The Adventures of John Martin
- Webmaster
- Jul 29
- 10 min read
Updated: Jul 30
John Martin may not be a widely recognized name outside of Pickens County, Georgia. But to locals, he's as Americana as Waffle House, baseball, and barbeque. To most Pickens Countians, John is instantly recognizable in his customary garb: a tan cowboy hat, blue liberty brand overalls, button up shirt, and eyeglasses. And if you're eating at a local mom and pop establishment, and you don't see John, take a listen. His distinct southern dialect, baritone voice, and guffaw will give him right away.
John was born on February 1, 1942, in Atlanta. In his youth he looked every bit the athletic sort and his dark hair and features favored those of his father, the esteemed journalist, Harold Martin. Harold worked for the Saturday Evening Post and for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. For long swaths of time, Harold would leave the family on worldwide assignments for the Saturday Evening Post. While the family resided in Atlanta, he and Mrs. Martin would take John to church at the Cathedral of St. Phillip.
As John's parents attended the sermon, he and his friend "Buddy" Ware Hutcheson would sneak off from Sunday School and play with toy cars. Their early church adventures would form a lifelong friendship between lasting well into their 80s.
In 1947, John's father purchased the King Cottage at Tate Mountain Estates. It served as a secluded place to write his three required weekly articles for the AJC. Prior to the Martins arrival at Tate, the cottage was occupied by the caretaker of the Lake Sequoyah Golf Course.
One of the first visitors in the early days of the cottage was Bobby Jones. Before the Martins moved in, Bobby Jones had stopped over to use the restroom. To this day, a large wooden sign commemorating the visit hangs in the bathroom.
Bobby wasn't the only celebrity to have spent time with Harold. Margaret Mitchell, the famed author of Gone With The Wind, was close to Harold and penned the Martins a letter shortly after of John's Birth.
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In the 40's, the roads up to the mountain weren't paved beyond the railroad tracks in Jasper headed toward Burnt Mountain and beyond. One day, little John asked his dad if people were racing down the dirt roads. His father told him that revenue agents were chasin' bootleggers on their way to Atlanta.
From the age of six, John would spend his summers in Tate Mountain Estates, and his school years in Buckhead. Between the two, John preferred exploring the mountains, forests, and creeks of North Georgia more than the bland texts of his classes.
While at Tate Mountain Estates, he spent lots of time with the community caretaker, Olin Cantrell. One day traveling around Tate Mountain Estates with Olin, Olin pointed out the location of the skull of Peter Cantrell, an ancestor of Olin who was murdered by the Jordan Gang after the Civil War. Cantrell's skull was actually up on a ridge line above the gravesite.
NOTE: The Jordan Gang, like McCollum's Scouts, were groups of marauding former soldiers who preyed on vulnerable widows during the Civil War. These bandits are euphemistically known as "Home Guards."
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John has an early memory of his maternal grandparents and their House Servant Will Mills. Will was dropped off by his parents at John's grandfather's house. He was just 15 years old. The Mills told John's grandfather, Dr. Hugh Montgomery Lokey, if he would provide room and board for their son, Will would be a loyal worker. The Lokey's accepted. By the time John was a young man, he fondly recalled hanging out with Mr. Mills in his grandparent's kitchen with the other visiting grandkids. "Now you boys look out for them womans.", Will said. All the boys laughed.
Will lived the rest of his days in the care and protection of the Lokey's. Will was born in 1909 and lived with the Lokey family since 1924 until he passed away in 1980 at the age of 71.
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John's paternal grandparents lived in Commerce, Georgia on a family farm. One day an uncle of John's walked off to use the outhouse. On the way, he heard a muffed scream from a nearby well. The family ran over to see the source of the commotion, and a friend of John's family was in a great deal of pain from a botched suicide attempt. His arms were trapped in a rope knot with his whole body suspended uncomfortably. The man was subsequently hospitalized at the sanitarium in Milledgeville.
Several months later at a family gathering, the former inmate of the sanitarium ambled down the road.
"They let you out already?"
"No, I escaped."
"Why'd ya do that? And you walked all the way here?"
"Well, I was sitting down on a bench when another patient sat down beside me."
"And?"
"And when he started trying to feed pea soup to a part of his body your not intended to, I ran! Those folks are crazier than me!"
John's family friend was cured.
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John went on to graduate from Northside High School in 1960 and after a failed attempt at successfully completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Georgia, John decided to try his fortunes elsewhere.
In 1962, he and his friend Buddy Hutcheson made their way to North Dakota, and then to Montana, where they briefly worked together at Glacial National Park. Two weeks later, they traveled to find work at a cannery in Pendleton, Oregon. Unfortunately, their two-week detour cost them the job. Consequently, John and Buddy waited in line to be picked up with the other day laborers by local farmers.
Eventually, Buddy and John grew tired of day labor and made their way back to Georgia via the lower half of the United States. Soon the terrain turned barren and burning hot. They accidentally took the route through Death Valley. The two young men, more practical than shy, drove together through the desert sans clothes in John's '56 Chevy Convertible.
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In 1965, John decided to make his way back to Oregon in a second attempt to work at the cannery. While traveling west on I-10 through Louisiana, John made his way to Dallas, Texas when he decided to take a break. He sat down in the grass on a slight hill when he was overcome by a strong sense of deja vu. As he looked up John saw the Dallas Book Depository. He was sitting on the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza where President Kennedy had been assassinated a year and a half before!
