Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I, Part 22

Author: Knight, Lucian Lamar, 1868-1933
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga. : Byrd Printing Co.
Number of Pages: 1148

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William H. Stiles, who represented Georgia in the twenty-eighth Congress, was Charge d'Affairs of the United States at Vienna, and wrote, in two volumes, a History of Austria, spent the latter years of his life in Cartersville. The town of Stilesboro was named for him.

Mark A. Cooper, who built the first iron works in North Georgia, lived six miles above Cartersville, on the Etowah. He was a Major in the Seminole War, a member of Congress, and at one time a candidate for Governor. He was also a pioneer of railway development.

Major-General P. M. B. Young lived near Cartersville. He was a graduate of West Point, a cavalry officer of brilliant prowess, and the youngest division commander in the Confederate Army. He was one of the very first Democrats to represent Georgia in Congress after the war, serving from 1868 to 1874, and was afterwards Com- missioner to the Paris Exposition. President Cleveland, during his first administration, made him Consul at St. Petersburg and again in 1893 Minister to Gautamala and Honduras.

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BARTOW

Brigadier-General William T. Wofford lived near Cassville. At the close of the war he was in command of the Department of North Georgia. He succeeded Gen. T. R. R. Cobb at Fredericksburg. During the carpet bag regime he was elected to Congress but was not seated.

Warren Akin, a distinguished lawyer and planter, who opposed Joseph E. Brown for Governor, and was also a member of Congress, lived here. His son, John W. Akin, edited with Judge Howard Van Epps, a number of law digests and became President of the Georgia Senate. He was an accomplished orator. Two other sons have also become prominent, T. Warren Akin, of Washington, D. C., and Paul F. Akin, of Cartersville. Bishop Warren A. Candler was named for this distinguished Georgian.

Amos T. Akerman, a man of Northern birth but a Georgian by adoption, who fought gallantly in the Con- federate ranks, though he opposed secession, and who be- came Attorney General in the Cabinet of President Grant, lived and died in Cartersville. Because he refused to pervert the powers of his office he was virtually forced from the Cabinet by the moneyed interests. Though a Republican he possessed the esteem of Georgia Demo- crats. No one ever questioned either his integrity of character or his talents.

Major Charles H. Smith, famous throughout the length and breadth of the South as "Bill Arp" -- Geor- gia's rustic philosopher and humorist- lived at Carters- ville. It was during the days of Reconstruction that Major Smith began to write for the press in the back- woods vernacular of the Georgia cracker. He sounded the first cheerful note which was heard amid the gloom. His letters became weekly events. They were read at countless firesides, where they produced the effect of wholesome tonics and prepared the people for better times to come.

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

Mrs. Corra White Harris, the famous novelist, has recently purchased through Col. Paul F. Akin, an exten- sive tract of land in Bartow on which she expects to build in the near future a beautiful country home.

Two distinguished clergymen-both of them men of letters-were at one time residents of Bartow-Dr. Charles Wallace Howard, an educator of note and Rev. Francis R. Goulding, the renowned author of "The Young Marooners."

On the list of distinguished residents belongs also Lewis Tumlin one of the wealthiest pioneer planters of Bartow, a member of Congress and a leader in politics be- fore the war.

Dr. William H. Felton, one of the most dramatic figures in the political history of Georgia, also lived here. He was a power upon the stump. It is doubtful if either Toombs or Hill surpassed him in the magnetic spell which he cast upon an assemblage of listeners. Over six feet in height, awkward and angular, his tall figure bent by a stroke of paralysis, and his whole body tremulous by reason of disordered nerves, there was never a man who could surpass him in rocket flights of unpremeditated eloquence and especially in seething thunder bolts of denunciation. Though he leaned heavily upon his stick, he seemed to grow not only in strength but in statue and to acquire by degrees as he waxed more and more elo- quent something of the vigor of a Roman athlete. His very infirmities seemed to impart an electrical energy to his withered frame and to suggest. a dynamo hidden somewhere on his person. As a masterpiece of invective, his reply to Hon Edgar G. Simmons, of Sumter, in the Georgia Legislature, has never been excelled. He was a Methodist preacher, a doctor of medicine, a school teacher, a farmer and a statesman. It is said that he never accepted a dollar's pay for his religious ministrations, though scarcely a Sabbath passed without finding him in

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BEN HILL

the pulpit. He represented the State in Congress for six years, after which he served in the General Assembly for several terms, becoming the "old man eloquent" of Georgia politics. He usually affiliated with the Demo- crats, but was independent of strict party lines. He was a relentless foe to corruption, a loyal friend to education, and a bold and tireless tribune of the people. He fought the Convict Lease system and saved the State $120,000 per annum by securing the re-lease of the Western & Atlantic Railroad at an increased rental. To quote Tom Watson: "No flag was ever dipped to the foe while he held it, nor did he ever once say to triumphant wrong- . 'I surrender'." Notwithstanding his great physical decrepitude, Dr. Felton maintained his vigor of intellect until his death at the age of eighty-seven.

