Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Restoring/reclaiming the Gin Pond

I have inherited my grandfather's farm with 20 acre pond in deep S. Georgia. The nucleus of his pond was a Gin Pond from the 1800's...I think it might have been 3-4 acres per some old maps. In the attached map there is a "Fish Pond" just WSW of the center of the map...in Land Lot 48 (from left top corner of map...over 4, down 2 and the pond is there). That was the size in 1908.

The pictures I posted to the forum don't work...try this:

https://garylayton.smugmug.com/Farm-Hahira/Pond-pictures-test-for-PondBoss/n-28nhKd/

In the early 1950's, Grandaddy logged upstream from the Gin Pond (water flows North there) and left the pine, cypress and whatever else stumps in place...they were cut from 6-12" above ground level. The 1956 aerial map shows the two ponds he made..they are just left of the center of the map. The North pond...north of the EW road is about 11 acres. The South Pond (as he always called it) is 15-20 acres...depends on which document you choose to believe. Just south of the road you see a small pond...we call it the Road Pond, about an acre. It is part of the overall "South Pond". The small EW dam just south of the road is the "original dam" of the Gin Pond...per the Inspector of Dams...see dam inspection card attached.

https://garylayton.smugmug.com/Farm-Hahira/Pond-pictures-test-for-PondBoss/n-28nhKd/

That dam inspection card was our first clue that we have something unique...no one in our family ever heard of a "gin pond". Yet it is officially named as one and is the ONLY "Gin Pond" in the National Inventory of Dams. There are over 92,000 dams that are catalogued and ours is the only "Gin Pond". Somewhere along the historical line, it was known to be a gin pond...officially "Boyette Gin Pond"...but we never called it that.

After Grandaddy logged the upstream area, he then added height to a road that was downstream of the Gin Pond. We assume the stream went under (or across??) the road. We still have access to the culverts that had removable boards so that he could control the water level in the pond. By making the road the new dam, the original dam (a "pre-Civil War dam" according to the National Inventory of Dams info page about our pond) became part of the new pond.

Every few years these folks...
'Environmental Compliance Specialist / EPD: Safe Dams Unit"...come to our ponds and inspect the dams. So far, so good.

I have attached the card that a wonderful employee there took the time, during the Pandemic, to track down the handwritten notes about our pond. This card put me on a path that has led to me understanding why we have a "Gin Pond" (the only one of over 90,000 dams the National Inventory of Dams keep track of) and how it came to be in our family. Lots of details, too much for this thread.

When you search Google for "Boyette Gin Pond" it takes you here:
https://nationaldams.com/dams/boyette-gin-pond-upper-dam-396r7g3
and here:
https://nid.usace.army.mil/#/dams/search/sy=@name:gin%20pond&viewType=map&resultsType=dams&advanced=false&hideList=false&eventSystem=false

Here is the email from the Georgia EPD employee that helped us start figuring out what we had -- a lot to unpack. May be too much to read for folks:

"Good afternoon,

Glad to hear that you and your son are taking good care of your farm. I have updated our records to reflect you as the owner and made sure the information you provided matched what was in our system.


I was looking over what I have on the dam electronically and I do see a note in the system that says “This pond provided power for a cotton gin. The original dam was probably built before the Civil War. It is now breached and Boyette Road is the dam.” No one signed the note however so I’m not sure where this came from other than it was most likely written by a previous classifier that has since retired. I am away from the office at the moment but as soon as I am back there I will pull the physical file and see if there’s any leads to the history of the dam. It looks like the dam was originally classified by our office in 1983, so it’s unlikely I will have any records prior to that date, but I’ll check and see what I can find. The earliest aerial images that I have show Boyette Rd as the dam by January of 1993. You may also want to check out the USGS’s topographic maps database. It’s free to access online and their database starts for Georgia around 1880, though I think the earliest records they have available for south of Atlanta are from the 1950’s. Still, if you’re looking for leads on the history of the area it may be an interesting place to look. The link for their website is https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/

I’ll let you know if I find anything, in the meantime, good luck!

Sincerely,

Kenzie Bradshaw

Environmental Compliance Specialist

EPD: Safe Dams Unit"

It is amazing to me that Ms. Bradshaw followed thru on my request for any info as to why they had us listed as a "gin pond." I am very grateful to her for taking the time to track down that inspection card and send me a picture of it. I attached the card again to this post.

https://garylayton.smugmug.com/Farm-Hahira/Pond-pictures-test-for-PondBoss/n-28nhKd/

The original dam was built on a creek called Bostick Mill Creek. We discovered the creek name from old property deeds. Mr. W.G. Bostick owned much of the property that was Grandaddy's farm in the 1880's until his death in 1904. Mr. Bostick is buried in a lone grave that overlooks our South Pond. Grandaddy started farming and acquiring land at the Gin Pond in the 1920s. The farm was eventually 500 acres until his death in 1988.

