USA > Georgia > A standard history of Georgia and Georgians > Part 57
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But Upper Georgia was populated almost exclusively by immigrants who came from the western part of North Carolina and from the border counties of Virginia. These immigrants were sturdy pioneers, men of strong museular frames and fearless spirits, well fitted for life on the perilous frontier. Wilkes County was the center toward which all the converging lines of immigration ran when this section of Georgia was opened to settlement just after the Revolution. Indeed, as early as 1773, Stephen Heard had planted a colony of Virginians on the site of the present Town of Washington, where he built a rude pioneer fort, after- wards called Fort Heard or Heard's Fort. Governor Wright had ae- quired an extensive tract of land in this neighborhood under a treaty with the Indians, negotiated in the year above named. It was to Heard's Fort that the seat of government was shifted when Augusta fell into the hands of the British. John Talbot, a wealthy landowner from Virginia, also acquired an extensive grant of land in Wilkes County at an early period, but it was not until after the Revolution that he migrated to Georgia. Then a tremendous influx of population began. Gen. George Mathews, afterwards twice governor of the state, purchased in 1784 what was known as the "Goose Pond" tract, on Broad River, where he planted a colony of Virginians, from which some of the most distinguished men of the state afterwards sprung. Included among the Virginia families in this distriet, some on the east side of the river in what is now Elbert, others on the west side in what is now Oglethorpe, were the Meriweth- ers, the Gilmers, the Taliaferros, the Barnetts, the Freemans, the Bibbs, and others. It is more than likely, however, that the first comers into Wilkes were North Carolinians and that a preponderating element of the population were from the Tar Heel State. Elijah Clarke, himself a North Carolinian, organized on the frontier belt of Wilkes a band of partisan rangers, at the head of which he waged a relentless warfare against the Tories. So rapid was the growth of population in Upper Georgia after the Revolution that, in 1790, when there were only 85,000
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people living in Georgia, 31,000 of these resided in Wilkes. As a rule, the Virginians were better educated than the North Carolinians; they also possessed more of the comforts and luxuries of life; and they found congenial if not lucrative employment in raising tobacco, a plant which they had learned to cultivate in the Old Dominion. Prof. Lawton B. Evans has given us a glimpse into the life of these tobacco planters. Says he: "In the northern part of the State, a great deal of tobacco was raised. The tobacco, when cured, was pressed into huge and securely bound hogsheads. Around the tops of these hogsheads were pinned wooden felloes, which made a wheel at each end, and in the center of each head a large pin was inserted to serve as an axle. A hickory pole was split at one end to form shafts, which were fastened to the axle. Mules or oxen were hitched to the pole, and as they moved they drew the hogshead along. Many of these teams would go together for company, and the drivers were called tobacco rollers. A road known as the tobacco road begins in the upper portion of the State and winds in and out until it reaches the Savannah river below the shoals in Richmond county. A peculiarity of this road is that nowhere is it crossed by water, this having been necessary to save the tobacco from injury by wetting. When the river was reached, the hogsheads were placed on flatboats and floated to Savannah." *
Life in the Georgia uplands was diversified at this time by all the 'sports incident to pioneer days, chiefly, of course, hunting and fishing. But carousals, frolies and dances made existence a dream in hours of relaxation. Fights between rowdies during court week were of constant occurrence, at which time, also, whiskey flowed freely with the cus- tomary effects. Shooting for prizes and horse-racing were both favorite pastimes. Whenever a contest of the former sort was held a beef was usually quartered to furnish the trophies. There were few books in the homes of these people, most of whom lacked even the rudiments of an education.
Between the upcountry and the coast settlements there was little com- munication except of a strictly business character; and in relation to each other they stood in almost polar contrast. But there were multi- tudes of small farmers, in the lowlands of the state, scattered among the pine barrens to the south and west of Savannah, just as there were thou- sands of well-to-do planters in the distant hill country, where the Georgia cracker built his cabin fires and tilled his scant acres of ground.t
* "History of Georgia, " p. 192.
