USA > Georgia > Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77
Mr. N. F. Walker, while strolling over his uncle's plantation, in Crawford County, not long ago, happened by the merest chance to come upon the grave of Colonel
20
GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
Hawkins. It was found in the midst of a clump of bushes. The walls of the tomb above ground had commenced to crumble and detached brick lay in confused heaps upon the ground. The ravages of time, re-enforced by long neglect, had made it a pathetic spectacle; but the identity of the grave has been well established by evidence. Since the burial-place was discovered the Daughters of the Revolution have made it an object of reverent care; but the United States government owes it to the memory of this pure patriot who, for the sake of his country, lived and died among the savage Indians, to erect above his ashes a monument which will serve to keep his name in green remembrance; and when the shaft is built let it contain an inscription similar to the one which follows- "Here lies the body of Colonel Benjamin Hawkins, a soldier of the Revolution, a friend of Washington, a Senator of the United States, a scholar and a man of letters. As a mediator of peace, in a time of great national peril, he abandoned the delights of civilized society and, for sixteen years, dwelt among savage tribes. To him belongs the crown of life, for he was faithful even unto death."
The story of this extraordinary man's career needs to be told somewhat more in detail, for no missionary of the Cross, embarking upon the high seas, was ever impelled by a higher purpose or consecrated by a holier sense of duty to exile himself from home and kindred and to labor in foreign lands for the uplift of an alien race of mankind. Colonel Absalom H. Chappell, in his "Miscellanies of Georgia," tells of the effect produced upon his boyish mind, when, in the sum- mer of 1816, he first heard the news that Colonel Hawkins was no more. Says he *:
"One morning, in the month of June, 1816, during the summer vacation of Mount Zion Academy, when on a
*Miscellanies of Georgia, by Absalom H. Chappell, Columbus, Ga., 1870.
21
THE OLD INDIAN CREEK AGENCY
visit to my venerated grandfather, I was sitting alone with him on his front porch. It was the time for the mail rider to pass on his weekly trip from Milledgeville to Greensboro; and my grandfather, having sent for his newspaper in the tree-box, was reading it-the old Georgia Journal, founded by the Grantland brothers, which he enjoyed all the more because they were Virgin- ians. He had not been reading long before he suddenly stopped and said :
"' 'Colonel Hawkins is dead.' "'
"The words were scarcely meant for me. They were the involuntary utterance of the soul. Letting his news- paper drop to his lap and resting his elbow on the arm of his chair, he sat in silence, with his head bowed upon his half open palm, neither reading nor speaking another word. I had all my life known of Colonel Hawkins. I had become familiar with his name as important in some way in connection with the Indians. But it was now evident to me that the man who was then resting in his fresh grave in the midst of the Indian wilderness, on the little knoll by the Flint, was greater than I had dreamed; and ever since then I have felt an undying interest in Colonel Hawkins-an interest which my subsequent knowledge of him has only deepened and intensified."
To quote this same authority, in substance, but not in exact language, the office of Colonel Hawkins was media- torial. He was a peace-preserver, a peace-restorer; and as such he was dear alike to civilized men and to savages. Though he was the resident agent for the Creeks only, Washington's estimate of his character and fitness for the place was such that he made him general superin- tendent of all the tribes south of the Ohio. He was an apostle of friendship-"unlike McGillivray, who belonged solely and intensely to the Indians, and with whom hatred of Georgia was a virtue-unlike Elijah Clarke, who was wholly a Georgian, and was to Georgia against the
22
GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
Indians what McGillivray was to the Indians against Georgia."
It was neither penury nor embarrassment in his affairs, nor thirst for wealth, nor disappointment which drove him into the wilderness. It was his own large nature; and he rises inestimably in our view when we consider what he gave up. For he was born to wealth and was experienced from the beginning in all its advant- ages in one of the best sections of North Carolina. As early as 1780, the Tar Heel State made him her general agent for obtaining both at home and abroad all kinds of supplies for her troops. Successful in this trust, she sent him repeatedly to the Continental Congress; and, when North Carolina entered the Union under the new Federal Constitution, he was chosen one of the first Senators and served from 1789 to 1796.
