This is from the personal experience of Norman Thomas Clark as told by him in 1999, just two years before his death.

The “hanging rocks” of Jenkins County, owned by Mabel Clarke Jenkins is in the Eastern part of Jenkins County, Georgia, just off Highway 23. They are located on Rocky Branch. A ledge of rock along a hillside that rises some 20 to 25 feet above the earth [which] makes a picturesque scene overlooking a beautiful pond. Underneath the rock is clay that has eroded over a period of time, leaving the rock extended into space. There are huge rocks that have broken off from the main body over the years and in wet times have moved\ down the hill.

I remember one that has broken off in my time. It extended farther than the others. I use to walk out on it as a boy ( I am 82). The school children use to come to the hanging rocks from Red Hill School to have field trips. They would always come on the last day of school and have the end of school picnic. I have heard it said by one young student (who is now 60) that when the teachers were telling them about the Indians living in, around and on the rocks, they got so excited because the teacher made it so real they could picture the scene. At that time there was only the forest and a stream running through below the rocks. Today, there is a lake and a cabin by the rocks, also, a picnic shelter, a skinning shed, a trailer park and other buildings.

There were some geologists from California who came and stayed several days when Plant Vogal was being built. They did a study of the rock to determine if it was a ‘Fault’ that may cause an earthquake. They determined that it was a ‘Fault’ and that the rock had been pushed up to the surface from a depth of about 200 feet. It had happened a long time ago and they saw no sign that it had moved for maybe millions of years and thought there was no danger.

At one time there was a large whole in the branch just below the rocks and

when I was a child it was known by all as “the rock hole”. When I was a boy, about seventy years ago, it was large and deeper than a man’s head. We went in swimming there. Grandpa said it was dug by the Indians to get water. We have seen many Artifacts and signs that indicated an Indian village was located there, probably as late as the 1700’s, and left when they traded their land to the English.

It is very likely that Hernando De Soto came there in 1539. He landed on

the west coast of Florida with a company of 600 people with cows, hogs, horses and other animals for food and traveled north into Georgia. He came up through Georgia and crossed the Ogeechee River just below Millen. From there, he traveled north to the Shell Bluff area on the Savannah River, following Indian trails. This route would have led him directly through this area. Can you imagine the shock to the Indians to see 600 white men come through the woods? They had never seen a white man before.

The British established a trading port at Charles Town, later called Charleston. They traded with the Indians in this area and called them the Creeks because they built their villages near creeks and streams to get water and to farm the soil that was good and rich . It was also soft to work for the tools they used were made of wood and stone that would not work the hard soils very well. So, they became known as the Creek Indians. It was the Creek Indians that lived at the hanging rocks. The British traded them metal tools and many other useful things for their animal hides. The Indians became so dependent upon this trade that they depleted their wild game. When James Oglethorpe came in 1733 to settle Savannah, he found the Indians to be friendly and even helped him to fight the Spanish. There was about 100 years from the time Oglethorpe came to Savannah until the Indians were moved to Oklahoma in 1835.

A history of “the hanging rocks” would be incomplete without a history of

Homer Burke. He was the first of our family to own them. He was my

maternal grandfather. Born in 1870-died in 1942, married in 1891 to Henrietta Bragg, daughter of James Bragg. They were the parents of Bruno, Dessie (my mother), Rollie, Ralph, Robert, Annie Mae, Eula Mae, Josephine, Rhodella, and Louise. He moved to the Crawford Parker place as a share-cropper when he married, and about 1897, he bought “the hanging rocks” land from the Parkers and built a house on it. It was a five room house with three rooms in line on the front and two on the back with a porch in the center and a porch across the front. He had a store there and sold merchandise to the community. He lived there until about 1910 when he bought some land on the east side. He built a home there and moved to it. This house had 4 large rooms and a wide hall through the center, a kitchen and dining room L onto a back porch , L shaped along the kitchen and house to a well at the end of the porch. I was always warned “do not climb up on the curb of that well and look over” but I did!! The front porch did not go all the way across the house. There was a corner left beside the porch and grandpa sat on that end of the porch and chewed tobacco and spit out there, so we did not dare go near that corner for fear he would spit on us. He had a store there too, with candy, chewing gum and lots of good stuff, but he would not give us any. He was stingy also. He had so many grandchildren, if he gave candy to all of us, he would not have had any left to sell.

My grandpa Homer had only a fifth grade education, but he was sharp and
could figure well. He started off as a share-cropper. Before he died, he owned 1800 acres of land, he had 23 share-croppers working for him, he had a maid to cook and keep house, and a yard man to do chores around the house and farm. When I was young, he had a horse that he rode to over-see the farming. He would tell his yard man to go saddle his horse. I would ride with him some times, and later on in life, he used a buggy to ride over the farm. I never asked him for anything but one time. He turned me down, I never asked him for anything else. I never heard him say a curse word, but he did have a by-word. He would say “By George”. My grandma fussed with him a lot. I never heard her call him any name but Mr. Homer. He liked to eat and kept plenty of good food on the table. Some times he would eat for an hour. He sat at the head of the table and would serve his plate first before he would pass the food on to the others. I recall one time, after I married, my wife, Mildred, was expecting our first baby. He told her to come and sit by him and anything that she wanted they would get first and the rest could have what was left. Back then, some people thought that if a pregnant woman wanted something and did not get it and got angry about it, the child would be born with a birth mark resembling the object.

My grandpa liked Mildred a lot and when we told him that she was Lou Lewis’ grandchild, he said “By George you are kin to my wife. Lou Lewis’ daddy and Henrietta’s daddy were brothers, that makes you and Tom cousins”. Let me tell you a joke that was told on grandpa that sort of describes his attitude. They said that he and grandma were going down the road, she was walking and he was riding a mule. They met a person and he asked grandpa, “Mr. Homer, why are you riding and Mrs. Henrietta walking?” He said that grandpa looked off the other way, chewed on his tobacco and spit, then looked back at him and said “cause she ain’t got no mule!”

Grandpa gave the hanging rocks farm to my mother in the middle thirties.

Minus Clarke, an older brother of mine, lived there, also Essie Brinson lived there after Minus died. Henry Williams lived there until I bought it about 1960. I farmed it and built a dairy and two upright silos, a 10 acre lake and picnic shelter. I sold it to Mabel in the mid ninety’s. It now has four ponds on the property. She has built a cabin, sport shooting facility, trailer park and operates as a hunting preserve and a sport shooting range. It is managed by my grandson, Robert Jenkins, Mabel‘s son. My son-in-law, Bobby, is in charge of Mabel, Robert, Linda, my granddaughter-in-law and my three great grandsons, Brett, Clarke and Noah.

Foot note: Norman Thomas Clarke died, November 10, 2001

From time to time, we like to spotlight areas of historical and cultural significance to our area. Hanging Rocks is not only significant to us, but has been a point of interest and study for geologists and historians from around the world. We have the opportunity here to look at Hanging Rocks not from a technical viewpoint, but from the personal experiences as told by Norman Thomas Clark in 1999, just two years before his death. This is condensed from the full writings which are available from Hanging Rocks.