Francis Jones "Frank J." Spain

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Francis Jones Spain was a planter and businessman involved in several Quitman development projects during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. He helped organize a private bank, backed the Hotel Marie, led a cotton mill, and served on the boards of two railroads. He worked on the South Georgia Railroad at each early stage: raising subscriptions, joining the charter group, and serving on the first board.

This is also a family story with several names that are easy to confuse. The subject was usually called Frank J. Spain or F. J. Spain. His son Francis J. Spain Jr. was also called Frank and became cashier of the Bank of Quitman. A grandson with the same full name later won an Olympic bronze medal in ice hockey. They are three different men.

At a glance

Family and early life

Francis was three years old in 1850, living in Lowndes County with John W. and Elizabeth Spain and his sisters Sarah P. and Rachel L. Ten years later the family was in the Tallokas post-office area of the new Brooks County. The 1860 household contained John W., Elizabeth, Rachel and thirteen-year-old Francis. In 1870 the census still placed him with his parents in the Quitman area and described him as a farmer.[2][3][4]

Folks Huxford calls his parents John William and Elizabeth Spain. His family sketch expands the sisters' names to Rachel Lavinia, who married George McRae, and Sarah, who married Mitchell Jones. The censuses establish a continuous household record, while Huxford supplies the stated relationships and the sisters' expanded names and marriages.[1][2][3][4]

By 1880 Francis headed his own farming household in the Morven district. His wife appeared as Lizzie, their sons as John W. and Frank, and his widowed mother Elizabeth lived with them. The 1900 schedule placed Frank J. Spain on an owned farm, free of mortgage, in the Quitman militia district. Elizabeth and five children were in the household.[5][6]

The 1900 census says the couple had been married twenty-six years, which points to about 1874. Huxford identifies Lizzie as Elizabeth Stapler, and a compiled marriage index gives the same pairing. A contemporary notice of her 1904 death also names her Stapler brothers and says she had married F. J. Spain about twenty-five years earlier. No original county marriage return was located, so the marriage date and place remain unresolved.[1][26][35]

Their children were:

1. John William Spain, born about 1875 or 1876. Huxford gives 1875 to 1915 and says he married Grace D. Hutchinson.
2. Francis J. Spain Jr., born about 1877 or 1878. He became the Bank of Quitman cashier and died unmarried in 1908.
3. Marie Spain, born about 1882 or 1883. She married Herbert W. Stubbs.
4. Guy Spain, born about 1888 or 1889 in the 1900 census. Huxford gives 1885, a conflict not yet resolved.
5. Helen Spain, born about 1889 or 1890. She later married O. P. Willingham.

A memorial also records an earlier child called "Little Guy," born in 1880 and dead in 1882. If the memorial is correct, the family reused the name after the first child's death. The 1900 index creates another problem by rendering the oldest son as "William C." rather than John W. The 1880 census and Huxford support John William, but the 1900 reading should not be silently corrected without a sharper image.[1][5][6][7]

The plantation and the record of slavery

Huxford calls the family property Forest Hills plantation and says Spain operated it successfully. Federal tax indexes place Francis or Francis J. Spain in the Quitman district repeatedly from the 1870s into 1890. The 1880 agricultural schedule index identifies a separate farm return for him in Brooks County District 4. The surviving index pages prove farming continuity, but they do not supply the acreage, crop totals or land-lot descriptions needed to reconstruct the plantation.[1][8][9]

Huxford's family sketch says John William and Elizabeth Spain, together with John's mother Rachel, bought about 25,000 acres on both sides of the Withlacoochee River before 1840. It says they first lived at Spain's Ford and moved to the property they called Forest Hills in 1845. No deed or land-lot reconstruction was found to test the acreage. The figure therefore describes Huxford's account of the family estate, not a verified holding of Francis himself.[1]

The 1906 death reports called him the largest landowner in Brooks County and an extensive planter. One paper estimated his estate at more than $500,000. Those were contemporary newspaper estimates, not a probate appraisal. No subject-specific will, estate packet or court inventory was found in the indexed online search, so neither figure can yet be independently audited.[28][29]

The family's antebellum setting needs direct treatment. Francis was three years old in 1850 and thirteen in 1860. No located slave schedule names him personally as an enslaver. The federal schedules instead list his father, John W. Spain, with forty-six enslaved people in Lowndes County in 1850 and J. W. Spain with eighty-four in Brooks County in 1860. The schedules do not name the enslaved people. They record age, sex and color. Both original 1850 and 1860 pages, including the second 1860 page, were inspected and preserved.[46]