It may be well to state in this connection that before the new government was organized and whilst he was still a member of the old Continental Congress, he had been detailed, without interference with other duties, to per- form an important commission. At the close of the Rev- olution, the adjustment of relations with the various Indian tribes became a matter of the greatest interest; and Congress appointed Colonel Hawkins one of the commissioners plenipotentiary to open friendly relations with the four great Southern tribes, the Creeks, the Cherokees, the Choctaws, and the Chickasaws. With the last three tribes the commissioners succeeded in negotiat- ing satisfactory treaties, whereby they placed themselves under the protection of the United States government and gave to Congress the sole power of regulating trade with them. The attempt to conciliate the Creeks, how- ever, failed, due to entanglement with Spain by virtue of the treaty of Pensacola and to difficulties with Georgia. Finally, however, in the treaty of New York, in 1790, by a master-stroke of Washington, the Creeks put them- selves in like relation to the government.
23
THE OLD INDIAN CREEK AGENCY
Thus it became a matter of the utmost importance to cultivate these Indians. Washington fixed his eyes on the long-known and well-tried North Carolina Senator as the fittest man to take charge of the well advanced work of conciliation and to crown it by becoming the per- manent agent. His family-one of the most influential and numerous in the State-opposed his accepting this appointment. Every inducement on the part of friends and relatives was brought to bear upon him in vain. He recognized in the appointment an imperative call of duty ; and, like the great Hebrew law-giver, he put behind him the allurements of wealth and power and turned his face toward the wilderness. Nor was it his own flesh and blood whom he undertook to lead but an alien race of hostile savages. He looked upon the work as his mission. He gave to it the best there was in him. He not only accepted the appointment but he made its life-long duties a labor of love and a source of high moral and intellec- tual enjoyment.
His master-stroke was the treaty of Coleraine, nego- tiated in 1796. It was the much-needed supplement to the treaty of New York and it laid the basis for happy and harmonious relations. He studied the country and the people and accomplished himself in all knowledge pertaining to both; and here the advantages of early education bore fruit. He surrounded himself with books; and, in his self-decreed, official exile, he labored with his pen, telling posterity of the people among whom he lived. Most of his manuscripts perished in the burning of his home after his death; but enough were rescued to attest the importance of the work, and these have been con- fided to the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah. Says Colonel Chappell: "The interest which they once excited has long since become extinct, with the melancholy fortunes of the rude people to which they relate; yet it may be that, when ransacked and studied hereafter, in distant times, they will furnish to some child of genius yet unborn both material and inspiration for an immortal Indian epic of which the world will not tire."
24
GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
The Creek Indians, under the proconsular sway of Colonel Hawkins, enjoyed for sixteen years an unbroken peace among themselves and with the people of Georgia. Much was done to encourage them in the arts of civiliza- tion. They were taught pasturage and agriculture, and these supplanted in a measure dependence upon hunting and fishing as chief sources of food. He sought to win them by example as well as by precept. He brought his slaves from North Carolina and, under the right conceded to his office, he cultivated a large plantation at the Agency, making immense crops, especially of corn. He also reared great herds of cattle and swine, and having thus an abundance he was enabled to practice habitually toward the Indians a profuse though coarse hospitality and to bind them to him by loyal ties of friendship. The sanctity with which the Indians throughout the nation regarded his cattle was pronounced. Whatever bore his mark or brand was absolutely safe. Milk was measured by barrels and churned by machinery, and great were the outcomes; yet not more than enough for his vast hospi- tality to whites and Indians and his regal munificence to his negroes. Says Colonel Chappell: "Had the great pastoral bards of antiquity not sung and died before his day they could have seized upon these scenes and cele- brated them in strains more wonderful than anything to be found in the charming bucolics which they have left us."
But at length there arose adverse influences so power- ful that it was impossible for Colonel Hawkins with all his weight of authority among the Indians to maintain peace in the nation. The war of 1812 began to stir the embers. Great Britain, through her numerous emissaries among the Indians, by liberal supplies of arms, and by other means at her command, had been fomenting hostility among the north-western tribes, toward the United States; and, succeeding along the border, she next
25
THE OLD INDIAN CREEK AGENCY
directed her attention to the Southern and Western tribes. The eloquence of the famous Indian warrior Tecumseh was enlisted; and since he was himself of Creek lineage he succeeded in arousing the residuum of suppressed enmity and in kindling the hostile fires. Still it speaks in attestation of the influence of Colonel Hawkins that a large portion of the Creek territory, viz., the rich domain between the Ocmulgee and the Chatta- hoochee, was never the seat of war.
