Two Centuries in Sharpsburg

Dean Adamson describes how farm life used to be at his family's Sharpsburg homestead, constructed as a two-room house in 1830s and one of Coweta County's oldest buildings.

A Family Lineage: From Hardy to Adamson, 1826-2021

Born in 1944, Dean Adamson has had family in Sharpsburg, in the area of McIntosh Trail and Reese Road, since Coweta County was established in 1826.

“That’s when they drew the land lottery and the settlers came in,” says Adamson. “They found one of my ancestors, Aquila Hardy, already living here.”

Hardy, from Adamson’s grandmother’s lineage, was one of the first settlers in the area. “So I’ve been here since dirt was invented,” says Adamson.

An old wood house that still stands on the family’s property was built in the 1830s. The family moved into a larger house on the corner of the property in 1880, according to Adamson, who says they planted cotton and worked the land using mules.

“My great-great-granddaddy was a preacher,” says the descendant. “I guess the preaching and planting cotton made him enough money to build a big house on the corner.”

Adamson’s great-grandfather told stories to his grandchildren about how the family hid everything when they got word that the Union Army was on the move.

“The family went into the woods, buried everything they had that was of value, including all the hams and side meat they had cured, so the Army wouldn’t steal it,” says Adamson. “They were some tough old dogs.”

After the Civil War, many of his family members moved away, leaving signs on their doors that read: “GTT.” At the time, that meant: “Gone To Texas.”

Adamson’s family farmed at Sharpsburg through the Civil War, Great Depression, World Wars, and the devastating boll weevils. “They all were good farmers,” he says of the multiple generations on the land. “Some of ’em had real good mules. They were notorious mule handlers. They could make an old mule read and write.”

According to Adamson, farming in the early 19th century was basically the only way to make a living in the area.

“There wasn’t nothin’ to do but farm,” he says. “When I was growing up, there wasn’t nothin’ but cotton growing everywhere. That was all there was. It was the only game in town.”

In 2021, Adamson wondered if he was the only Coweta County resident with a patch of cotton growing on his property.

“I’ve got six rows planted over there in back of that old house,” he says with a laugh. “That might be the only cotton you’ll find within a hundred miles of here. I planted it because my dad and my granddad, they were cotton farmers, and I got two mules just because that was in my blood.”

Crossed between a donkey and a horse, the mules that his family had when he was growing up handled their share of the farm work. The mules at his place now, says Adamson: “These right here are just like me. They’re relics of the past.”

The farmer figures it was sometime in the 1950s when his father purchased the family’s first tractor.

“They still did most of their farming with the mules,” he says. “The last cotton that was planted here, to try to make a living with, was probably in the early ’60s.”

After cotton production stopped, Adamson’s family began milking cows.

“We milked about 150 cows twice a day, every day, almost all of my young working life,” he says, recalling that the family planted soybeans and corn and cut silage and hay. “A whole lot of people went into the dairy business. We owned Coweta Dairy, a local co-op right there in Newnan.”

As a youngster, Adamson went swimming in the creek and played baseball.

“My daddy was a big baseball fan,” says the younger Adamson. “He had all the little boys with him. He had a ’49 Ford. We’d put about ten or twelve kids in it and go all around, playing baseball.”

His father was one of a few residents instrumental in getting the little league program started in Sharpsburg, according to Adamson.

“Everyone had a ball team,” says the son. “Most all your little communities had a semi-pro baseball team with grown people playing. That’s what you did on Sunday afternoon.”

Another pastime for Adamson was riding horses. He’s ridden horses since he was big enough to get on one.

“I played a lot of ball, but I wasn’t the best of the ball players, but I always have been a pretty good horseman,” he recollects. “That’s all I could think about on the way home on the school bus – catchin’ my horse and lightin’ out.”

In those days, Adamson and his siblings rode horses everywhere and hunted rabbits and squirrels. Nobody complained, except for one time, he recalls: “One fella had a liquor still and told us not to tell anybody where his still was.”

Adamson and his brothers took rabbit skins to the Bridges & Cole store in Sharpsburg and sold them for fifty cents apiece. Then, they would give the merchant his fifty cents back in exchange for Baby Ruth candy bars and RC colas.

The Adamson family showed cattle through the local 4-H program and, after graduating high school, Adamson worked as a camp counselor at Rock Eagle for three summers.

After his family sold off the dairy in the 1990s, Adamson followed his calling. “All my life, I rode horses and mules, and liked to show horses,” he says. “I went to Texas to try to be a cowboy, got to Texas, and everybody out there was a little bit better cowboy than I was.”

He eventually returned to Georgia and hauled pulpwood for a living until he sold his pulpwood truck in 2019.

Ever since Coweta County was settled almost two centuries ago, Adamson’s family property has been farmed. “It’s never not been farmed since 1826,” he says with pride. Today, some of the land is rented to planters who raise row crops.

Thinking back on what he loves most about Sharpsburg, Adamson says with a deep sigh: “Ah, my memories of it. My dad, he always said we are as much a part of the land as the rocks are. And that’s the truth.”

NCM