John Porter Fort: A Memorial, and Personal Reminiscences

by John Porter Fort

At just about that time the cotton caterpillar appeared in the fields of southern Georgia and bid fair to destroy the crop. Cotton growing seemed doomed as a profitable undertaking. One day while out in the fields I noticed that the moths, the parents of the cotton caterpillar, were flying very slowly, as if sick. I captured some of these moths and took them back with me to Macon, where with the aid of a compound microscope I discovered they were infested with a parasitic insect. This parasite killed them in a short time. I, at once, communicated this discovery to the Entomological Department in Washington. But they refused to agree with me in this, the true reason for the quick disappearance of the cotton caterpillar. Although I had testimony that the same trait of slow short flight was noticed in the moths all over the country, I do not know if any credit has ever been given to my discovery by the Department, or how they finally accounted for the disappearance of the caterpillar from the cotton fields.

In the year 1876, a society for the promotion of agriculture was formed, with headquarters in Washington City. The organization spread with astonishing rapidity, the farmers looking to it for assistance. At a general meeting in Atlanta of the Georgia organization, of which I was a member and officer, a resolution was passed requesting the legislature to form a Department of Agriculture. I was requested to prepare a bill. I had no guide before me; but I drew the bill, defining its object in various matters, and giving the commissioners power to prescribe rules, and to prohibit the sale of worthless fertilizers in this State. I handed the bill to Mr. Bacon, speaker of the House, and it was introduced by Mr. Butt of Marion County. The bill passed without amendment after much discussion, and was soon a law. A similar bill was passed almost at once by several other States.

Among the plantations in the western part of Dougherty County, purchased by Mr. Johnston and myself in 1879, was a body of land of twenty-five hundred acres known as "Hickory Level." The land was very fertile, there was no superior in that entire section of the State. The plantation was very sickly, no white man but one had ever lived on it for two consecutive years. Malaria in its worst form was very prevalent. The death rate among the negroes was alarming. At that time, the theory of the relation of the mosquito to the spreading of malaria had not been advanced. I considered the sickness to be due to a great extent to the very bad water, being what is known as "rotten limestone," which was drunk on the place. The question of obtaining pure water became so important that at one time it looked as though the place would have to be abandoned if some solution were not found. I thought first of building large cisterns with sheds to catch rain water, but that plan involved so many details, and expense, and there was the danger of easy contamination, so I gave up that plan. I suggested then that we bore an artesian well, as I had been investigating that subject and believed that a well could be bored with success. The question was discussed between Mr. Johnston and myself but held in abeyance on account of the expense and the uncertainty of the enterprise.

During the summer of 1880 there was a great deal of sickness on the place. There was very little rain. Water was difficult to obtain and was of a milky color. During that summer I tried to interest the town of Albany and the Central of Georgia railroad in the enterprise of boring an artesian well to obtain good water. At that time Mr. Nelson Tift, Sr., was Mayor of Albany; General W. S. Holt was president and Mr. Shelman superintendent of the Southwestern railroad. As best I could, I laid before these gentlemen, the importance of good water to that section and what the benefit would be to the town of Albany and to the railroads. I explained why I believed artesian wells could be bored with success in this section. And as I felt financially unable to undertake the experiment of the first well, I wished to get financial assistance for the undertaking from those who would ultimately be benefited. I received no encouragement. I wrote articles for the Macon Telegraph and the Albany News and Advertiser, explaining fully my reasons for believing that artesian wells could be bored in southern Georgia. My theories were ridiculed, and received no serious attention.

At last, I determined to commence the undertaking myself. I had the consent of my partner, Mr. J. M. Johnston. We were jointly to bear the expense. I again laid the matter before the managers of the Central and Southwestern railroads for assistance. I saw Mr. Shelman in person. All he would do was to give me a free ticket over the Southwestern road for the man whom I had engaged to commence the well. This amounted to three dollars and fifty cents, which was all the assistance I received from the railroads, and that was done in anticipation of the freight charges that were to be on the engine and other material that were to be brought from Selma, Alabama, to Ducker Station for the purpose of boring the well. I had written to a friend in Selma, Mr. J. C. Campton, to recommend to me a man who was accustomed to boring artesian wells in that section of Alabama. He employed for me a Mr. Jackson from Selma at the price of five dollars a day, for his services, and use of his friction clutch and windlass. I purchased an engine and steam pump and commenced work on February 1, 1881.

My reasons for the faith I had in the practicability of artesian wells being bored in Georgia was a matter of thought and observation extending from my boyhood. One day while riding in a buggy with my father in the lower part of Baldwin County, we crossed a little stream known as "Reedy Creek," that flowed over many small round pebbles that looked like birds' eggs. The banks, too, of the stream were covered with these round stones imbedded in the earth. I got out of the buggy to get some to carry home as checker rocks for my sisters. My father then explained to me, that at an ancient period of time this had been the shore of the ocean that had extended over what is now southern Georgia, south of a line drawn from Augusta to Columbus. I was interested in the facts explained to me by my father, and remembered the conversation.

Many years afterwards while on the southern Chattahoochee River I noticed cut by the river bank a stratum of blue earth, which I felt assured was an ocean deposit known as blue marl, a deep-sea ooze. This ooze is impervious to water, preventing the water underneath from rising to the surface in springs. I noticed this deposit on the west bank, the Alabama side, and that it was sloping downward, eastward, and toward the south. I crossed over to the east bank, the Georgia side, none was to be seen. But the natural supposition was that it was there only lower than the river bank. This was near Eufaula. As this marl appeared again at the surface near Brunswick, I took what seemed to me to be a logical position that this deposit extended under all southern Georgia, far down in the earth.

There were other phenomena I had observed on this subject. During the Civil War, I was attached to a cavalry scout service with headquarters near Saint Mark's, Florida. One day I went with a comrade, Jim Denham, in a skiff up the Wakulla River to the Wakulla Spring, about five miles from Saint Mark's. This spring is said to be the largest in the world. It is a great natural curiosity. Here was a river as large as the Chattahoochee or larger, rising up out of the ground. Whence came this water? The natural answer seemed: an underground river flowing under Georgia, which had been prevented before from rising to the surface by some natural obstruction, namely, earth impervious to water. The water had sunk into the earth in the northern plateau and mountains of Georgia, where there were no water-tight strata. I was greatly awed and interested in the Wakulla Spring. At first my ideas of its origin were only vague and crude, but became more definite and crystallized as time went on, and as I added to my observation and thought on the subject.

There had been several attempts to bore artesian wells in Georgia. In about 1850 an attempt was made to bore a well in Albany; which proved a complete failure. They were wanting in continuous pipes to reach water-tight strata. The water would seep out and never reach the surface. Mr. Jones of Newton, Georgia, was the contractor for the Albany well. I wrote to him upon the subject. He answered with a most discouraging letter, stating that when a young man he had lost a good deal of money in that enterprise, which he had never been able to recover from the town of Albany. Another attempt was by a Mr. Walker, called "Rich Billy Walker," a very wealthy man of Pulaski County, who bored two wells near Longstreet, Georgia, both of which were failures, although he went over six hundred feet deep.

My attention was also called to the fact that scientists and especially the famous geologist, Joseph Le Conte, had said that artesian water could not be procured in Georgia. In the face of all this discouragement I am astonished that I was still determined to go ahead, and too my finances were very low. In after years, in thinking this over, I have sometimes felt that I was compelled to continue the undertaking by some power outside of myself.