USA > Georgia > Floyd County > Rome > A history of Rome and Floyd County, State of Georgia, United States of America; including numerous incidents of more than local interest, 1540-1922, Volume I > Part 31
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"You are hereby authorized to de- duct the $20 and send the remainder to me by Adams & Company's Ex- press.
"CHAS. H. SMITH." "(This is confidential.)"
"P. S .- A friend of mine has just shown me a letter from your firm to him, making him the same proposition which you have made to me; and he professed some suspicion, but I as- sured him that you knew we were in- timate friends, and that we would di- vide the prize between us, or you thought that possibly one of us might be away from home.
"C. H. S."
"P. S. No. 2-As I was about to mail this, another friend confided to me a similar letter to him. I am at a loss to know how to satisfy him. Please give me the dots.
"C. H. S."
THE NOTE.
"$20-On demand I promise to pay Gilbert & Co. twenty dollars, provid- ed the finely-arranged package of tickets which they have selected for me draws a prize of not less than $200.
"CHAS. H. SMITH."
-Tri-Weekly Courier, Jan. 17, 1860.
"BILL ARP" ON ROME .- (By J. D. McCartney, in Rome Tribune-Her- ald, July 21, 1920) .- Mrs. Harriet Connor Stevens came up from Cave Spring the other day and brought me some papers that had been the prop- erty of the lamented Prof. Wesley O. Connor, her father. They are very interesting. One of them contains a speech of Samucl J. Tilden made in September of 1868 that is well worth reading today. The others are the last issue of the Rome Courier and the first issue of the Tribune of Rome, bearing date of Oct. 2, 1887.
I shall have more to say about those papers from time to time, but the subject of today's sketch is an ar- ticle in the "Southerner and Commer- cial," a tri-weekly bearing date of April 10, 1870. It is entitled "Ancient History of Modern Rome," and is from the talented pen of Major Chas. H. Smith ("Bill Arp"). Older Romans de- lighted to read Bill Arp's writings and I am sure the younger generation, too, will enjoy the style as well as the sub- stance of his words about the begin- nings of Rome, quotations from which follow :
"In the year 1832, the county of Floyd was laid off by the government surveyors, and in 1833 the county site was fixed at Livingston (a place about 12 miles distant, and. situated near the South bank of the Coosa). A few houses were built and one court held there by Judge John W. Hooper. About this time a number of the fortunate drawers in the land lottery were scek- ing to take forcible possession of the very homes of the Indians. Judge Hooper did not deem this just until the Indians were paid for their im- provements, and he therefore granted many bills of injunction at the in- stance of Judge Wm. H. Underwood, the leading counsel for the tribe.
"In the year 1834 a Rome town com- pany was formed, consisting of Z. B. Hargrove, Philip W. Hemphill, Wm. Smith and D. R. Mitchell. The upper portion of the town was surveyed and laid off into town lots. Favorable propositions were made by the com- pany to the county authorities, and Rome was made the county site in 1835. The frames of some of the first houses erected were brought up from Livingston on kecl boats, one of them occupied by Dr. G. W. Holmes, and another by Col. Sam Gibbons. The old- est house in the place is a small tene- ment next above the fire engine house. The first court was held by Judge Owen H. Kenan in a log cabin 16x18, erected on Academy Hill, and the grand jury held their first session in a lime sink a few rods distant. The diligence and energy of the town com- pany, and the many advantages of the location, soon began to attract men of education and means and commercial influence. In a short time Rome be- came a market for a considerable ex- tent of territory. Many of those who co-operated in giving vitality and im- petus to the place are long since dead and gone, but as long as Rome has a record, the names of John H. Lump- kin, William Smith, Dennis Hills, Jobe
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Rogers and James M. Sumter will be remembered when her early history is recalled.
"In the days of these pioneers, Rome was but a hamlet. From a single point a school boy's bow could send an arrow beyond the farthest house. All that portion of the city now known as 'down town' was a stately forest of aged oaks, and the best society of Howard Street were the owls who hooted from their hollows. Until about the year 1850, Mr. Norton's store was the extreme Southern boundary of all improvements. The first hotel was kept by Francis Burke, in the house now occupied by Dr. Holmes. Not long after, James McEntee built and kept up a public house for many years. Ifis blunt Scotch ancestry made him a universal favorite, and we are glad to know that he still lives near us in the enjoyment of good health. The hotel built by him is now known as the residence of Dr. J. B. Underwood. Euclid Waterhouse, a man well known in commercial circles, opened the first store in the place. Nathan Yarbrough, Judge Lamberth and David Rounsaville were his competitors in the mercantile business.
