Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 439
people so hardy, so independent, or with such lofty ideals of right living. When
it is pointed out that in their business activities they were almost wholly agricultural,
the volume of their prosperity is truly amazing.
It was the fixed habit of these people to practice the Golden Rule. Obedience to
the law of the land, was rigidly enjoined; and a man's word was his bond. To take
advantage of another was regarded as beneath good morals, to get into lawsuits was
to a man's discredit, and while the annals of the village reveal that here lived the
preacher and the school master, the banker and the doctor, the merchant and the
tailor, the wheelwright and the surveyor, yet no lawyer ever had the hardihood to
hang out his shingle in Ruckersville, and when Ruckersville furnished a member of
the Legislature for the county, he went from the ranks of those employed in
agriculture.
Many of the most familiar names in Middle Georgia may be traced back to
Virginia, and to that tide of immigration which about 1786, began to flow southward
from the Old Dominion, and, hence, it came to pass that Ruckersville, Virginia, and
Ruckersville, Georgia, were both founded by members of the same family. When
Peter Eucker, planter of St. Mark's Parish, Orange County, Virginia, died in 1742,
he left a large off-spring. The Virginia village was named in honor of this family,
and it fell to the lot of his great grandson, through Thomas, and Cornelius, and
John, to name a village in Georgia, Ruckersville! This great grandson was Joseph,
the son of John Rueker, and Elizabeth Tinsley, born on January 12, 1788. In his
young manhood, he was fortunate enough to win the affections of Margaret Houston
Speer, daughter of William Speer, who lived at Cherokee Falls, on the Savannah
River. They were married in January, 1812, and settled on the head waters of Van's
Creek. Early in life, Joseph evinced the strength of character, which marked him a
leader among men. In later years he often said that he owed everything to his
mother to whom he was a devoted son.
In 1822, the Village of Ruckersville was incorporated, but no boundaries were
fixed, and from that day until this, the name lias been applied not so'much to a town
as to a large neighborhood. In 1827 Sherwood's Gazateer described it as containing
ten houses, six stores and shops, an academy, and a house of worship for the
Baptists. In 1849 it had 200 souls. This paragraph, quoted from a sketch of
Joseph Rueker in the Cyclopedia of Georgia, will help us to form a picture of
Ruckersville:
"From our present standpoint there was little in the locality to commend it as a
center of influence, or as the seat of a great estate. The land was young, roads
were bad, markets there were none, and it was a four days journey to Augusta, the
nearest approach to a city. And yet, in that secluded locality, remote from marts
and markets, Joseph Rueker not only created a fortune great for his day and genera
tion, but displayed such wisdom and executive ability and manifested such high
traits of character as marked him as an extraordinary man."
In this day of subdivided labor, it is difficult to appreciate the kind and variety
of talent then required in the successful management and development of great landed
estates at points distant from centers of trade and according to present standards,
practically inaccessible for want of highways, railroads, and means of transportation.
The successful agriculturist in every stage of the country's history has needed the
highest order of judgment and forethought, and has necessarily been a man of
affairs. But the successful planter at the early ante-bellum period required in the
Southern States at least, a combination of talent, which would now thoroughly
equip the master minds who control the colossal enterprises of the Twentieth Century.
For such a planter had not only to be an agriculturist, but a manufacturer and a
financier; and, above all, he had to know how to manage, care for, and develop
men. In all these departments Joseph Eucker was conspicuous. The cotton industry
was in its infancy, but even in this he made a marvelous success. Stock of all kinds,
horses, mules, cows, goats and sheep, were raised. The cotton was to be ginned,
and the ginnery and the press were supplemented by the spinning of yarn and wool,
and the weaving of cloth. There were blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and carpenters,
besides saw-mills to make the lumber for the quarters. This prince of planters had
his own tan-yard, and tanners, his harness-makers and shoe-makers. Immense crops
of wheat and corn were raised. Corn cribs abounded. There were also mills for
converting grain into meal and flour. The management of these separate and