The Lang Sisters

Clockwise, starting at bottom left: Bernice, Nellie, Kate, and Lettie. This photo was probably taken in the late 1930s or early 1940s at the home of Bernice Lang MacDonald in Folkston, Georgia.

Postmark: May 30, 1899

[Note: I missed this letter in my list of files and so it is out of order, but just by one!]

Tuesday

My Own Darling

No one will ever know how I love you & were something to cause me to loose you I would soon grow miserable for I could never find another Nellie.

Were you to go to Ga & not write to me I’d go crazy. Nellie I truly hope your trip will prove a pleasant trip because I know you must get lonely where you are.
Pleasant as well as profitable because you must get your dress & have it ready by July.

I think that in that time Mr. Brinson will be well. He & I can easily get off to come to see you & most any time that suits you. You always say that there will be girls here & for to stay home. [Illegible] them if I want to.

Well Nellie there will be more than the [illegible] I told you of. Yet when you write me to come I’ll board the next train to see you. Of course there will be plenty of girls here the whole summer but there won’t be plenty of Nellies.

Mrs. McBride had a letter from Miss Cora stating she was going North 15th June & she wanted to come spend a week with her before she left. Then too in a few week there will be a very good crowd.

I have been hoping you ask me to Ga & propose to pay my way to have me drive you about & wait on you in general but you haven’t done so yet. So I have done spoken to borrow the money on my own face to go on & have already asked my Boss if I could get off to go. So if Nellie goes Glass means to go if not Glass will not.

Strange how people change. When I came to Fla I had a train ticket to Jaxville via of Waycross. When I struck west Fla thinking I never had & would never love anything in Ga & that my whole fortune would be in Fla & of course wanted to see it all.

I had my ticket transferred to F.C. & P. & came across the northern part of Fla. I don’t know whether it was so much to see Fla or to keep from having to see Ga.

Ha”Ha” how the wind blows these days. Now my whole life is in a Ga girl & so yes I’ll gladly go to Ga or anywhere else to see you & I know the trip will not only be a pleasant one but will be a good rest for me. I think maybe I can come anytime but can tell you Sunday.

Honey don’t stay long.

Lovingly your boy
Glass

Julia Eleanor (Nellie) Lang Meggs

The following is an account of the life of Julia Eleanor (Nellie) Lang Meggs from the publication Miami of the Pioneers: A Picture History by Marjorie Meggs Gowin and Peter Thomas Skaggs Gowin, copyright 1976.

Was born in Georgia on a farm named “Solitude”. She was born into the Reconstruction period that followed the War of the 1860’s. As a daughter of an officer in the Georgia Cavalry, CSA, her early years were shadowed by the fact that her father, like all other Confederate soldiers could not vote, hold office, or own land until the repeal of the law making them outlaws.

The Lang family survived by farming a one hundred acre farm, a gift from her grandfather, Josiah Mizell, who was too old for military service. Also, her father, Felder Lang, became a lumber surveyor for the Dodge Lumber Company and did a lot of surveying of land in south east Georgia. It was hard for the Langs but they survived it.

She had two brothers and three sisters all born at Solitude. There was little educational opportunity, however, the St. Vincent’s Academy in Savannah offered some and she attended that school. It was Catholic and the Langs came to the colonies with Ogelthorpe and the Wesley’s and never departed the Methodist faith. So her school days were not easy.

She taught school in Folkston. At that time she stayed with her sister, Bernice, and her brother-in-law, B.G. McDonald. She also played piano at church, presumably the Old Mill’s Methodist Church.

In the late 1890’s the Langs sold everything in Georgia and moved to Florida to Dexter (near Ocala). There her father ran a turpentine operation, assisted by his two sons. He was also Postmaster of Dexter. Everything was going well until Felder Lang decided it was too cold in Dexter. He sold all his holdings and bought an Orange Grove on the Miami River, in Miami, Florida.