"Wm. Smith was the first sheriff of the county. In the year 1834 he had to perform the unpleasant duty of hanging two Indians, Barney Swim- mer and Terrapin, found guilty of the murder of Ezekiel Blatchford (or Braselton). He represented this coun- ty in both branches of the General As- sembly. He was defeated for re-elec- tion because of his bold and strenuous exertions to
change the projected route of the Western & Atlantic (state) railroad between Chattanooga and Atlanta so as to include Rome. He was a man of wonderful energy and foresight, and it is universally conceded that he did more than any other person to insure the progress and prosperity of the little city. It was chiefly his influence that made Rome the county site; his urgent ef- forts that caused the building of the first steamboat, that projected the first railroad (the Rome), and that in- duced the coming of such men as Col. Alfred Shorter, A. M. Sloan, Wm. E. Alexander, John H. Lumpkin and others of like means and spirit. He died in 1850, and, as is too often the case, before the happy results of his foresight and energy were fully real- ized.
"J. T. Riley and wife were the first couple married and now live in the town. Col. A. T. Hardin and Morris
Marks are the old merchants who are still engaged in that occupation. Judge Kenan was succeeded by the following judges, in the order named: Turner H. Trippe, George D. Wright, John W. Hooper, John H. Lumpkin, Leander W. Crook, Dennis T. Hammond, L. H. Featherston, J. W. H. Underwood and Francis A. Kirby. John Townsend was the first foreman of the first grand jury, and the first bill of indictment found was against the Indians Choosa- kelqua and Teasalaka, charged with assault with intent to murder.
"From the year 1840 Rome con- tinued to make substantial progress. In the year 1845 a steamboat was built at Greensport, Ala., by Capt. John Lafferty. For months the rude settlers in the adjacent counties had heard of the 'varmint,' as they called it, and when the time came for its first trip to the junction at Rome, the scattered inhabitants gathered in
camps along the banks to see the 'var- mint' go. When it did come, it was to these rude settlers a show equal to a circus. At one point, more than 100 people had congregated, the men all wearing coon-skin caps with coons' tails hanging down their backs. One very consequential and 'highly-educat- ed' patriarch, Squire Bogan, of Cedar Bluff, Ala., stood forward to make a reconnoisance and give the crowd the benefit of his vast learning. He saw the large letters 'U. S. M.' painted on the wheelhouse, and underneath them the letters Coosa. He spelled it over carefully, letter by letter, in a loud tone of voice, and after a third ef- fort, declared: 'I've got it, boys. Its name is Use 'em Susy!' The ‘var- mint' never got rid of this nom de plume. In the course of time, other steamboats were built, and a branch road from Kingston to Rome project- ed.
"Even the newspapers adopted the name. Bill Ramey and Tom Perry built a little boat that they said could snake its way through any shoal when the rivers were not a foot deep. In fact, Ramey used to swear his craft could run on dry land if there was a thick fog or heavy dew.
"From the days of steamboats and railroads the history of our city is too familiar to be rehearsed, but I will venture to remind you in closing these remarks that the lamps which have lit her pleasing progress have not always been brightly burning. There have been shadows, and still are shadows, which set in mourning the happy pros- perity of our city. Dark lines are
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drawn around, and the stricken heart beats sadly the knell of our heroic dead. Noble sons, husbands and fath- ers are missing-missing from here tonight. They have been long missing from the fireside and the forum, from the farm, the shop and the counting room, from court, church and hall."
TURN ABOUT WANTED. - A Floyd County farmer, attacked by his neighbor's bull-dog, defended himself and badly wounded the dog. The irate neighbor said: "If you had to use that pitchfork, why didn't you go at him with the other end?" The farmer replied, "Why didn't he come at me with the other end of him?"
SHERMAN'S GEORGIA SWEET- HEART .- In the Lucian Knight Geor- gia historical books and elsewhere is found a charmingly romantic story of Civil War days and before in which a Roman played an important part. Marcellus A. Stovall, of Augusta, later of Rome, in 1836 had entered 'the United States Military Academy at West Point and chosen as roommate Wmn. Tecumseh Sherman, an eagle- eyed lad of 16 from Mansfield, O. Cadet Stovall was a brother of Miss Cecelia Stovall, a noted Georgia belle and beauty, who presently on a visit to her brother became a favorite among the dancing set at the academy.
