USA > Georgia > Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I > Part 21
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In the summer of 1889, the Georgia Normal and In- dustrial College came into existence by an act of the State Legislature. Hon. William Y. Atkinson, then a representative from Coweta County, afterwards Gover- nor, was the author of the bill to establish this great institution. The corner stone of the main building was laid with impressive ceremonies, on November 27, 1890, and the college was formally opened for the reception of pupils, on September 30, 1891. The usefulness of this great school to the State has been demonstrated by the most thorough test. It stands today a monument to the practical statesmanship of the far-sighted man who, until the day of his death, was the President of the Board of
Directors. Much is also due to the splendid power of organization which the first executive head of the institu- tion, Professor J. Harris Chappell, brought to the helm of affairs. Dr. M. M. Parks, the present executive head of the institution, took charge in 1903; nor could the mantle of authority have fallen upon worthier shoulders. Dr. Parks is broadly equipped by scholarship, travel, and experience for the duties of his high position, and under him the command to halt has never once been given. The famous old executive mansion, which for years sheltered the Governors of Georgia, is now one of the dormitories
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of this institution. . It also contains the office of Dr. Parks.
Baldwin's Distin- In addition to the long line of Gover-
guished Residents. nors who, from 1807 to 1868,
sojourned officially at Milledgeville, there were many distinguished Georgians who were permanent residents of the town. Governor David B. Mitchell, for whom a county in Georgia was named and who twice filled the executive chair, lived and died in Milledgeville. Thomas P. Carnes, a native of Maryland, came to Milledgeville for the practice of law soon after the seat of government was located at this place. He represented Georgia in Congress, from 1793 to 1795, in association with Abraham Baldwin and George Matthews. He was the first Judge of the Western Circuit, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1798, and a commissioner to run the line between Georgia and Tennessee. The town of Carnes- ville, in Franklin County, was named for him; also the Carnes road, an important highway in the early days, running from Augusta northward.
General Jett Thomas was a resident of Milledgeville. He served with distinction in the War of 1812, under General Floyd, and afterwards became an officer of high rank in the militia. He superintended the construction of the first buildings occupied by Franklin College at Athens, after which he took the contract for the State House at Milledgeville. Thomas County was named for this eminent Georgian.
Judge L. Q. C. Lamar, Sr., father of the distinguished jurist and statesman of the same name,-himself a man of rare attainments, styled the great Judge Lamar,- lived and died at Milledgeville.
Major Joel Crawford also lived here. He was a veteran of the war of 1812, a member of Congress for
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four years, and a commissioner to survey the boundary line between Georgia and Alabama. He was at one time a candidate for Governor. Major Crawford died on his plantation in southwest Georgia, near the present town of Blakely.
Seaton Grantland, who represented Georgia in Con- gress from 1835 to 1839, was a distinguished resident of Milledgeville. He was for years editor of the Southern Recorder, a paper which he founded in association with Richard McAllister Orme. The late Fleming G. du- Bignon, one of the most brilliant men of Georgia, was his grandson.
Dr. Tomlinson Fort lived here. His father, Arthur Fort, was a patriot of '76, sat in the Council of Safety, served on the field, and took an active part in shaping early State legislation. Dr. Fort raised a company during the War of 1812, went to the front, and was crippled for life by a wound received in the knee. He was afterwards twice elected to Congress.
Judge Iverson L. Harris, who served on the Supreme Bench for two years, was a resident of Milledgeville. Judge E. H. Pottle, of the Northern Circuit, also lived here. Two of his sons have lately risen to distinction : J. R. Pottle, of Baxley, the newly appointed Judge of the State Court of Appeals, and J. E. Pottle, of Milledgeville, Solicitor-General of the Northern Circuit and trustee of the University of Georgia.
Here lived Judge Daniel B. Sanford a gallant soldier and a much beloved citizen for whom the local camp of Sons of Confederate Veterans was named.
Dr. Samuel K. Talmage was for years President of Oglethorpe University, an institution of learning located near Milledgeville. He was an uncle of the noted Brook- lyn divine.
Brigadier-General George P. Doles lived here. He was killed at Cold Harbor, on June 2, 1864, at the age
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of 33, one of the youngest of Confederate officers. He was a nephew of Bishop George F. Pierce. The list of distinguished residents also includes, Miller Greeve, who succeeded Seaton Grantland as editor of the Southern Recorder; Augustus H. Kenan, a member of the Confed- erate Congress : William H. Torrence, Hines Holt, Robert Rutherford, and William Y. Hansell, noted law- yers ; Zachariah Lamar and Leonidas Jordan, planters who amassed large fortunes, and scores of others too numerous to mention in detail.
