BY LOUISE PASSMORE

 

Our small town of Hahira, GA, with approximately 1700 population in the city limits cannot boast of a lot of industry. But it is a certainty that what may be lacking in that perspective is more than made up by a town full of pride in what we do have - with friendly, caring, people and a constant desire to make things better. And I believe that everyone tries to be ever mindful that all things are possible through God who gives us strength.

 

As we think about Hahira and the things it may or may not have or what it might be noted for, there is one industry which has contributed a lot to the history of the community. Specifically - Honey Bees, Beekeepers, and Beekeeper's Supplies.

 

Actually, as an industry, it only goes back to about 1920 here, when the first beekeeping business of any size began in Hahira. This was with the establishment of The Puett Company that dealt with the raising of queen bees and the shipping of queens and package bees all over the USA and Canada. Authentic figures are not available to me but I feel sure that the numbers of package bees and queens shipped out of Hahira each year would easily number into very many thousands. During this time, it seems, was when Hahira became known as the "Queen Bee Capital of the World". I am sure that we no longer can boast that title but we do hang on to it anyway as part of the beekeeping heritage of Hahira.

 

The Puett Company came to a too soon demise in 1971 with the sudden death of Garnett Puett, Jr., who was the owner at that time. He was the third generation to own The Puett Company. Its actual inception began with Garnett's grandfather in 1913, according to some pamphlets that the Sr., G. G. Puett had printed up back in 1935 and 1941 and which I am lucky enough to have saved through the years of my association with the Puetts.

 

To further the beekeeping industry in Hahira, a branch of a national beekeeping supply firm was established here in 1953. The above-mentioned Garnett Puett, Jr., was the manager. This firm of Dadant & Sons, Inc. is the oldest and largest manufacturer of beekeeping supplies in the world. It was begun in 1863 when the Dadant family migrated from France and established a beekeeping supply firm in Hamilton, IL. where the home office still is today. Success in the business and the need for distribution points nearer to their customers led to the establishment of Branch Offices and Warehouses throughout the United States.

 

The Dadant Branch at Hahira, GA, was the 2nd such Branch set up by the company. The first one was located at Paris, Texas. There are now ten such branches located throughout strategic parts of the USA.

 

The Hahira Branch came about, I suppose, as a result of The Puett Co. purchasing beekeeping supplies from Dadant & Sons for some time and Hahira seemed to be a good central location in the Southeast. Thus - the Hahira Branch in 1953. My own entrance into the company was in 1955.

 

At that time, The Puett Co. and Dadant & Sons were located in an old two-story brick building which was originally a cigarette manufacturing plant back in the 1920's. They made Happy Day and O'Teen Cigarettes. Even though Hahira became a flourishing tobacco area and bore the name of "Gold Leaf City of the South", the cigarette manufacturing bit did not flourish and was forced to close.

 

In time, that building with its stairs to the top floor and an un-safe elevator became inadequate. Puett owned property next to that building so Puett and Dadants built a building and operated out of it to about 1977. Lack of enough space and, of course, the death of Garnett Puett, Jr. in 1971, along with no more Puett Company, led to another move for Dadant & Sons. During this time, in 1973, was when I was honored with being made manager of the Hahira Branch of Dadant & Sons, Inc. It was a great honor because it was not the kind of position that you might expect a woman to be suitable for back then. And I truly was the only woman manager that the company has had. I guess I did O.K. because they let me hang in there at it until I retired in 1996!

 

The above-mentioned move about 1977 was once again just next door, into one-third of a building owned by Fields Custom Cabinets in Hahira. There we stayed until 1985 when Fields needed the part of the building we were in for his own business. Then ensued a search for other quarters. Already constructed space anywhere near was not accessible or not available. However, right across the street from Fields was some available land so it was there that Dadant & Sons built the building, which housed the last Hahira Branch. We were so lucky (at least I felt so very strongly) that when we moved, the moving distance was miraculously close.

 

But now, and unfortunately, this office and warehouse is no longer a Dadant Branch. It has been closed in lieu of a consolidation of this branch and the Florida branch at Umatilla, FL. A new place has been constructed and is located at a mid-point in High Springs, FL.

 

Having been 41 years with Dadant & Sons here in Hahira from 1955 to 1996 is a span of a life filled with many "Tall Tales", wonderful friendships made with beekeepers from every corner of the country and also the meeting and knowing of three generations of the great Dadant family - Wonderful Memories that I shall cherish all the rest of my life.

