Henry County Siftings
By T. Larry Smith
Vol. 14, No. 26
Covington Planter Company Celebrates 100 years
The Covington
Planter Company, Inc. of Albany, Georgia is celebrating the 100th
anniversary of the Covington Planter in 2011.
The W. F. Covington Planter Manufacturing Company was started by William
Franklin Covington in Headland, Alabama in 1911; the company was briefly moved
to Montgomery, Alabama in 1917; and back to Headland in 1922; next the company
moved to Dothan, Alabama in 1925; and then moved to Georgia in 1981 where the
Covington Planter brand is still being designed and manufactured in Albany,
Georgia in 2011 for today’s modern farmers. The company incorporated in 1913 in
Headland, Alabama. The stockholders included W.F. Covington as President; J.J.
Espy, a Headland banker; and Dothan bankers George H. Malone and E.R.
Malone. The company has been
incorporated several times through the years with various Covington family stockholders
and others. The attached image depicts several company employees standing
around the first model of the Covington Cottonseed Planter produced in Headland’s
W. F. Covington Planter Manufacturing facility in 1911.
William (Will) Franklin
(Frank) Covington, Sr., (1876-1951) was born in Dale County, Alabama at Bertha
on Nov. 22, 1876. His Parents were Perry
Franklin Covington (1854-1903) and Louisa Catharine Hunt Covington (1854-1937). Will was the eldest of seven siblings :
Calvin Claude and Alfred Abner Covington (twins), Lyman Lewis Covington, Parry
Cleveland Covington (Mabel Cotton), Robert Reynolds Covington, Vera Bertha
Covington (Thomas S. Redding), and Ethel Covington (Prof. William S. Sconyers –
a Principal of Headland’s former Henry
County High School). Will Covington was
educated in a private boarding school in Ozark, Alabama. He became a master farmer, a scientific agriculturalist,
an inventor, and a civic, political and religious leader who spent his life
improving agricultural methods for southern farmers. William F. Covington married Eleanor Connerly,
daughter of C.P. and Joanna Fluker Connerly of Shorterville and Louisville,
Alabama. Will and Eleanor became parents
of Menefee Covington (child death in 1900), William F. Covington, Jr., and
Rosalyn Covington (C. Graham Carson).
Will’s father, Perry
F. Covington, purchased two tracts of pineland totaling 195 acres east of
Headland in 1897. Next, he purchased 3.5
acres running from Cleveland Street thru to Depot Street (now South Main St.)
in Headland from Pocahontas (Pokie) Long Granberry and husband R.C.
Granberry. Pokie was a niece of S.E.
Alabama’s U.S. Congressman W.C. Oates from Abbeville, and she was kindred of
Dr. W.S. Oates who had sold the lot to the Granberrys in 1887. P.F.
Covington persuaded his eldest son, Will, to move from Dale County to Headland
in 1899 to clear his pineland for cultivation.
Will organized the “Old Fraternal Union of American Lodge” in Headland
in 1899 and sold insurance for the lodge.
During this time, Will Covington served as the first rural mail carrier
at Headland; he carried mail for route #4 for five years delivering the mail by
bicycle and later by motorcycle. He was
also employed by the International Harvester Company selling windmills and farm
machinery. Will became editor of the Headland Post newspaper for a number of
years. In 1909, Will tried to persuade
the U.S Department of Agriculture to establish an agricultural experiment farm
at Headland. The department failed to establish the farm; however, the
agriculture dept. did agree to supervise all manner of farm experiments and
demonstrations on his farm. By 1911, his
farm was a veritable experiment farm with his many agricultural experiments and
ideas. Will F. Covington registered the
6th and the 19th automobiles to be registered in Henry
County from 1909 to 1911. He first resided on Headland’s West Church Street;
that home later became the S.R. Vann, Sr. home and it still stands. Will next moved to Cleveland Street on the
plot where his father lived until his death in 1904. This beautiful W.F. Covington home was almost
destroyed in the 1912 deadly tornado. Mr.
Gary L. Smith and wife Pat remodeled this home in 1993. This W.F. Covington home also still stands.
By 1910, Will
had become dissatisfied with mule drawn cotton planters in use at that time. He conceived an idea of planting cottonseed
in hills various distances apart, so he began trying to develop such a
planter. He was named V.P. of the Henry
County Fair Association in 1911; he was also V.P. of the Southeast Alabama
Farmers Institute Society. By 1911, Will
had perfected his invention of a new type of cottonseed planter, and was
selling to local farmers on a trial basis.