BANKS
Created by Legislative Act, December 11, 1858, from parts of two coun- ties: Habersham and Franklin. Named for Dr. Richard Banks, one of the most noted practitioners of medicine on the frontier of Upper Georgia. Homer is the county-seat. Origin of the name unauthenticated.
Richard Banks was a noted antebellum surgeon. His professional circuit is said to have embraced an area of one hundred square miles; and he wielded an influence possessed by few men in public life. He was born in Elbert County in 1784. At the University of Georgia he was a class-mate of the great jurist, Hon Joseph Henry Lumpkin; and after receiving his diploma from Athens he took his medical degree at the University of Pennsyl- vania. This man of extreme modesty settled in the little country village of Ruckersville to practice his pro- fession ; but so pronounced was his skill as a surgeon, that he soon became known throughout Upper Georgia, while he attended numbers of patients in South Carolina. He was veritably a knight of the saddle-bags, spending the greater part of his time on horse-back. He was found as often at the bedsides of the poor as of the rich; and, thoughi his fees were sometimes large, he never made them an object. In 1832, he removed to Gainesville, where he resided until his death in 1850. The Federal government often employed Dr. Banks to visit the Chero-
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kee Indians, and he earned the gratitude of the red men by some very marvelous cures. He was notably success- ful in operations upon the eye, removing a number of cataracts, and was almost unrivalled in lithotomy cases. Some years before his death he stated to a friend that out of sixty cases of the latter character only two were un- successful. It was due to the universal esteem in which he was held by the masses that when a new county was created in 1858 out of the territory over which he trav- eled the people insisted upon calling it Banks, in his honor-
Original Settlers. See Habersham and Franklin, the parent counties, from which Banks was formed.
To the pioneer list may be added these names: P. C. Key, Joshua Owens, Logan Perkins, W. R. Bell, S. W. I'ruett, and a number of others.
BARTOW
Created by Legislative Act, December 3, 1832, from Cherokee County. It was first called Cass, in honor of General Lewis Cass, of Michigan. But the subsequent views of General Cass on the issue of slavery, caused a revulsion of feeling at the South; and on December 6, 1861, the name of the county was changed to Bartow, in honor of the illustrious hero of Manassas, Colonel Francis S. Bartow. Cartersville, the county-seat, was named for Farish Carter, Esq., the wealthiest of Georgia's ante-bellum land-owners. When first organized the county included a part of Gordon.
Francis S. Bartow: Francis S. Bartow was an impas-
"I Go to Illustrate sioned advocate of State Rights. Georgia." Young, magnetic, eloquent, his voice was raised with dramatic power from more than one platform in favor of secession; and wherever he spoke he fired his auditors into a frenzy of enthusiasm. He was a gifted member of the Savannah
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Bar and a conspicuous figure in the military circles of the State. On the eve of secession, at the head of his com- pany, the Oglethorpe Light Infantry, he participated in the famous seizure of Fort Pulaski. At the outbreak of hostilities, he resigned his seat in the Confederate ·Con- gress, at Montgomery, to plunge at once into the vortex of arms. Colonel Isaac W. Avery, a member of the gal- lant band who accompanied him to Virginia, tells the pathetic but splendid story in the following terse para- graph. Says he :* "President Davis called the Con- federate Congress together on April 29, 1861, when im- mediately an act was passed authorizing the enlistment of troops for the war. Francis S. Bartow, chairman of the military committee, was Captain of a volunteer com- pany in Savannah, the Oglethorpe Light Infantry, of which the writer was a member. The company was organized in 1850. Capt. Bartow was in communication with the company, and as soon as the act authorizing the enlistment of troops was passed, he communicated the fact to his company by telegraph. Thereupon a meeting was promptly called. The writer well remembers the spirit of that meeting. Amid a storm of enthusiasm and excitement a resolution was unanimously passed tender- ing the company for the war to the President. The tender was flashed over the wires in hot haste, and the accep- tance was sent back as quickly, Capt. Bartow immediately seeking Mr. Davis. To this superb company of young men, scarcely one of whom was married, an organization made up of the best young citizens of Savannah, sons of her old and honored families-belongs the honor of having been the first company in the entire Confederacy to give its services to the South for the whole war. The company left for Virginia; on May 21, 1861, escorted to the depot by the entire soldiery of Savannah, together with swarming throngs of citizens. Amid salvos of artillery and shouts of approval from the assembled populace, the train moved off with this splendid young
* History of Georgia, by Isaac W. Avery, pp. 198-199, New York, 1881.