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John finally returned to Oregon and found his way into the employ of Mrs. Meredith Doble, an elderly widow who needed help around the yard. John was given a meal each day as long he ate outside. Mrs. Doble paid John five dollars per day and the arrangement lasted several months before John decided to go home, this time via a northern route. He hitched a ride with a group of native americans. One of them, speaking in a language incomprehensible to John, whispered a series of sounds. When John asked what he meant, he answered, "You shall be known as Young Roaring Bull". The other Indians pressed John for his real name, and John answered. The group, perhaps distrustful of white men, demanded John show them his identification. John refused and was consequently thrown out of the vehicle. When he arose from his slumber the next day, John found himself in a ditch off of Highway 90. The irony of the first thing he saw wasn't lost on him.
After returning home on July 4th, 1966. John waited three days to enlist in the United States Army and headed off to Vietnam. While deployed, John's dad was asked by the Saturday Evening Post to do a story on soldiers in Vietnam. Harold chose his son as his subject and flew out to meet him. For a time, Harold shadowed John and even practiced firing weapons. In a bizarre training accident, Harold misfired a grenade launcher and got shrapnel lodged in his back.
Harold Martin flew home after his writing assignment was done and John's returned to soldering. Later in 1966. John was aboard a helicopter that was taking heavy gunfire. There was no discernable landing zone, so the chopper napalmed an area to create a landing pad. Under intense fire, the pilot decided the soldiers should rappel to the surface or return to base. The men slid down the ropes into the recently exfoliated forest.
To John's dismay, he slid down the rope wearing seventy pounds of gear and shattered his knee. The other men rappelled safely down, but John was forced to stay behind and wait in cover carrying only a Colt pistol. As a result of his injury, John was the only one who lived. All the men who attacked the Vietnamese camp in the skirmish died in the fight. As a result, John refers to his knee as his lucky one.
John was flown out of country to a military hospital in Japan. He was surprised to meet his father's wartime friend named George. George was one of the people who translated and first communicated the surrender of the Japanese.
After returning stateside in 1967, John met a pretty young lady named Susan Davenport. When they first met, she wanted nothing to do with him. She was urbane, sophisticated, and John seemed a bit too backwoods. Yet, in a short while, she and John found themselves on a first date at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta featuring Gladys Knight and the Pips. In short order, Cupid's arrows had struck, and the two lovebirds tied the knot in the spring of 1967.
John was stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma when Susan found herself pregnant with twin girls, Laurie and Becky. They were the first of the Martins' three children. Four years later, John's only son, Farrell was born.
After being discharged from the Army, John decided to give college a try for the second time and in 1973 he started his undergraduate studies at Georgia State University. He graduated with a degree in Business in 1977 and began a long career of office furniture sales.
Over the next two decades John and Susan raised their three children and slowly began expanding the Martin Cottage in Tate Mountain Estates to accommodate their larger family.
In 1999, after their children were grown, the Martins permanently relocated to Tate Mountain Estates where John could keep up with his hobbies like storytelling, attending history speeches, or polishing and driving his Model-Ts,
Sadly, in 2020, John lost his wife to cancer after many wonderful decades spent together. The night before she died, John played Elvis for Susan, knowing it would bring her comfort. She always told him she was going to find Elvis when she made it to Heaven. But John has a plan, when John joins her in the afterlife, he's going to go find the soul of Miss Kitty from the TV series Gunsmoke to distract Elvis long enough for John to get Susan back.
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I met John shortly after Susan passed away at an event at a local funeral home. I was hired to play background music at Christmas-themed celebration of life when a Santa-esque man in overalls approached me with a one-of-a-kind southern drawl. If you know John, there's a mirth and musicality to the timbre of his voice. I suspect all people who meet John are disarmed by his comforting presence and become instant friends.
These days John can be found delivering Meals on Wheels to needy families around Pickens County in his Nissan truck, attending a Tater Patch Players performance in Jasper, or frequenting his favorite breakfast joint, Annie's. And if you ever sit down with him at Annie's be sure to look at his plate. You'll find a S.O.B. - Sausage (but it's really hamburger meat) Over Biscuit with white gravy beside a cup of Joe. He also will sneak out his special salt from the top of his overalls.
John speaks lovingly of his late wife, his three children, and ten grandchildren. They visit him often and recently have acquired their own properties at Tate Mountain. Soon, one of his granddaughters will become a member of the Estates. Four generations of Martins are Taters!
NOTE: A Tater is what the folks of Tate Mountain Estates refer to themselves as.
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What follows is an example of the type of story only John Martin could tell. I heard this one at Annie's.
In the 70's, while spending time at Tate Mountain Estates, John and his friend Bill Bryan decided to drive through (the now abandoned section) Old Burnt Mountain Road while shooting road signs with a pair of six-shooters. They drove to (the now vacant) Johnson's Grocery on Highway 53. But Johnson's Grocery had a secret. It really wasn't a grocery at all, apart from a dozen eggs it kept in stock. Johnson's grocery was actually known by insiders as the Dirty Shame Saloon.
When John and his friend made it to the Dirty Shame Saloon, the owner kicked all of the drunken patrons out except for John and Bill so they could fire the six-shooters out back. The only problem was the angry exiled patrons decided to exact revenge on John by flattening all four of Bill's tires.
Mr. Johnson felt it necessary to bring his shotgun for protection as he drove them home. Upon learning what happened, Susan intervened. That was the last time John was allowed to go to the Dirty Shame Saloon. Another adventure was over, many followed, and more are yet to come. Long live John Martin!