DRAKETOWN News

Elisha Brooks, one of our oldest and best citizens is dead. Peace to his ashes!
He was one of the first settlers of Draketown, and named the place Draketown from Ducktown, Tenn., remarking at the time that the Drake of Georgia would beat the Duck of Tennessee, meaning that there would be more copper found here than at Ducktown, which is likely.
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OBITUARY OF ELISHA BROOKS

Elisha Brooks died at his home in Draketown, Ga., July 5th 1878 of billious fever, age 92 years, one month and eight days. He was born in Warren county, Georgia, May 27th 1786. When quite young he moved from there to Putnam county, thence to Jasper, thence to Henry and lastly to Paulding, now Haralson, in the year 1832. He enlisted and fought in the war of 1812. Married Francis Mosely, sister of elder William Mosely, June 2nd 1814. He joined the Primitive Baptist
church in 1828, fifty years ago, and has been a consistent and faithful member ever since, not having had a charge brought against him since he has been a member.

Out of twelve children, only five survive him. Uncle Elisha, as he was familiarly called, has been a most useful member of society in general, having held important offices of trust the greater portion of his life, in the performance of which he evinced a firmness and stability of character that is rarely equaled. He has served as Judge of the Inferior Court, Clerk of the
Court of Ordinary, Tax Collector and Justice of the Peace for a number of
years. The peculiar traits of his character were firmness, truth, temperance, a quick and decisive discrimination between right and wrong and a manifest disposition to stand firmly by that which was right. In truth and in the strictest sense of the word he certainly was one of nature's noblemen, an honest man, which is the noblest work of God. No one who knew him doubts but that he was a christian. But then;

" Our good old friend is gone, gone to his rest
Where social converse was, itself, a feast,
O ye his friends who recollect,
How once ye loved and eyed with with respect,
Both in the firmness of his better day
While yet he ruled you with a father's sway,
And when impaired by time and glad to rest,
Yet still with looks in mild complacence dressed,
He took his daily walk and mingled here,
His sprightly vein with yours, now drop a tear."

W.C. McBrayer