t ORIGIN OF THE EXPRESSION-"GEORGIA CRACKER."-Whence originated the ex- pression "Georgia Cracker"? The antiquarian who will answer this conundrum with proof to satisfy the questioner will incur the gratitude of posterity for all time to come. In the "New International Encyclopedia" it is said that the term was derived from the custom of the poor whites in the mountainous districts of the South whose practice it was to crack the corn which they ate. Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston carries the genesis back to the time of the American Revolution when, among the followers of Gen. Francis Marion, in the guerilla warfare which he conducted in the Carolina swamps, there were a number of Georgia rangers who were nnusually expert in handling the rifle, the erack of which was heard with great alarm by the British soldiers, who referred to the riflemen as "Georgia Crackers." Bill Arp theorizes that, when the thrifty Scotchmen, who lived about Darien, came in contact with the worthless elements of the upper country, they called them
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During the Revolutionary period there were no class distinctions, except as these were implied in the terms Whig and Tory. But soon after the elose of hostilities, we find the beginnings of social easte; and between Virginians and North Carolinians there eame to be as much antagonism as between the uplanders and the coast planters. Indeed, the bitter partisan politics of Georgia's early days grew out of these differences. John Clarke, a North Carolinian, was supported almost as a unit by settlers from the Tar Heel State. On the other hand, William H. Crawford, a Virginian, was followed with an unwavering loyalty by all who had emigrated from the Old Dominion. Between these two great leaders there was waged for years one of the bitterest fights known to Georgia politics. As a rule, the cultured aristoerats of the coast were allies in politics of the Virginia element, while the small farmers in the low country made common cause with the North Carolinians.
Governor Gilmer, a Georgian, born in the Broad River settlement, of Virginia parentage, has left us a raey account of how the North Caro- linians lived. It must be taken, however, with some allowance of dis- count, as the old governor was not without his full share of venom, in this day of feudal animosities. Says he: * "These North Carolina settlers lived upon game and the milk of the eattle carried with them in their emigration. Ilogs, sheep, and poultry were not to be had except in the fewest numbers. It was a hard time when the breakfast of a family depended upon eatehing an opossum overnight or a rabbit in the morning. The range was so unrestricted that the eows often wandered away beyond returning or finding, so that the children had no milk to wash down their otherwise dry bread. The plow horses had to be turned on the wild grass to get their food. They strayed away beyond finding if their legs were not fastened together, so that the art of hobbling was as important as the blacksmith's. Bells were put upon them for the purpose of indieating their whereabouts, and then the Indians, if on the frontiers, carried them off. It was a long time before the children had more than one biscuit apiece on Sunday mornings. There were no tan- neries or well-instructed shoemakers. Skins were hung in running streams till the hair could be slipped off, and then they were tanned in a trough. Most went without shoes the greater part of the year. The first houses were log cabins with dirt floors and clapboard eoverings. Toads and serpents were often found erawling over the floors. The rattle of the rattlesnake and the ery of the panther often sent the ehil- dren home in a hurry when hunting the cows. After working all day
"eraekers" from an old Gaelie word which meant "idlers" or "hoasters." But Lawton B. Evans, whose "School History of Georgia" is an excellent epitome of things Georgian, says that the term may easily have originated in the accomplish- ments of the wagon-drivers of North Georgia. In the days which antedated the iron- horse, they developed the most marvelous skill in cracking the whip, making the reports sound like rifle-shots fired in quick succession. It will be seen from this digest of opinions that the authorities are somewhat at variance; but whatever may be the true parentage of the expression it came to be applied to the mountain whites who lived in North Georgia; and sometimes the term is applied to Georgians generally by people in other states when disposed to sneer or in speaking with the broad license of good-natured raillery.
* "Gilmer's Georgians," pp. 178-179. Vol. 1-28
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they sat around the hearth at night picking the lint from the cotton seed. Their only fruits were wild haws and grapes."
Continuing his portrayal, Governor Gilmer adds: "All work, little play, no fruit, poor eating, thin clothing, open houses, hard beds and few blankets, made children hardy or killed them. No novels, pianos, or idlness filled the heads of the girls with vain imaginings. The singing at the. meeting houses of the primitive Baptists tempted few to attend for the sake of the melody. The great pleasure indulged in by the young people was dancing at night. The married women sought recreation from their six days' work hy visiting their neighbors on Sunday. The men went to musters, shooting matches and horse races on Saturdays. House- keepers treated their friends and their own families to a pudding when company came, and the man of the house drew forth his bottle of whiskey. The clothing of the girls was provided by their own weaving. Hollow trees provided cradles for their babies. The preacher and the school-master, the first to commence the onward march of civilization, were very slow in reaching outskirt settlements. Most who did were drunken Irishmen or dissolute Virginians, who found the restraints of society in the Old Country too binding for their comfort, and, there- fore, moved to the new. It appears from the records in the Court of Ordinary of Wilkes County that five out of sixteen wills had the maker's mark put to them instead of their signature."