Grandaddy built the E-W road higher in the early 1950's and it became the dam. I found old property deeds and leases that show where had the pond areas logged in the early 50's. That was when he started bring the current ponds to life.

He dammed Bostick Mill Creek at the road to create the Road Pond and South Pond.

The area behind (south of) the "original dam"...sometimes called the Middle Dam now...grew to about 15+ acres. The Fish Pond/Gin Pond you saw in the 1908 map grew from 3-5 acres to over 15. The Road Pond is about one acre.

He built a dam that runs E-W parallel to and north of the road. That made the North Pond.

The freakin' Beaver Pond is probably at least 5-17 acres...we are trying to recover some of that land. It has been flooding out some of our land where we have pine trees planted. That's another story.

The Road Pond, South Pond and the Beaver Pond are what I inherited. The North Pond belongs to my Aunt and cousins. I hope that one day I might be able to buy their property and pond just north of ours and bring part of the original farm back together. It would have the two ponds reconnected again. For now it's just a dream. Farms can eat up a lot of money. We rent the fields out to a cotton/peanut farmer and that helps with taxes and insurance. But there are still a lot of on-going costs.

I have attached a recent Google maps photo of the Road Pond and the South Pond.

I meant to post a picture of Mr. Bostick's grave...they are attached here.

Use this link...the forum is not handling my picts well for some reason (all under the size limit so I have no clue)

https://garylayton.smugmug.com/Farm-Hahira/Pond-pictures-test-for-PondBoss/n-28nhKd/

Last February I cut the side dam and drained the pond. It was "fished" in 1975, last time I remember it being drained. It has gotten sedimented/sludged, started developing trembling earth (like in the Okefenokee) and we are the process of trying to restore the pond to its 1950's state. Here are some pictures of how he left the stumps from way back. His pond (Boyette Pond) was well known for big bass, bream, crappie in the 60's - 80's when it was open to the public for "pay fishing". He had a box on the front porch where folks paid to fish.

The pictures I posted will not show...try this link:

https://garylayton.smugmug.com/Farm-Hahira/Pond-pictures-test-for-PondBoss/n-28nhKd/

And this is one of our best treasures so far...my niece and I found a 1902 property deed that references our "Gin Pond" and where dirt can and cannot "be got" and why. It shows where Beulah Bostick received the property from W.G. Bostick. Perfect cursive and really hard to read. The typed deed is from 1902. It was "recorded" in 1909, apparently when Robert and Beulah Bostick were selling the property to I.J. Wright.

I found the documents at the Lowndes County courthouse and this is my quick translation transcription of the handwritten version of a deed. It is the first written confirmation I have seen that a gin pond existed. This is my translation from the handwritten deed where Robert Bostick and Beulah Bostick in 1909, November 2nd, sold 60 acres of land lot 48 to IJ wright. For $1,000.

"This indenture made this second day of November in the year of our Lord 1909 between Robert Bostick and Beulah Bostick and IJ Wright.

The 12th district of Lowndes County, Georgia, part of lot number 48 containing 60 acres more or less bounded as follows: On the North by Bob Bostick on Old Original line. East and south and west by WG Bostick on made lines, said lines and corners established and known by said parties; also water privileges and District privileges (the TYPED version says "dirt privileges") as the dam of said Gin Pond now stands said Dam not to be raised any higher so as to cover any more land, dirt not to be got close to the Water or Dam of Said Gin Pond."

So...that is a lot of pond doin's to chew on. There's a lot more than that but it may already be too long to read. Still, it is a good chance for me to organize the information a bit and see what else new might pop up.

The pictures of the deeds (under the 2MB limimt) will not show up on this forum (work fine here, of course) so I posted them to this site with some pond pictures:

https://garylayton.smugmug.com/Farm-Hahira/Pond-pictures-test-for-PondBoss/n-28nhKd/

If these links work OK I may just post links from now on...that way I don't have to resize pictures for the forum. The 2MB limit gets a bit constraining with cameras these days.

I am not sure if the deeds are showing up...they are grayed out on my screen, but they register as attached and they appeared to upload properly. Let me know if any issues.

I can't open the mill site and spillwell pictures, i get a "this contains errors" and can't open the deeds either. Neat project.

I agree...I could not get them to come up either. I tried a different approach...they are posted to a site where I archive pictures. See if this works:

https://garylayton.smugmug.com/Farm-Hahira/Pond-pictures-test-for-PondBoss/n-28nhKd/