An Interview With Mathew Johnson Esq., Nonagenarian Resident of Appling County.
Baxley News Banner 7 December 1922 ( by Geo. D. Lowe )

What will the yearling boy of today who outlives his fellows and remains fairly active when past the 92 mark, recall most distinctly when his mind wanders back over the distant past. The youth of this day saw the automobile and the aeroplane so early that the impression is likely to be confused with that of other common place matters. "Uncle Luck" Johnson, sitting in the warm sunshine in the yard at the Jesse T. Sellers place, having lived through Pioneer times, fought in one war and lived through four others, seems to recall in his 93rd year more distinctly than any other, a little experience he had with a timber wolf when he was just a little boy.

Little Mathew was told one morning to run down to the wolf trap and see if one had been caught; he did so, and found a big fellow in it. Then he was sent to the house of his Uncle Malcolm to tell him and the boys to come help to get the wolf out. Raging at his captors, the wolf was roped twice and dragged outside, and the sight of the beast, struggling to get at his enemies but held helpless by two taut ropes in strong hands, is the clearest impression and one of the oldest on his mind today about 85 years later.

With half closed eyes Uncle Luck looks back to the days when the forests were unbroken, when deer and bear were plentiful and when timber wolves and panthers were both numerous and dangerous. It is easy to see that the country has been about ruined in the eyes of its oldest citizens. Big woods and big game made such an impression on his youthful mind that modern matters strike him as being rather futile affairs. The companions of his youth and the comrades of his martial years are gone, but his memory is good and life still a pretty good thing.

A NARROW ESCAPE FROM BEING BORN IN APPLING

But for the fact that Indians made a foray from down Florida way and ran the settlers back across the Altamaha Uncle Luck would have been born in Appling, as his parents had been living on the "Injun" side of the river for several yars. As it happened he first saw light of day in Tattnall near Staffords Ferry where the refugees stayed until the troops drove the Indians away into the Okeefenokee Swamp. His oldest brother was with the force of Militia and regulars that cleared the redskins out.

Four Johnson brothers, Scotchmen Daniel, Malcolm, Arthur and John came into Appling in the very early days. When they settled here, only a few hardy pioneers had gone further into the wilderness that was then included within the boundaries of the county. The Johnsons settled within ten miles of the present site of Baxley. There were a few families in the territory that is now included in Clinch, a few in Ware. Other families crossing at Staffords Ferry bore to the southeastward and settled at intervals all the way along to the St. Mary's River, the southern boundary of Appling county then.

Another tide of North Carolinians crossed the Ocmulgee about old Jacksonville and settled in Coffee and Southward. At Fort Barrington, on the lower Altamaha, many pioneers crossed on their way to Florida. There were no roads then and settlements so scattered that for all practical purposes, each was alone so far as communication with others was concerned. New counties were formed from Appling without the people knowing anything about it, and Appling officials still held jurisdiction such as it was, for several years afterwards.

HOW THEY CAME IN

The North Carolinians came into Georgia in carts with solid wheels sawn from big logs. They knew nothing about four-wheeled vehicles anyway, and such would have been useless in the roadless woods. The Virginians who came into upper Georgia with slaves, had wagons and carriages. For many years the Virginians said that when they passed through Carolina the people who had never seen a wagon or carriage hitched up their carts and hurried on behind them to be on hand when the big wheels ran over the little ones. They said that the curiosity was responsible for the settlement of south Georgia. The Virginians turned off at Augusta to the oak and hickory hill country, and then the Carolinians heard of pineries like their own down this way and headed for them.

Uncle Luck said that there is no noise today to be compared with he screeching of those solid wheels on the old carts. The whine of the circular saw at the Sellers mill nearby, sounds something like it, but not quite as ear piercing. Many wolves were trapped and deer and bear were killed, but more were carried out of the country by the advancing settlers with their screeching axles. The daring panther might attack a foot traveler or drop off of a limb on a horseman, but he took to his heels when he saw a cart coming through the woods.

FIFTY-SIX YEARS ON A PEG-LEG

Enlisting in Company "F" 47th, Georgia Regiment, Colonel Williams commanding, Mathew Johnson had fought bravely and well until in the battle of Chickamauga, he lost a leg and was badly wounded in the other. Like most veterans of the Civil War, he is inclined to belive that the boys were pretty well coddled up and babied in the last big war and since. He has seen youngsters who never smelled powder getting big pensions for flat feet, and wonders a little how much they know about real hardship. How they would have felt to come home maimed and penniless, to a little clearing many miles from a railroad in a county where a cash dollar was a rarity.

It is all in a life time he thinks, but that ripsnorting wolf, roped and thirst for the blood of his captors, and the panthers that screamed at night around the little cabin that was his home, and the deer and the turkey he killed with his first little old shot gun, these are the things that he likes to remember nowadays when the blood is thin and the limbs are feeble.