Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 2927'Mrs. Horton have no children of their own, but have ari adopted son, JulianRandall Horton, who was born at Savannah, Georgia, ML 1913.JUDGE S. A. RODDENBERY, of Thomasville, who died during his secondterm as a member of Congress from the Second Georgia District, was born. on January 12, 1870, on his father's farm in Decatur County. After pursuinga partial course at Mercer University, Macon, he was elected vto the lowerhouse of the General Assembly in 1891, when little more than twenty-oneyears of age. From 1894 to 1896 he served as United States commissioner.He had, in the meantime, read law, and in 1897 was appointed by GovernorAtkinson judge of the County Court of Thomas County. He also served asmayor of Thomasville for two successive terms. Upon the death of JudgeJames M. Griggs, who had long represented the Second District in Congress,Judge Roddenbery was chosen to succeed him. He was re-elected, and diedSeptember 25, 1913, while serving his second term.JAMES M. SMITH,- one of the leading farmers of Georgia, was born September 18, 1839, in Wilkes County, Georgia, to which his father moved fromVirginia in 1805. In 1861 he graduated from Hiawassee College, East Tennessee, and served throughout the Civil war in the Confederate ranks. Sometime after the war he furnished the Georgia Railroad with a large numberof ties, and his profits from that contract enabled him to purchase a smallfarm in Oglethorpe County; this was the commencement of the career whichhas made him one of the leading cotton planters of the South. His public andpolitical offices have embraced the following: Representative in the lowerhouse of the Georgia Legislature, 1876-81; a term in the State Senate, commencing 1883; delegate to the national democratic convention, 1892; Bryanelector, 1896; again delegate to the national democratic convention of 1904and for many years a member of the state democratic executive committee(chairman for over twenty).. ALEXANDER DAWSON, M. D. It has been a matter of definite gratificationand consistency to accord in the pages of this history specific recognition toso appreciable quota of the representative physicians and surgeons of Georgia'sfair capital city, and such consideration is eminently due to Doctor Dawson,who has here been engaged in active general practice since the spring of 1891and whose success has been on a parity with his recognized ability and earnestapplication to the work of his exacting and responsible calling, further incidental interest attaching to his career by reason of his being a native sonof Georgia and a scion of one of the distinguished families of this favoredcommonwealth.Doctor Dawson was born in Wilkinson County, Georgia, on the 20th ofDecember, 1864, and is.a son of Alexander Dawson, who was born in Morgan County, this state, and who became a prosperous agriculturist in Wilkinson County, though he was engaged in the life-insurance business in the Cityof Atlanta in the later years of his active career, his death having hereoccurred in the year 1882. He was a gallant soldier of the Confederacy during virtually the entire period of the Civil war, as a member of a GeorgiaRegiment, and he became one of the appreciative and valued members ofthat noble memorial organization of later years, the United Confederate Veterans, the ranks of which are being rapidly broken by the one implacableadversary, death. Alexander Dawson, Sr., was a son of Rev. John E. Dawson,D. D., who was one of the distinguished Baptist clergymen of Georgia andthe founder of the Southern Female College, at La Grange, an institutionthat eventually was developed into the present Cox College, at College Park,an attractive suburb of the City of Atlanta.Mrs. Addie (McCallum) Dawson, mother of the subject of this review,