Huxford says Rachel Spain later married Francis Jones and quotes Jones's 1849 estate inventory as including thirty-eight enslaved people valued together at $15,060. The estate went to Jones's wife, his only son William Jones, and his siblings. The inspected evidence does not trace any enslaved person or part of that estate into Francis Jones Spain's later property.[1]

A 1904 retrospective newspaper story about four men hanged without formal legal process during the Civil War said an enslaved man named George had belonged to "Mr. Frank Spain," whom the article called F. J. Spain's father. That identification conflicts with the census and Huxford, which name the father John William Spain. The article was written roughly forty years after the event and cannot identify George's enslaver reliably. The federal schedules independently establish that John W. Spain enslaved people in both 1850 and 1860.[3][33][46]

Banking

Huxford says Spain joined Clayton Groover and J. O. Morton in establishing the private banking house Denmark, Groover & Company in 1878. It became the Bank of Quitman when the business incorporated in 1888. Huxford's family sketch mentions Spain and Groover, while the banking chapter names all three men. The banking chapter's three-man account is the better supported of the two.[1][16]

Spain's business career had begun earlier. In 1871 Savannah cotton factor P. H. Behn admitted him to the firm, renamed P. H. Behn & Company. A Quitman report the next year described Spain as a local young man and the firm as a cotton commission house able to make advances to planters. The partnership ended by mutual consent in March 1873.[36][37][38]

The Bank of Quitman organized on 17 January 1889 with Spain on its first board. The contemporary report said the bank had $55,000 paid in, authority for $100,000, and succeeded Clayton, Groover & Company. Spain was re-elected in 1891 and remained a director. A 1905 profile lists him on the board alongside J. O. Morton, E. A. Jelks, R. C. McIntosh and his son Frank Jr., who was cashier. The OCR fuses part of the elder Spain's initials, but his 1906 obituaries independently identify him as a bank director.[15][17][28][29][39]

This is where the father-son distinction matters most. Items from 1897 onward that describe Frank Spain Jr. as assistant cashier or cashier concern the son. They do not show the elder man behind the counter. The father was an organizer and director; the son was the working bank officer.

An early railroad campaign

Spain's interest in transportation predated the South Georgia Railroad by more than a decade. In August 1882 Brooks County citizens met over a proposed Quitman-to-Monticello connection. A contemporary report placed F. J. Spain on the committee appointed to confer with railroad authorities and with supporters in Jefferson County, Florida.[12]

The campaign continued. In January 1886 Spain joined J. G. McCall, H. B. Hines, J. B. Creech and A. P. Perham in Savannah for discussions with Savannah, Florida and Western officials. The paper said the parties reached an understanding about what would be required to build the short line. The project did not become the later South Georgia Railroad, but it shows that Spain was already working on a north-south rail connection for Brooks County.[13]

This was not a one-meeting interest. A February 1885 Brooks County convention again placed Spain on a committee charged with securing the Quitman-to-Monticello branch. In June 1892 he joined the subscription committee for a proposed first-class line from Quitman to Moultrie and pledged $5,000 in money and land. The report proves the pledge, though not that the project collected it or built the line.[40][41]

The South Georgia Railroad

In January 1896 the Oglesby brothers proposed that local subscribers raise half the cost of a railroad while the brothers supplied the other half. Huxford says a January 29 meeting appointed four men to raise Quitman's share: A. J. Rountree, F. J. Spain, R. C. McIntosh and John W. Hopson. Five others covered the county at large. Huxford says the committee reported the money raised five days later.[1]

Huxford also lists Frank J. Spain among twenty-six petitioners for the charter. His account gives proposed capital of $65,000 in 650 shares. The original subscription book and charter petition were not found, so Spain's exact financial commitment to the railroad remains unknown.[1]

His seat on the first board is direct contemporary fact. South Georgia Railroad stockholders met at Quitman City Hall on March 23, 1896, accepted the charter, adopted bylaws and elected nine directors. Both the Savannah Morning News and Atlanta Constitution placed F. J. Spain on the board. The directors then elected James W. Oglesby president, John W. Hopson vice president, John Tillman treasurer and Zenas W. Oglesby superintendent.[18][19]

Spain stayed with the company after construction. The 1899 annual meeting re-elected him to a board that also included the three Oglesbys, R. C. McIntosh, Mitchell Brice, S. S. Rountree, John W. Hopson, John W. Hitch and John G. McCall. That report said the railroad was in excellent condition and had done good business during the preceding year.[20]

The surviving record follows Spain through fundraising, incorporation, organization of the first board and later governance.