His gifted companion and helpmeet, Mrs. Rebecca Latimer Felton, has long ranked among the South's most brilliant women. She was the tireless ally of her husband in all of his heated campaigns upon the hustings. The thunder roll of Dr. Felton's eloquence was invariably accompanied by the lightning flashes of her pen, while her scrap-books became the dread and terror of the Georgia politician. On the court house square in Cartersville, Mrs. Felton has erected a monument to her husband's memory and has also recently published a volume of memoirs in which she pays her respects to his opponents in characteristic fashion and reviews with graphic power the dramatic phases of his career.

BEN HILL

Created by Legislative Act, July 31, 1906, from parts of two counties: Irwin and Wilcox. Named for the illustrious orator and statesman of Georgia, Benjamin Harvey Hill. Fitzgerald, the county-seat, named for P. M. Fitzgerald, of Indianapolis, Ind., who founded a colony of immigrants at this place, out of which the town arose. Originally there stood here a little village by the name of Swan.

Ben Hill: Dramatic

Incidents of Career.

Volume IT.

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

Fitzgerald : The Col- Fitzgerald was the outgrowth of a scheme of colonization conceived in

ony City of Georgia.

the brain of Mr. P. H. Fitzgerald, of Indianapolis, and it stands practically in a class by itself among the cities of Georgia. As editor of the Indianapolis Tribune, Mr. Fitzgerald was a wide-awake man of affairs, given to the exploitation of great public enterprises. He was also a lawyer; and in the capacity of pension attorney represented a large clientele of old soldiers of the Union Army, many of whom were looking for a more congenial climate toward the South. Coming to Georgia he discussed the matter at some length with Governor Wm. J. Northen, who was then seeking to bring into Georgia a sturdy class of immigrants from the North-west. The upshot of this interview was the organization of a stock company in the spring of 1895, known as the American Soldiers' Colony Association and 32,000 acres of unbroken pine forest lands were purchased immediately thereafter in the neighborhood of what was then Swan, in Irwin County, now Fitzgerald, in Ben Hill County, Georgia. The city was incorporated in 1896 and was first laid off into squares with a five mile drive-way completely belting the town site. The streets were named for leading Federal and Confederate Generals, for fruit trees indigenous to the State and for well known rivers. There are two exceptions to this rule in the two broad avennes which divide the city at right angles into four large wards. According to the last Federal census the population of Fitzgerald was 5,795, a most conservative estimate. It boasts 22 blocks of brick paving, a white way, a light and water plant owned by the local authori- ties, a complete sanitary sewerage system, four of the best equipped school buildings in the State, with free tuition and books, a paid fire department, thirteen religious de- nominations, four banks and three railway lines, in addi- tion to a host of strong mercantile and industrial estab- lishments. Some six miles distant from Fitzgerald in Irwin County President .Jefferson Davis was arrested in

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BERRIEN

1865. The citizens of this wide-awake community are planning a monument of reconciliation to commemorate the Blue and the Gray and to cost in round numbers $100,000.1

Original Settlers. See Irwin and Wilcox from which counties Ben Hill was formed.

To the pioneer list may be added the names of the following representative citizens of Ben Hill, most of whom were active in laying the foundations of Fitzgerald : R. V. Bowen, W. R. Bowen, E. K. Farmer, H. M. Warren, E. J. Dorminey, J. D. Dorminey, Dr. W. D. Dorminey, J. E. Mercer, W. T. Paulk, L. Kennedy, O. H. Elkins, Marion Dickson, J. B. Seanor, J. A. Justice, L. O. Tisdel, J. E. Turner, Sidney Clare, M. W. Garbutt, A. B. Cook, E. N. Davis, R. V. Haddley, Joshua Troup, D. L. Martin, and Judge C. M. Wise.

BERRIEN

Created by Legislative Act, February 25, 1856, from Lowndes County. Named for Hon. John MacPherson Berrien, United States Senator and mem- ber of the Cabinet. Nashville, 'the county-seat, was named for General Francis Nash, of North Carolina, a distinguished soldier of the Revolution, for whom the capital of Tennessee was also named.