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organization. They bore arms belonging to the State and carried them without the consent of the executive. This rape of the guns elicited a tart correspondence be- tween Gov. Brown and Capt. Bartow, in which some harsh things were said on both sides, which probably each of these patriotic gentlemen would have wished unwritten. Gov. Brown contended for the State's author- ity. Capt. Bartow repelled what he regarded an assault upon his patriotism. In his letter he used an expression which, in connection with his early and glorious death at Manassas, became a marked utterance. He said: 'I go to illustrate Georgia.' All of these incidents-the par- ticipation in the seizure of Fort Pulaski, the forcible taking away of the State's guns, the controversy over them, the fact that the company was the first to enlist for the war, Capt. Bartow's high position in the Confederate Congress, all tended to make the Oglethorpe Light In- fantry, of Savannah, a company of note. Together with other troops it was subsequently organized into the 8th Georgia regiment, and Capt. Bartow was made Colonel. The surgeon was Dr. H. V. M. Miller, so prominent in Georgia politics, who afterwards presented a handsome portrait of Bartow to the Young Men's Library Associa- tion of Atlanta. The regiment was finally commanded by Colonel Lucius M. Lamar, a handsome and gallant officer. It made an excellent record of service, on the march, in camp, and in battle, meeting every patriotic require- ment."
Barnsley Gardens : A Lost Arcadia. Page 27.
Shellman Heights : A Romance of Sher- man's March. Page 31.
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"Bill Arp": How Major Smith Found His Pen-Name.
How Major Charles H. Smith-long a resident of Cartersville-began to write under the pen-name of "Bill Arp" is best told in the words of the noted humorist himself. "Some time in the spring of 1861," says the mountain philosopher, "when our Southern boys were hunting for a fight and felt like they could whip all crea- tion, Mr. Lincoln issued a proclamation ordering us all to disperse within thirty days and to quit cavorting around."
"I remember writing an answer to it as though I was a good Union man and a law-abiding citizen and was willing to disperse if I could, but it was almost impossible, for the boys were mighty hot and the way we made up our military companies was to send a man down the lines with a bucket of water and if a fellow sizzed like a hot iron in a slack trough we took him, and if he didn't sizz we didn't take him; but nevertheless, notwithstanding, and so forth, if we could possibly disperse within thirty days we would do so, but I thought he had better give us more time, for I had been out in an old field by myself and tried to disperse and couldn't."
"I thought the letter was right smart and decently sarcastic, and so I read it to some of my friends and they seemed to think it was right smart, too. About that time I looked around and saw the original Bill Arp standing with his mouth wide open, eagerly listening. As he came forward he said to me:
" 'Squire, are you going to print that ?' "
"' 'I reckon I will, Bill,' said I."
"' 'What name are you going to put to it ' asked he."
" 'I don't know yet,' said I. 'I haven't thought about a name.' "
"Then he brightened up and said: 'Well, Squire, I wish you would use mine. 'Them's my sentiments'; and I promised him I would. So I did not rob Bill Arp of his good name, but took it on request."
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On the walls of the Presbyterian Church, at Carters- ville, of which religious body Major Smith was for years a ruling elder, there was unveiled to the memory of the noted humorist, in 1908, a handsome memorial tablet, on which the following inscription was placed :
"Charles H. Smith, 'Bill Arp.' 1826-1903. Author, Philosopher, Royal Arch Mason, Confederate Soldier, Christian. His pen, so like himself, Softened and Sweetened Life to Unnumbered Thousands. God Rest his Loved and Loving Heart."
To the west of Cartersville is the former old country home of General P. M. B. Young, the famous soldier, congressman, and diplomat. It was purchased by his father from an old Indian Chief. The residence which today occupies the site is a handsome structure of red brick, with massive white columns in front, surrounded by a luxurant grove of forest oaks.