The West Coast Railway

Spain also took part in the line's Florida expansion. In December 1900 he attended the Greenville meeting that organized the West Coast Railway. The planned line ran from Greenville to Perry and then toward a Gulf port. The Atlanta Constitution named Spain among the Quitman men present and said the board, with two exceptions, consisted of Quitman residents. The West Coast line was closely connected to the South Georgia system.[21]

By the time of his death, newspapers called Spain a director of the South Georgia and West Coast Railway. RailGa's later technical history says the South Georgia leased the West Coast in 1902 and that the combined operation soon went through name changes. Contemporary usage was less tidy, so this dossier uses the company names printed at each event rather than imposing a later corporate label on the 1896 organization.[28][29][49]

Hotel Marie

Quitman's need for a larger hotel produced another Spain-led campaign. Huxford says Spain and Henry G. Turner began raising subscriptions in April 1889 and quickly secured $13,000. The Quitman Hotel Company organized that year, and a contemporary report elected F. J. Spain to its first board. The company bought a central half-acre site and planned a modern hotel.[1][14]

Huxford says the directors named the Hotel Marie for Spain's daughter Marie, who was still a child. The hotel opened in December 1890. A detailed newspaper account of the St. Valentine's banquet in February 1891 places Mr. and Mrs. F. J. Spain among the guests, but the daughter's namesake story still rests on Huxford.[1][15]

Atlantic and Gulf Mills

The cotton mill was one of Spain's largest investments and the business he led most visibly. In June 1899 a contemporary report said his son Will had returned after eighteen months of practical mill study. It also reported that F. J. Spain and Judge Morton had each subscribed $10,000 toward reviving and modernizing the old factory.[22]

That figure conflicts with Huxford. His later history calls Spain the largest subscriber at $5,000 and says all subscriptions were later increased by 25 percent. The difference might reflect separate pledge stages, a changed capitalization plan or a newspaper error. The records do not explain it, so both figures are preserved.[1][22]

The company accepted its charter in September. A contemporary stockholders' report elected Spain to the board, and the Savannah Morning News then named him president. W. W. Walker became vice president, John W. Spain general agent and treasurer, and J. O. Lewis secretary. The elder Spain held the top office while his son brought practical mill training to the operation.[23][24]

Spain remained president until his death. Huxford says the mill became profitable and employed more than 250 people. A 1913 bankruptcy report, written seven years after Spain died, remembered him as the mill's organizer and said his family remained among its largest stockholders and creditors. It blamed later failure on internal dissension and weak cooperation, not on the mill's original physical plant.[1][25]

Lumber, naval stores and other interests

The death reports identify Spain as president of the West Coast Lumber Company and the Perry Naval Stores Company. They also call him a bank and railroad director and an extensive planter. These near-contemporary reports establish the offices, but the focused online search did not locate minute books, charters or annual reports that would show when he joined the companies, how much he owned or how actively he managed them.[28][29]

Huxford also mentions an interest in the South Georgia Lumber Company. That company name differs from the West Coast Lumber Company printed in 1906. They should not be merged without corporate records. The safer conclusion is that Spain had substantial lumber interests, while the precise relationship between the two names remains unresolved.[1][28]

Education, politics and public life

A 1901 University of Georgia retrospective identified Frank J. Spain as a member of the class of 1868. It described him as a successful banker and planter who led public enterprises.[32]

Huxford's roster lists Spain as a Brooks County commissioner from 1885 through 1889. He also served repeatedly as a Democratic delegate, including district or state conventions in 1878, 1888, 1890 and 1894. A statewide agricultural listing in 1903 named him among the Brooks County delegates to a sugar-cane growers' convention. The convention appearances show party activity, while the commissioner service still rests on Huxford's county roster.[1][30][31][42][47][48]

A Valdosta obituary called Spain a devoted member and pillar of the Quitman Baptist church. An 1883 report also records him paying $18 for a newspaper subscription auctioned to benefit the church's women. The obituary is the direct evidence of membership; the earlier item shows support for a church fundraiser.[43][44]

The response to his death shows his local standing. The mayor ordered public offices closed during the funeral, and Quitman's businesses also closed. Several newspapers described the death as a loss felt across the county.[28][29]

Final illness and death

Spain suffered from heart trouble. On March 17, 1906, the Valdosta Daily Times reported that he was dangerously ill, briefly improved, then suffered a sinking spell. The paper said his death was expected at any time.[27]

He died at Quitman on Tuesday night, March 27. The Atlanta Journal, Macon News, Macon Telegraph and Atlanta Constitution all reported heart disease or heart failure. The reports agree on his major company offices and on the closing of public offices and businesses for the funeral. The Macon Telegraph named the five surviving children as J. W. Spain, Frank Spain, Mrs. Herbert Stubbs, Helen and Guy.[28][29][50][51]