Berrien: The During the year 1829, there met in the

American Cicero. upper house of Congress a galaxy of brilliant intellects. The number in- cluded some of the foremost leaders of the ante-bellum period of American politics. It was the beginning of the golden age of the Senate. The high-water mark of forensic oratory was soon to be reached by the great Webster in a never to be forgotten tilt with the gifted Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina. It was not the

1 Authority: Hon. Drew W. Paulk, Mayor of Fitzgerald.

22 Authority: Judge C. M. Wise, Ordinary of Ben Hill.

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

day of the millionaire-politician, but of the orator- statesman. In the chair sat Mr. Calhoun, the shaggy- haired old Nullifier. Before him, on either side of the chamber, were ranged men whose equals have not ap- peared since then upon the stage of public affairs. Henry Clay was still in the Lower House, but the Great Compromiser's kinsman was there, Thomas H. Benton. The membership of the Senate at this time included also the eloquent Theodore Freylinghuysen. Yet in this circle of orators, at a time when the genius of eloquence . was full-orbed and resplendent, John MacPherson Ber- rien, of Georgia, stood so conspicuous for polished oratory in debate that he was dubbed by his colleagues and known until his death as the American Cicero.

In the phrase of Beaconsfield applied to Lord Stanley, he was "the Rupert of debate." But the intrepid charge was ever made with the polished blade. He spoke the court language of the Augustan age. His great debate with John Forsyth, in the famous tariff convention of 1829, at Milledgeville, perhaps registered the high-water mark of his intellectual powers. Judge Berrien was born near Princeton, N. J., in the famous old Berrien home, from which Washington issued his farewell address to his troops, an event which occurred just two years after Judge Berrien's birth. Major John Berrien, his father, was an officer of note on the staff of General Washington, and afterwards Georgia's State Treasurer, while his mother was Margaret MacPherson, whose brother John was aide-de-camp to General Montgomery, and fell with his gallant commander upon the heights of Quebec. Judge Berrien was for ten years an occupant of the Superior Court Bench. He twice represented Georgia in the United States Senate, and was Attorney- General in President Jackson's first cabinet.

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BERRIEN

How Peggy O'Neill Dissolved a Presi- dent's Cabinet. It was while Judge Berrien was At- torney General of the United States that the famous rupture occurred in the President's official household, due to the marriage of the Secretary of War, Major John H. Eaton, to the notorious Peggy O'Neill of Washington. The wives of the married men of the Cabinet refused to call upon Mrs. Eaton, whereupon President Jackson sought to prescribe rules of social etiquette for his political family, but without success; and the Cabinet went to pieces upon the rocks. Martin Van Buren, an old bachelor, played the wily diplomat in this dramatic crisis, won the favor of General Jackson, and reaped his reward by becoming the next President of the United States. Mr. Berrien was not a man who bowed to Cæsar. He offended his constituents by refusing to accept dicta- tion from them, maintaining that public leaders who brought trained powers of thought to the consideration of vital questions were something more than mere puppets. His last appearance in politics was in 1854 when he presided over the State convention of the American party, with whose principles he sympathized, after the old Whig banner went down.

The Parrish family of Berrien holds a somewhat unique record. Seven sons of the Rev. Ansel Parrish, an itinerant Methodist minister, represent an aggregate weight of 1,568 pounds, or an average weight of 224 pounds each. They recently held a family reunion at the home of Mr. J. A. J. Parrish, of Adel, at which time the scales were brought into use, showing the weight of the brothers to be as follows: J. W. Parrish, of Adel, 308 pounds; E. C. Parrish, of Adel, 229 pounds; A. B. Parrish of Savannah, 221 pounds ; J. A. Parrish, of Adel, 218 pounds; J. W. Parrish, of Lois, 209 pounds; H. W. Parrish, of Sparks 202 pounds; and J. A. B. Parrish of Valdosta, 181 pounds. Individual instances of an even

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

greater weight may be found in almost any county of the State; but when it comes to a family of seven brothers, weighing in the aggregate 1,568 pounds, it may be doubted if the country at large can furnish a parallel. What is more, not a single member of the family has ever known a serious illness. With ages ranging at present from 42 to 63 years, they are vigorous, energetic, indus- trious men, showing no signs of corpulent or surplus flesh, engaged in widely different occupations, well- esteemed, prosperous, intelligent and high-minded men. It is the custom of the brothers to hold a family reunion each year in the month of February; and no matter how far from home this season of the year finds them or on what business intent, they always return for these festive gatherings.

