NORMAN EDWARD STATHAM:

Norman Edward Statham was the son of James and Margaret McDuffie Statham and Grandson of John and Susannah Thomson Statham.  John Statham had been a Revolutionary War Soldier in the Virginia Militia and also furnished supplies for the Revolutionary Army.

Norman Statham spent his long life in the old home place and, without moving, his county residence changed three times from Dooley to Pulaski to Wilcox.  The home was described in The Macon Telegraph thusly:

The original home place of Mr. Statham is located near Cedar Creek, between Hawkinsville and Abbeville.  The house is constructed of hewn logs; the chimney made of rocks put together with mud.  The fireplace measuring approximately 10 feet wide, part of the house and all of the chimney stand today.  The fields that were cultivated then have long since grown up in timber, Mr. Statham's farm tools consisted of implements made by hand, and the stock consisted of yokes of oxen.

In Norman's younger life, adventure had called to him and while the ties of the old home place were strong, they did not keep him homebound.  In fact, one article described him as "a wiry, adventurous woodsman, riverman, and soldier of fortune, " who cared little for the girls and who, while other boys wooed and won the women of the pine lands, spent his time roaming the woods and fighting Indians.  (Like his father James Statham and Uncle Nathaniel Statham - pioneers in that section of Georgia.)

Norman's first excursion from home occurred in 1856 when he went to Tampa to join the federal troops in the Second Seminole War, the last war of that tribe against the white settlers.  Norman fought under Captain James A. Pickett.  His First Lieutenant was Tom Heek and Great Hightower was the Second Lieutenant.  After sixteen months of service, Norman was mustered out in the year 1858 with the rank of corporal.  His discharge pay consisted of two mules.

Norman's return home lasted only three years before he was back to the fight again -- this time against the very army he had served a few years previously.

While fighting on the Southern side, with the Eighth Georgia Regiment, Company C, Macon Guards - Armies of Northern Virginia.  He went through the bullets and cannonballs of Bull Run, Yorktown, New Bridge, the Wilderness, Sharpsburg, Fredricksburg, Gettysburg, Malvern Hill, Knoxville, and Charlotte without a scratch.  Then he got sick and was captured while in a hospital at Darbytown Road, Virginia, October 7, 1864.

He was held prisoner at Point Lookout, Maryland Prison Camp.  General Barron, who had also served in the Seminole War, recognized the Georgian and paroled him in 1865.  He was then transferred to James River, Virginia, for exchange February 13, 1865, and was exchanged there on February 15, 1865.

The only means of transportation for Norman was to walk home from Virginia.  A mule ride from Tampa did not seem so bad after a foot walk from Virginia.  He walked home and the walking would have been much more pleasant, he declared if he hadn't been so hungry.  Only once on the way home did he find anyone who could give him as much food as he wanted to eat.

Having spent most of the previous decade fighting, Norman decided it was time to settle down and try married life.  On August 23, 1866, in Wilcox County, he married Mary Elizabeth Blue, daughter of John and Mary McLeod Blue.  Edward Hunter performed the ceremony and witnesses to the wedding were: Gyp Willcox, Jane Doster, George F. McLeod and Annie J. Mitchell

In addition to farming, Norman worked as a steamboat pilot, a lumberman, and a trader of goods.

With the development of the Ocmulgee and Altamaha as inland waterways, Norman qualified as a steamboat pilot.  (James Statham had also been a steamboat pilot) The last boat he piloted was a new steamer launched at Macon in 1907.  Because of his age, he was the guest of honor on this his farewell trip to the pilothouse.  The last renewal of his pilot's license being issued September 12, 1907.  (Yearly exams had to be passed to keep the license valid.)

As a lumberman, Norman engaged in the timber business until the turn of the century.  One specialty of his was pine mast poles, which foreign governments used in their Navies.

Sometimes he rode for two weeks to find one mast, and when he finally found it, he often had to dig down for the taproot to get the necessary length.  It is not to be wondered that he demanded such prices for them.  His last order for seven poles and in payment he received $1000.  (From the French Government)

One of Norman's customers was Captain Kraft, a personal representative of Prince Bismarck and the imperial German government, who in 1878 contracted for 100 pine poles 107 feet tall to square 28 inches in the middle.  The poles were cut from the Ocmulgee Swamp (between Hawkinsville and Bowen’s Mill).  Then the lumber was bound into two rafts where they were floated down the river to Darien, Georgia and delivered to a German vessel.  Norman was paid $100 for each pole.  Norman put the $10,000 in his pocket and accompanied by a Negro, walked back home.