The death dispatches called him fifty-nine, but Find a Grave memorial 36047062 gives 10 November 1847 to 27 March 1906, which would make him fifty-eight. The childhood censuses support an 1847 birth, but only the memorial supplied the exact birthday in the online records inspected here. The memorial places him in West End Cemetery in Quitman, and a contemporary burial notice says the funeral occurred on March 28. FamilySearch incorrectly normalized the cemetery to Iowa on one index page. The live memorial and Ancestry record correctly place it in Brooks County, Georgia.[2][3][7][45]

The possible Civil War record

A Civil War index contains a Francis J. Spain who served as a private in Company F, Cobb's Legion, Georgia. The name and state fit, and the 1864 Georgia militia census lists a sixteen-year-old "Frances J. Spain" in Brooks County. That makes late-war service possible.[10][11]

It is not enough to assign the service. The military index gives no age, parents, residence or other identity link, and Francis would have been very young. Until the full compiled service file and muster rolls are checked, the Cobb's Legion soldier remains a possible namesake.

Later family connection

Huxford traces the oldest son's line to another Francis Jones Spain. The International Olympic Committee profiles a Francis Jones Spain born in 1909 who grew up on an ancestral Georgia plantation, later moved to Massachusetts, attended Dartmouth and won an ice-hockey bronze medal at the 1936 Winter Games. The family chain in Huxford makes him Spain's grandson, but this is a later family connection, not part of the elder man's own biography.[1][34]

What is established

• Census records verify Francis Jones Spain from childhood through his 1900 household.
• He was the son of John W. and Elizabeth Spain and the husband of Lizzie or Elizabeth Stapler.
• He farmed at Forest Hills and became one of Brooks County's largest landowners.
• Federal slave schedules list his father with forty-six enslaved people in 1850 and eighty-four in 1860; Francis himself was a child and is not listed as an enslaver.
• He helped organize the private bank that preceded the Bank of Quitman and later served as a director.
• He entered the Savannah cotton commission business with P. H. Behn in 1871 and remained until 1873.
• He helped organize the Hotel Marie project, and Huxford says it was named for his daughter.
• He promoted railroad construction by 1882 and worked on the South Georgia Railroad as a subscription committeeman, incorporator and founding director.
• He pledged $5,000 in money and land to a proposed Quitman-to-Moultrie railroad in 1892.
• He remained a railroad director in 1899 and helped organize the West Coast Railway in 1900.
• He was the first president of Atlantic and Gulf Mills and led it until his death.
• At death he was also president of lumber and naval-stores companies.
• He died of heart disease on 27 March 1906.
• He belonged to the University of Georgia class of 1868 and later served as a Brooks County commissioner, according to Huxford's roster.

What remains unresolved

• The original marriage date and return for Francis and Elizabeth Stapler.
• A subject-specific will, probate inventory or estate packet.
• Forest Hills acreage, land lots and the full figures from the tax and agricultural schedules.
• The original 1896 railroad subscription book and Spain's exact railroad investment.
• Whether the 1899 cotton-mill pledge was $10,000, as a contemporary paper reported, or $5,000 before a later increase, as Huxford wrote.
• The precise relationship between South Georgia Lumber Company and West Coast Lumber Company.
• The identity behind the possible Cobb's Legion service.
• The 1900 oldest-son reading and Guy Spain's conflicting birth years.

Research coverage

Local memory, research files, the Barney wiki, Huxford's county history and railroad evidence were checked first. The online work covered the federal population censuses from 1850 through 1900, the 1850 and 1860 slave schedules, Georgia tax digests, the 1864 militia census, an 1880 agricultural schedule index, marriage and probate indexes, FamilySearch, Find a Grave, Georgia Historic Newspapers, Newspapers.com, RailGa and the Olympics site.

The focused Newspapers.com sweep used fourteen queries across 1840 to 1920. No claim of exhaustiveness is made for unindexed pages, poor OCR or missing local titles.