Meanwhile, Nellie had met and married William Glass Meggs. Glass had a brother who also ran a turpentine operation so the families were often thrown together. Glass’ brother, L.L. Meggs, decided to move to Jacksonville and wanted his brother with him. Felder Lang also wanted his family with him in Miami. Having seen Jacksonville, the Meggs’ obtained a “Homeseekers Ticket” and went to see Miami. If you stayed in Miami, you paid not fare. If you went back, you paid round trip fare. By now there were three Meggs’ since Donald their oldest son had been born. Nellie and Glass decided in favor of Miami and never regretted it.

They did not know then their life in Miami would be divided in three phases, the BOOM, the BLOW, AND THE BUST! These came in the period between about 1905 when the Meggs arrived and 1926 when a September storm ravished the area.

However, the Meggs family opened a successful business with money borrowed from Nellie’s father, Felder Lang. They were busy with a growing town and a growing family. Five Meggs’ were born in their second home, a large home bought from a Mrs. Knowles.

There were no hospitals so the children were born at home, with Dr. Jackson attending; and a Mrs. Pinder to care for the patient and the baby and to keep things in the home running.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. P.T. Skaggs and Dr. James M. Jackson told their patients there would have to be a hospital. So the ladies of Miami, including Nellie Meggs and Kate Gowin, stood on Flagler Street with ice cream cartons and collected nickels and dimes and quarters. Enough was raised to purchase a Spanish Mission located in the vicinity of Jackson Memorial Hospital. This was the beginning.

Meanwhile, Nellie was not idle. With all her large household, and competent help non-existent, she became a member of:

· Dade County and Greater Miami YWCA (Charter Member)

· Daughters of the American Revolution

· Gold Star Mothers (Her son Bill was killed in WWII)

· Hibiscus Garden Club

· Miami Pioneers Club

· Trinity Methodist Church (now First United Methodist of Miami)

· United Daughters of the Confederacy (Real Daughter)

She lived a full and active life. Her husband, Glass Meggs, expressed it very well. When he was dying he said of her, “I got me a good wife.” The Bible, which she lived, says, “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband ---“

Nellie lived to be ninety-seven years old, and is interred in Woodlawn Cemetery, Miami, Florida.

Felder Lang

The following is an account of the life of Felder Lang, Nellie Lang's father, as told by Nellie's sister Kate Lang Dane in 1963. It is from the publication Miami of the Pioneers: A Picture History by Marjorie Meggs Gowin and Peter Thomas Skaggs Gowin, copyright 1976.


This is the story of Felder Lang written by his youngest daughter, Kate Lang Dane (Mrs. Seymour Dane) in 1963, just prior to her death.

Felder Lang was the son of Isaac Lang, Jr. and Caroline Atkinson. Caroline Atkinson was the daughter of Burwell Atkinson and Anne Felder. Burwell Atkinson was the son of John Atkinson, Revolutionary soldier, and Elizabeth Gardner. Anne Felder was the granddaughter of Henry Felder, of Orangeburg, SC. Henry Felder was a member of the Continental Congress from St. Matthews Parrish, Orangeburg Township, for effectually carrying into execution the Continental Association during the revolution. He was a Captain in the Revolution and his seven sons were in his company. Henry Felder cast arms for the Americans during the war, had two dwellings burned by Tories, and was killed in the burning of the last one. One of his cannons is on the square at Orangeburg on display. His oldest son, John Felder, took over the company, and was killed trying to escape from capture by the British. (Salley’s History of Orangeburg County, SC)

Felder Lang was born August 13, 1842, near Brunswick, and the Old Town of Jefferson at Langsbury, GA. This was the home of Isaac Lang, Jr. and Caroline Atkinson.
He was married to Martha Mizell of Charlton County, Georgia, on the 6th day of February, 1867, at the home of her father, Joshua Everett Mizell, six miles from Old Center Village, later Folkston, Georgia. Officiating was Rev. Mallette, who had been his teacher in boyhood, and who also married Felder’s sister, Susan Lang to Gideon Mallette.

