SHARON – This incorporated small town in Taliaferro County is likely the smallest incorporated town in Georgia. Don’t see how there could be a town any smaller. No traffic lights of any description and one stop sign.
This is where Locust Grove Academy was formed, the first chartered Roman Catholic academy in the state. Incorporated on Christmas Eve 1884, Sharon is the site of the first Catholic Church in Georgia. Near the city hall, there is a sign pointing east that says, “Old Catholic Cemetery.”
I tried to find the cemetery, but there were no further markers 1.7 miles down the road as a sign indicated.
My curiosity was piqued when a Georgia fan named Terry Barber asked a question about a Georgia football game in 1910 when the Bulldogs defeated Locust Grove Academy 101-0. Since there is a Locust Grove community in Henry County, where one of the old A& M schools was located, he wondered which Locust Grove educational institution lined up against Georgia.
A call to Skeet Willingham, a historian living in nearby Washington, confirmed that Locust Grove Academy in Sharon never fielded a football team. That answered Barber’s question.
His question prompted a visit here to learn more about why Catholics would settle in this area of Georgia.
The historical marker says that in 1790 several Catholics of English descent from Maryland located here and established the first Roman Catholic Church in Georgia, erecting a log church in 1792.
Willingham says the marker could be a little misleading in that his research indicates that the first Catholic families to migrate to Georgia arrived after a revolution in Haiti.
Why would they settle in this remote part of a protestant dominated Georgia? Willingham is not sure except for “cheap land.”
“A lot of those Catholic families in Sharon eventually moved to Washington,” he says.
“Washington has always had a large Catholic community, dating way back, and until the early 60’s, there was a significant Catholic orphanage in Washington.”
Growing up, we had more Jewish families (one) in our town than Catholics. It didn’t take long for me to find out that the Baptists I grew up with didn’t rank the Catholics high on the ladder stretching up to heaven, and I am sure you can still find a few, rural towns in the state where Catholics cause some to look askance in their direction.
In the pre-Interstate days, travelers in Georgia were accustomed to an attendant pumping their gas when they stopped for refueling. This scene took place in a small South Georgia town one hot, dusty summer afternoon during those times.
A Catholic priest, with his arm in a sling, stopped to buy gas.
A young, affable filling station attendant went out to pump gas for the priest as a group of overall wearing rednecks watched with both curiosity and contempt.
When the priest drove away, the young attendant came back inside, and one of the locals spoke up.
“Who was that damn fool with his shirt on backwards?”
The young attendant explained that the man said he was a Catholic priest and that is the way they wore their shirts.
“What happened to his arm?” was the next question.
“He said he stood up on a commode to repair a light fixture, fell and broke his arm,” the attendant explained.
That prompted someone to ask, “What is a commode?”
“How would I know,” the young attendant said. “I ain’t Catholic!”
Smith is a regular columnist for this paper and a commentator for UGA football. |
