USA > Georgia > Chatham County > Savannah > A history of Savannah and South Georgia, Volume II > Part 81
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Berrien was John Macpherson Berrien, the father of Valeria Gibbons Berrien. He was an attorney-general in Jackson's cabinet and declined the mission to England on account of domestic affliction.
Joseph Hallett Burroughs, the father of Dr. Burroughs, was a fac- tor and commission merchant, was a member of the Presbyterian church, and an old-line Whig in politics. He served as paymaster of the First Regiment of Georgia militia. His death occurred in Savannah in 1854. He and his wife were the parents of ten children, and Dr. Burroughs has a brother, Richard B., who was also a physician, and Charles J., a physician at Jacksonville, Florida. His brother, John W., was a law- yer, in Savannah.
Dr. W. B. Burroughs received his primary education in Savannah, . and completed it at Oglethorpe University, near Milledgeville, then the capital of Georgia. Oglethorpe University was destroyed during the war. At the breaking out of hostilities between the states, Dr. Bur- roughs left college and joined the Randolph Rangers as a private. This company and others subsequently became the Seventh Georgia Cavalry, and Dr. Burroughs was sergeant in Company G, of that regiment. The regiment was in Young's Brigade, Hampton's Division, Army of North- ern Virginia. With this regiment Dr. Burroughs served all through the war, participating in the battle at Borden's Plank Road, Dinwiddie Courthouse, Stony Creek and other points, and received his parole at Appomattox.
At the close of the war he took up the study of medicine under a private preceptor in Savannah, and graduated in medicine at the Savannah Medical College in March, 1867. For fifteen years he was engaged in active practice in Camden county, and accumulated a con- siderable fortune by his professional activities. When his health failed, in 1881, he moved to Brunswick, and built one hundred houses, most of them small, consisting of about four rooms, and from that enterprise has ever since been engaged in the real estate and insurance business, and a recognized authority on all real estate matters.
Dr. Burroughs for fifteen years has been vice president of the Georgia State Agrienltural Society, and for twelve years has been president of the Brunswick Agricultural Society. He has held a direc- torship in the National Bank of Brunswick, in the Brunswick Savings & Trust Company, in the Kennon Cotton Factory, in the Board of Trade, and chairman of statistics in the latter body. He is grand vice chancellor of the Knights of Pythias of Georgia. Dr. Burroughs was appointed by Governor Northen to the national Nicaragua convention which assembled in New Orleans in 1893, and in St. Louis in 1892, and at each convention was elected an executive committeeman for his state by the Georgia delegation. For five years he has been lieu- tenant governor of the Society of Colonial Wars of Georgia. He was director and superintendent of the department of education at the Georgia State Fairs held in different towns in the state of Georgia, and was appointed by Gov. Joseph M. Terrell of Georgia, to the office of director of history, and made exhibits at Jamestown in 1907. Dr. Burroughs has made many historical contributions to current periodi- cals on cotton and on the early history of Georgia.
Dr. Burroughs was reared in the Presbyterian faith, and now at- tends all denominations. He has served eight years as a member of the Brunswick board of education. On January 17, 1872, Dr. Bur- roughs was married at Waynesville, in Wayne county, Georgia, to Miss Elizabeth Pettingill Wilson Hazlehurst."oldest daughter of Maj. Leighton Wilson Hazlehurst and Mary J. MeNish, of Savannah. Her father was a wealthy rice planter of the Saltillo river, and during the
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war between the states was commissioned major of the Fourth Georgia Cavalry. Major Hazlehurst was a son of Robert Hazlehurst of Charles- ton, South Carolina. The children of Dr. Burroughs and wife are men- tioned as follows: Mary MeNish Burroughs, born in Camden county, Georgia, married Charles Walter Deming, who is in the oil and real estate business at Tulsa, Oklahoma : Lilla Hazlehurst Burroughs, born in Camden county, Georgia, and unmarried; Josephine Hallett Bur- roughs, born in Camden county, married Capt. Clyde A. Taylor, chil- dren, Clyde A. Taylor, Jr., and Lilla Hazlehurst Taylor; William Ber- rien, Jr., born in Camden county, married Ida D. Ilartfelder of Eliza- beth, New Jersey ; Leighton Haziehurst, born in Brunswick, unmarried; Mac Hazlehurst, born in Brunswick, married Miss Eliza F. MeIntosh, of McIntosh county, Georgia.