At the age of about eighteen, he and his brothers Nat, Neuton, and Richard joined the volunteers to fight for State’s Rights in the Confederate Army. He rode horseback (his own horse, Prince) to Jonesburry, Georgia, where he was enlisted as a member of the Fourth Georgia Cavalry under command of Captain Clinch. He became a scout and was in Atlanta when the city was burned by Sherman’s Army. He related that the Confederate soldiers were almost without food or clothing when he saw a warehouse as large as a two story store go up in smoke. This was the supply of the Confederate Army. He saw destruction of farms, homes, cities and villages within a radius of one mile wide from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. Sherman ordered his men to destroy the food supply. He did, only sweet potatoes and black-eyed peas were left, with some corn and cattle. He was somewhere along the St. Mary’s River when the Confederate Soldiers fired upon the Union gun boats that sailed up the river to Traders Hill (truly a trading post for cotton, corn and cane grown even as far South as Kissimmee, Florida). The gun boats did little damage, returning to St. Mary’s without knowing that the defense was made by a small number of men.

Felder Lang was at the battle of Olustee, Florida, where he did his part in defense there. At the close of the war he was a 2nd Lieutenant in command of a Company of Cavalry known as Company D of the 4th Regiment, Georgia Cavalry, elected May 4th, 1863. In late years he moved to Florida and the State of Florida gave him a pension for having done his duty in what he believed was right for the South.
The Lang home was near Folkston. Reconstruction days found him a surveyor of land and timber. He surveyed the little town of Folkston for Dr. Folks who established the town about 1873. At Burnfort on the Satilla River he became the favorite surveyor of lumber men who brought rafts from Darien, Georgia, to be sold to the mills at Bailey’s Mills near Brunswick. Here his children were born, Letticia Caroline Lang (6/27/1868), Louis Everett Lang (8/24/1870), Julia Eleanor Lang (Nellie – 6/14/1876), Lucia Bernice Lang (11/27/1873), Guy Carlton Lang (1/11/1879), Kate May Lang (5/12/1881). All are now deceased except Nellie Lang Meggs (Mrs. W.G. Meggs) of Miami, Florida.

During the presidency of Grover Cleveland, Felder Lang served two terms in the Georgia State Legislature as representative from Charlton County, Georgia. At this time, the first Railroad in the County was from Savannah to Jacksonville. This was about 1873. The road is now a part of the Atlantic Coastline.

In 1894 he sold the farm and cattle and became a turpentine operator at Uptonville, Georgia. In 1898 he sold the place and moved to a place near Citra, Florida, where he and his son Louis operated another turpentine farm. At this time he accumulated 17,000 acres of pine land on which were many cool sandy bottomed lakes. The Post Office was Ft. McCoy, but he soon established a village post office named Dexter, Florida, with himself as postmaster.

In 1904 he bought the home of Mr. C.M. Brown in Ocala. This place of twenty acres had been up to 1896 a fine orange grove. The great freeze of 1896 had killed all the fruit trees, so it was only a farm. In December of that year Mr. Brown invited him to see Miami before he went to Ft. Myers or Inverness, either of which might have pleased him as a place of retirement. After seeing Miami in December of 1904 he said he had never seen a place so beautiful and full of promise. So he bought from H. Price Williams, overseer of the Lawrence Place next door, a citrus grove on the Miami River, consisting of a bungalow, a boathouse and a barn. He named it Incachee, like the Atkinson home in Georgia, which was the home where he lived when he was first married.

The Williams family had a flower business and sold roses to the Royal Palm Hotel at the mouth of the Miami River. Fruit which had been selling at $7.00 per box dropped so low that the grove was no longer profitable. Also, Felder’s sight was failing and he anticipated the blindness he suffered the last years of his life. He sold the grove in 1913 and moved to 675 W. Flagler Street, Miami, where he died of a hernia at the age of 76 (March 8th, 1919). He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Miami, Florida.

Felder Lang was a man with a great sense of humor, integrity and honor. He loved people and loved to have them around him. He was an Elk, both in Ocala and Miami. Some of his Miami friends were R.E. Hall, W.W. Farris, Edward Lummus, E.B. Romph, J.H. Tatam, C.T. McCrimmon, J.W. Girtman, Dr. James M. Jackson, Captain Marsh, Captain J.C. Kuney, Captain Ross, W.A. Marsh, H.G. Copinger, Mr. John Ellis and H.H. Kilpatrick.