Historic Tift House

The Tift House (built in 1887) is the first restored residential building in the town section at Museum of Agriculture. This building is one of the most prominent in town and can be considered the home of the “town father” or leading entrepreneur or businessman. It represents an upper class dwelling in a developing rural town around 1900. Many small Georgia towns in the late nineteenth century flourished as a result of an individual whose foresight and business acumen spurred the town’s economic, social, and religious development.

TIFT FAMILY HISTORY
Henry Harding Tift was one of these visionaries. During the late nineteenth century, he developed a sawmill camp into a thriving city and transformed the countryside from pine trees to a regional agricultural center.

Tift’s beginning was far from South Georgia. He was born at Mystic, Connecticut on March 16, 1841 a son of Amos Chapman and Phoebe Harding Tift. He came from a family of merchants and Amos had business dealings as far south as Key West, Florida. Henry was one of seven children and attended public schools during his early years. He graduated from Greenwich Academy in 1859 and at eighteen became an apprentice in a machine shop. He followed this by five years of work as a steamship engineer for some of the steamboat lines that operated between New York and various southern ports such as Apalachicola and Key West. It was from this background that Tift acquired the title of “Captain”.

Henry Harding Tift came south to live in 1870 on the advice of his paternal uncle, Nelson Tift (1810 - 1891). Nelson, of Groton, Connecticut, first came south in 1826 and worked in a mercantile business in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1835 he founded the town of Albany, Georgia and spent the remainder of his life developing that city as well as the rest of the region. Nelson was a businessman, newspaper publisher, Justice of the Peace, Judge of Inferior Court, Congressional Representative, and railroad builder. He was also a staunch supporter of the Confederacy during the War Between the States. Henry became General Manager for the N. & A.F. Tift Manufacturing Company in Albany in 1870 for two and a half years.

In 1872 he purchased acreage along a small railway line, the Brunswick and Albany Railroad (later the Brunswick and Western), and established a sawmill in the midst of a stand of virgin pine. Tift’s sawmill prospered and he increased his holdings from 20,500 acres in 1880 to around 65,000 acres (some accounts say as high as 90,000) of timberland in Irwin and Berrien counties during the late nineteenth century. It was this sawmill camp that developed into the town of Tifton, a shortened version of Tift’s Town. The success of the growing village attracted other business and professional people and can be attributed to the shrewd business acumen of Henry Harding Tift.

Tift had a genuine interest in the region and although he used its natural resources for monetary gain, he had foresight to branch out into other business ventures that aided in the area’s development into an agricultural and agribusiness center. Tift realized that transportation to shipping and marketing centers was essential not only for the sawmilling industry but also for the naval stores industry and agriculture. He developed short tramlines and built the Tifton and Northeastern Railroad in 1896 (later the Atlanta, Birmingham, and the Atlantic). He was President of that company and served as a director of the Georgia, Southern and Florida Railroad Company. He also developed the Tifton, Thomasville, and Gulf Railroad.

Tift realized that the pine forests were quickly disappearing as a result of both the naval stores and sawmilling industries. His decision to branch out into other concerns was shrewd indeed. He personally gave 1,000 acres of land to the Georgia, Southern, and Florida Railroad Company for the establishment of an experimental farm, Cycloneta, located in Irwin County. It was the intention to prove that this area of Georgia could produce more than just pine trees and gophers. The farm proved that many varieties of fruits and vegetables could be grown as well as the profitability of dairy and stock rising. Tift developed his own agricultural pursuits in conjunction with his brother, William Orville Tift, and the Rev. L.A. Snow. These were serious ventures involving fruit farms and cattle rising. At one time an area newspaper reported he had set out 22,000 grapevines.

To explore all of Capt. Tift’s business interests would be a major undertaking so an abbreviated list will have to suffice for the present. In addition to what had already been mentioned, Henry Harding Tift operated a canning factory in Tifton; he was President of the Bank of Tifton; Vice-President of the Central Grocery Company; Director of the Planter’s Oil Company; Vice-President of the Banker’s Trust Company, Atlanta; President of the Piedmont Cotton Mills, Egan; Vice-President of the Willingham-Tift Lumber Company, Atlanta; President of the Tift Silica Brick and Stone Company, Albany; President of the Georgia-Florida Sawmill Company, Alton, Florida; President of the Georgia-Florida Sawmill Association; President of the Tifton Cotton Mills; Vice-President of the Tifton Compress Company; and Vice-President of the Tifton Farm Tool and Manufacturing Company. He was also part owner of the Tifton Foundry and Machine Shop.