In the forefront of her admirers stood young Sherman, who did not fail to make capital out of the fact that he was her brother's bosom friend; and it was whispered that the Ohioan, highly diffident toward the average young lady, had been smitten beyond hope of redemption by the dark-eyed girl from Georgia. The his- torians record that on one occasion when he was diplomatically sparring for a snug place in Miss Cecelia's af- fections (it may have been a straight- out proposal), she said quite frankly :
"Your eyes are so cold and cruel. I pity the man who ever becomes your antagonist. Ah, how you would crush an enemy!"
To which he replied gallantly, "Even though you were my enemy, my dear, I would love you and protect you."
Joseph Hooker, of Massachusetts, a graduate of West Point in the class of 1837, was another who claimed many dances with Miss Cecelia and whose heart sank within him when she returned to her Southern home.
Still another was handsome Richard B. Garnett, a West Point graduate in charge of the arsenal at Augusta, whose geographical position gave him a decided advantage over the others and who got to the point of acceptance of his proposal. However, parental objection was raised, and Dick Gar- nett went to his death at Gettysburg in 1863 with the image of lovely Ce- celia Stovall graven on his heart; he had never married, and when the Grim Reaper cut him down he was a general and one of the bravest men in the army of Northern Virginia.
It may have been a coincidence that Wm. T. Sherman, then a lieutenant, was assigned in 1845 to detached duty at this same arsenal at Augusta; he may have wanted to see his old room- mate, but more than likely he pined for sight of Miss Cecelia. However, if he sang the old love song over again, her answer was the same, and here was one citadel, at least, that an irrepres- sible West Pointer could not take by storm.
So with Dick Garnett, a noble son of old Virginia, who could trace his ancestry back to Adam; but he was on a salary that would little more than care for two. Miss Cecelia's
GEN. MARCELLUS A. STOVALL, roommate at West Point of Gen. Wm. T. Sherman, who became the sweetheart of Miss Cecelia Sto- vall.
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proud parent, Pleasant Stovall, once a resident of Athens, desired that she should marry a man of wealth and in- fluence. She was forbidden the pleas- ure of young Garnett's company and sent to visit relatives in South Caro- lina. There she met Capt. Chas. Shell- man, whose suit was favored by daugh- ter and parent, and so they were mar- ried.
Lieut. Sherman's stay in Augusta terminated abruptly; in 1850 he mar- ried his adopted father's daughter, Nellie Ewing, and his biographer re- corded many years later that she was his "first love." Marcellus A. Stovall moved to Rome in 1846, and he was soon joined by his young half-brother, George T. Stovall, who became asso- ciate editor of the Rome Courier and was killed at First Manassas. Here the beautiful sister visited them often.
In 1861 Capt. Chas. Shellman built for his Augusta princess the mansion on the Etowah River, near Carters- ville, known as "Shellman Heights." Three more years passed, until Sher- man's army of human locusts swept down from Chattanooga, trampled on Rome and continued into Bartow County. As the torch brigade set fire to this establishment and that, Gen. Sherman's attention was directed by a fellow officer to a fine mansion on a hill. "Looks like the palatial retreat of an old plantation grandee," re- marked this personage. Sherman and his staff went to the place and ad- mired its Colonial columns and its at- mosphere throughout. An old negro mammy sat on the front steps moan- ing her life away. "Oh, Ginrul, whut yo' gwine do? I sholy is glad Missus Cecelia ain't here to see it wid her own eyes !"
"Miss Cecelia?" queried Gen. Sher- man, as the little hob-goblins began to prance around his memory chest. "Who lives here, auntie?"
"Missus Shellman,-Ceclia Stovall Shellman, sur, an' she's gone away now, bless her politeness!"
"My God!" exclaimed the warrior. "Can it be possible?"
Momentarily he bowed his head, a lump formed in his throat, he swal- lowed hard and his eyes became moist. On learning from the old woman that Mrs. Shellman had sought safety in flight, Gen. Sherman ordered his plun- dering soldiers to restore everything they had taken, and he placed a guard to protect the premises. Then he said, "Auntie, you get word to your mis- tress that she will be perfectly safe in
returning here, and when you see her, do you hand her this card from me."
On his card Gen. Sherman had writ- ten, "You once said I would crush an enemy, and you pitied my foe. Do you recall my reply? Although many years have passed, my answer is the same now as then, 'I would ever shield and protect you.' That I have done. For- give me all else. I am only a soldier.
"W. T. SHERMAN."
Later came Gen. Joseph Hooker, soon to be cited for bravery in the Bat- tle of Atlanta. Learning the situa- tion, he repeated the orders of Gen. Sherman, shed a tear over a boxwood hedge and departed on the chase which was the forerunner of the famous March to the Sea.
