Oxford Echoes
by Charles C. Jarrell
In the middle of the [1880’s], or thereabouts, Oxford was the rendezvous for four happy little girls. Two of them lived in Oxford – Lollie (Laura) Haygood and Margaret Moore; Lollie’s cousin, Martha Boynton, lived in Atlanta, as did Martha’s chum, Julia Collier.
I doubt if earth can be any nearer to heaven than it was when these four got together in Oxford. The two Oxford girls both lived in big white houses that had come down from antebellum days. Both houses had large yards and the streets of Oxford were wide and well shaded by great trees of undated age. The four girls felt equally at home in both houses and equally safe in the quiet, sheltered streets. What time they didn’t spend in one or the other of these two places, they used up in going back and forth between the two.
I leave the reader to imagine all the things they did, and all the fun they had. I married one of them, and I’m not supposed to tell. One stunt could always be counted on to bring pearls of laughter from the happy girls.
Standing among the big boxwoods and cedars of the Moore home, which was built by Bishop James O. Andrew when he made Oxford his home, their shouts would be echoed back from the high, broad north wall of the Old Church, as if there was a hidden playmate of the happy four down there. So clear were the echoes that it was like talking back and forth across the brook and over the pasture-slopes. The game was to think up something new to say each time, and fancy that the Phantom Girl was talking back.
“Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.”
For many of us, thinking about old Oxford is like listening to Oxford Echoes.
The dream of a Christian college for Methodists in Georgia was born in the brain of Bishop Francis Asbury. Though a self-educated man himself, Asbury had caught a zeal for higher education from his chief – the Reverend John Wesley. He sought to plant a worthy institution of learning in every section of the new nation; he made up his mind that Georgia should have such a school.
About this time, the nation was swept by a wave of enthusiasm over an imported system of industrial education commonly called, “Manual Labor Schools.” The Methodist Conference became enamored of the same idea. President Pierce mentioned in his 1852 address, “It was the very idea […] it was to lower the cost of education and teach literary men to work. Polished minds in robust bodies; this was the doctrine. […] The whole tribe of gentlemen loafers were to be superseded and substituted by a nobler genus, and the poor were to be elevated by bringing education within reach of all who were willing to work for their bread.”
Dr. Alexander Means, the new president, toured the Northern States to study similar schools elsewhere. Trustees were appointed, and agent was sent out, a faculty selected, lands were bought, houses were built, stock and farming utensils provided, and we launched on the tide of what promised to be a successful experiment. The system was fine, the theory beautiful. Everybody believed in it; everybody admired it – but somehow the scheme would not work. The farm failed in its products, expenses increased, debts accrued, embarrassments accumulated, and, by and by, like mariners in a storm, when they throw the cargo overboard, the trustees were compelled to disencumber the experiment. We may say that the trustees steered the disencumbered ship “Emory” out of the seas of experimentation into the more placid waters of classical education.
One of the young students of the school was L. Q. C. Lamar, the son of a noble widow who had inherited from her distinguished husband his frame and zeal for learning. The Manual Labor School did not fail until it had put its stamp on young Lamar. During these days he lived with his widowed mother in her home, which has been occupied for so long by the beloved Branham family. Here he came to know, to love, and marry his beloved Jenny.
Dr. Ignatius Few, who had been educated at Princeton and who had helped establish the Manual Labor School, [… ] was dreaming all the time of a school in Georgia like Princeton in New Jersey and Yale in Connecticut and Wesleyan in Connecticut. In 1836, the conference appointed trustees to incorporate the proposed college, now to be distinguished from the Manual Labor School, and in January 1837, this was done by an act of the legislature. The trustees proceeded at once to carry out the will of the conference. They decided to name the village “Oxford,” in honor of the English university town. They named the college “Emory” in honor of Bishop John Emory. The streets of this village were to be named for men famous in both English and American Methodist history. In a resolution dated July 10, 1837, the trustees officially adopted the surveyor’s plan for the town of Oxford. Broad avenues were to converge on the site of the central building of the college.
