On my first trip back to the South in some 30 years, I set about locating Tingle Road. I was surprised to learn there was a Tingle Road. But Joan said there was one in Blount, Georgia.
We pulled off the interstate from Atlanta to Macon to see if we were headed in the right direction. When I said we were looking for Blount, the kid behind the desk said, “What would you go there for?” I said I had people there though I didn’t tell him they were all underground.
Blount is one of those places you wouldn’t know existed unless you had a map telling you it was there. As far as I could tell it was just a crossroads with the Payan Baptist Church sitting there at the junction. Church was just getting out, so I approach a fellow, and asked did he know where Tingle road was, and he said Mrs. So and So might know, her being the local historian. Mrs. So and So was a really old, little lady and she said all I had to do was turn to the right at the first dirt road right past the church—that would be Gregory–drive on it a bit, till I crossed a little bridge and pretty soon after that on the left would be the entrance to Tingle road.
Sure enough we found Tingle Road and drove on it till we saw the chimneys marking the Tingle House of Archebald Daniel Tingle I believe that had burnt to the ground some time in the 1930’s. The remains of seven chimneys suggest a pretty big establishment. But we couldn’t see much beyond that because the undergrown was so thick, and I had heard there were plenty of ticks in there.
I wanted to drive clear to the north end of Tingle Road though Carol was getting a little freaked out what with us driving on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere and on private property too, though there didn’t seem to be a living soul anywhere about. I insisted on driving a bit further, till we topped a knoll and saw that the road ahead was ankle to knee deep mud. I decided to exercise a little prudence then.
I don’t if it was that trip or the next one but eventually we drove around and found the north end of Tingle Road near Mount Vernon Baptist Church located just across the county line in Butts.
Recently, checking out Goggle maps, I learned to my disgruntlement, that Tingle Road is disappearing. The road is still there but for some reason the people in the area have renamed the road especilly at the north end. But maybe Google maps made a mistake because they call the north end of Tingle Road, Teagle Road. Teagle is awful close to Tingle, don’t you think.
Here’s a link to a Google Map of the South End of Tingle Road. The old Tingle place is located on what Google calls Tingle Road.