The armies gone, Miss Cecelia re- turned to Shellman Heights, gazed out over the winding Etowah, and breath- ed a prayer and a poem to friendship. There she passed the rest of her days. On Jan. 1, 1911, fire took Shellman Heights, uninsured, and today the spot is but a shadow of its former self, but it will always live in memory.
When Gen. Sherman approached Au- gusta from Savannah, the Augustans took their cotton out of the ware- houses and burned it, anticipating that he would destroy everything when he arrived, and preferring to do a part of it themselves. The surprise of every- body was great, therefore, when Gen. Sherman made a detour across the Savannah River into South Carolina and left their beautiful city unmolest- ed. There may have been military reasons, but Augusta folk to this day declare he spared the town because it had been the home of the heroine of his romance at West Point.
In 1915, faithful to a promise he had made to Miss Cecelia and to him- self, old Uncle Josiah Stovall, the fam- ily slave and master's bodyguard, turn- ed up at the G. A. R. reunion at Washington to thank Gen. Sherman for sparing the home. This old "Ches- terfield in charcoal" carried a carpet bag grip, a heavy hickory cane, and wore a silk hat and a sleek broadcloth Prince Albert coat. His head and chin were full of African cotton and he attracted considerable attention as he tried to get out of the way of traffic. To a policeman he confided that he had come to find Gen. Sherman, and wanted to thank him "in pusson," and to claim a gift he vowed Sherman had promised him.
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"You're out of luck, old man. Gen. Sherman won't be in the parade today. He's been dead nearly 25 years."
"Oh Lordy, white folks, den dis nig- ger's sholy got to march back to Geor- gia !"
MARTHA SMITH'S POLITICAL COUP .- In 1844 when pretty Martha Smith was 13 and riding a pony into town to school from her father's home on the Alabama Road, and was begin- ning to "dress up" and attract the boys, she was taken by Col. Smith on a trip to Milledgeville, then capital of the state. Colonel Smith was a mem- ber of the Legislature and as an ardent Whig was boosting the stock of Zach- ary Taylor for President. He was to make a speech at the town hall or opera house, and various speakers were to tell the virtues of Taylor to his Baldwin County friends and any oth- ers who might wish to be enlightened. Now, the indulgent father had bought his daughter a beautiful new hat, of which she was highly proud. He left her shortly before the meeting with a friend stopping at the hotel and the friend escorted her through the town square to a seat in the front of the hall. As the chairman rapped for or- der and introduced Colonel Smith, and a few enthusiasts yelled "Hurrah for Taylor and the Whig Party!" Miss Martha strode down the aisle. She was dressed in a becoming pink and blue frock, and her new hat was the cause of an uproar. Colonel Smith looked embarrassed; halted for a mo- ment, and a wag rose in his seat and yelled, "Hurrah for Polk
and the Democrats !"
Miss Martha, being for Polk and having that afternoon raced through the nearby stubble fields, had trimmed her bonnet in a garland of pokeber- ries. The meeting broke up in con- fusion; Polk eventually got the nomi- nation and was elected. The irate father did not speak to his little daugh- ter for a week.
JEFFERSON DAVIS ARRESTED BY ROMANS .- Miss Mary W. Noble, of Anniston, Ala., relates the follow- ing unpublished incident of May, 1855, in which her family, traveling from Reading, Pa., to Rome, lost about $4,000, accused Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, of stealing it, and actually had him arrested at Augusta, and consented to his release only after he had shown papers establishing his identity. Mr. Davis had graduated
from the United States Military Acad- emy at West Point, N. Y., in 1828, and had left his seat in Congress in 1847 to enter the Mexican War. His service in this war was so meritorious that when Franklin Pierce was elect- ed President in 1853 he appointed Mr. Davis his Secretary of War, and Mr. Davis held that position until the elec- tion of James Buchanan to the Presi- dency in 1857.
Miss Mary writes:
"In 1855, while on a visit to the South, my father, James Noble, Sr., stopped at Rome. My brothers, at Reading, especially Samuel, were anx- ious to obey Horace Greeley's injunc- tion 'Go West, Young Man,' but my father had practically decided to set- tle at Chattanooga, Tenn. However, my father met two old-time Southern gentlemen, formerly of South Carolina -Col. Wade S. Cothran and John Hume, Sr .- who were so courteous and who advanced Rome's glories so ad- mirably that he wrote the boys to put the machinery at Reading on a sailing vessel and bring it to Charleston, whence it could be transported by train and overland to Rome.
