The Justice Family Neighbors During Reconstruction (1865–1877)

An emerging hating Klan and John Robert Holliday (1823-1873), a valiant Unionist neighbor of the Justice-Flanigans:

When the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished, the economic and social foundations of the South were transformed. Although emancipation ended the system of forced labor, most agricultural land remained in the hands of those who had owned it before the war. Across Georgia, a new labor system emerged in the form of sharecropping, under which formerly enslaved families worked the land in exchange for a share of the crop.

John Flanigan and Susan Melvina Justice, the parents of Allen Flanigan (1863–1909), entered into sharecropping arrangements with people they had enslaved only a few years earlier. When Allen was five years old, in 1868, his father died. In his will he left to his widow, among other property, "all my part of the growing crops, and all that part of the negroes' share of the crops which will come to me for provisions to said negroes." The language of the will reflects the uncertain transition from slavery to a wage- and share-based agricultural economy.

Following her husband's death, Susan Melvina took young Allen to the Justice family settlement near Marcus, Georgia, where they lived with her mother, Susan Justice. There they spent the remaining years of Reconstruction (1865–1877) alongside Allen's grandmother, his uncle John Gillam Justice, his aunt Mary Justice, his Venable cousins, and other relatives.

The family was rebuilding after the devastating losses of the Civil War. Allen's uncle, Allen T. Justice Jr., had been killed in Virginia while serving in the Confederate army, and the grief of his death was soon followed by that of Allen's aunt, Martha Justice Venable, who died in 1867.

The Justice farm employed two young Black laborers, Henry and Joshua Moore, ages nine and thirteen, who had been born in Virginia. They worked under the supervision of John Gillam Justice, who was beginning a nursery business specializing in peach trees—an enterprise that would become successful in the decades that followed. Like many Black children in rural Georgia during Reconstruction, Henry and Joshua did not attend school and could neither read nor write.

Reconstruction was a difficult period for nearly everyone in northeast Georgia. The region suffered from widespread poverty and high unemployment, including many former Confederate soldiers, many of whom returned home with disabling wounds and the lasting physical and emotional consequences of war.

Political life was equally turbulent. In 1867, a formerly enslaved man named Absalon, who spent all his life with the Justice family and then about seventy years old, registered to vote in Hall County. The following year he joined more than 90,000 newly enfranchised Black Georgians in voting in the historic election of 1868, which sent the "Original 33" Black legislators to the Georgia General Assembly. Their election marked an extraordinary milestone in the state's history, but it provoked an immediate white supremacist backlash. Claiming that Black citizens could vote but were constitutionally ineligible to hold office, the Georgia House of Representatives expelled twenty-five Black members in September 1868. The Georgia Senate soon followed by removing its Black senators. The Camilla Masacre followed a few days later when Blacks protested the expulsion of the Black legislators. A dozen blacks were killed and 30 wounded by the Michell County Sheriff and his posse. Federal authorities ultimately intervened, and the expelled legislators were restored to office in 1870. Nevertheless, intimidation and harassment were everywhere in an effort to keep down the voting power of the Blacks (44% of the Georgia population) and particularly since voting age Black men outnumbering white men in 65 of georgia’s 137 counties.

John Robert Holliday. Millwright, farmer and Unionist.

Less than ten miles from the Justice settlement lived John Robert ("J. R.") Holliday and his wife. Holliday was both a farmer and an accomplished millwright—a highly skilled craftsman and engineer who designed, built, and maintained water-powered and steam-powered mills. He owned a prosperous mill on Beech Creek. Because his specialized work was considered essential to the local economy, he had been exempted from Confederate military service. Unlike many of his neighbors, Holliday opposed Georgia's secession and remained loyal to the Union.

During Reconstruction he also continued to employ Black laborers and cooperated with federal authorities. These actions made him deeply unpopular with many former Confederates and Ku Klux Klan sympathizers in the surrounding community. According to later accounts, Klansmen began a campaign of intimidation against Holliday and his Black employees, carrying out nighttime raids, issuing threats, and inflicting beatings in an effort to drive them from the area.

By 1871, Holliday had become one of the most prominent targets of Ku Klux Klan violence in Hall County. His determination to resist intimidation made him a symbol of Unionist resistance during Reconstruction, while also illustrating the dangers faced by Southern whites and African Americans who challenged the emerging system of white supremacist rule.

