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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/cherrycapsule on 2023-06-27 21:21:30+00:00.
I’m on my third espresso of the night and my eyes hurt from deciphering reams of cramped text for hours on end, so I’m not terribly coherent, but this needs to be shared. You don’t need to know much about me besides the fact that I’m an undergrad studying history at a university in Georgia. This was all kicked off by a simple assignment for one of my classes, “Introduction to Genealogy and Local History”. Over the course of the semester, each student was to research a period of their personal family history, piece together a narrative of events, and give a class presentation relating that narrative to the sociocultural landscape of the time. Might sound boring to some, but for me it was a dream come true: a missive to spend hours delving into archives both personal and public, losing myself in that surreal, just-out-of-reach world of days gone by.
The moment we were assigned the project, I knew I wanted to investigate the story of my great-great grandfather, the cotton millionaire Abel Adair. I can’t stress enough how big of a deal Abel was back in the day, or how large his legacy looms in our family. Growing up in the Deep South, much of my childhood was spent listening to stories that had outlived their progenitors three, four, five times over—some, ah, more questionable than the rest—and practically every story ran back to Abel in one way or another. The man was American royalty. My dad’s a lawyer and my mom used to work for an art gallery, so you can surmise that I enjoyed a pretty damned privileged upbringing, but the way they tell it, we’ve fallen tragically far from the glory of Abel’s reigning days.
I know you read the words cotton millionaire and Deep South and your eyebrows are probably at your hairline right now, as they should be. My interest in Abel was of a critical and academic nature; I never sought out to lionize the man. It’s the reason I couldn’t shake the bad feeling I got when I first stumbled onto the article about Jebediah.
No one in my family had ever mentioned a man by the name of Jebediah before, and we’re the type of people who keep tabs, trust me. Going by the official documentation, Jebediah was less than a footnote in Abel’s life. He was a phantom. It would’ve been easy to miss him altogether, for there’s just a handful of documents that prove he ever existed compared to the veritable ocean on Jebediah. Once I caught on to the phantom’s presence, though, I was hooked. The past month has been a flurry of poring over digitized newspaper archives, interrogating relatives for the slightest of leads, and digging through corners of attics that have gone undisturbed for decades. You don’t want to know how hard it was to restore a certain water-damaged document to a state of readability.
What started out as homework has taken on a life of its own, and at some point I realized this isn’t a story made to be submitted for scrutiny by my professor. I’m a rational person through and through, but now that I’m looking at the bigger picture, I honestly don’t know what to make of it—maybe you can help me out in that regard. All I know is that I’ve unearthed something awfully strange.
I present to you the facts in the case of Jebediah Presley.
The Southern Star, August 28th, 1914
CHATHAM COUNTY’S FAVORED SON: ABEL ADAIR & THE RISE OF MAGNOLIA COTTON CO.
It is a proud moment for the residents of Chatham County as one of their own, Abel Adair, owner and managing director of Magnolia Cotton Co., has secured a major deal with national department store Montgomery Ward. The terms negotiated by Mr. Adair are highly favorable to Magnolia Cotton Co., securing its role as Montgomery Ward’s sole supplier of the staple textile and as undisputed king of the South’s cotton industry.
As the patriarch of the Adair clan, Mr. Adair has steered the family business from the rocky waters of post-Emancipation hardship to dizzying new heights of success. He is a man with a storied past, belonging unmistakably to that league of charmingly coarse, larger-than-life moguls who constitute much of the crème de la crème of Southern society.
Born to Abel Sr., an inept businessman under whose leadership Magnolia Cotton Co.'s earnings plummeted into the red, the young Abel seemed to show a similar disinclination towards business in the days of his youth. Upon coming of age, Adair shucked the responsibilities of the family plantation in favor of joining the Navy. In four years he worked his way up from lowly ensign to lieutenant, and after three more he returned to Georgia to take the helm at a critical moment for the plantation: Abel Sr. was weeks away from declaring bankruptcy, having sold off huge parcels of land to pay his outstanding debts.