This exemption was due to the fact that the official residence of Colonel Hawkins, having been first on the Ocmulgee, opposite Macon, and afterwards on the Flint at the place still called the "Old Agency," his personal influence was here much greater than further to the west ; and the Indians within this belt became the fast friends and allies of the whites. For the purpose of protecting them the friendly warriors organized themselves into a regiment of which Colonel Hawkins became the titular head but he never took the field in person, deeming it wiser to place the actual command upon the noble chief, William McIntosh. Like McGillivray, the latter was only of the half-blood in the civilization of lineage but he was of the whole blood in the loftier and finer traits of character. The result was that the few hostile Indians scattered throughout this belt merged themselves into the belligerent elements on the upper tributaries of the Alabama. There they stood at bay and fought and fell in many a battle under the blows of Old Hickory. Eventually in 1814, at Fort Jackson, near the confluence of the Coosa and the Tallapoosa rivers, Jackson received the absolute surrender of the crushed nation. The spirit of the Creek Confederacy was broken. Colonel Hawkins was profoundly saddened by the fate of those whom he had long cherished as his children. Undoubtedly it hastened his death.
Even the three great friendly chiefs, Big Warrior, Little Prince, and General McIntosh were cut to the heart by the stern demands from Washington City, dictating
--
26
GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
the terms of peace and marking the narrow bounds of the vanquished savages. How much was taken from them and how little was left to them, constitutes one of the most pathetic events in our Anglo-American and Indian annals. Big Warrior, regarded as one of nature's great men, perhaps the ablest of Indian statesmen, upbraided Colonel Hawkins for having persuaded him and so many of his chiefs to be neutral in the war against his people. For years afterward the story used to be told of how the big tears stood in the eyes of the aged Indian agent as he listened in silence to a reproach which he did not deserve but which he was powerless to answer .*
*Big Warrior was so named on account of his great size. Says Colonel Chappell: "He was the only corpulent full-blooded Indian I ever saw, yet he was not so corpulent as to be unwieldly or ungainly. In fact, his corpu- lency added to the magnificence of his appearance. In person, he was to a high degree grand and imposing. Tus-te-nug-gee Thluc-co was his Indian name. Colonel Hawkins first met him at Coleraine in 1796, and they were great friends down to the treaty of Fort Jackson. He was probably the most enlightened and civilized man of the full Indian blood which the Creek nation ever produced. He cultivated a fine plantation, with seventy or eighty negroes, near Tuckabatchee, where he lived in a good house, furnished in a plain but civilized style, and was a man of wealth."
CHAPTER IV
Barnsley Gardens: A Lost Arcadia
S IX miles from Kingston, Ga., may still be seen the picturesque ruins of one of the most palatial old homes in the South, a sort of Alhambra, in some respects, not unlike the wasted citadel of the Moors. The locality is today known by the name of Barnsley Gardens; and standing amid the pathetic remnants of this old estate once feudal in magnificence it is not difficult for the imagination to picture here a castle with ivy covered walls such as might have overlooked the Rhine or the Danube in the middle ages. The story connected with it is full of romantic elements. To a resident of Kingston who has often visited this historic spot we are indebted for the following particulars :*
Three quarters of a century ago, Mr. Godfrey Barnsley, one of Savannah's captains of industry, decided to establish such an estate as he remembered to have seen in England, his native land. So he purchased from the Cherokee Indians 10,000 acres of ground in what is now the county of Bartow. Gradually he cleared away the forest and turned the red hills into cotton fields and built a stately manor house where it overlooked a magnificent sweep of country, reaching far back until blue hills merged into bluer skies. He then planted around it the famous gardens which for two generations have been a Mecca for pleasure seekers and holiday excursionists in this part of Georgia.
*Miss Belle Bayless.
