Signs of the Times (1869-1871)

County taxes collected in 1869 amounted to $987. The tax collector that year estimated that all of the property in Liberty County was worth only $50,292.

It was on January 6, 1871, that the Savannah Presbytery approved the organization of the Dorchester Presbyterian Church. Thus, the third, and last branch house of worship of Midway Church became a Presbyterian, and not a Con­gregational, church. Necessary organization of the church was done by a committee composed of Reverend N.P. Quar­terman, Reverend C.B. King, Ezra Stacy, and E.J. Norman, L.J. Mallard was the first Ruling Elder. Reverend J.W. Mc­Iver was the first pastor.

Hard times prevailed in all parts of Liberty County from the end of the Civil War until very near the end of the cen­tury. Homes of the once wealthy families became dilapidated and dingy. Those families were sometimes described as being “too poor to paint, and too proud to whitewash.”

There were no schools of any kind for white children in Liberty County for more than five years after the Civil War. Within six months after the Civil War, the branch of the freedmens bureau in Liberty County had organized schools for black persons of all ages in the county, and supplied funds and white teachers from the North to teach at the schools.