If one considers just Henry H. Tift’s business accomplishments, it would be enough to say he was highly successful. But to understand why he was regarded with such high esteem, one must consider the enormous contributions he made to his community. Tift was active politically in a modest way. He was instrumental in having the city incorporated on December 29, 1891 and served as a member of City Council for twenty-two years; served as Mayor in 1920; and Chairman of the City Commission in 1921. Tift was also very much involved in the creation of Tift County in 1905. The county was named for his late uncle, Nelson Tift, since a legislative committee decided that a county could not be named for a living person. However, it was well known that it was H.H. Tift who the people wished to honor.

Henry Harding Tift was a strong believer in education and devoted time, energy, and money to its establishment in the city. He was instrumental in bringing the first teacher to his sawmill village from Mystic, Conn. He led the formation of a corporation to build the first private school in town, the Tifton Institute. Tift gave 315 acres of land and money for the campus of the Second District Agricultural School (later known as Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College) of which he was later a trustee. He once said, of all the investments I have ever made, this school has brought me the biggest dividends. He was personally involved in the creation of the Coastal Plain Experiment Station and donated several hundreds of acres as well as money.

Tift also gave donations to the Monroe Female Academy in Forsyth, Ga, where his wife, Elizabeth Willingham Tift, graduated in 1878. These gifts were so frequent and numerous that in 1907 the Board of Trustees changed the name of the school to Bessie Tift College. He was also a trustee of the present Valdosta State College in 1912. Pupils of the Tifton school system held Tift in high regard and in 1917 they dedicated the first volume of the yearbook to him. It points out his efforts as a promoter of education and also relates an interesting story that illustrates the high esteem in which he was regarded. A primary teacher had read to her class about General Oglethorpe and his role in the founding of Georgia. She asked the class who the man was that came to Georgia years ago, cut down the forests, built homes for the people, made peace with the Indians and was regarded as the town father. A small boy responded that it was Capt. Tift.

Tift was also generous in other areas. He gave land and money to each religious denomination: the Methodists, Baptists, and Episcopalians to build churches as well as providing a church for the mill village. He also gave the City of Tifton land for Fulwood Park, the city hospital, and the Twentieth Century Library Club. Henry Harding Tift was truly a town father. He took a small sawmill camp in the early 1870’s and transformed it into a city which he guided and led its development into the twentieth century. Physically, Tift has been described as having a small physique but large in every other way. He was modest in nature and had a sharp business mind but his heart was in the community. As a result of his business acumen, he possessed a financial rating of over seven million dollars. Another story relates how he explained that after looking over a stack of notes due him, if called in, many a man would be broken. He decided not to call in the notes. His gifts and contributions to the community are immeasurable. In 1885, Captain Henry Harding Tift married Elizabeth Willingham, affectionately known as Bessie. She was the daughter of Thomas Henry and Cecelia Baynard Willingham. Bessie was born on June 30, 1860 at Smyrna, the family plantation near Allendale, S. C. Near the end of the War Between the States, the Willingham family moved to a plantation in Mitchell County, Ga, and later to one in Dougherty County near Albany, Ga. Bessie was the ninth of seventeen children born to Thomas and Cecelia Willingham. Bessie was well educated for a woman living during the nineteenth century. She attended a private school in Albany and entered Wesleyan College in 1875. By 1877, she was enrolled as a junior at Monroe Female College in Forsyth and graduated in 1878.

Tift had previous business with Thomas H. Willingham who sold him sawmill equipment when he first established his sawmill. According to the Tift County History, Tift caught a glimpse of Bessie Willingham at an Episcopal Church service in Albany and was immediately smitten. During their courtship she expressed concern about their age difference, he being almost twenty years older than she. Tift assured her that his family was one of great longevity. The two were married in Albany at the First Baptist Church on June 15, 1885 under a beautiful floral canopy. They immediately left on an extended northern tour visiting New York, Saratoga, and Niagara before arriving at Tift’s family home in Mystic, Conn. The Tifts returned to Tifton in October of 1885. It was the first of many summers that they spent in Mystic. Tift had a great love of sailing and they kept boats there (one of his boats, the Annie, is in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Conn.

Henry and Bessie Tift had three children: Henry Harding Tift, Jr. born in Washington, D.C., October 1, 1886 (d. June 12, 1929); Thomas Willingham Tift, born in Albany, Georgia, December 15, 1889 (d. March 28, 1988) and Amos Chapman Tift, born in Atlanta, Ga, July 24, 1891 (d. April 25, 1956). Throughout her life, Bessie remained close to her large family. When her father Thomas H. Willingham died on May 29, 1891, Bessie’s mother, Cecelia Baynard Willingham, spent time with her various children living in different parts of the state. However, she spent the majority of her remaining years with Bessie in Tifton (she died April 11, 1914). Every year beginning 1899, the Willingham family would gather at the Tift House for the occasion of Cecelia’s birthday. These were family reunions and love feasts where Mrs. Willingham was honored by her descendents with adoration, entertainment (music and recitations), and love. These gatherings were often commemorated with a photograph, many which have been copied from the family.