Ruins of the Fa- Three miles from Cartersville, on the
mous Cooper Iron Etowah River, are the ruins of the Works. famous old Cooper Iron Works. At the present time large trees are grow- ing inside the dismantled buildings, and desolation riots where once stood the pioneer industrial establishment of North Georgia. Something like $500,000 was invested at this place which boasted of a rolling mill, a nail factory, a store with a full supply of goods, together with houses for five hundred laborers, and a stone mill with a capacity for grinding per day three hundred barrels of flour. Mark A. Cooper, the founder of this immense plant which embraced twelve thousand acres in extent, was a native of Hancock County, where he was born, on April 29, 1800, near the old town of Powelton. At the outbreak of the
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Seminole war in 1836 he organized a battalion and was given the commission of Major. He was an ardent advo- cate of State Rights and on this platform was elected to Congress for two successive terms first as a Whig and then as a Democrat. This somewhat anomolous condition of affairs was not due to any change of attitude on the part of Maj. Cooper but to pending issues which caused a split in the Georgia delegation. Whether at the bar, in politics or in business, Maj. Cooper was an avowed leader, He was one of the most zealous promoters of both the Western and Atlantic and the Georgia Railways; and to connect with the former he built with his own means a branch line to his works at Etowah. Besides, he was a prime factor in the building of the Cartersville and Van Wert Railroad, afterwards extended to Cedartown. Major Cooper possessed marvelous foresight. When a location was first chosen for Mercer University, sometime in the thirties, he advocated Whitehall, a village which then stood where Atlanta today stands. But Penfield was chosen, and the institution thus failed to acquire property which was afterwards worth millions. It was the opinion of Major Cooper that the currency of the Confederate government should have been based upon cotton and that every bale of this staple product should have been bought and held as a fund for redeeming obliga- tions. He attained to the patriarchal limit of life and died at Glen Holly, his country home, six miles northeast of Cartersville, and was there buried.
Kingston: Story of the Old Beck Home.
Volume II.
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How Bishop Heber's Great Hymn was Set to Music. Some ten years before the Civil War, Dr. Francis R. Goulding, the noted author, on account of the precarious health of his wife, came to Kingston from his former home at Darien on the Geor- gia coast. But the pure mountain air failed to produce the desired effect. Mrs. Goulding grew no better and in 1853 died, leaving six children. She is buried in the cemetery at Kingston. The maiden name of this excellent lady was Mary Howard. She was a sister of the Reverend Charles Wallace Howard, an eminent clergyman and scholar, who resided at Spring Bank, near Kingston. There is an incident in the life of Mrs. Goulding which possesses an international interest. While living in Savannah, she made the acquaintance of a young man named Lowell Mason, then a clerk in one of the banks. At her request, the latter, who had quite a talent for musical composition, set to music Bishop Heber's renowned hymn, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" ;* and Captain B. L. Gould- ing, her son, owns the original copy of the song, just as it came from the hands of the afterwards noted Dr. Mason. Possessing a fine soprano voice, Mrs. Goulding sang the hymn in the choir of the old Independent Pres- byterian church, in Savannah, soon after the music was composed, and this is said to have been the first presen- tation to the world of an air which is now famliiar to both hemispheres and is sung by millions throughout the whole of Christendom. While Dr. Goulding was engaged in teaching school at Kingston he devoted his leisure time to preparing a work on the "Instincts of Birds and Beasts," in connection with which he frequently corres- ponded with Professor Agassiz, of Harvard. It is thought that he wrote "The Young Marooners" before coming to Kingston. Dr Goulding invented the first sewing machine ever used in Georgia.
*The title-page of the piece of music in Captain Goulding's possession reads: "From Greenland's Icy Mountains, a Missionary Hymn, by the late Bishop Heber, of Calcutta, composed and dedicated to Miss Mary W. How- ard, of Savannah, Ga., by Lowell Mason." Published by Geo. Willig, Jr., Baltimore, Md.
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Spring Bank. Here the Reverend Charles Wallace
Howard, established the first school in North Georgia, after the removal of the Cherokee Indians. This pioneer of education was an extraordinary man. It is said that as an orator he could have sustained himself in the Senate of the United States. At the outbreak of the Civil War, though not a young man, he enlisted among the very first; and his parole, dated Kingston, Ga., May 12, 1865, shows that he was one of the last to lay down his arms. He held the rank of Captain when the war ended. Released from military service his first move- ment was to obtain an order from the superintendent of the Western and Atlantic railroad to make an examina- tion of the coal, iron, and oil formations of North Geor- gia. Traveling on horseback, lie made an exhaustive search through this section, rich in mineral wealth. The Central of Georgia today climbs Lookout Mountain to Durham, one of his many discoveries. He ended his re- port with these prophetic words: "Buried in her moun- tains, Georgia holds in reserve for us her priceless treasures of coal and iron. By the creation of new values we may more than compensate for the values we have lost."