The beautiful tract of land selected for the town and college was virgin forest of oak and hickory and other hard woods, slightly rolling and fertile, as all Middle Georgia was before the cotton cultivation washed its natural wealth away. The land secured was something like 1,452 acres for which the trustees paid $14,950.
The trustees of the new Emory proceeded promptly to elect a faulty. Dr. Ignatius Few was the eldest son and wisely called the “Founder.” He became the first president of the new institution. The faculty consisted of the president, Dr. Alexander Means, and Professor George W. Lane. On September 12, 1838, the doors were opened for students.
The agents of the college had met with great success. In paper pledges, Dr. Few reported that one hundred thousand dollars had been secured. But the fearful “crash of 1837” was followed by five years of financial depression. While the college was opening its doors, the banks were closing theirs all over the country. Bishop Pierce says of the Oxford-Emory enterprise:
I doubt if earth can be any nearer to heaven than it was when these four got together in Oxford. The two Oxford girls both lived in big white houses that had come down from antebellum days. Both houses had large yards and the streets of Oxford were wide and well shaded by great trees of undated age. The four girls felt equally at home in both houses and equally safe in the quiet, sheltered streets. What time they didn’t spend in one or the other of these two places, they used up in going back and forth between the two.
I leave the reader to imagine all the things they did, and all the fun they had. I married one of them, and I’m not supposed to tell. One stunt could always be counted on to bring pearls of laughter from the happy girls.
Standing among the big boxwoods and cedars of the Moore home, which was built by Bishop James O. Andrew when he made Oxford his home, their shouts would be echoed back from the high, broad north wall of the Old Church, as if there was a hidden playmate of the happy four down there. So clear were the echoes that it was like talking back and forth across the brook and over the pasture-slopes. The game was to think up something new to say each time, and fancy that the Phantom Girl was talking back.
“Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.”
For many of us, thinking about old Oxford is like listening to Oxford Echoes.
The dream of a Christian college for Methodists in Georgia was born in the brain of Bishop Francis Asbury. Though a self-educated man himself, Asbury had caught a zeal for higher education from his chief – the Reverend John Wesley. He sought to plant a worthy institution of learning in every section of the new nation; he made up his mind that Georgia should have such a school.
About this time, the nation was swept by a wave of enthusiasm over an imported system of industrial education commonly called, “Manual Labor Schools.” The Methodist Conference became enamored of the same idea. President Pierce mentioned in his 1852 address, “It was the very idea […] it was to lower the cost of education and teach literary men to work. Polished minds in robust bodies; this was the doctrine. […] The whole tribe of gentlemen loafers were to be superseded and substituted by a nobler genus, and the poor were to be elevated by bringing education within reach of all who were willing to work for their bread.”
Dr. Alexander Means, the new president, toured the Northern States to study similar schools elsewhere. Trustees were appointed, and agent was sent out, a faculty selected, lands were bought, houses were built, stock and farming utensils provided, and we launched on the tide of what promised to be a successful experiment. The system was fine, the theory beautiful. Everybody believed in it; everybody admired it – but somehow the scheme would not work. The farm failed in its products, expenses increased, debts accrued, embarrassments accumulated, and, by and by, like mariners in a storm, when they throw the cargo overboard, the trustees were compelled to disencumber the experiment. We may say that the trustees steered the disencumbered ship “Emory” out of the seas of experimentation into the more placid waters of classical education.
One of the young students of the school was L. Q. C. Lamar, the son of a noble widow who had inherited from her distinguished husband his frame and zeal for learning. The Manual Labor School did not fail until it had put its stamp on young Lamar. During these days he lived with his widowed mother in her home, which has been occupied for so long by the beloved Branham family. Here he came to know, to love, and marry his beloved Jenny.
Dr. Ignatius Few, who had been educated at Princeton and who had helped establish the Manual Labor School, [… ] was dreaming all the time of a school in Georgia like Princeton in New Jersey and Yale in Connecticut and Wesleyan in Connecticut. In 1836, the conference appointed trustees to incorporate the proposed college, now to be distinguished from the Manual Labor School, and in January 1837, this was done by an act of the legislature. The trustees proceeded at once to carry out the will of the conference. They decided to name the village “Oxford,” in honor of the English university town. They named the college “Emory” in honor of Bishop John Emory. The streets of this village were to be named for men famous in both English and American Methodist history. In a resolution dated July 10, 1837, the trustees officially adopted the surveyor’s plan for the town of Oxford. Broad avenues were to converge on the site of the central building of the college.