"In May of that year the older boys embarked from Philadelphia for Charleston, and my parents and my- self, Stephen N., then about 10, and my sisters, Jane, Susan, Eliza Jane (Jenny), Josephine and Elizabeth (Lilly), started from the same city to Charleston by train. On reaching Charleston, we discovered that the reg- ular train had left, but that we could be accommodated in a caboose at- tached to a freight train which was going as far as Augusta. It was Sun- day afternoon when we boarded the caboose. We were carrying a large carpet bag filled with valuables, in- cluding about $4,000 with which we expected to start our new machine shop and foundry enterprise at Rome. In the caboose with us was an English family on their way to the Duck mines of Tennessee, with whom our parents became friendly because of their own English birth, and at Branchville, Or- angeburg County, S. C., two quiet, well-dressed gentlemen in civilian clothes, about 50 years of age, board- ed the train as the last passengers before Augusta was reached.
"It was at the suggestion of the conductor that we had determined to travel in the caboose. Our trunks were in the baggage room, and fearing he would not have enough money to pay our way home, my father had opened
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one of the trunks, removed the carpet bag (which also contained jewelry and papers) and extracted enough in bills to see us all the way. On looking up, we noticed the conductor peering at us through a window. Then the conductor rushed into the baggage room and shouted, 'Hurry up; train's about to leave!' and at the same time grabbed the unlocked trunk and began to pull it out on the platform. My father stopped him long enough to lock the trunk; and then he took the carpet bag into the caboose and put it under the trunks in a compartment which was separated from the seating sec- tion by a thin partition. In the room with the trunks was a bench or a settee, and my sister, Jane, being tired, reclined on it.
"When the two strangers got on at Branchville, one of them went into the room where my sister was. She arose and came back where we were, and he took the seat behind her, leaned over and apologized for his intrusion, saying he was unaware the room was occupied. He talked pleasantly to her for about ten minutes.
"About 6 o'clock the next morning we reached Augusta, when lo and be- hold, the carpet bag was gone, and with it our $4,000. Our parents were much excited, and accused the con- ductor, recalling that he had pecked at the valuables through the window, and that he had been in such a hurry to remove the trunk. The conductor denied the charge, and pointing at the two strangers, said, 'There are the thieves.' Suspicion seemed to involve the two, so they were arrested right there on the platform by an officer whom my father had summoned. The strangers politely but with some show of feeling proclaimed their innocence. Quite a scene had been produced and a crowd had gathered. The taller of the two declared, 'Sir, I am Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, and my com- panion is an officer of the United States army.' They produced papers of identification and were released with an apology from my father, who then proceeded to press the original charge against the conductor. How- ever, the conductor had disappeared, and as our train for northwest Geor- gia was about to leave, we dropped the matter for the time.
"On reaching Rome we consulted a lawyer, who promised to investigate, but we were strangers in a strange land, our father unknown save through short acquaintance with Col. Cothran, Mr. Hume and a few others; our story
was doubted and nothing was done. Some time later we received a state- ment by mail, I believe from a Cath- olic priest, to the effect that he had at- tended a conductor following a fatal accident, who had confessed to him on his deathbed that he had passed the carpet bag out of a window to a con- federate between Branchville and Au- gusta.
"When the Civil War broke out and Mr. Davis was chosen President of the Confederacy, with his headquar- ters at the seat of government at Montgomery, Ala., the Noble foundry at Rome was taken over for the manu- facture of cannon, and my father had to consult frequently with Mr. Davis at Montgomery concerning orders. Mr. Davis always alluded with a smile to the incident at Augusta and sent his regards to mother and the girls; and my father never failed to respond with a gracious apology and a nice compli- ment on Mr. Davis' fortitude and abil- ity in the trials of the war.
“In connection with Confederate cannon it may be appropriate to men- tion that Col. Josiah Gorgas, father of Gen. Wm. C. Gorgas, U. S. A., whose engineering skill made possible the Panama Canal, visited Rome fre- quently as chief of ordinance for the Confederate States government, and occupied as the guest of the Noble family the front upstairs room at 304 East First St., Rome, which overlooks the First Presbyterian churchyard, and we always called this 'Gorgas room.' Quite a friendship existed be- tween Col. Gorgas and my father, which in after years was cemented between Gen. Gorgas and Robt. E. Noble, a surgeon in the United States Army, and son of George Noble. Dr. Robt. Noble was closely associated with Gen. Gorgas for seven years in Pan- ama, then spent six months with him in South Africa, studying fever causes. The two were on their way to Africa again when Gen. Gorgas was stricken and died in London. My nephew re- mained until after the funeral, then took up his duties as assistant surgeon general of the army with the expedi- tion."
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