Colorful South Georgia Peacocks

The article below was written in 1913. As you read it, notice the colorful style of writing back then. It’s honest and charming.

One of the most prosperous small towns of south Georgia is Pavo in Thomas county. It is on the Georgia Northern Railroad and is seventeen miles from the county sites of the three adjoining counties of Thomas, Brooks and Colquitt, viz., Thomasville, Quitman and Moultrie, and is surrounded by some of the most productive farm lands in south Georgia, with turpentine and sawmill timber enough to keep these enterprises alive for many years to come.

Pavo has a naval stores factory, variety works, manufactory of yellow pine, guano factory, two live banking institutions, two drug stores, one dentist, four physicians, two hospitals, and one of the most skilled surgeons in the south.

Duncan D. Peacock, who was the first merchant of the place. When the town of Pavo was incorporated he was instrumental in having a prohibition clause inserted in the charter so that no intoxicants can ever be sold there, not even cider. He is one of the charter members of the Bank of Pavo and of the Planters Bank, and has served the town as councilman.

He was postmaster for nineteen consecutive years until the spring of 1911, at which time the office was advanced to third class, becoming a presidential office, and although he secured the endorsement of ninety percent of the entire patrons of the office, including the business, professional and banking interests of the town, the referee of the powers in control appointed his successor, against the wishes of the patrons, because he had incurred the displeasure of that official, in that he had failed to comply with his request to furnish him with the names of the patrons of the office, while to have done so would have been in direct violation of the postal laws and regulations.

The first name of this place was McDonald, having been named in honor of Col. James McDonald, one of the pioneer settlers who represented his district as a member of Congress. The present name, Pavo, is the Latinized form of Mr. Peacock’s name. Duncan D. Peacock is a native of Thomas county, where he was born February 24, 1859, and represents an old family resident from colonial times in North Carolina and Georgia. His great-grandparents were Simon and Zilpha (Pittman) Peacock, who were, according to the best information at hand, lifelong residents of North Carolina, and their children were named as follows: Stephen, Seth, Patience, Polly, Noah, Demeris, Robert, Raiford, Zilpha and Simon.

Robert Peacock, the grandfather of Duncan Peacock, was born on a farm near the present site of Goldsboro, in Wayne county, North Carolina, in 1791, lived in that vicinity until after his marriage and then became an early settler of Macon county, Georgia, where he bought land and made his home a few years. From there he migrated into south Georgia and settled in that part of Lowndes, now Brooks county.

This was in the era of early settlement. He bought a tract of hammock land, heavily timbered with hard wood. His home was on the Coffee Road, the main thoroughfare between Thomasville and Savannah, and at the place of his settlement has since grown up the little village of Okapilco. Robert resided there until his death in 1860. The maiden name of his first wife was Wealthy Howell. She was born in Wayne county in North Carolina, and at her death in middle life left eight children, namely: Benajoh, Howell, Jane, Robert, Delamar, Edna, Byron and Morris. For his second Robert married America Howell and they reared ten children, named Sarah, Patience, John, Tyler, Virginia, Letitia, Laura, Margaret, Jasper and Eulalia.

Delamar C. Peacock, who was born in Macon county, Georgia, in 1824, spent his active career in farming. He bought land east of Thomasville, where with the aid of slave labor he engaged in the tilling of the soil, and resided there until his death, at the age of forty-eight. He married Mary Ann McKinnon, a native Georgian and of a pioneer family of this section of testate. Her father was Malcom McKinnon, a native of Robeson county, North Carolina. Her grandfather, John McKinnon, was also probably a native of North Carolina and came to south Georgia and located in what is now Thomas county, along with the first pioneers who blazed the paths of civilization in this vicinity.

Mary (McKinnon) Peacock, Duncan’s Mother, died at the age of fifty-four, and her children \were as follows: Malcom Robert, Rebecca, Josephene M., Moselle, Duncan D., Daniel Clayton, Wesley and Wealthy(twins) and John Howell. This family have gained particular distinction in the field of education.

Continued→