Perhaps nothing will better serve to throw light upon social condi- tions in Upper Georgia at the close of the eighteenth century than to examine some of the old wills. Doctor Smith has preserved a num- ber of inventories, from which we get not only an insight into the prices paid for certain commodities at this time, but also an insight into how these people lived on the pioneer belt. Let us look at the following list : *
One negro boy, £50; 1 bed, 7s .; 1 pail and 1 piggin, 4s .; 1 wash-tub, 2 keelers, 4s .; 1 horse, £24; 1 saddle 00; 1 razor and 2,000 acres of land in Richmond County, £50; 1 old gray horse, 5s.
Another appraisement shows:
One sorrel mare, £6; 1 mare, £1; 1 horse, £3; 1 horse colt, £4; 6 head cattle, £20; 1 negro boy, £20; 1 negro girl, £30; 1 axe, frying-pan and pothook, 5s .; 1 linen wheel, 5s .; old pewter, 15s .; butter-tub, 2s .; 5 old feather beds, £5; 1 pot, 10s.
Another estate was :
Four negroes, 3 ould basins, 7 plates, 1 frying-pan, 1 piggiu, 1 earthen plate, 2 chairs, 1 table, 2 sides leather.
Another was :
Thirteen negrocs, 6 horses, 7 sheep, 60 hogs, 23 cattle.
And another :
Sixty hogs, 8 sheep, 10 cattle, loom, knives and forks, flax wheel, turkey feather bed, 9 plates.
In 1795 an inventory calls for :
Eleven negroes, 29 hogs, 1 still, 30 pounds pewter.
Up to this time the only well-furnished house is that of a physician in Washington, and the only library is that of Mr. William Rogers, a teacher. The condition of the roads and the difficulty of transportation
* "Story of Georgia and the Georgia People, " George G. Smith, p. 136.
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forbade anything like the complete furnishing of any home, but, as is seen, a few years after the Revolution there was a great abundance of the necessaries of life.
These inventories give a better insight into the domestic affairs of the first settlers than any general description.
Concerning the mode of life prevalent at this time among the Vir- ginians, Doctor Smith gives us this hit of information. Says he : " Imme- diately after the Revolution, there was a large influx of Virginians who were in better circumstances and who brought with them from Virginia, in their large wagons, a supply of better furniture. As illustrative of this, we have the furniture of John Wingfield, or, as he is written, John Winkfield, who died in 1798. He had, besides a sufficient supply of plain household and kitchen effects, some articles mentioned in no other inventory np to that time. They were bacon, sugar, turkeys, a riding chair, some books, some lard, and some table-cloths. He had twenty-seven negroes, the largest number reported up to that time. * * * These slaves and those of the low country planters were of a very different elass. Though Africans by lineage, they were Virginians by birth. In looking over the tax-lists in Wilkes, there is not a slave- holder who has over thirty negroes up to the beginning of the century, while on the coast there were not a few slave-holders who had largely over one hundred." *
As to the difficulties sometimes encountered in administering justice at this time, Governor Gilmer says: "Prisoners, in the absence of a jail, were bound with hickory withes and confined occasionally by put- ting their heads between the rails of a fence and sometimes by putting them in pens." To this Doctor Smith adds: + "The Tories had little chance for fair trials. In 1779 seven were condemned at one court. According to the records, one man was indieted for treason, hog-stealing, horse-stealing. and other misdemeanors. Even after the war, when a man who was accused of stealing a horse from General Clarke was ae- quitted, the old soldier arrested him and marched him off to a conveni- ent tree and was about to hang him anyhow, when Nathaniel Pendleton, a distinguished lawyer, succeeded in begging the poor fellow off."