This is how the KKK activities in the area during Reconstruction were described by Mike Buffington, co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc. in an article from 2015. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.

------------------------ The Jackson Herald— Nov 4 2015 ------------

The Klan and Jackson/Barrow

One of the most notorious periods in the history of Jackson County took place 144 years ago. It involved beatings, shootings, arson, the Ku Klux Klan and the occupation of Jackson County by Federal troops. In the end, one of the key players involved in the events was gunned down, some say murdered by a posse seeking to arrest him.

The South in the post-Civil War years was an ugly, some times desperate place. The economy was in ruins, many families had lost fathers and sons to the conflict and bitterness about the war was still palatable.

Adding to that were massive changes in the South’s political culture where blacks were nominally given both freedom and the right to vote. In 1868, 564 black men were registered to vote in Jackson County, men who just a few years before had been slaves.

Out of this post-war chaos came the first incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan in 1868. Although focused mainly on cowering blacks, the Klan also targeted white men who were considered sympathetic to blacks or “Yankees.” Active throughout the South, the Klan was especially notorious in Georgia in Jackson, Gwinnett and Walton counties. Klan members from all three counties were allegedly responsible for burning down the Gwinnett County courthouse in 1871.

It was also in 1871 that an incident took place in Jackson County (in what is now Barrow County) that garnered national attention. J.R. Holliday was a wealthy farmer and millwright in Jackson County with three plantations. But he was also a Unionist who had opposed Southern secession and had been exempted from being con scripted in the Confederate Army because he owned a mill. And he was an outspoken opponent of the Klan during the postwar years.

None of those things endeared Holliday to many of his neighbors who both envied his success and faulted him for his “radical” political views.

During the spring of 1871, neighbors who were involved in the Klan began to harass Holliday’s black farm hands. The workers were so scared that some fled the plantation while others found hiding places to sleep to avoid being caught at home at night by the Klan.

The situation angered Holliday and he confronted some of the men who had been harassing his help.He reportedly told them to stop the harassment or he would turn them over to the law and made it clear he opposed the Klan. But that only incited the Klan even more. On the night of July 24, 1871, a band of 20-30 Klan members invaded Holliday’s house around 11 p.m. in an effort to kill him. But Holliday had been warned of the plot and waited with gun and knife ready.

Klan members tied their horses nearby and walked to Holliday’s house. They wore a costume that looked like a black oilcloth which covered their faces and came down over their arms. When they came through the gate in front of Holliday’s house, he fired into the group. Klan members then went through a back door and he continued to fight them by both swinging his gun and using a Bowie knife. Shots were fired and Holliday eventually fled out a back door and hid in an orchard until the Klan left his house.

A couple of days later, a young man died in what was reported to be a hunting “accident” in which he allegedly shot himself in the face. But the real story seems to be that he was one of the men shot by Holliday during the melee and a cover story was invented to hide his involvement in the ordeal.

One or two other men may have also died from wounds in the fight, but nothing was ever established because nobody wanted to admit they were there the night of the Holliday attack.

Four months before this event, the U.S. Congress had established a series of laws and an investigation into the activities of the Klan in the South. One part of that was to set up investigation committees in each Southern state to interview witnesses about Klan activity.

Holliday, his wife and others from Jackson County testified before that Congressional committee in October 1871 in Atlanta, a few months after the attack. He told the committee what he knew about Jackson County Klan activities, detailing how they hid their costumes in a ditch covered with wood and tree branches. Other witnesses from Jackson County told how the Klan would ride on horses two-abreast in their costumes and “visit” residents they deemed needing attention. The band reportedly beat several black men in Jackson County during their reign of terror.

Holliday was also successful in October 1871 in having a group of 11 men who allegedly participated in the attack arrested by Federal officials and taken to Atlanta to appear before a Federal District Court Grand Jury. His efforts to have local judicial officials deal with the matter were unsuccessful and Holliday reportedly wore a number of pistols on his body when he came to Jefferson because of the threats against him.

Twenty-two people were called as witnesses before the Federal Grand Jury in Atlanta in October 1871, but for reasons that are still unclear, those 11 men were let go. They returned to Jackson County and the next day, they burned down Holliday’s mill causing $12,000 in damage.