JAMES R. BOURN. Noteworthy among the industrious and enter- prising young agriculturists of Ware county, Georgia, is James R. Bourn, who has brought to his chosen calling excellent judgment and good business methods, and is meeting with signal success, his well- tilled farm lying near Waresboro, not far from the place of his birth, which occurred October 24, 1880. He is a son of John Bourn, of Ware county, and grandson of the late Col. Richard Bourn.
His great-grandfather, Bennett Bourn, the immigrant ancestor, was born in County Clare, Ireland, of Scotch ancestry. Coming when young to America, he located permanently in Georgia, buying land in Richmond county, and there being employed in tilling the soil until his death. He married a Miss Musie, who spent her entire life in Georgia, where her immediate ancestors were pioneer settlers.
Born in Richmond county, Georgia, Col. Richard Bourn grew to man- hood on the home farm, as a boy and youth becoming well acquainted with the various branches of agriculture. Settling in Ware county when ready to begin life on his own account, he purchased a tract of unim- proved land, and for a number of years was engaged in agricultural pursuits, employing slave labor in his farming operations, remaining there until 1859, when he migrated to Florida. At the outbreak of the Civil war, he offered his services to the Confederacy, and was commis- sioned colonel of a Florida regiment, which was assigned to the Army of the Potomac, in Virginia. With his regiment, he subsequently par- ticipated in numerous engagements, and was in Richmond when that city surrendered. Peace being declared, he returned to Ware county, Georgia, and was here a resident until his death, at the age of seventy- four years. Colonel Bourn married Mary Ann Taylor, who was born in Ware county. During the war between the states, she and two of her sons died of cholera, and another one of her for sons died in the army, the only survivor of her children being John Bourn, father of James R. Bourn.
Born in Ware county, John Bourn here grew to man's estate. Choosing for his life work the independent ocenpation to which he was reared, he purchased a traet of wild land lying about three miles from Waresboro, and soon after assuming its possession erected the sub- stantial log house which he has since ocenpied. Having improved quite a large portion of the land. he is carrying on general farming to advantage. His wife, whose maiden name was Sarah Deen. was also born in Ware county. Eight children were born of their union, as follows: James R., the special subject of this brief sketch; Berry D .; JJohn L .; Mary; Amy; Eva: Ruth : and Sarah. Berry D. Bonrn and John L. Bourn both attended the Wareboro high school. John L. . subsequently completing his studies at the university of Georgia, in
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Athens. Both are now ministers, preaching in the Methodist Epis- eopal denomination. and being members of the South Georgia Con- ference.
Acquiring his rudimentary education in the rural schools of his district, James R. Bonmn was graduated from the Waresboro high sehool, and for the next ten years taught school a part of each year. In the meantime he bought a farm lying one mile from the parental homestead, and in its management he is meeting with good success.
Mr. Bourn married, at the age of twenty-five years, Minnie North, of Clinch county, Georgia, a daughter of William B. and Harriet North. Mr. and Mrs. Bourn are the parents of three children, namely : Thelma, Elva, and Homer. Both are members of the Methodist Epis- copal church and are rearing their family in the same faith. In his political relations Mr. Bourn is a Democrat and takes great interest in local affairs. In 1909 lie was elected school commissioner of Ware county to fill out an unexpired term, and in 1910 had the honor of being re-elected to the same position for a term of four years.
CAPT. JOHN FLANNERY. The late Capt. John Flannery was born November 24. 1835, in Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland, and died May 9, 1910, in Savannah, Georgia, in which eity he had been a promi- nent banker and eotton factor for many years. Ile was the eldest son of John and Hannah ( Hogan) Flannery. His maternal grandmother was Catherine Fitzpatrick. deseended from the prominent Fitzpatrick fam- ily who were Earls of Ossory. ITis education was received in private schools of his native town.
John Flannery, Sr., was a merchant in Nenagh and on aeeount of general depression caused by famine and revolutions, his business be- came unsuccessful. The father and son determined to try their for- tunes in America and together they landed in Charleston, South Caro- lina, on October 26, 1851, when the son was in his sixteenth year. The father soon decided to return to his home and died at sea on the passage to Ireland.