As a minister of the gospel, this noted clergyman and scholar performed a unique work early in life by re- organizing the famous old Huguenot church, in Charles- ton, S. C. The original house of worship was destroyed by fire in 1745, after which the congregation scattered to various quarters. One hundred years later, in 1845, the church was rebuilt, and the Reverend Charles Wallace Howard was called from Georgia to gather together once more the scattered band of believers. How well and how wisely he did it is told on a page inscribed to him in the records of the French Protestant Church, of Charleston, in which the highest tribute is paid to his achievements. Captain Howard was born in Savannah, Ga., October 10, 1811 and died in Ellerslie, on Lookout Mountain, Ga., Dec. 25, 1876. He was buried on the east brow of the Mountain
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but was afterwards removed to the family burial ground at Spring Bank. His sister Mary became the first wife of the noted Dr. Francis R. Goulding. Miss Ella Howard Bryan, who under the pen-name of "Clinton Danger- field" contributes to the leading high-class periodicals is a grand-daughter of Mr. Howard. His daughter Sarah inherited the old home place at Spring Bank.
Adairsville. Twelve miles north of Kingston is Adairs- ville, a town of historic memories. It con- tains among other things an interesting old land-mark, the story connected with which is as follows: When Charles Hamilton, a soldier in the Mexican War, fell into the hands of the enemy, he was quartered in an ele- gant old Spanish villa which belonged to the noted Gen- eral Santa Anna. He was captivated by the architecture of the romantic old building; and when in after years he reared a home for himself at this place he planned it upon the Mexican model, reproducing in every essential feature the home in which he was a prisoner. The old Hamilton place is now the property of Mr. Lewis Gaines. Adairsville was named for the famous Indian family of Adairs. Major John Lewis, an officer in the American Revolution, is buried two miles north of Adairsville, in the old Octhealoga burial ground, on the road between Adairsville and Calhoun. The grave of the old soldier is neatly marked.
Cassville, the old county seat of Cass County, was the home of Brigadier-General William T. Wofford, who is here buried. When General Thomas R. R. Cobb fell mortally wounded at Fredericksburg, Va., it was Colonel Wofford who succeeded to the vacant command. He was in charge at the Department of North Georgia at the close of the Civil War. The last resting place of Colonel Warren Akin is in this noted old town.
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Original Settlers. As given by White the original settlers of Bartow were: Colonel Hardin, Z. B. Hargrove, John Dawson, D. Irvine, T. G. Baron, Robert Patton, Lewis Tumlin, Dr. Hamilton, the John- sons, the Wyleys, and others.
To the foregoing list may be added the name of James Hamilton who owned in large part the land upon which Cartersville was built. He was the father of the late Colonel D. B. Hamilton, of Rome. Wm. M. Thompson, a corporal, and John Wetzel, a private in the War of the Revolution, were both living in what was then Cass County when they were granted Federal pensions, the former in 1848, the latter in 1838.
Prehistoric Memorials. Volume TT.
Curious Relics Taken from the Tumuli. Volume II.
Testimony of a Skeleton. Volume IT.
The Mound Build- ers: An Unsolved Problem. Volume II.
Bartow's Distin- There is not a county in Georgia guished Residents. which, in proportion to population, surpasses Bartow in the names of distinguished residents. Men eminent in widely different spheres of activity have lived here, some of whom have achieved reputations international in extent. The world-
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renowned evangelist, Sam P. Jones, lived in Cartersville. Unsurpassed by any preacher of his day, he was not only a platform humorist but a master player upon the chords of emotion. His knowledge of human nature was most profound. Formerly a dissipated man, he devoted his life to fighting the liquor traffic and to preaching the gospel. Felton's chapel, the little country church in which he was first converted, still stands. Wherever he preached he drew thousands, surpassing in this respect even Dwight L. Moody. Nor was he without honor at home, where an auditorium was built for him, in which he preached to vast multitudes. Some criticised what they called his vulgarisms; but no one questioned his genius or his power. Death overtook Mr. Jones on the train while en route to his home in Cartersville to celebrate the anniversary of his wedding.
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