Original Settlers. Some of the first comers into Berrien were : Judge R. A. Peeples, John Knight, Capt. Levi J. Knight, Reuben Fitch, Daniel Turner, W. J. Mabry, J. C. Lamb, Fish Griner, Daniel Turner, M. B. Roberts, John McCranix, John McMillan, James Patten, Jonathan Knight, Henry H. Knight, John G. Knight, John B. Dorminy, D. D. Dorminy, Jolın Turner, James Sloan, Dr. William Lee Patten, William S. Walker, John R. Slater, N. W. Byrd, John C. Goodman, Dr. James W. Talley, the Alexanders, the Christians, the Harrisons, the Buies, the Powells, the Lovetts, the Lukes, the Moores and other pioneer families.

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BIBB

Created by Legislative Act, December 9, 1822, from Monroe and Jones Counties. Named for Dr. William Wyatt Bibb, a United States Senator from Georgia, who afterwards became the first Territorial Governor of Alabama. Macon, the county-seat, named for Hon. Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, an illustrious soldier and statesman, styled by Mr. Jefferosn "the last of the Romans."

Recollections of William Wyatt Bibb was a practitioner Dr. W. W. Bibb. of medicine who attained to the highest political honors in two different States, and who was still short of his fortieth year when, during. a violent thunder storm, he was thrown from his horse, receiving fatal injuries. Dr. Bibb was born in Amelia County, Va., on October 2, 1781. He came of the same family which produced George M. Bibb, of Kentucky, a distinguished ante-bellum statesman. He migrated to Elbert County, Ga., with his parents soon after the Revolution and began the practice of medicine in the old town of Petersburg, of which hardly a fragment re- mains. Dr. Bibb was a member of Congress from Geor- gia for eight years and in 1813 became the successor of the great William H. Crawford, in the Senate, when the latter was made an ambassador to the court of Napoleon. This position he held until 1816, when he resigned in great mortification of spirit because of the protest aroused throughout the country by an act increasing the salaries of Congressmen, for which he voted. President Madison, however, in recognition of his conspicuous. abilities, appointed him Governor of the territory of Alabama. He was the first and only man to hold this office; and in 1819 when Alabama donned the robes of statehood he was chosen by the people to be the first Gov- ernor of the new State. But not long thereafter he died in the tragic manner to which reference has been made, passing away at his home in Autauga County, Ala., in the summer of 1820. He was succeeded in office by his brother Thomas, a coincidence rare in the history of politics.

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

Colonel Albert J. Pickett, the noted pioneer historian of Alabama, was personally well acquainted with Dr. Bibb whose characteristics of person and manner he describes as follows. Says he:1 "Governor Bibb was five feet ten inches in height, with an erect but delicate frame. He was exceedingly easy and graceful in his bearing. His face bore the marks of deep thought and great intelligence. His eyes, of a dark color, were mild but expressive. Whether thrown into the company of the rude or the refined, his language was pure and chaste. No one ever lived, either in Georgia or Alabama, who was treated with a greater degree of respect by all classes. This was owing to his high moral character, un- surpassed honor, excellent judgment, and a very high order of talents. Entirely free from those patronizing airs which characterize many of our distinguished men, he invariably treated the humblest citizen with courtesy and respect. He was, however, a man of firmness, swaying the minds of men with great success, and governing by seeming to obey. In reference to his Congressional career, we have often heard from the lips of many of his distinguished contemporaries, that the practical order of his mind, the wisdom of his views, and the peculiar music of his voice, contributed to render him one of the most effective of speakers."

Says Governor Gilmer :? "He married Miss Mary Freeman, the only daughter of Col. Holman Freeman, then the beauty of Broad River. My first knowledge of Dr. Bibb was his rescuing me and several other boys, scholars of Dr. Waddell, from an old tumbling down warehouse in Petersburg, into which we had retreated upon the approach of a hurricane. Shortly after his marriage he removed to a plantation in Wilkes County, a mile or two from Broad River."

