Lyle Cemetery in Jackson Co, GA

Dilmus Sr. lived along the Mulberry River where in addition to operating grist and saw mills he ran a whiskey distillery whose product was so admired by the locals they begged him not to leave for the War of 1812 and thus deprive them his home brew. When the war ended in 1815 and the British blockade was lifted, Dilmus Sr. ordered from Nova Scotia two pairs of flint millstones, which arrived at Charleston harbor and were transported overland to the Mulberry River with great difficulty. Dilmus Sr. used the millstones for the next 32 years until in a macabre instance of peripeteia one of the massive granitic discs fell onto his foot and crushed it. Naïve to lethal infection and far removed from any competent practitioner of medicine, his family took him home, where he succumbed to gangrene on November 1, 1847.

Dilmus Sr.’s son Dilmus Reid was born on December 3, 1815 in Jackson County and operated the mill after his father’s demise. In early 1861 he served as one of three delegates representing the county of his birth at the secession convention in Milledgeville, where he voted in favor of Georgia’s departure from the Union. He had been the postmaster at Mulberry since April 4, 1838, and at the South’s defeat was dismissed from the position and denied a presidential pardon due to his service under the Confederate government. This prompted Dilmus Reid to appeal to President Andrew Johnson in a letter dated July 26, 1865.

Dilmus Reid affirmed his support for the Constitution and the emancipation of the slaves in a loyalty oath signed in Athens on August, 14, 1865, witnessed by Major Matthias S. Euen, who filled in the blanks on the printed form: “The above named has florid complexion grey hair, and blue eyes; is 5 feet 9 inches high, aged 49 years; by profession a merchant.” The provisional governor of Georgia recommended a pardon, citing his position as “only a Country postmaster,” and passed on the application to the United States Attorney General. Mail to the Mulberry office was discontinued on September 28, 1866, but when it was reestablished in 1872 he was restored to his former position, which he held until his death in 1889.