The beautiful tract of land selected for the town and college was virgin forest of oak and hickory and other hard woods, slightly rolling and fertile, as all Middle Georgia was before the cotton cultivation washed its natural wealth away. The land secured was something like 1,452 acres for which the trustees paid $14,950.
The trustees of the new Emory proceeded promptly to elect a faulty. Dr. Ignatius Few was the eldest son and wisely called the “Founder.” He became the first president of the new institution. The faculty consisted of the president, Dr. Alexander Means, and Professor George W. Lane. On September 12, 1838, the doors were opened for students.
The agents of the college had met with great success. In paper pledges, Dr. Few reported that one hundred thousand dollars had been secured. But the fearful “crash of 1837” was followed by five years of financial depression. While the college was opening its doors, the banks were closing theirs all over the country. Bishop Pierce says of the Oxford-Emory enterprise:
And here began our troubles; nor did they come alone. A momentary crisis came on, the banks suspended, cotton fell, the commerce and prosperity of the country were prostrated, the oldest institutions of the land were shaken to their foundations, bankruptcy swept over the people, and amid the upheavals and convulsions of the times, ruin threatened every enterprise. Many who had subscribed a thousand dollars to our beloved institution, were dead and their estates insolvent. Other had “broken” and, gathering the fragments together like the prodigal son, had taken their journey into a far country. Yet others refused to pay because the manual labor feature was abandoned, alleging that their obligations were thereby annulled. A perfect caravan of misfortunes came up from the wilderness and encamped upon the garden of our hopes. Trampled, blasted, wasted, scarce a rose was left upon its stem to tell where once the garden stood. All was paralyzed, dead, except our debts. They were alive and clamorous for payment, principal and interest. The trustees had everything to do, and nothing to do it with.
But the dream lingered on. Oxford and Emory were not born to die.
The frail health of Dr. Few broke under the strain of his official responsibilities, and he resigned the presidency. Only a few more years were allotted to him; and he was laid to rest in the cemetery of the village he had fathered and fostered and loved so well. His death occurred in November 1845.
Let us now examine a little more closely the features of these men who stand at the head of the line – “The Immortal Three” – Ignatius A. Few, George W. Lane, and Alexander Means.
The frail health of Dr. Few broke under the strain of his official responsibilities, and he resigned the presidency. Only a few more years were allotted to him; and he was laid to rest in the cemetery of the village he had fathered and fostered and loved so well. His death occurred in November 1845.
Let us now examine a little more closely the features of these men who stand at the head of the line – “The Immortal Three” – Ignatius A. Few, George W. Lane, and Alexander Means.
Ignatius A. Few was the eldest son of Captain Ignatius Few, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, who came to Georgia and settled in Columbia County. The boy grew up to manhood and was educated at Princeton and other northern schools under the care of his uncle, Colonel William Few. He began the practice of law in Augusta and rapidly rose to eminence in his profession. He became addicted at this time, to a form of philosophical rationalism and did not hesitate to defend it.
After a recovery from a serious attack of hemorrhage of the lungs, (from which he narrowly escaped with his life), he opened up [a conversation] on his favorite subject, “Grounds of Religious Beliefs,” and invited the Reverend Joseph Travis to hear his arguments. The disputants were both able men, and the discussion continued to a late hour. Travis asked him if he felt no fear of death when he felt death so near. Few replied that for a few moments he felt somewhat serious, but he soon rallied his natural powers and all was calm.
Both men retired; but in a very few minutes […] Travis found him bleeding from [his] lungs, but calm and both able and willing to talk. [Few said,] “I told you a few moments ago that I was not afraid to die, but it is not so.” After his recovery from this attack, Travis induced him to read “Fletcher’s Appeal.” [Few] became convinced of the truth of the Christian religion and became a genuine convert to the faith, a sincere Christian and an active preacher. He gave up his law practice and joined the Annual Conference and was highly acceptable as a pastor.