Pioneer life in Greene, a county on the upper border, detached from Washington, in 1786, is pictured by Doctor Smith in the following para- graph. Says he : # "The first settlers lived on the creeks and near the river, and for their own protection in close proximity to each other. A blockhouse was generally built at a convenient distance, and the families npon the approach of the Indians fed to it for protection. The men left their families in the blockhouse and went into the fields to cultivate the corn patches from which they hoped to make their bread. Until the ces- sation of the Oconee war there was constant peril and the immigration of people of means was small; but by 1790 there were five thousand four hundred and five people in the several counties then known as Greene, of whom one thousand three hundred and seventy-seven were negroes.
* "Story of Georgia and the Georgia People, " George G. Smith, pp. 137 139.
+ Ibid., p. 137.
# Ibid., p. 159.
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There was constant apprehension of Indian forays and troops of soldiers were kept under arms.
"In 1794 there was a troop of dragoons commanded by Captain Jonas Fouche, of which we have a roster in White's collections."
Closely approximating the style of life found on the Georgia coast was the comparative ease, elegance, and luxury in which some of the planters of Burke lived during this period. Governor Telfair owned extensive plantations in this county. The Town of Waynesboro was an aristoeratic center, in one of the charming homes of which President Washington had been entertained on his visit to Georgia in 1791. To quote from this same authority on Georgia's early days: * "Nowhere was old Virginia life of a century gone by so reproduced as in Burke sixty years since. The large plantation was under the management of the overseer. The faetor in Augusta or Savannah cashed the drafts of the planter and supplied his larder with such luxuries as he might desire from the eity. His carriages and his horses were of the best order, and he supplied his library with the best books and periodicals. The wealth he enjoyed he had inherited, and he was often dependent upon the sagacity of others to keep it from leaving him. This was one kind, and the number was not large, of Burke county planters, and there were a few in all the neighboring counties of the same class. Then there were others much more numerous who had made their fortunes by hard work, and who, while they gave their children all that wealth could seeure in the way of luxury, were themselves hard-working, close-trading men, who read no books and put on no style, but who knew how to manage negroes and make eotton. Then there was a class of poor plain people who lived in the pine woods, few of whom had any slaves. They lived in log cabins on small bodies of land, and lived by their own labor. They rafted ranging timber down the Savannah river, made shingles in the cypress swamps, and raised some cattle and sheep. They had little to do with the wealthy people of the oak woods, and knew but little of them. There was no county in the State before the war began in which there was a worthier, more contented or more prosperous people than the people of Burke county. The wonderful cotton-producing quality of the land turned the county into one great plantation, except in the pine woods. Negroes increased in numbers, and men who began life with a few found themselves the owners of scores."
But to return to the upcountry. One of the great difficulties of this early period was to secure competent instructors even in the rudi- mentary branches of an English education. Governor Gilmer's first teacher was a vagabond sailor, "who used to whip the children on eold days for exercise." He turned out to be a thief and fled the country between two suns. If one desires to make a more intimate study of social conditions in Georgia, at this time, he is referred to Judge Long- street's delightful little volume entitled: "Georgia Scenes." Here he will find portrayed "The Militia Drill," "The Gander Pulling," "The Horse Swap," "The Shooting Match" and "The Village Fight" of a century ago. To the charming contribution made by Judge Longstreet to the literature of this period may be added the famous "Dukesboro
* "Story of Georgia and the Georgia People, " George G. Smith, p. 131.
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Tales," from the cultured pen of Richard Malcolm Johnston. Both of these writers have embalmed for us many rare phases of life in Georgia during this remote period. It was an era of transition, an era of great hardships and perils, an era in which good and bad were strangely blended; and at some of its inconsistencies we cannot suppress a smile. For example, whisky drinking was universal. Every one drank. In fact, the nearest approach to temperance at this time was drinking in moderation. It was not in the least inconsistent for a church member either to distil corn whisky or to make peach brandy, if he produced a good article. Says Doctor Smith: "One of the best men in Georgia, an enthusiastic and liberal Methodist, who, because he thought slavery was wrong freed all his slaves, but left his still to his son, who like himself was a Methodist class-leader."