28
GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
To embellish the gardens, rare trees and shrubs and plants were brought hither from the most remote corners of the earth. Some of these still flourish amid the decay into which everything else has fallen. Hemlocks and spruces from Norway may still be seen brushing the old terraces with verdant branches of evergreen. Scotch rowans glow with scarlet berries in the autumn. Lindens and other foreign shade trees vie with those of the native woods in adding picturesqueness to the naturally beautiful location; while great lichen-covered boulders, hauled by ox-teams from the surrounding mountain-tops, form rookeries on either side of the main entrance to the grounds. The drive-way sweeps up the long hill and around the box-bordered area which encloses a central fountain just in front of an embroidered terrace. Mr. Barnsley, like his forebears, built always with an eye to the future and did not hasten his work. So the Civil War came on before the interior of the house was finished and the gold which he had sent to England came back to re-enforce the coffers of the Confederate government.
Domestic industries were fostered on this baronial estate of Mr. Barnsley; for not only the manor house itself but the quarters for servants and the small office buildings on the estate were constructed of brick made by slave labor from materials found on the plantation. The palatial old home place was divided into three parts -the central being two stories in height and surmounted by a tower. The main entrance to the house was ap- proached by marble steps. On either side of the hallway were spacious drawing rooms, libraries, and the like, with sleeping apartments above, sixteen in all. The right wing contained an immense dining room or banquet hall, on the first floor, besides billiard and smoking rooms, with kitchen, store rooms, and cellars below. The left wing was used for temporary residence purposes while the rest of the building was in process of erection. The owner was not to be deprived of any of the luxuries of life
29
BARNSLEY GARDENS
merely because he lived in the country; so, on the tower, a cistern was built to which pipes were laid and a reser- voir constructed in one of the chimneys to furnish hot water for the lavatories. Plans were also made for lighting the house by means of a gas made from resinous pine.
In the rear of the manor house is another terrace; and here we find a ghost walk, for a castle without a prome- nade for spooks at the witching hour of midnight is romantically incomplete. Just over the brow of the hill is the grave of Colonel Earl, a Confederate officer, who was buried on the spot where he fell during the Civil War. Relatives came to remove his body but they could get no one to dig into the earth, so strong was the superstitious feeling among the mountaineers; and even to this day the locality furnishes material for weird tales among the country folks.
At the foot of the slope is one of the prettiest spots in which the imagination could possibly revel. It is the ivy- covered spring-house set against the out-cropping gray rock. Inside a bold spring bubbles up and finds its way out and across the fields where it becomes a good-sized stream. And who could wish better dairy products than the milk and butter cooled in such pure water? One can almost fancy here a sprightly Lady Betty presiding over the burnished vessels and scolding her maids for some trivial neglect ; or more realistic still, Madame Barnsley- nee Miss Scarlett, one of the South's great beauties- standing in the shadow of the half-circle of live-oaks about the door, directing her servants as does her grand- daughter, the present chatelaine.
But Mr. Barnsley, in gratifying his artistic tastes, did not stop with plants and flowers for his extensive grounds. He was also an industrious collector of rare curios, objects of virtu, costly bric-a-brac, and expensive orna- ments. His mahogany dining-table-which was large enough to seat forty people-and his elegant side-board,
30
GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
which was of equally generous proportions, were made for Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil. The gilt library clock once belonged to Marie Antoinette; and an exquisite marquetry table, together with several delicate wood carvings, had bits of history connected with them. Over the dining room fire-place hung a rare painting. Its wealth of color undimmed by several centuries and its resemblance to Murillo's Madonnas told of the influence of the great Spanish master; while a built-in vault con- tained a quantity of family silver. In one of the bed- rooms was a mahogany bed-stead of huge proportions, but the four eagles intended to surmount the posts stood demurely in a corner, for not even the high ceiling of this spacious boudoir would permit them to occupy the places intended for them as guardians of the curtains of yellow satin damask. Wardrobe and dresser matched the bed, all heavy, hand-carved and handsome.
But these, together with a quantity of rare old wine, were taken to New York a decade ago and sold, the deal- ers paying only a song for what was worth almost a king's ransom.
