Oxford, Georgia, encompasses 2 1/2 square miles and some 2,000 residents — not counting the zebra who recently overnighted at Oxford College's Seney Hall, courtesy of a zany prank.

There are no sidewalk cafes or bowling alleys anywhere in the Newton County community. No Six Flags Over Oxford.

JILL VEJNOSKA / jvejnoska@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Thirty-one identical stone tablets mark the graves of fallen Confederate soldiers in a small cemetery on the Oxford College campus. Tucked along a nature trail, it speaks to the tragedy and - occasionally - the anonymity of dying during war.

JILL VEJNOSKA / jvejnoska@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

The two doors in the original, central section of Old Church, built in 1841, are where men and women entered separately. Now the church is used primarily for special events.

JILL VEJNOSKA / jvejnoska@ajc.co (ENLARGE)

Seney Hall at Oxford College overlooks the quad, the bell in its clock tower ringing every half hour and on notable occasions (graduation, signifying the reopening of the college after the Civil War). The building, which contains academic offices, was where a zebra smuggled in by pranksters, spent a night on the third floor last April.

Photos OXFORD OMNIBUS Oxford is located off I-20 in Newton County about 40 miles east of Atlanta. Take Exit 90 onto U.S. 278 east toward Covington/Oxford. Turn left onto GA 81/Emory Street. For more about Oxford attractions: www.oxfordgeorgia.org: The city's Web site has information on local history and a walking tour of the town. A printed version of the tour (some of which you may want to drive) is at City Hall, 110 West Clark St. www.oxford.emory.edu: The Oxford College site offers information about the college and surrounding town. www.emory.edu: The historical section of Emory University's site (look under "About Us") details Oxford's key role in Emory's formation and continued growth. Don't miss the Oxford-specific entries under "Controversies and Enigmas." www.newtontrails.org: Learn about the Newton County Trails-Path Foundation Inc. and its Newton Trails program. Georgia travel stories Town is artisan-friendly  Five romantic spots for the newly wed  Art, music and scenery  Your pick: Pottery, berries  Charleston graciously gives Savannah 'Most Mannerly' title  Photos: Travel / Southeast Galleries Latest deals! Back to: Travel | Southeast destinations Travel Guide Powered by

No way, in other words, I should have been able to spend six very diverting hours there on a recent sultry day.

Methinks maybe "Uncle Tobe," Oxford's resident mischievous ghost, had a hand in that. More on him later.

For now, suffice to say that a visit to this little corner of Fauxrope is well worth the price of admission. Which is basically nothing. Which aligned perfectly with my summer plan to experience all the benefits — and none of the debits — of going to "Europe" without ever actually leaving the state.

Already, Rome, Vienna and Dublin, Ga., had proven entertaining stops. But could this Oxford, located some 40 miles east of Atlanta, possibly compare to the original, which has a population of about 150,000, has existed since before people said "methinks" (about the 10th century) and whose famed university has graduated King Edward VII, T.S. Eliot and Mr. Bean (actor Rowan Atkinson)?!

Is the Queen British?

Methinks so. Meanwhile, the two Oxfords turn out to have much in common, as this comparison shows:

• There: Home since 1096 A.D. to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world. The second-oldest university started in 1209 when "some Oxford students moved to Cambridge," according to vaguely polite historical accounts. (Other, blunter, accounts, suggest they may have had to move, following a "dispute" with Oxford townsfolk.) Whatever. They're big-time rivals.

• Here: Home since 1836 to Oxford College (originally "Emory College"), it's the first American town to be a designated shrine of the United Methodist Church. Atlanta's Emory University essentially started here (Specifically, Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler offered bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South $1 million and 72 acres to build a university in Atlanta in 1914.). Now — no rivalry here — Emory undergrads can do their first two years at Oxford College of Emory University.

• There: During England's Civil War, the college became King Charles I's headquarters for four years — even though the town supported the other side, led by Parliament. Charles lost and was beheaded in London in 1649.

• Here: During America's Civil War, an attic on Asbury Street reputedly became a hideout for Zora Fair (aka "Oxford's Confederate Spy Girl"), who was wanted for infiltrating Sherman's Atlanta headquarters. "It's been repeated enough that I think it basically is true," Brenda Payne, current owner of the circa-1840 house, says of the Zora legend. "Although I'm sure it's been added to."

• There: Thirty-two of the best-and-brightest U.S. college graduates (among 80 worldwide) get to study whatever they want gratis for two years at Oxford as Rhodes Scholars.

• Here: Oxford Trail, in the woods behind Old Church, is the first segment of a network of paths for pedestrians and bicyclists that the "roads scholars" at the nonprofit Newton Trails organization hope to construct countywide.