John Flannery, Jr., obtained his first business position as a clerk in Atlanta, but returned to Charleston as soon as he could find employment there. He removed to Savannah in December. 1854, where he filled va- rious positions as clerk or bookkeeper until the opening of the war be- tween the states.
On May 30, 1861, he enlisted as junior lieutenant in the Irish Jasper Greens, First Volunteer Regiment of Georgia, Confederate army, in which company he had served his state at Fort Pulaski earlier during the same year as a non-commissioned officer. Promoted January, 1862. to first lientenant on October 20, 1862. he became eaptain of that his- toric company. Ile was in command of Lee Battery, Savannah River. for a year and until his regiment joined the army of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. During the time he was stationed at Lee Battery the gar- rison, consisting nominally of nine officers and two hundred privates. was by illness redneed to nineteen privates and one officer, Lient. John Flannery, who during the remainder of his life suffered from the effects of the malarial poison absorbed in the swamps around that post. He was with Hood's army in the disastrons Tennessee campaign, but, being at the time on detached service with his command, was not present at the battles of Franklin and Nashville. His activity in the war was brought to an end by serions illness at Corinth, Mississippi, in January, 1865. Hle was paroled in Angusta, Georgia, in May, 1865, and returned to Savannah the same month.
Prior to its consolidation with the Citizens Bank. under the name
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Citizens & Southern Bank, he was for twenty-five years president of the Southern Bank of the state of Georgia, which, during that period, was Savannah's largest bank, and of which institution he was one of the organizers and incorporators in November, 1870. After the consolida- tion he was made first vice president of the Citizens & Southern Bank, which position he held up to the time of his death.
For nearly half a century he was the leading member of one of Savannah's most prominent firms in the cotton trade. In July, 1865, he entered the cotton business as a partner in the firm JJ. L. Gnihmartin & Co. In July, 1877, he bought ont this business and changed the style to Jolm Flanery & Co., admitting John L. Johnson as a partner. On June 1, 1901, he incorporated the business under the style. The John Flannery Company, and was elected president. In 1906 he sold his interest in this company, which still bears his name, and retired from active business in the cotton trade, but up to the time of his death re- mained one of Savannah's most public spirited citizens. Scarcely an enterprise of magnitude was launched in Savannah during the last fifty years of his life. which did not receive his aid or encouragement.
Captain Flannery was a director and vice president of the Chat- tahoochee & Gulf R. R. and director of the South Bound R. R. and of the Georgia & Alabama R. R. before they were merged into the Sea- board Air Line. He was a director of the United Hydraulic Cotton Compress Co., The Savannah Lighting Co .. The Henderson-Hull Buggy Co., The Southern Pine Co. of Georgia. The Semmes Hardware Co., and the Savannah Hotel Co., owners of the magnificent Hotel DeSoto.
He was vice president. for Georgia, of the American-Irish Historical Society and was president of the Jasper Monument Association which erected the beautiful monument to the memory of Sergeant William Jasper, which has adorned Madison Square since its unveiling on Febru- ary 22, 1888.
He was a member of the Savannah Cotton Exchange from 1875 and of the Hibernian Society from 1866 until his death. He was a member of The United Confederate Veterans. The Georgia Historical Society, The Savannah Yacht Club and of the Reform Club of New York City.
He was a stanneh Democrat and took a lively interest in municipal affairs, but steadily refused to become a candidate for public office, though he served as chairman of the Savannah Sinking Fund Com- mission from 1878 to 1883, when he declined re-election.
He was a consistent member of the Roman Catholic church and con- tributed largely of his time and means to the handsome cathedral of St. John the Baptist erected in 1873 and burned in 1898. He was chair- man of the building committee for the present magnificent cathedral of the same name which was erected in 1899 and 1900. In 1873 and 1874 he was largely instrumental in the conversion of the old cathedral into the present commodions home of the Catholic Library Association on Drayton street.
Through gifts made in 1903 and others arranged for not long before his death. he created a fund of one hundred thousand dollars known as the Flannery Trust Fund to he managed by a board of trus- tees. by whom the income shall be applied in shares to varions Catholic institutions of Georgia.
Ilis life was devoid of ostentation and filled with acts of charity. ITis purse was always open to those in distress and to young men laying the foundations for future success and to enterprises making for Savan- nah's improvement.
