Daniel Clayton Adkinson was born on July 20, 1897, in Walton County. He was one of six children of Jason D. and Annie Infinger Adkinson. He was educated in the public schools of Walton and Santa Rosa counties and taught school in both counties until the United States entered World…
Darlington
This undated photograph shows the busy town of Darlington about 100 years ago. According to Sally Merrifield of Merrifield & Pilcher Realty, the store on the right was either Moore’s Store or Green’s Store. There was a huge turpentine industry there until the early 1940s. It disappeared and so did…
Murmuring Surf
The Murmuring Surf Cottages were located on Scenic Highway 98, across from Embassy Suites in Miramar Beach. In 2007, I posted a couple of photos on a message board and asked for information about Murmuring Surf. I was delighted when Clay Terry, the daughter of the owners, wrote to me….
John Dees “Buck” Crews
John “Buck” Crews was a Deputy U.S. Marshall who was born in Isagora (Holmes County) on July 12, 1866, after his father, George Washington Crews, completed service in Company K of the 6th Alabama Cavalry. Buck married Annie Laura Ward on January 7, 1889, in Isagora. Annie Laura was born…
Lois Genevieve Maxon
The house at Eden Gardens State Park was built with native yellow pine by William H. Wesley for his wife Katie between 1895 and 1897. It was almost identical to the nearby home of Katie’s parents, Simeon and Louisa Strickland. William Wesley died in 1947, and Katie died in 1953….
Lake Hotel
Masonic Lodge No. 170 was built at the corner of Eighth and Nelson Avenue in 1920. The lodge met upstairs and rented the downstairs to a furniture store. By the end of the 1920s, the first floor was used by a wholesale grocery company for storage. In the early 1930s,…
Murdock and Minerva McQuagge
Murdock Gillis McQuagge (1843-1930) and his wife, Minerva Gainer McQuagge (1888-1952), were the parents of nine children, including Duncan Gillis McQuagge, the Bay County Tax Assessor from 1932 until 1952. Murdock’s father, Norman Daniel McQuagge, moved to Florida from North Carolina in the 1830s and settled in Walton County. Murdock…
William Dudley Chipley
William Dudley Chipley (June 6, 1840-December 1, 1897) was born in Columbus, Georgia, the son of Dr. William Stout Chipley and Georgia Amelia Stout Chipley of Lexington, Kentucky. He and his family moved to Pensacola in 1876. Chipley was general manager of the Pensacola and Louisville Railroad. He had vast…
Robert Mitchell Jaye
Robert Mitchell Jaye was born in 1932 in Bay Minette, Alabama, to James and Grace McLain Jaye. Jaye graduated from William Carey College and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He served in the United States Navy and held pastorates in Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, and Georgia. Jaye served as pastor of…
Henry and Sarah Laird
Henry W. Laird was born in the Lexington District of South Carolina on June 3, 1821. He married Sarah Ann Long on September 5, 1848, in Alabama, and they had nine children. Sarah was born in Butler County, Alabama, on April 24, 1832. Laird enlisted in the Confederate Army’s Gulf Rangers…