Dry history, humor

When Georgia Methodists established the town of Oxford in 1837, they offered 125 lots that originally carried 999-year leases. With one major stipulation: "No intoxicating liquors shall be sold, nor any game of hazard allowed on the lots." Yikes!

Turns out you can imbibe in Oxford these days — "There'd be a lot of people in jail otherwise," Lorrie Gladden of the Oxford Historical Shrine Society laughed when I inquired, purely for professional reasons. But you'd better BYO banana daiquiri, as Oxford has no real business district.

Fortunately, bustling Covington, where TV's long-running "In the Heat of the Night" was shot, is just minutes away. And after arriving in Oxford, I figured I'd be there within two hours, tops, taking the "Carroll O'Connor Slept Here" tour. Oxford, with its wide, tree-lined streets and academic backdrop, was just so darned calm and peaceful. Which — considering I-20's only a mile away — turns out to be an inestimable part of its charm.

Meanwhile, "calm and peaceful" appearances can be awfully deceiving. Remember, somebody smuggled a zebra into the college! ("Damage included the predictable biological consequences of confinement ..." Dean Stephen Bowen wryly posted on the Oxford College Web site.) Here's what else turns up when you scratch Oxford's seemingly placid surface:

A Civil War setting

• Old Church, living history: Built in 1841, Old Church (a newer one opened in 1910) has a past that's as colorful as its white clapboard exterior is serene. Male and female worshipers used separate front doors and sat in divided pews; blacks sat in a rear balcony that may or may not have been added during the height of slavery.

But it was also here that Emory College president Atticus G. Haygood preached about the good emancipation could create in "The New South" in a 1880 Thanksgiving sermon that drew national attention. From 1862-64, a plaque notes, the church was used as a Confederate hospital.

• Little house, major issues: "Kitty's Cottage" behind Old Church was the home of a young female slave inherited by Bishop James O. Andrew with the stipulation that Kitty be given the choice (and means) of emigrating to Liberia at age 19; but Georgia was all Kitty had known and she remained.

If Kitty's choice was untenable, Bishop Andrew's was extremely difficult: Georgia law prohibited freeing non-emigrating slaves, and Northern Methodists objected to a bishop owning slaves. The cottage, where Kitty Andrew Shell lived on Andrew's property and continued to work for his family although she ostensibly was free, was their uneasy solution.

Soon after, the slavery issue would cause the Northern and Southern Methodists to go their separate ways.

• Survivors and casualties: The Oxford College campus is centered on the jewellike Quad, where Seney Hall's bell peals every half-hour. (Cast in 1796, it survived the Civil War because the Confederate Army declined college trustees' offers to melt it down for armaments.) Historic college homes dot the town. An 1836 Greek Revival home at 1205 Wesley St. has housed deans and presidents since 1889; Dr. Isaac Hopkins, Emory's ninth president and Georgia Tech's first, lived at 1111 Wesley. Florida Hall, a handsome 1845 farmhouse that still stands on West Clark Street, was home base to students from Florida.

Back on campus, at the site of a Civil War military hospital, a small cemetery contains 31 marked graves of Confederate soldiers who died during 1864. Some markers are etched with names, home states, even military units; the hardest to forget are the handful that simply read "Unknown."

Time with "Uncle Tobe"

The ghost of another young man haunts Oxford, as I discovered at Orna Villa, the oldest house in town. An early owner, Dr. Alexander Means, was a minister, physician, Emory College president and father of nine — including Tobe, a freethinker who didn't want to go to college. After a tense father-son argument, Tobe stormed out, and never returned.

Maybe.

Several generations of Orna Villa residents have reported strange, late-night occurrences that they attribute to Tobe's ghost. Nanette Watson, owner for the past five years, said they sometimes discover their wine glasses have been removed from a cabinet and lined up on the butler's pantry floor. Overnight guests have heard unexplained knocking on the downstairs bedroom door where Dr. Means treated patients, including Civil War soldiers.

Watson actually likes having "Uncle Tobe," as she calls him, around; when I stopped by, she said he hadn't been there for about seven months. Her three sons aren't quite as comfortable when they come home from college: "They won't sleep without fans going, their earphones in and each other nearby," she laughed.

I laughed too. Hard. Right up until the moment I tried to take a few photos in that downstairs bedroom and a red light I'd never seen before (or since) on my jammed camera blinked furiously. Then my pen suddenly ran out of ink.

I'm not saying that Uncle Tobe was sufficiently annoyed by a nosy reporter's presence to create trouble.

I am saying I was rattled enough to want a good stiff drink afterwards.

Darn those 999-year leases!

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