Captain Flannery was married in Savannah on April 30. 1-67. to Miss Mary Ellen Norton, niere of C'apt. John and Kate (Harty) Me-
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Mahon, with whom she lived, and daughter of Patrick and Honora (Harty) Norton of old Locust Grove (now Sharon), Taliaferro county, Georgia, who with their relatives came from Ireland and cast their lots with the Catholic colony in which were the families of Semmes, Brooke, Scott, Thompson and others, who came from Maryland during, or shortly before 1794, and established in that part of Warren county which later became part of Taliaferro county, the cradle of Catholicity in Georgia.
Mrs. Flannery died on June 11, 1899. Of the issue of six children, only two lived to maturity, John McMahon Flannery, who died De- cember 29, 1900, and Kate Flannery, now the wife of Raphael T. Semmes of Savannah, Georgia.
HON. HENRY GRAY TURNER. In the death of Henry G. Turner in June, 1904, southwest Georgia lost one of its ablest public leaders and most influential citizens. For sixteen years he represented the second district in congress, was a successful lawyer, and had been identified by residence and professional activities for many years with the city of Quitman in Brooks county.
The late Mr. Turner was born in Granville. North Carolina, in 1839. His father, Archibald Turner, was born either in North Carolina or Dinwiddie county, Virginia, his parents having moved from Virginia to North Carolina and spent the rest of their days in the latter state. Archibald Turner was reared and spent his active life in North Carolina.
Henry Gray Turner was a child when his father died, and it was largely due to his self-reliant and purposeful efforts that he made advance to position and influence. He acquired a good education and when yet in his teens went to Alabama, where he taught school a year, and then taught for a time in Piscola Academy in the new town of Quitman, Georgia. In this way he first became known in the com- munity where he was later so prominent. At the breaking out of the war between the states he returned home and offered his services to his native state. Commissioned captain of a company in the Twenty- third Regiment of North Carolina Infantry. he went to the front and soon joined the Army of the Potomac. He led his company in many of the hard-fought battles of the great war, and at Gettysburg was wounded and captured. He was held in federal prisons until near the close of the war, when he was paroled and returned south. The war ended before he was exchanged. and he spent some time in recuper- ating at Henderson, North Carolina, where his mother and sisters were living. From there he came again to Quitman, where he took up the study of law, and after being admitted at Nashville opened an office in Quitman.
In a short time success in his profession and distinction in public affairs came to him. He was elected and served several terms in the state legislature, and in 1878 was honored by election from the second district as its representative in congress. He served for eight con- secutive terms until 1894. ITis adherence to the Democratic party was stanch and consistent. but he was unable to support the free-silver doctrine, and with the rise of that issue to dominance in the party he quietly withdrew from party leadership. During his residence at Quitman Mr. Turner had bought the land within the city limits which he improved into a beautiful park as a setting for his home, which has long been one of the most attractive places in this part of the state. Many trees adorn the grounds, and the native birds and squirrels have for years found a safe shelter among them. It was in this ideal envir-
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JAMES O .MORTON
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onment that Mr. Turner spent his last years and where death found him.
The late Mr. Turner married Lavinia Calhoun Morton, who was born in Brooks county, a daughter of James Oliver and Sarah ( Young) Morton. A sketch of her family follows. Mr. and Mrs. Turner were the parents of five children : James Morton, Henry, India, S. Morton and Archibald. The last named died in infancy, and JJames M. at the age of eleven. India is the wife of Samuel Stevens Bennett, an attorney in Albany, Georgia. S. Morton followed in his father's foot- steps and is one of the rising young attorneys of Quitman. The late Mr. Turuer was a member of the Methodist church, as is his wife.
JAMES OLIVER MORTON. One of the notable pioneers of south Georgia was the late James Oliver Morton, who died at his homestead in Brooks county in November. 1911, at the age of nearly ninety-one years. He assisted in the development of the natural resources of this region when almost the entire country was a wilderness. He was identified with the publie as well as the industrial and business affairs of his community, and for many years as president directed the welfare of the Bank of Quitman. He served as one of the first four justices of the inferior court of Brooks county. and his name deserves a perma- nent record in the history of this portion of the state.
