MARIETTA - Jack and Jill will go up the hill at historic Hyde Farm in October, but it won't be to fetch a pail of water.

The two 8-year-old brother and sister mules were purchased by the Cobb County government this week to be used for educational purposes in a re-creation of how the farmland was once plowed. Cobb County Board of Commissioners approved a request by the Cobb County Public Services Agency at Tuesday's board meeting to spend $7,800 to buy the two mules, harness gear and some plowing equipment.

Cobb purchased 45.52 acres of the farmland, which sits less than two miles from Lower Roswell and Johnson Ferry roads, using $5 million of its $40 million parks bond in 2006. J.C. Hyde, who had lived on the property since 1920, passed away in March of 2004 at the age of 94. The county also purchased the adjoining 12.95-acre Dolvin property and 4.52-acre Walker property for parking, which will have spaces for about six school buses and 35 to 40 cars. The first school group is set to visit on Oct. 2.

Hyde spent his entire life living and working on the land that was once a 127-acre farm. He and his brother, W.H., were lifelong bachelors and lived in a 1830s cabin on the property with no electricity or running water until they had the utilities installed in 1989. Hyde farmed the land with his mules, Jack and Nell, well into his 70s and lived off of a small, monthly social security check and whatever profit he received from selling his produce from the back of his pickup truck on Powder Springs Road near the Marietta Square.

The newly purchased mules will be used to demonstrate how the land was plowed when it began its use as a farm in the 1830s. Both Jack and Jill have experience using a plow, something that is rarely performed considering today's technological advancements.

County Manager David Hankerson said he traveled to Pell City, Ala., with friend and Cobb farmer Charles Kastner, DOT worker Randall Cason and his wife, Cindy Cason, who is a horse and mule trainer, Cobb County Parks, Recreation, Cultural Affairs Department Director Eddie Cannon and other members of the department. The county discovered the mules through Cindy Cason, who knew the owners in Alabama.

"What a nice coincidence that one of the mules recreating J.C.'s years of farming is named Jack," Hankerson said. "I just think it's fitting."

Kastner said they chose the two mules because they had a steady, calm temperament that would keep visitors safe from harm or surprises.

"It's very unusual to find a pair matched up like this. They're really over trained, which is perfect. They couldn't be better," Kastner said.

Randall Cason agreed, stating, "We were trying to get the best mules that would be safe around the kids so that all of Cobb County can enjoy the mules."

Hankerson said there is no existing facility on the Hyde Farm land that can safely house the animals, so they will be kept in a stable at the county's animal shelter until renovations are complete.

"They'll be brought out every so often to the farm, though, so they won't be here the whole time. And just for a few months until things are finished and we think it's OK to bring them out there for good," he said.

The county's outdoor programs manager, Rusty Simpson, said the educational demonstrations will be open to the public and school groups.

"We want to show how life was back in those days, and this land is perfect because it's never been anything but farmland. This is important because plowing like this is almost never used anymore," Simpson said.

Former Cobb County Historic Preservation Commission member Frank Duncan often visited J.C. Hyde in the early 1980s and predicted the farm's future use in a July 1986 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article profiling the farm and its farmer.

"The thought of that farm one day being a bunch of houses is just a travesty. I could see it as a living, perpetual museum and farm where people, young people particularly, could go and see a mule pulling a plow or an old farmhouse. The educational and aesthetic value of that place is just invaluable," he said.

Hankerson said, "I'm hoping there will be other mules here 20, 30, 40 years from now," Hankerson said. "We want this property to stay as it is - a piece of history."