Bessie Tift had much in common with her husband when it came to kindness, love, and generosity. Her sister Belle came to live with her in 1891 until she was married in 1904 to William Lawrence. They had two children, Cecelia and William. Belle died on April 5, 1912 and Bessie and Henry raised her little children as their own. She also raised her grandchildren, Virginia and Henry Harding Tift, III. After the death of their mother, Virginia Pound Tift, on September 30, 1918, Henry, Jr. moved back to his parents home with his two children. Frequent visitors to the Tift home were her sisters, Pearl Willingham and Florence Willingham Pickard. Cecelia Lawrence remembers as a child that the house would be so full of company that Aunt Bessie said, “we supposed we’d have to sleep on one of the closet shelves”.

Aside from her devotion to her family, Bessie Tift was very much involved in her church and community. She was a charter member of Tifton’s First Baptist Church and organized the first Woman’s Missionary Society in town serving as its president for forty years. She taught Sunday school classes at the Second District Agricultural School and the Bessie Tift Chapel in the mill village as well as organized the Bessie Tift Bible Class. She led a pious and religious life starting each morning with a devotional prayer that included every member of the household family, guests, and servants. Bessie Tift was also very active in community organizations serving as President of the Twentieth Century Library Club for thirty years; Vice-President of the State Federation of Clubs (Library); President of Tifton’s Women’s Temperance Union for five years; Trustee of the Tallulah Falls Schools for Underprivileged Girls; Charter Member of the Charlotte Carson Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy; and member of the Thronateeska Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The Tift household would not be complete without the mention of the household servants. The Tifts employed several blacks to perform household, yard, and laundry services. All that is known is their first names, Aunt Jane, Jerry, Julia (cooks), Uncle Herbert (gardener), Bertha (nurse and housemaid) and Flora (laundress). Bessie included them in her family devotions and they appear in some of the family photographs taken during Cecelia Willingham’s birthday celebrations. Bessie was not averse to helping out with domestic chores. In a letter written to her niece, Cecelia Lawrence, from Mystic, she writes, Uncle Henry and Uncle Ned have gone to finish up the wash. .we get on finely without a house girl. I think everybody enjoyed waiting on themselves. For my part, I like it better. We divide up the work and do it and the poor house girl has it all to do, and never gets through and is always worn out and cross because she is tired!

One of the black servants beloved by the family was Jeff Mathis. His parents, Tom and Lucy Mathis, were employees of Henry Harding Tift. Jeff grew up with the Tift boys and began working for Capt. Tift on the tram engine. He later drove his buggy and automobile. He was described as being Capt. Tift’s companion, friend, and confidant. Later in his life he distinguished himself as a businessman; served in the military in World War I; member of the American Legion, Post 559; President of Young Men’s Progressive Club; Tift County Civic Club, Greenwood Cemetery Club and Tift County Advisory Board of Education. He was also a member of the Beulah Hill Baptist Church, served as a deacon and superintendent of the Sunday school, and was licensed in 1970 as a Baptist Minister.

Some of the servants resided in a small structure behind the Tift House. Eventually, this building will be reconstructed in order to provide an in-depth look at their life. Henry and Bessie Tift’s devotion to each other, their family, and their community is legendary. They were true philanthropists who sought to improve not only their world, but also that of their fellow men, women, and children. Henry Harding Tift died on February 4, 1922 at the age of eighty-three from a stroke. His last words were “Take care of Bess.” He was buried in Mystic, Conn. At his death it was said “So much he has done; so full was his life that no mere sketch and no mortal man could tell it all. It is such lives as his that make us feel how feeble and how futile are mere works, in faltering attempts to, even in part, do them justice. But his work is written high in the Book of Life by the Great Recorder, and through the coming years shall live and grow, his everlasting monument and highest tribute” Bessie continued to enrich the lives of those around her. She passed away on December 8, 1936 and was buried in Tifton, Ga. At the time of her death it was said that: “No other person has had as great influence on making Tifton a fine community than Mrs. Tift. She put her life and her love into the community, and Tifton is much of what it is today because of her efforts. Many times we have heard her say she loved everybody, and we believe that literally was true. She lived her profession of love for her family, church, community, and mankind.”