He was born in Sereven county on the 20th of December, 1820, and by ancestry represented one of the oldest Ameriean families. He was a lineal descendant of George Morton, a native of England, who early in the seventeenth century, to avoid religious perseention, with others fled to Leyden, Holland, and from there in 1622 sailed on the ship Ann for America, joining the Pilgrim Fathers two years after their land- ing at Plymouth Rock. The Mortons and other Pilgrim families inter- married, and the Mortons of later generations have numerous relation- ship with the deseendants of other Pilgrim sires. Oliver Morton. grandfather of the late Quitman banker, was born in Plymouth, Massa- chusetts, and afterwards eame south and was one of the early settlers of central Georgia. The entire state was then sparsely settled, wild game abounded throughout the forests and all the Indians had not yet departed for their western homes and were sometimes troublesome to the settlements. Oliver Morton, like other pioneers, acquired a large amount of land and was engaged in farming in Jones county until his death.
Silas Morton, his son, was born in Jones eonnty, and moved from there to Sereven eounty, and bought a traet of land near Haleyondale which had been granted under patent from King George. There he managed a large estate with slave labor until his death. He married Sabina Archer, of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and so far as known she was a lifelong resident of Sereven county.
James O. was a son of Silas and Sabina Morton, and was reared and educated in his native county. From there he moved to BuHoch county, which was his home until 1843. when he came to what is now Brooks county, then a part of Lowndes. the county seat being then at Troupville. Few white settlers had yet ventured into this region. rail- roads were not built for a number of years, and markets were many miles distant. The land which he first bought was located five miles from the present site of Quitman, but a year later he bought land a mile and a half from town. His settlement was in the midst of heavy timber, and his first home, occupied for several years, was a log house, in which his children were born. He owned a large number of slaves. and when these were freed by the war the greater part of his wealth
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was swept away. He was never a man to be discouraged by obstacles and reverses, and he continued steadily at producing the crops of the soil, employing many of his former slaves. After fifty years have gone. one of these old slaves. now blind and feeble, is being tenderly cared for on the old homestead. From a generous prosperity gained by the operations of his plantation Mr. Morton extended his interests into various other lines, especially banking, and was for a number of years president of the Bank of Quitman. It was his enstom to drive into town every day and attend to the affairs of the bank. and he paid his last visit for this purpose just four days before his death. For more than seventy years he was constantly active. and his long and honor- able career was associated with much disinterested service and kind- ness to those about him.
The late Mr. Morton was married on the 18th of August. 1843. to Sarah Young. It was their unusual fortune to spend sixty-eight years of wedded companionship, and she is still living on the old homestead, being physically frail but mentally strong. Sarah Young was born in Bulloch county, Georgia. December 7. 1825, and was a daughter of James and Lavinia (Jones) Young. Her paternal grandparents were William and Mary ( Henderson) Young. William Young was a Georgjan who took an active part in the movements for independence, was a member of the Council of Safety appointed at Savannah on June 22, 1775, and on the 4th of July following represented the town and district of Savannah at the assembling of the provincial congress. He was later a planter in Sereven county, where he spent his last years. and the remains of himself and wife now repose on a hill overlooking the Ogeechee valley.
Mr. and Mrs. Morton were the parents of two children. The only son, Simeon L., in early life was a student of the Quitman Academy and when the war broke out enlisted with the Savannah Guards. He served throughout the war, participating in many of the most notable battles, and lost his life on one of the last battlefields of that four years' struggle between the states. The daughter, Lavinia Calhoun. is the widow of the late Henry G. Turner of Quitman.
WILLIAM HARDEN was born in Savannah. November 11, 1844, son of Edward J. and Sophia II. (Maxwell) Harden.
As the war came on and young Harden, when less than seventeen years of age, enlisted for service in the army, his education was not so complete as otherwise it would have been. Under the circumstances. he received the best educational training available at that day in private schools in Savannah. His first teacher was Miss Elizabeth Church : for about two years he was a student under Prof. Bernard Mallon. then principal of the Massie school. and later superintendent of the public schools of Atlanta. Also, for a time, Mr. Harden was a student under W. S. Bogart, principal of Chatham Academy. His student days, how- ever, did not end with his academy days, for. indeed, he has been a student all his life-a student of human nature-a student of the motives and deeds of men and the histories of nations.
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