Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor:

I read with interest last week of a proposal to dam up Buckhead Creek. Most folks don't realize that this has already been done in years past. In fact, Jenkins County had its own version of the Augusta Canal, possibly as early as 1820.

Even today, one can find the evidence of a dam having existed about 200 yards up stream from Wallace's Bridge, on the Wint Johnson place. The dam was called "Tumbling Dam" and raised the water level about six feet. A canal had been built from the dam site about 100 yards West of the overflow. The canal runs south for about a mile back into Buckhead Creek at what is known today as "Jeff's Cove" (the William Gunn place). Apparently turbines were placed in the canal to operate a mill or mills. The "old heads" told of an iron foundry and a barrel factory being located on the high ground near Tumbling Dam. The iron foundry would probably have made hoops for the barrels.

Harry Mathews said that he was told that the engineer who built the dam, the canal and the mills was named Christian Schultz, a Prussian who lived in Georgia for about 33 years and died in 1847. He is buried at Big Buckhead Baptist Church. If this is so, the work would have to have been done between 1820 and 1830.

All of this is within the lake site shown in the Nov. 12, 2007 issue of The Millen News, but the dam was about 600 to 800 yards upstream of the dam site suggested by Mr. Jenkins. Tumbling Dam tied into a bluff on the East side of the creek which is about 40 feet high. The dam extended west toward Vickers Hill, presently the property of Kenny Williams. I would suppose the lake formed above the dam would have been less than 200 acres in size.

I just thought that some of your readers might be interested in this little bit of local history.

Sincerely, Robert A. Reeves, Sr.

Millen