After a recovery from a serious attack of hemorrhage of the lungs, (from which he narrowly escaped with his life), he opened up [a conversation] on his favorite subject, “Grounds of Religious Beliefs,” and invited the Reverend Joseph Travis to hear his arguments. The disputants were both able men, and the discussion continued to a late hour. Travis asked him if he felt no fear of death when he felt death so near. Few replied that for a few moments he felt somewhat serious, but he soon rallied his natural powers and all was calm.
Both men retired; but in a very few minutes […] Travis found him bleeding from [his] lungs, but calm and both able and willing to talk. [Few said,] “I told you a few moments ago that I was not afraid to die, but it is not so.” After his recovery from this attack, Travis induced him to read “Fletcher’s Appeal.” [Few] became convinced of the truth of the Christian religion and became a genuine convert to the faith, a sincere Christian and an active preacher. He gave up his law practice and joined the Annual Conference and was highly acceptable as a pastor.
Professor George W. Lane, another member of the Immortal Three, was the son of Reverend George Lane, D.D. of the Philadelphia Conference, who became the book agent of the Methodist Church in America. [He] did not long survive his chief. [He was] a brilliant young minister from the Philadelphia Conference [who] came south seeking a milder climate and found a lovely wife and made Georgia his home. He died in the middle of his young manhood. On September 20, 1848, a neatly dressed, courtly old colored house servant could be seen going from house to house in the village of Oxford. He [was] holding in his hand a scroll, beautifully engrossed and mounted at the top with a black ribbon. It carried a manifesto to the citizens of Oxford, summoning them to the funeral of their beloved fellow-citizen, Professor George W. Lane.
The next day, with college classes suspended, with the college bell tolling, the town assembled for the solemn scene. It is only three years since the handsome, white house of worship had witnessed a similar scene in the passing of President Few. Dr. Few had been in advanced years and in declining health, but Lane [was] on the threshold of his career. … This young man was, himself, marked for distinction and at twenty-two years of age, the conference leaders claimed him for Emory’s faculty and for the Oxford pulpit. His learning was ample, his eloquence was magnetic, his personality was winsome, and his piety, deep and sincere. He was in every way worthy to stand with Few and Means, though much the youngest of the three.
This young minister found love and married happiness in that early Oxford. The president of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Lucius L. Wittich, Esq. of Morgan County, must often have come to Oxford on the business of the college. Then later, he himself became the professor of mathematics [at] the college, thus bringing his family, I presume, to Oxford.
Professor Wittich had a lovely daughter, Harriet L., to whom he gave the best advantage of the time. She was educated at Salem College in North Carolina, under Moravian auspices. How could the gifted young Lane and the accomplished Harriet Wittich be in Old Oxford together without falling in love with Oxford? And falling in love with Oxford has been the threshold of something more, for more than one Emory boy and Oxford girl.
And now, the bell [was] tolling for George W. Lane and the young widow mother must go, holding her young son, Charlie by the hand. How could anyone of that old Oxford assembly keep back the tears?
The next day, with college classes suspended, with the college bell tolling, the town assembled for the solemn scene. It is only three years since the handsome, white house of worship had witnessed a similar scene in the passing of President Few. Dr. Few had been in advanced years and in declining health, but Lane [was] on the threshold of his career. … This young man was, himself, marked for distinction and at twenty-two years of age, the conference leaders claimed him for Emory’s faculty and for the Oxford pulpit. His learning was ample, his eloquence was magnetic, his personality was winsome, and his piety, deep and sincere. He was in every way worthy to stand with Few and Means, though much the youngest of the three.
This young minister found love and married happiness in that early Oxford. The president of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Lucius L. Wittich, Esq. of Morgan County, must often have come to Oxford on the business of the college. Then later, he himself became the professor of mathematics [at] the college, thus bringing his family, I presume, to Oxford.
Professor Wittich had a lovely daughter, Harriet L., to whom he gave the best advantage of the time. She was educated at Salem College in North Carolina, under Moravian auspices. How could the gifted young Lane and the accomplished Harriet Wittich be in Old Oxford together without falling in love with Oxford? And falling in love with Oxford has been the threshold of something more, for more than one Emory boy and Oxford girl.
