Atlanta Journal

Harry Stillwell Edwards (HSE) led an amazing life, and I have always been fascinated to learn more about his life. Since I never had the opportunity to meet my great grandfather, I have tried to learn about him through his writings. I am fortunate that he was a prolific writer. 

I have long known that my great grandfather wrote a newspaper column for The Atlanta Journal for a number of years. I discovered that an archive of Atlanta Journal issues was available through the Genealogy.com database. From there, it was simply a matter of locating all of his columns and retyping them. As my research developed, I was amazed to discover the large number of columns he wrote. He began writing the columns at the age of 68, and he continued writing the columns for about 15 years until his death. The columns were published on the Editorial page of The Journal. 

I was surprised to learn about the wide range of topics about which he wrote. He had an wide variety of interests, but he was especially interested in the birds and plants living at his home in Macon, Georgia which was named “Holly Bluff”. I am grateful to have found this treasure of newspaper columns written by my great grandfather, because they have given me a detailed insight on his life and character. He was a wonderful and uniquely talented man. I hope you will enjoy reading his columns. They were written about 100 years ago and, not only do they provide us with an insight into the man, but they also provide us a rare glimpse of life in the old South in the early 1900s. 

I have retyped the editorial columns of my great grandfather to make it easier for the reader to read the columns. The printed newspaper columns were difficult to read, being printed in small type, sometimes the ink was faded, and oftentimes the column was printed in multiple sections on a newspaper page. In retyping the columns, I have retained all of the original spelling and punctuation as chosen by HSE, except for the correction of a few very obvious printing errors. I have purposefully retained the exact spelling of words as they were apparently commonly spelled in his era, many words being spelled differently than in our own era.

I hope you enjoy reading these columns. 

Sincerely,

Warren Cheek