 

In spite of the fact that most Dadant customers come - not out of Hahira itself - but from throughout the entire Southeast - this business will be missed by Hahira. Dadant & Sons, Inc. and the beekeeping industry did have impact on the inception of the Hahira Honey Bee Festival which is in its 20th year the first week in October, 2001. This city will still carry on the festivities with the stress on the Honey Bee and its importance in the economy of the entire world and our food supply and with a special visit each year during that week from the American Honey Queen.

 

So now we come to the close of a special historical period for Hahira and for Dadant & Sons in Hahira, as well as for The Puett Company.

Before the depression struck in 1929, Lowndes County tobacco farmers could grow a crop of tobacco, then smoke commercial cigarettes made from the tobacco leaves at a factory located in Hahira. In 1926 a group of Hahira and Lowndes County business men sold stock and built a commercial cigarette manufacturing plant in Hahira.  The investors plan was to use south Georgia tobacco sold at local warehouses to make cigarettes, thus saving on shipping.

Also "H.D" (Happy Days) cigarettes were manufactured for the Southern Tobacco Products Company of Valdosta.  The cigarette package was red and white and the front pictured a round circle with the letters H.D which stood for "Happy Days For You."  the label read "Unconditionally guaranteed and of super quality."  After a few years the factory closed and all cigarette making equipment was removed.
 

In the Early 1960's the building was bought by Marty Dykes who manufactured electrical and electronic components there.  Among the items manufactured were solid state heating circuit boards used by the United States Space program and electrical strip heaters for heating subway cars.  

 

About 1980 H.M Barfield purchased the building and rented it to Kurt Schmit who began a automotive starter and generator re-manufacturing facility.  Mr. Schmitt later bought the building. The business relocated to North Carolina in 1996 and the building was rented by a small fiberglass boat manufacturer who began to manufacture two man fishing boats.  The business was unsuccessful and closed shortly.  In May 1996, the building was bought by the Taylor family who planned to renovate it; however, never came to fruition and the structure was later demolished in 2002.  Since then the property has been redeveloped, which is adjacent to the railroad tracks on W Coleman Drive near Tillman Street. 


Main entrance in 1996.

The above information was provided to by H.M. Barfield a former owner of the building.  Also newspaper articles from The Hahira Gold Leaf dated September 28, 1961 and The Valdosta Daily Times dated June 3, 1972.
 

From an e-mail dated November 21, 1999 from Lake Puett:
I meant to reply weeks ago about the old cigarette factory. I remember it well. Is it still there? My father's company, the Puett Company, used it for many years, even after Daddy built the little cinderblock building next door when I was eight or nine. I remember going to Daddy's office in the big red building when I was three or four. It's interesting to stand near the building at night when a train goes by. The train headlights make strange patterns through the windows of the building. At least, it used to look like that...

This poem was found among Mrs. Valeta Johnson's personal belongings after her death.

 

"HAHIRA"

 

There's a little town in Georgia

Down in the southern part

It's the nicest place you ever saw

You'll like it from the start.

 

It's right on the Dixie Highway

With the cutest homes around;

If it keeps on growing as it is now,

It's going to be hard to keep down.

 

But what impressed me the most;

When first I visited it;

Was that fresh, clean look it had 

Which makes it a "sure fire" hit.

 

It's noted for Tobacco

And grows the very best;

They're even building a cigarette factory,

So you'll have a new brand to test.

 

All over the rolling country

as far as you can see;

Are those fields of golden tobacco

and they sure looked good too.

 

For I'm a "Georgia Cracker"

And I love my native state:

It makes me awful proud to see,

Things improving at this rate.

 

This town is called Hahira

I've been telling you about,

I don't know what the name means,

But something good without a doubt.

 

Sometimes when you're in Georgia

And happen to be looking around;

Suppose you follow the Highway, 

And visit "The Gold Leaf Town".

 

From an undated clipping from The Hahira Gold Leaf  newspaper - Author Unknown

NINTH VERSION

By Fred McDonald

 

Hahira ---Dec. 27, 1961 Finding an origin of the name "Hahira" is child's play.  The real problem is weeding out the right one.

No less than nine different stories have been related as the gospel truth for the beginning of the name.

 

The most recent explanation, however has an air of authenticity and ties in well enough with other versions to make the place-name student take a second look.

 

In its Dec. 21 edition the Hahira Gold Leaf cited excerpts from a letter written by Benjamin Allen Folsom of Daytona Beach, Fla., grandson of Randall Folsom, one of the first settlers of the present Hahira area.