Sources

1. Folks Huxford, The History of Brooks County, Georgia, 1858-1948 (1948), pp. 193-194, 197-198, 208, 211-212 and 550-551; searchable local OCR preserved in the South Georgia Railroad research collection.
2. 1850 United States census, Francis J. Spain in John W. Spain household, FamilySearch MZYB-QR4.
3. 1860 United States census, Francis Spain in J. W. Spain household, FamilySearch MZMZ-1LJ.
4. 1870 United States census, Frances Spain, FamilySearch MCSJ-87S.
5. 1880 United States census, Francis J. Spain household, FamilySearch M8LZ-9CQ.
6. 1900 United States census, Frank J. Spain household, FamilySearch M3FG-YPJ.
7. Francis Jones Spain, Find a Grave memorial 36047062; Ancestry index record 23938903.
8. Georgia property-tax digests, Ancestry collection 1729, Francis or Francis J. Spain entries including records 2728405, 2728407, 2728409, 2728411, 2728413, 5745569, 5748068, 5750713, 5758452, 714468 and 7154730.
9. 1880 agricultural schedule index, Francis J. Spain, Ancestry record 1276:5335746.
10. Georgia militia census, Frances J. Spain, age sixteen, Ancestry record 3007:3451.
11. Civil War Soldiers Index, Francis J. Spain, Company F, Cobb's Legion, FamilySearch FS71-Q66.
12. Savannah Morning News, August 21, 1882, p. 1, Newspapers.com image 830450400.
13. Atlanta Constitution, January 21, 1886, p. 3, Newspapers.com image 34209019.
14. Atlanta Constitution, June 13, 1889, p. 1, Newspapers.com image 26886152.
15. Savannah Morning News, February 15, 1891, p. 7, Newspapers.com image 852543773.
16. Huxford, History of Brooks County, pp. 211-212, Bank of Quitman chapter.
17. Atlanta Constitution, November 12, 1905, p. 10, Newspapers.com image 26834164.
18. Savannah Morning News, March 24, 1896, p. 2, Newspapers.com image 852573116.
19. Atlanta Constitution, March 25, 1896, p. 3, Newspapers.com image 26796218.
20. Valdosta Times, April 4, 1899, p. 3, Newspapers.com image 889670566.
21. Atlanta Constitution, December 23, 1900, p. 4, Newspapers.com image 26835537.
22. Atlanta Constitution, June 13, 1899, p. 2, Newspapers.com image 26859443.
23. Atlanta Constitution, September 19, 1899, p. 3, Newspapers.com image 26955266.
24. Savannah Morning News, September 19, 1899, p. 2, Newspapers.com image 852563049.
25. Atlanta Georgian, June 29, 1913, p. 5, Newspapers.com image 876934441.
26. Valdosta Times, March 1, 1904, p. 8, Newspapers.com image 889681880.
27. Valdosta Daily Times, March 17, 1906, p. 5, Newspapers.com image 889779636.
28. Atlanta Journal, March 28, 1906, p. 4, Newspapers.com image 969846152.
29. Macon Telegraph, March 29, 1906, p. 1, Newspapers.com image 825321092.
30. Atlanta Constitution, July 11, 1890, p. 3, Newspapers.com image 34091023.
31. Second District convention delegates, Albany News, August 29, 1878, p. 2, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
32. Atlanta Journal, June 15, 1901, p. 24, Newspapers.com image 969472683.
33. Valdosta Times, May 31, 1904, p. 2, Newspapers.com image 889683973, retrospective Civil War account.
34. International Olympic Committee, Francis Jones Spain athlete profile.
35. U.S. and International Marriage Records, Frank J. Spain and Lizzie Stapler, Ancestry record 7836:1140665, a compiled database rather than an original return.
36. Quitman Banner, June 16, 1871, p. 4, Georgia Historic Newspapers, copartnership notice.
37. Quitman Banner, August 9, 1872, p. 3, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
38. Savannah Morning News, April 16, 1873, p. 2, Georgia Historic Newspapers, dissolution notice.
39. Savannah Morning News, January 18, 1889, p. 2, Newspapers.com image 852592826.
40. Macon Telegraph, February 27, 1885, p. 3, Newspapers.com image 823554803.
41. Atlanta Constitution, June 6, 1892, p. 6, Newspapers.com image 26952196.
42. Atlanta Journal, August 1, 1894, p. 5, Newspapers.com image 969460751; Huxford, History of Brooks County, pp. 374-375.
43. Valdosta Times, March 31, 1906, p. 16, Newspapers.com image 890227163; Georgia Historic Newspapers.
44. Atlanta Constitution, June 24, 1883, p. 7, Newspapers.com image 26976687.
45. Weekly Times Enterprise and South Georgia Progress, March 30, 1906, p. 8, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
46. [1850 U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedule, John Wgam653_142-0260andgam653_142-0261`.
47. Second District convention, Bainbridge Democrat, August 23, 1888, p. 2, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
48. Atlanta Journal, April 19, 1903, p. 13, Newspapers.com image 969502063, sugar-cane growers' convention delegates.
49. Steve Storey, South Georgia Railway, RailGa, later technical history.
50. Macon News, March 28, 1906, p. 1, Newspapers.com image 823396312.
51. Atlanta Constitution, March 30, 1906, p. 2, Newspapers.com image 26842071.