1 Library of Southern Literature, Vol. IX, p. 4034, Atlanta, 1900,

2 Gilmer's Georgians.

BIBB

307

Fort Hawkins: 1806. This frontier stronghold occupied the site of what is now East Macon. As soon as the lands lying between the Ocmulgee and the Oconee Rivers were acquired by treaty from the Indians, a portion of the ground adjacent to the former stream and known as the Ocmulgee old fields, was reserved by the general government for purposes of defence, and here in 1806 arose Fort Hawkins. It was named in honor of the famous Indian agent, Colonel Benjamin Hawkins, who himself selected the site on an eminence near tlie river. One hundred acres were reserved for the fortifi- cations which consisted of two large block houses sur- rounded by a strong stockade. It was built of posts of hewn timber 14 feet long and 14 inches thick, sunk in the ground 4 feet, and with port holes for muskets in alter- nate posts. The area enclosed within the stockade num- bered 14 acres. According to Dr. Smith the area in question was an abode of the ancient Mound Builders, a race concerning which there are only the vaguest tradi- tions .* Either at or about the time of the erection of the fort there was also established in this immediate vicinity a trading post, around which in the course of time de- veloped a village. The fact that it soon possessed two taverns and several stores is proof of the commercial activities which began at an early day to center at this point. On Swift Creek, a small tributary of the Ocmulgee, Roger McCall and Harrison Smith, two sturdy pioneer settlers, built homes, the former erecting a saw mill near his place, from which he derived substantial profit. The settlement boasted a printing-press owned by Simri Rose, from which the first newspaper published in Central Georgia was issued on March 16, 1823, called the Georgia Messenger. Here at Fort Hawkins, on the extreme western frontier of the white settlement, was to be found the nucleus of an important town long before the future

* Dr. George G. Smith, in "Story of Georgia and the Georgia People," p. 536, Atlanta, 1900,

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

metropolis, on the opposite side of the Ocmulgee com- menced to stir under the creative touch which .

"gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name."

Macon : The

But the doom of Fort Hawkins was

Metropolis of Mid- sealed by the fates. In 1821, an

dle Georgia.

extensive tract of land was obtained by treaty from the Creeks at Indian Springs. It included the fertile area between the Ocmulgee and the Flint Rivers; and from this newly ceded domain was carved the county of Monroe. Besides embracing the territory on the west side of the Ocmulgee it was made to include Fort Hawkins, on the east side; and two years later the lower part of Monroe was organized into Bibb. Immedi- ately there began to arise on the bluff opposite Fort Hawkins a town destined to supersede the latter. The situation was ideal. Commanding the head of navigation on the Ocmulgee, an extensive plain, luxuriantly wooded with oaks and poplars extended back to an amphi- theatre of rugged hills. The town chosen as the county- seat of the new county was called Macon, in honor of Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina. Four acres were reserved for public buildings, while the area adjacent thereto was divided into forty town lots.

Such was the genesis of Macon. Beginning at this point, we will let Dr. George G. Smith tell the story of the town in which he has long resided. Says Dr. Smith :* The town was laid out in 1823 by Oliver H. Prince, David S. Booth, Samuel Wood, Charles J. McDonald, and Seth Ward. The streets running north and south were num- bered from one to eleven, and the cross streets were called by the names of the forest trees, with the exception of Ocmulgee or, as it was then called, Wharf street. The little town was encircled by high pine hills which were

* Story of Georgia and the Georgia People, pp. 535-543, Atlanta, 1900.

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BIBB

regarded at the time as too remote for resident lots and too sterile for cultivation. It was evident to all that a great future awaited the new city, and the lots were eagerly bought and houses, mainly of logs, were built along the numbered streets. At the log house of Mr. John Keener, on what is now Orange street, near the Mount DeSales Academy, in February, 1823, the county was organized by John Davis, Tarpley Holt, David Law- son and L. K. Carle. Mr. Butler says that the first frame house in Macon was built near the river not far from the site of the present Southern Railway station." In 1826 Edward D. Tracy, became the first intendent and in 1835 Robert Augustus Beall took the oath of office as the first Mayor.

Bibb County's first newspaper was the Georgia Mes- senger. It was published at Fort Hawkins, by Major Matthew Robertson, and the initial issue appeared on March 16, 1823, while lots were being sold on the oppo- site side of the river by the commissioners of the new town of Macon. Three weeks after the establishment of this sheet, Simri Rose became a partner in the business and retained connection with the paper until his death, which occurred nearly half a century later. In 1869, after undergoing various changes, it finally combined with the Macon Telegraph, a paper which has long been one of the most dominant factors in Georgia politics. This famous organ of public opinion was founded in 1826 by Dr. Myrom Bartlett, who remained proprietor until 1844. It appeared as a daily paper only for a short fractional part of this time. Oliver H. Prince, Jr., was the next editor; and he was succeeded by Joseph Clisby, who, in turn, relinquished the helm to Harry Lynden Flash, the famous war poet. From time to time the Telegraph absorbed various other papers, including the Journal, the Courier, the Republic, the Citizen, the Con- federate, and perhaps others still. In 1868, Joseph

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Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I, Part 22

Author: Knight, Lucian Lamar, 1868-1933 Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Atlanta, Ga. : Byrd Printing Co. Number of Pages: 1148

Author: Knight, Lucian Lamar, 1868-1933
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga. : Byrd Printing Co.
Number of Pages: 1148