Today the Last Sigh of the Moor seems aptly to fit the old place. Time has wrought fearful havoc. The Barnsley household has scattered to every continent on the globe; a cyclone unroofed the main house years ago; members of a vandal picnic party daubed tar over the front walls, while others amused themselves by shatter- ing window panes; and the one time immaculate flower beds are now waist-high in weeds. It is well nigh im- possible to maintain so large an establishment now-a- days, when labor for necessary work can scarcely be obtained for love or money; but rich minerals recently discovered on the property may yet provide the means not only for making needed repairs but for realizing the splendid dream of the founder of Barnsley Gardens.
CHAPTER V
Shellman Heights: A Romance of Sherman's March
O N January 1, 1911, there fell a prey to the devouring flames a splendid old mansion on the Etowah, near Cartersville, known as Shellman Heights. It crowned an eminence overlooking the river and represented an investment of several thousand dollars, not a penny of which could be recovered for lack of insurance. Little survives to mark the spot; but associa- ted with it there is a romance of the sixties surpassing anything which has yet been reproduced in the melo- dramas. Shellman Heights was built in 1861 by Captain Charles Shellman, and the first mistress of the mansion was one of the famous belles of Bartow. As Miss Cecilia Stovall she spent her summers at West Point, and there she became a prime favorite among the young cadets at the military school. Within the circle of her most devoted admirers were Joseph Hooker and William Tecumseh Sherman, both of whom were enthralled by the charms of this bewitchingly beautiful Southern girl. They were both handsome youths, and both destined to attain to high honors in the iron days of battle which were soon to dawn upon the nation. But she married a man from the South, much to the chagrin of her disappointed worshipers.
Years elapsed. In the spring of 1864, General Sher- man and General Hooker both halted at Shellman Heights, en route to New Hope Church where one of the
32
GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
great battles of the campaign was afterwards fought. On approaching the mansion, which he was about to ransack, General Sherman was attracted by the pathetic wails of an old negro servant who sat at the front entrance and, in accents hysterical with grief and fear, repeatedly sobbed :
"O, Lawd, what's Miss Cecilia gwine ter do now!"
Catching the sound of a name which was once charm- ingly familiar to his ear, there flashed across the old soldier's mind a vision of West Point, and in a tone of inquiry which betrayed some touch of tenderness he asked :
"What is the full name of your mistress? Come, answer me quick !"
"Miss Cecilia Stovall Shellman," replied the dis- tracted servant.
"Why, that's my old sweetheart !" exclaimed the man of blood and iron.
Tearing a leaf from his note-book, the grim warrior hastily scratched the following lines, addressed to Mrs. Cecilia Stovall Shellman :
"My dear Madam-You once said that you pitied the man who would ever become my foe. My answer was that I would ever protect and shield you. That I have done. Forgive all else. I am but a soldier.
W. T. SHERMAN.
Orders were immediately given to the soldiers to replace what they had taken, while a guard was stationed about the mansion to protect it from further molestation. Even iron will melt in the heat of a blaze fervent enough to soften it; and for the sake of an old love affair of his youth, the grim despoiler spared Shellman Heights. Sentiment often crops out in unexpected places. Now and then we find violets growing in the clefts of volcanic rocks. Sherman moved on. Later came Hooker, who learning the same particulars in regard to the owner- ship of the mansion issued the same order to his troops.
33
SHELLMAN HEIGHTS
It is said that another unsuccessful suitor for the hand of this beautiful Southern woman was gallant Dick Garnett, a young West Pointer, in charge of the arsenal at Augusta, then the girlhood home of Miss Stovall. To the handsome youth's proposal of marriage, the fair object of his affection was by no means indifferent. But the young girl's father did not favor this match. The lovers were forbidden to meet and the obstinate Iass was finally sent to visit relatives in South Carolina. There was probably no objection to the young man him- self. The best Virginia blood rippled his veins; but his profession was hazardous and his income small. Mr. Stovall wished to see his daughter wedded to a lord of many acres. In this whim he was gratified. While visit- ing the Palmetto State, Miss Cecilia smiled on the suit of a gentleman to whom her father interposed no objec- tion and whose means enabled him to build for his bride the beautiful old home on the Etowah. But the young officer whose suit she was forced to decline always remained true to his first love. He never married; and when he fell on the battle-field of Gettysburg, in 1863, the image of sweet Cecilia Stovall still ruled the heart of General Richard B. Garnett, one of the bravest soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.