Georgia’s governor immediately offered at $1,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of those respon sible for the arson. But Klan members weren’t charged. Instead, Holliday’s brother, Frank, was arrested in November 1871 in a “show” trial for the arson. That brought in Federal troops to occupy Jackson County. The troops were encamped on Holliday’s farm and also stationed around the courthouse in Jefferson during the trial.

Having Federal Troops occupy the county upset a lot of citizens and in early December 1871, an unknown group of men fired shots into the encampment at night. The troops returned the fire, but no one on either side was reportedly hurt. Perhaps related to those events, on the night of Dec. 21,1871 three fires destroyed two houses and a gin in the county.

Federal troops remained in the county into January 1872. The occupation wasn’t welcomed by most of the county’s citizens and a petition was raised decrying the violence in an apparent bid to have the government withdraw the troops from the county.

Holliday was in and out of court during 1872 over unspecified charges. In December 1872, another gin mill was burned and a nearby newspaper asked, “When will this stop?”

At some point in 1872, Federal troops were withdrawn from the county. But the problems continued to fester and in June 1873, a warrant to arrest Holliday on a charge of attempted murder was taken out.

We don’t know the specifics of that allegation, but it reportedly revolved around a threat against constable Mark Lay.

On June 19, Lay and several other men went to Holliday’s house and attempted to arrest him, but Holliday picked up an ax and threatened the group.

The following day, June 20, 1873, Lay gathered a posse of 11 men and went back to Holliday’s farm. Holliday was out in a field and had with him a double-barreled shotgun and an old musket.

When he saw the group come out of the woods toward him, Holliday picked up the shotgun and fired twice, hitting three of the men with buckshot, but not seriously wounding them. The posse returned fire as Holliday ran over a small hill toward the old musket. Holliday reloaded the double-barreled gun and fired again as the group pressed toward him. This time, the posse returned fire and killed Holliday in the field.

A Jackson County coroner’s inquest ruled the killing was justified, but given Holliday’s history against the Klan, some thought there was more to the incident than what the local coroner ruled.

Federal troops were again sent into Jackson County in the weeks that followed. The situation simmered and in August 1873, a group of Federal officials came into the county to investigate the killing of Holliday. However, the day before that group arrived, the Jackson County sheriff arrested the 11 men from the posse who had killed Holliday and put them in jail. The move was apparently an effort by a local solicitor to keep Federal authorities from interviewing the men. The Federal troops stationed in the county attempted to break into the jail during the night to get the men,but were unsuccessful.

The following day, the Federal officials held a court hearing in Jefferson and agreed to let local officials deal with the matter.

The charges against the posse were dismissed in February 1874 when a grand jury didn’t indict them. Holliday’s brother, Frank, agreed not to retaliate against the men.

By that time, Federal efforts to suppress the Klan had proven successful and the terrorist group was largely disbanded across the South. Jackson County Klan members apparently followed that trend and the organization ceased to exist here as well. (It was later revived across the South in the early 1900s.)

The story of J.R. Holliday’s stand against the Klan is now largely forgotten, but in the early 1870s, that story became a national sensation. His fight against the Klan was a major part of the Federal investigation into Klan activities in Georgia and was retold in speeches as far away as Boston.

Today, J.R. Holliday, his wife and his brother rest in a small family grave near the intersection of Hwy.211 and Double Bridges Road in Barrow County. It is the spot where he reportedly fell when he was shot in 1873.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.

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Another report from the time names the 11 persons charged with the assault of the Holliday’s place on July 24th,1871.

“We see that the Judge of the United States Court at Atlanta, on Monday last, charged the grand jury heavily against the Ku-Klnx, and on the same day the following citizens of Jackson County were brought to Atlanta on a charge of being K. K. K.’s: Green Martin, James Finch, Jock Finch, Henry Finch, Matt Finch,Jack Henry, James Haney, George Haney, Ezekiel Patrick, Richardson Lay, Jos. Jones, W. O. Felker and Samuel Rich.

They were arrested by United States Deputy Marshal James Skiles. The charge against them is, that on the night of the 24th of July last they made a murderous assault upon one J. R. Holliday. It is said that it was a hard fight, and that Holliday killed two of his assailants.”

The Finch farm, now in Barrow Co., is near the place where John Robert Holliday was killed in 1873.

The charges were dismissed.