And now, the bell [was] tolling for George W. Lane and the young widow mother must go, holding her young son, Charlie by the hand. How could anyone of that old Oxford assembly keep back the tears?
Dr. Means was the most picturesque member of Emory’s first faculty, a man to write about and tell stories about. He saw the Oxford –Emory Community rise in the unbroken forest. He saw it survive the ups and downs of financial panics. He saw the closed doors of Civil War years. He saw the rebirth of hope and a brave new beginning in reconstruction days. He lived on into the days when the genius and toils of Atticus G. Haygood gave assurance that the Oxford-Emory Enterprise would not after all fold up and die. In every decade of this eventful history, the personality and faith and versatile talents of Dr. Means are seen and felt.
I used to hear my mother, out of her childhood memories, tell stories about this remarkable man – great preacher, great scientist, great teacher, and great-hearted, gentle-hearted Christian man. Some of her very words come back to me. “If you wanted a great scientific address, ask him to preach; if you wanted a great sermon, ask him to lecture on science.”
The amazing amount of work he did in separated communities and in “horse and buggy days” almost challenges credulity. In all of it, Emory was his home base, and Oxford was his home. His old home in Oxford, “Orna Villa” arose, under his gifted hands, out of an older structure that ante-dated Oxford itself. Some of the locks in the oldest part of the house were manufactured in England and [bare] the date of 1791.
My mother often told me in my boyhood of the interesting experiments conducted by Dr. Means in Oxford in the field of electricity. She used to quote some of his sonorous sentences, “Young gentlemen, it is God’s vice-regent in the universe.” This is a long way from saying that Dr. Means preceded Edison in the invention of the “incandescent light” [or] Faraday’s discovery of electro-magnetic induction (now commonly called electric current) [that] has proved the foundation for a vast industrial development. [Faraday] opened the way to “field physics” and pointed toward the time when, in the words of Dr. Means, “the electric current will be used to light cities and to propel cars.”
Mrs. Perkerson (author of The White Columns of Georgia) is our authority for the statement that Dr. Means was the houseguest of this famous Faraday in England in 1851. I am willing to hazard the guess that their talk would be much about electricity; that each would acquaint the other with his own ideas and experiments. No wonder Dr. Means, on returning home, entered into his national reputation as he reproduced in his laboratories in Oxford and Atlanta and Augusta, the latest facts known to the science of his day.
I used to hear my mother, out of her childhood memories, tell stories about this remarkable man – great preacher, great scientist, great teacher, and great-hearted, gentle-hearted Christian man. Some of her very words come back to me. “If you wanted a great scientific address, ask him to preach; if you wanted a great sermon, ask him to lecture on science.”
The amazing amount of work he did in separated communities and in “horse and buggy days” almost challenges credulity. In all of it, Emory was his home base, and Oxford was his home. His old home in Oxford, “Orna Villa” arose, under his gifted hands, out of an older structure that ante-dated Oxford itself. Some of the locks in the oldest part of the house were manufactured in England and [bare] the date of 1791.
My mother often told me in my boyhood of the interesting experiments conducted by Dr. Means in Oxford in the field of electricity. She used to quote some of his sonorous sentences, “Young gentlemen, it is God’s vice-regent in the universe.” This is a long way from saying that Dr. Means preceded Edison in the invention of the “incandescent light” [or] Faraday’s discovery of electro-magnetic induction (now commonly called electric current) [that] has proved the foundation for a vast industrial development. [Faraday] opened the way to “field physics” and pointed toward the time when, in the words of Dr. Means, “the electric current will be used to light cities and to propel cars.”
Mrs. Perkerson (author of The White Columns of Georgia) is our authority for the statement that Dr. Means was the houseguest of this famous Faraday in England in 1851. I am willing to hazard the guess that their talk would be much about electricity; that each would acquaint the other with his own ideas and experiments. No wonder Dr. Means, on returning home, entered into his national reputation as he reproduced in his laboratories in Oxford and Atlanta and Augusta, the latest facts known to the science of his day.