Georgia's population, at the close of the eighteenth century, as indi- cated by the Federal census of 1800, was 163,000 inhabitants, showing an increase of 100 per cent in ten years. There were no large towns in the state. Savannah, the chief center of population, numbered 5,000 in- habitants; and was practically the only seaport. Neither Brunswick nor St. Marys possessed much importance as ports of entry ; while Sun- bury-once a rival of Savannah-was fast disappearing from the map. Georgia's principal exports, most of which passed through the port of Savannah, were lumber, rice, indigo, corn, cotton, sago, naval stores, deer-skins, snake root, myrtle and live-stock. These were valued in round numbers at $1,750,000. Her imports were relatively of much less importance, consisting of produce from the West Indies, dry-goods, wines, ciders and teas. These were consumed largely by the wealthy classes who lived in the tide-water region; and only a very small per- centage of what was imported reached the upcountry where conditions of pioneer life prevailed. But the state's population was steadily in- creasing. Streams of immigrants from the two Carolinas and from the border counties of Virginia began rapidly to pour into the state as new counties were opened for settlement, contributing fresh elements of strength to Georgia's population.
Up to this point, we have discussed at some length the beginnings of a great state, dealing largely with fundamental things upon which the future growth of the commonwealth was to rest. We have shown how Georgia entered the Federal Union, how a state constitution was framed under which Georgia was to live contented for sixty-three years; how a great university was planted from whose fountain springs her intel- lectual life was to be nourished; how a monstrous fraud was exposed and repudiated; how a great religious awakening shook her virgin solitudes, re-enforcing the moral weapons with which she was to fight the forces of evil; and now, having completed this task, we find ourselves at the portals of a new century, into whose unexplored depths fresh paths invite us.
HISTORIC OLD RUCKERSVILLE: A RURAL COMMUNITY OF THE ANTE-BELLUM SOUTH .- On the banks of the Savannah River, in the good old County of Elbert,. famous in ante-bellum days for its rich tobacco plantations and for its fine old colonial mansions, owned by wealthy settlers from Virginia, there flourished before
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the war an aristocratie community, known as Ruckersville. It was the birth-place, in after years, of Associate Justice Joseph R. Lamar, of the Supreme Court of the United States. Here, too, was born the brilliant novelist editorial writer, Mrs. Corra White Harris. Joseph Rueker, the chief potentate of the village, around whom the activities of this rural community, in large measure, centered was Judge Lamar's grandfather. Some idea of this unique character, and of the neighborhood in
JOSEPH RUCKER Ante-Bellum Financier and Planter
which he lived, may be gleaned from the following account: Whoever writes of old Ruckersville the Ruckersville of ante-bellum days-to write intelligently, must speak of a whole community! Not those alone who lived within the confines of a small incorporated village of some 200 souls, but of the many who resided along the banks of the Savannah River in the southeastern belt of Elbert County, Georgia. Socially, politically, and in all matters of religion, they were one large family; and it may be doubted if there existed, anywhere, just previous to the great Civil war, a
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people so hardy, so independent, or with such lofty ideals of right living. When it is pointed out that iu their business activities they were almost wholly agricultural, the volume of their prosperity is truly amazing.
It was the fixed habit of these people to practice the Golden Rule. Obedience to the law of the land was rigidly enjoined; and a man's word was his bond. To take advantage of another was regarded as beneath good morals, to get into lawsuits was to a man's discredit, and while the annals of the village reveal that here lived the preacher and the school master, the banker and the doctor, the merchant and the tailor, the wheelwright and the surveyor, yet no lawyer ever had the hardihood to hang out his shingle in Ruckersville, and when Ruckersville furnished a member of the Legislature for the county, he went from the ranks of those employed in agriculture.
Many of the most familiar names in Middle Georgia may be traced back to Virginia, and to that tide of immigration which about 1786, began to flow southward from the Old Dominion, and, hence, it came to pass that Ruckersville, Virginia, and Ruckersville, Georgia, were both founded by members of the same family. When Peter Rucker, planter of St. Mark's Parish, Orange County, Virginia, died in 1742, he left a large off-spring. The Virginia village was named in honor of this family, and it fell to the lot of his great grandson, through Thomas, and Cornelius, and John, to name a village in Georgia, Ruckersville! This great grandson was Joseph, the son of John Rucker, and Elizabeth Tinsley, born on January 12, 1788. In his young manhood, he was fortunate enough to win the affections of Margaret Houston Speer, daughter of William Speer, who lived at Cherokee Falls, on the Savannah River. They were married in January, 1812, and settled on the head waters of Van's Creek. Early in life, Joseph evinced the strength of character, which marked him a leader among men. In later years he often said that he owed everything to his mother to whom he was a devoted son.
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