On April 15, 1911, W.F. Covington, Sr., was commissioned by the Alabama
State Board of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to act as the
very first Henry County Agricultural Farm Agent, as so requested by officials
at API (now Auburn University). His farm
agent office was located in Headland.
The following year in 1912, the Alabama Extension Service was created,
and Will Covington stepped aside, for Frank Murphy of Henry County to become
the second man to be county agent; however, Frank Murphy was the first Henry
County farm agent employed by the Alabama Farm Extension Service.
In 1912, Mr.
Covington organized a company in Headland to manufacture the mule drawn Covington
Planter. By 1913, he received a U.S
Patent for his planter and incorporated the Covington Manufacturing Company in
Headland. W.F. Covington, Sr., owned
the first radio in Headland. He would
place speakers in his front yard for local citizens to gather and listen to a
radio for the first time for many. He
operated the Covington Cotton Gin with four gin heads. His first cotton gin stood in the vicinity of
where the present Headland Farmer’s Co-Op now stands on hwy 134-W. His next cotton gin stood in the vicinity of Headland’s
old water tank. During will’s days as a
farmer, cotton was diseased with blight.
After years of research, he developed a variety of cotton which was not
subject to wilt. He marketed this cottonseed as “Covington’s-Toole Wilt Resistant
Cotton.” He sold thousands of tons over
the south for planting purposes.
In January of
1913, Mr. Covington purchased the wood frame building that was built in 1904 by
Rev. S.J. Knowles as a guano factory.
This became the home for Covington Planters in Headland. The building still stands along the railroad
just west of the Headland Train Depot site.
This building was later purchased by Headland’s Mr. Emory Solomon in the
1950’s, and he had the building’s exterior covered with tin and was used as his
office. Will served as Headland City
Councilman in 1916. During the year of
1917, Mr. Covington removed his manufacturing plant to Montgomery, Alabama;
however, after WWI ended and the economic downturn occurred reversing his
planter business, Will decided to move his planter business back to Headland in
1922, where he began to prosper again.
In 1925, at the suggestion of Dothan banker, George H. Malone, Will
decided to move Covington Planter Company from Headland to Dothan, Alabama. In 1928, Headland was chosen as the site for
the first new Wiregrass Experiment Sub-Station & Farm. Part of that station farm later consumed
lands from Mr. Covington’s personal experiment farm. From 1931 to 1935, Mr. Covington served as
Recording Secretary for Alabama Governor B.M. Miller in Montgomery. In 1932, Will designed a new type of
fertilizer distributor known as the “Double-Knocker” double-stream
distributor. He sold these all over the
south. He experimented with this
combination planter–fertilizer distributor for the Ford-Ferguson Tractor
Company for sales to distributors; in 1949 he began selling nationally. He also designed for other national tractor
companies. He invented a foot powered
paddle boat with water wheels on each side of the boat, testing the boat in the
McClenney Mill Pond north of Headland. In
1946, Covington Planters of Dothan moved to a new 20 acre site and into a
40,000 sq. ft. building designed by Will Covington, Sr., on the Dothan-Headland
road on the then outskirts of Dothan; which included land for testing
equipment. Will was selling 15,000 to 20,000 units a year. This building still remains, having been used
for various other purposes including an Antique Mall outlet.
William (Will)
Franklin Covington died on March 8, 1951 in a New Orleans hospital after an
illness of three weeks at age 76 and was buried in the Headland Baptist
Cemetery. He was an active member of the
Headland Baptist Church. Will was still managing
his company at the time of his death.
The company was re-incorporated in 1951 by his son, W.F. Covington, Jr.,
as President; Mrs. W.F. Covington, Sr., as V.P.; and Will’s son-in-law, C. Graham
Carson, Jr., as Sec.-Treasurer. The
company remained in the Covington family until 1980 when W.F. Covington, Jr.,
(1903-1980) of Dothan, Alabama died. The
company was then sold in 1981 and removed to Georgia where the company is still
operating as Covington Planter Company in Albany. The Covington
Planter Company is now owned by prominent Atlanta, Georgia investor, C. Mark
Pirrung, who also owns several companies including the old Cole Planter Company,
est. in 1885, which he purchased in 2003 and moved to Albany, Georgia. W. F.
Covington, Sr., had a vision 100 years ago at age 35 in Headland, Alabama - and
his dream continues to aid farmers across the U.S. and the world.
- More Anon!
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