The story Norman loved to tell and "repeated as often as anyone would listen" concerned the time he floated two sawmill iron boilers down the Ocmulgee River from Hawkinsville to Abbeville.

Because of the bad roads with their deep sandbeds along the way, it was considered an almost impossible task.  Norman Statham got the job when he offered to move the boilers for a hundred dollars each.  There was much speculation as to how he would go about the task and when it leaked out that he expected to float them down the river, people made their plans to go down and watch them sink.

After plugging the holes in the boilers, Norman said to his Negro helper. "There'll be a crowd at the river to see us start off and I don't want you bothering me with questions.  Just watch me and do what I do."

The river was high.  They rolled one of the boilers in and Norman jumped into the water behind it, the Negro right behind him.  Together they roped the boiler, tied it to the bank, and rolled the second one in.  Then they roped the two together, fastened binders of timber around them, raft fashion, attached oars to each side of the front, and rowed the iron receptacles down the river.  At Poor Robin Springs, only a few miles from the point of delivery, Norman and his helper ran their raft into the bank.

Thus, Norman had the last laugh on the numerous spectators who had gathered along the riverbank expecting the boilers to sink and furnish them with an amusement at Norman's expense.

Once a month Norman would make a trip to Hawkinsville to buy supplies.  It was the custom for the neighborhood to go the same day and a site would be selected where the group would meet the first night.  Camp would be set up, experiences would be exchanged and stories told far into the night.  After a day of trading in Hawkinsville, the men would meet back at camp where the previous night's activities would be repeated.  Margaret McDuffie Tardy recalled these trips in a letter to Mary Lou McDonald of Rochelle in 1978:

I can remember when either 6 or 7 (circa 1901) Cousin Norman coming to Hawkinsville in a big double team mule wagon, bringing some of his colored help to buy provisions.  He always came by our home to visit with my mother.

Supplies must have filled the entire wagon for Beulah Persall recalled the large number of people gathered each day at the Statham table (usually around 30).  It took a sack of flour a day to feed the family, she said.

As Norman's family multiplied, he built a school for his children and grandchildren to attend. A photograph shows his numerous grandchildren in front of the "Statham School".  The photograph was later reproduced in the Rochelle Centennial issue.

In his old age, Norman appears in photographs as a dignified, sedate old gentleman with only his eyes, "flashing blue" one article called them, giving a hint of his adventurous past.  Seated on his porch on a warm spring day, turkeys and deer roamed through the section, Indians stalked a thinly populated area, and steamboats and wagons -- not railroads and automobiles -- were the main mode of vehicular travel.  As each year passed the elderly man became more of an oddity.  Once a huge cake was baked large enough to serve 90 people.  It was a gift of the City of Rochelle to a man who was becoming their most famous citizen.  Newsmen in search of human-interest stories interviewed him and his charm and tales moved Norman to a celebrity status and insured the newsman's return.  His mind remained clear, and he "retained his usual vigor despite his exceeding great age until a short time before the end came". (Obituary)

On his last birthday, which by this time had become an annual celebration locally, 112 friends and relatives, including his old friend, George F. McLeod, came by.  How tiresome this must have been to know people were looking for "signs of decay," as one article stated, or speculating on how much longer he could last. Perhaps he chuckled to himself, recalling the time he outwitted those who hoped his iron boilers would sink. "Who knows" Ed Danforth stated in his newspaper article -- "that in his twilight, Norman waited tranquilly and would meet the next experience debonairly.  If he feels a pang in parting with the pines, none will ever know."

Death came on a Wednesday evening at 10:20, February 15, 1933.  Services were held at Cedar Creek Baptist Church, conducted by Dr. S. W. Mitchell, Rev. J. A. Bates, and Rev. C. W. Jordan.  The pallbearers were: W. T. Standard, W. M. Miller, Julius Moye, Jim Crummey, John Simmons, and Roy Cook.  Honorary pallbearers included Joe Graham, Albert Statham, Dennis Veal, and Caulle Fenn.  The services, according to the newspaper, "were largely attended by both white and colored friends."

Confederate Military Service Summary:

Statham, Norman----- private May 1, 1861. Captured at Darbytown Road, Va. October 7, 1864. Paroled at Point Lookout, Md. and transferred to James River, Va. for exchange February 13, 1865; exchanged there February 15, 1865. (Born in Ga. July 31, 1826.)

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