 

Here's the gist of the letter:

 

Randall Folsom owned a plantation about five miles west of Hahira which was often frequented by the "landed gentry" as well as many travelers crossing South Georgia.  Among these visitors was an Englishman who delighted in telling stories of his hunting expeditions.

 

One of the Englishman's tales concerned a trip into northern Africa on which "his group came to a small native village, near a spring of fresh water and the village was called Hairaairee."

 

"So Grandfather  (Randall Folsom) took the name for his plantation."

 

The post office took its name, the letter continues, from the name of the plantation on which it was located, with Berry J. Folsom, the writer's uncle serving as the first postmaster.

 

The story checks out in some details:  A Folsom family did own a large tract in the area and the "History of Lowndes County," compiled by the General James Jackson Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, does give credit for the name to Berry J. Folsom a man named by a postal record in the National Archives as the first Hahira postmaster.

 

With other versions of the name's source to lead one to suspect that the other stories are corrupted forms admittedly, some of the same story.

 

For example through four other accounts of how Hahira got its name run some of the same threads; Africa, the Folsom's and an Englishman.

 

1. Most closely resembling the latest story is an account by J.E. Massey, Hahira Druggist, which he said he recalled only fuzzily:

 

Berry J. Folsom, "an eccentric bachelor who loved to read," had a book containing a story about a trip into Africa. Someone, according to this explanation was making a trip into Africa by riverboat and recorded adventures at each of the stops including a village named Hahira.  The book impressed Berry Folsom so much the story goes, that he decided to use the name "Hahira" for the new post office.

 

2. Another version, uncovered by Dr. John H. Goff, Georgia place-name authority and former Emory professor of Atlanta, is that the town was named for a river either in Liberia or Pakistan -- another African slant.  Very similar is the one found in the "History of Lowndes County."  Berry J. Folsom "gave it the name of Hahira from the name of a river in Liberia."

 

3. A Negro woman -- again the African thread -- is given the credit for the name in another legend.  Given the privilege of naming the village, she was so astonished that her answer when asked for a name was simply a squeal of astonishment that resembled more closely than anything else, "hay hi rah".

 

4. Still another theory found by Goff was that Hahira was the name of a mythical place perhaps mentioned by Tennyson in one of his poems -- an echo of the "Englishman" note sounded in the letter. 

 

Not related at all to the explanation in Folsom's letter are four other possibilities, the most likely of the four credits the name to an Indian heritage.  On first consideration the idea seems plausible. However, Goff who has done an extensive study of the name said that and Indian background for the name can be almost certainly be discounted.  He reported that a correspondent student of Indian languages checked all available word list of Indian tribes in the Georgia-Alabama-Florida territory and found nothing that even remotely resembled "Hahira."

 

Carroll Scruggs recently reported another of the theories which gives the name a Biblical Background.  Scruggs, who favors the Folsom account said that someone asserted that the name was a corruption of Hahiroth, an abbreviation of Pi-Hahiroth.  Scruggs stated that Pi-Hahiroth, according to the "Columbia Encyclopedia" was a resting place for the Israelites on their exodus.  Scruggs seriously doubted the authenticity of this version of the source of "Hahira."

 

Some Hahirans, according to Marie G. Crockett, vaguely give credit for the name to a spinster aunt of one of the pioneers.

 

The fourth tale not related to the Folsom account is a classic given by a Hahira old timer but seems too pat to merit more than passing appreciation for its folksy humor:

 

A man named Hira owned a store near the railroad track through the village, and as the train rolled by, one of the men on the train would yell to the storekeeper, "Hey, Hira!"

 

Eventually, the story goes, the greeting came to be used as the name of the village.

 

And so the evidence piles up.  Discounting the "Hey Hira!" story and the one about the spinster aunt and giving only reserved consideration to the Indian and Biblical theories, the explanation given in Benjamin Allen Folsom's letter gains weight in the light of its factual accuracies and its resemblance to other accounts, which very feasibly could be its garbled versions.

 

The above was reproduced from a crumbling Valdosta Daily Times newspaper clipping contributed by David Fields, Cat Creek Road, Hahira, GA.


This is a painting by Hahira artist Lillian Brooks of the Berry Folsom home which according to local historians was the first Hahira post office.  The house was demolished in the early 1960s during the clearing of the right-of-way for construction of I-75.  It was located on the Old Union Road near the intersection of the Old Barney Road, a few hundred yards north of I-75 and GA Highway 122 Exit 29, approximately where the Hahira Nursery is located today.