and to be near her brother, John A. She said that "Uncle John A." would come by their house every day. He would always bring some apples, and he and Suzanne would sit on the front porch and reminisce for hours about some of the things they remembered from their younger days. After he became ill and was in bed all the time, Agnes said her grandmother, Suzanne, would often sit with him. One time she thought she would like to make his bed more comfortable for him, but when she asked him if he could sit up long enough for her to fix his bed, he said," Well, Suzanne, there's no use, I've got it just, like it feels good, and I'm afraid you won't fix it back like I want it."

In his book, "Sketches of Rabun County History", Dr. A. J. Ritchie, who was a close friend of Uncle John A., gives some insight into the life of this remarkable man, John A. Reynolds. The following is a quote from the book:

"Here was a man with a vision and an enthusiasm with which he devoted himself to three great fields of human activity. I knew him intimately and had something to do with him in the three kinds of work in which he were engaged. These were the occupation of a newspaper editor, an apple grower, and a surveyor. Although he lived to the ripe old age of almost 85, he was always so active, so vivacious, and apparently so youthful that I never thought of him as an old man. He came to Rabun County in 1898 and brought here the first printing press. This was an old fashioned Washington Hand Press and a few fonts of type. With this equipment he started The Clayton Tribune, which he published for nearly a quarter Century. As a surveyor and civil engineer he made the first location of the Tallulah Falls railroad and was active in getting it built in this county. He gave liberally of his time and talent to this important project. For many years John A. Reynolds was the (Rabun) County Surveyor. He held this office at the time of his death. It has been said that genius is a capacity to take pains. I happen to know with what great pains John A. Reynolds set up the lines between land lots in this county and the trouble he took to get himself satisfied with the lines and the maps that he made. I also knew something of the enthusiasm with which he promoted the apple growing industry in this county. He had his own orchard and he made it his business to attend the State Fair each year in Macon and have there an exhibit of the apples that grew in this county. Part of his talk was that the cool nights and warm sunshine of this region gave apples a better flavor than other sections gave. I remember two incidents that show his enthusiasm and activity about apple growing. One was the display at the State Fair of the $100 check which was the prize Won at a fair in Washington State by the so-called Fort-prize apple. That apple had been found by John P. Fort on a seedling tree at an old abandoned house near Mountain City. Another incident was that he found on the school farm at Rabun Gap an old apple tree that near the ground had the largest diameter of any apple tree in all this region. The tree must have been 100 years old. It was something like three feet through. We allowed him to have that tree cut down, and he took a cross section of it to the Fair at Macon to show the kind of apple tree that we grow in this county. Although not a native of the county, we have had few men who have done more to advertise and develop its resources than this man who adopted it as his place of residence. The more we have of them, the better off we are by having such citizens as John A. Reynolds."

Helen Hendrix, a granddaughter of John A. Reynolds, recalled some memories of her grandfather. She said that he appeared to pay little attention to the grandchildren while they were small, but as they grew older, he began to take more interest in them. She said that "During the depression when money was scarce, he gave me a job. He had a little instrument that you could use to run around the outside edge of a drawing of a piece of land to find the square footage of the property. He let me do that for him. I guess he thought it would be good training for me when I started looking for a job. He paid me $5.00 a week. That was a tremendous lot of money. Just think, that was $20.00 a month!"

Helen also recalled that one time a well respected real estate man said to her, "I understand that you are the granddaughter of John A. Reynolds. I want you to know that anybody that ever had anything to do with real estate, could always tell when it was a John A. Reynolds survey." Helen said that her grandfather was extremely accurate and precise, which was not the case with most of them in that day and time. She said that he was very proud of this reputation, and her mother was, too.

"Uncle John A." lived a long and useful life, most of which was spent in the area of northeast Georgia. His contributions to the several counties in which he lived were appreciated, and are still appreciated, even to this day. On January 31, 1936, almost two months before his 85th birthday, his life came to an end at the home of his daughter, Ruth Hendrix. Agnes Fricks Farmer recalled that she and her grandmother, Suzanne, sat up with him all night on the night of his death. The following day he was laid to rest beside his parents in the Reynolds Family Cemetery. Snow was on the ground from a recent snowfall and the cemetery, being in a remote area, was practically inaccessible. Roads were wet and muddy, and many problems were encountered in trying to reach the cemetery, but the faithful ones made the effort and paid their last respects to this man who had meant so much to them through the years. Agnes Fricks Farmer and her husband, Marvin, were two of those present for the funeral of "Uncle John A." on that cold day in February at the little family burial ground near the old Reynolds and Fricks home place in the Mountain Grove Community of Stephens County, Georgia. Ben and Lona Fricks were still living on the old Reynolds and Fricks home place near the cemetery, and Agnes recalled that her mother, Lona, cooked and served dinner for all those who attended the funeral that day.