In a near-unbelievable turn of events, the young Adair’s preternatural business acumen restored Magnolia Cotton Co. to its antebellum glory and beyond. It was this acumen that earned him the moniker “The White Hound” and permitted him to succeed where so many of Magnolia’s peers floundered in the aftermath of Emancipation. Indeed, any of Adair’s colleagues or rivals would tell you that more than tenacity, grit, or a certain ruthlessness of disposition–all of which Mr. Adair possesses in spades–it is his startling savvy for numbers that has buoyed Magnolia Cotton Co. up from the brink of failure.
Adair’s life is not one unblemished by tragedy, for his wife Margaret passed away shortly before the family’s turnaround in fortune, leaving their three young children without a mother. Yet the future is bright, and the cotton keeps on growing. When not hard at work, Mr. Adair spends much of his time as many a red-blooded American would aspire to: fishing on his custom 20-foot Herreshoff, hunting alongside his purebred griffon, Baxter, and regaling his children with colorful stories of his time in the Navy. The hard work and dedication of Mr. Adair has paid off in spectacular fashion, and we at The Southern Star offer our hearty congratulations.
scrap of letter from Abel to an “Anatoli”, undated
…and inquire how the missus is doing. Her cooking gotten any better? I hear it tends to go the other way, what with the tongue getting fat and dull like all the rest of it, har har. I’ve got three little tikes running around these days, two boys and a girl. God knows I love them, but sometimes I get to thinking what I wouldn’t give for one more day back on that deck with the crew, just the open water all around and the sun at our necks. We had some good times then. Even Cap’n, that old bag of hot air… yet there I go still calling him captain. Never did get to tell him to stick it where the sun don’t shine, the way I wanted to when he’d get to spittin’ and barkin’ in my face… I could do it now, with all this money behind me. I sure could.
Well, Anatoli, I was thinking I never did thank you properly for telling me the secret. I owe it all to you and there’s not a soul in this world that knows it. If this letter finds you, Anatoli, and it better find you—I’m paying a pretty penny for this here P.I.— I want you to know that if you ever need anything, my door is open, just as long as you remember that door goes both ways…
Letter from Charlotte to Abel November 2nd, 1920 // Recovered from envelope without postage; never sent
Dear Father,
I write this letter with not just a heavy heart but a burden of rage formerly unknown to me. Believe me when I say that whatever anger and betrayal you feel towards me is returned in triplicate! I can hardly reconcile your recent actions with the person I once thought you to be—once, but no longer, for this debacle has illuminated clearly the empty void in your chest where most men have beating hearts.
It would have been one thing to reject Jebediah when he asked you for my hand, but to behave toward him as you have is nothing short of primitive. Perhaps when mother passed, the Lord rest her soul, she took your last trace of humanity with her. You and mother hoped that I would marry a gentleman, yet you proved yourself to be the farthest thing from one when you stooped so low as to threaten the man I love.
Jebediah is a simple man, but a good one. Wouldn’t you rather I had a good man than one of those insufferable dandies you have tried time and time again to pair me off with? After all you always told me it wasn’t books or titles that made a man, but character, and I tell you Jeb has got more character in his little finger than you have in your whole body. Why can’t you see that money has never meant a thing to me? I could do without the dresses and diamonds and galas, but never without love. I’m going wherever Jebediah goes and we’ll have a real family.
You say that you would rather see me dead than married to Jebediah—well, father, I’m pleased to say you won’t have to suffer either, as you’ll never see me again. This letter will be our last correspondence.
With deepest convictions, Charlotte Camellia Presley
The Southern Star, May 17th, 1932
MYSTERIOUS DEATH AND DISAPPEARANCE IN BLACK ROCK
The rural town of Black Rock, Georgia has been set abuzz by the bizarre death of local farmer Jebediah Presley. Presley, 41, was a smallholder farmer who had been a resident of Black Rock for over ten years. He and his family lived in a two-bedroom farmhouse situated on the banks of the nameless river that feeds into the Okefenokee swamp.
On May 15th, revenue agent Elias Spalding arrived at the farmhous…
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