The Lightwood Chronicles tells the epic story of a violent struggle over land rights. The novel Lightwood told the story in fiction. The Chronicles offers the historical background and also celebrates the work of Brainard Cheney, author of Lightwood. Following the Civil War, another war broke out in the piney woods of south Georgia between Northern land barons-the Dodge Company-and local landowners. The Dodge Company began harvesting the ancient pine forests and shipping the timber to customers worldwide. They made hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. They evicted the squatters from land occupied for decades. Epic court battles led to violent struggle and murder. Angry "squatters"demanded that "the Dodges be sent hellward." An alleged conspiracy led to the murder of Captain John Forsyth, the timber company boss. Prominent citizens went to prison and many others died. The Dodge Company left the majestic pine forests a wasteland, with 300,000 acres of wooden treasure ransacked,the lives of the natives forever altered.

The Lightwood Chronicles

History

Americas

MMJW BookHouse

LIGHTWOOD the novel appeared originally in 1939. Set in the piney woods of south Georgia just after the Civil War, it tells the story of a struggle between local land owners and Northern investors. The investors sought to harvest the "wooden treasures" of virgin pine forests. Over time,they used the power of money and the courts to wrest the title to the lands. A labyrinthine legal battle stretched out for more than half a century, culminating in the murder of the Company's land agent, along with as many as 35 more deaths. Based on historical fact, Cheney's novel brings to life a lost time in our history. Reviewed nationally on publication, it highlighted Cheney's friendship and literary connection to many of the Fugitive and Agrarian movement figures. A companion volume, THE LIGHTWOOD CHRONICLES tells both the fictional and true stories of LIGHTWOOD.

Lightwood

Literature & Fiction

Cheney, Brainard

History & Criticism

1910. The piney woods of south Georgia. Adam Atwell, a black man, struggles to save the widow Lucy Hightower and her family from financial ruin. As the family's overseer, his business partnership pits him agains bankers and speculators out to steal the Hightower land. Adam faces the specter of Jim Crow, even murder, in his quest to save Lucy's legacy to her children. In turn, she wrestles with her desire to return to her family and an old sweetheart in Charleston or remain in the Georgia hinterlands raising her three children alone. Brainard Cheney (1900-1989) published four novels in his lifetime, all set in the south Georgia land of his youth. He later attended VAncerbilt in Nashville and became part of the 1920s and 1930s literary scene, a friend of Robert Penn Warren, Caroline Gordon, Allen Tate and Flannery O'Connor. Many consider THIS IS ADAM as his most fully-realized work.

This Is Adam

United States

Marcellus Hightower, the young boy in the novel, THIS IS ADAM, returns to his hometown as a grown man in DEVIL'S ELBOW. He seeks answers, turning for help to Adam Atwell, his surrogate father. Adam, a black man in the segregated South, shares with Marcellus the haunting memory of David Ransom's murder on the mighty Ocmulgee River. The memories interweave with a quarter century of Marcellus Hightower's quest for love and redemption, through his developing character, economic calamity and the turmoil of war. With Adam's sage guidance, he finds a way to "cleanse his heart" and face life anew. "DEVIL'S ELBOW is a powerful novel indeed. The old verities-a man's troubles with women, with himself, with love and guilt-are all treated as freshly as if Cheney had discovered them." Walker Percy (1969)

Devil's Elbow

Erotica

This true and exciting story collection concerns a little known area of south Georgia, in Telfair County. The town of Milan (locally pronounced My-lan) and the countryside present a series of family dramas dating back to the early 1800's. Addie Garrison Briggs, the author, introduces her family saga in her own words: "Contrary to what one often reads in local histories and genealogies, our ancestors were not all saints. Neither were they all war heroes and most of them were far more likely to struggle along on a small farm than to own a large plantation. In short, one might say that our forebears failed to live up to our expectations. The trouble with these ancestors was that they were real people. Sometimes they were good, sometimes bad; sometimes they were wise, and sometimes foolish. Perhaps they were a bit like us, with one major difference. There seems to have been more of a spirited quality to their lives. Whatever a man's actions, whether funny, tragic, or decidedly wicked, he did it with a definite dash. Therefore, while their lives may embarrass us, they will at the same time unquestionably intrigue us."

They Don't Make People Like They Used to

Briggs, Addie Garrison

Parenting & Relationships

After the Civil War, 1870. Deep in the south Georgia river swamp forests. Ratliff Sutton, a young white boy, runs away from a broken home and grows up the adopted son of former slaves. In the swamps of the Oconee and Altamaha Rivers, he transforms into Snake Sutton, mythic timber raftsman, struggling with mighty rivers, fighting both men and alligators, steering great log rafts to Darien by the sea. He confronts his greatest struggle-breaking into Darien's timber merchant society. Forsaking China Swann, a "fancy lady" and his champion, Snake marries society belle Robbie McGregor. Fighting his way into the merchant ranks through hurricanes and murder, he moves beyond tragedy and into an awakening that summons him back to his roots upriver.

River Rogue

Literary

Set during the First World War, William Breedlove Martin's IN ANOTHER TIME is the intense drama of the Lansdownes, a big, well-to-do family in a small Southern town. As the brothers Laurence and Victor leave for the front as fighter pilots, their overbearing father, Buck, and the five Lansdowne women, are left to face the uncertainly and the fear of a world, and a family, at war. Some of these women, such as Miss Cordelia, the mother of the two aviators, are devastated by their anguish, while others, such as Della, the beautiful new wife of the domineering Laurence, find strength and redemption in their struggles. The excitement and the terrors of war, the upheavals of a changing culture, and the conflicts of nine family members within and among themselves are woven into a compelling and uplifting story of courage, endurance, acceptance, and love.

In Another Time: A Southern Family During the Great War, 1914-1918

Martin, William Breedlove

Genre Fiction

Theo Coleman met Meta Shaw in 1937. The Valdosta, Georgia couple fell in love and married, uniting the Shaw and Coleman families whose extended lineage runs deep throughout the Southern United States. In this work, author Daniel Coleman traces the ancestry of his Shaw and Coleman grandparents back to the early pre-Revolutionary War period. Farming families, timber men, business people-these early ancestors eventually settled in Georgia and Florida. This extended family, up through and including Theo and Meta and their children, create a rich tapestry of history. Written as a narrative history of this amazing cast of family members, Mr. Coleman also provides detailed genealogical data on each family's branch of the family tree.

When Theo Met Meta

Coleman, Daniel Shaw

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