USA > Georgia > Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I > Part 35
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There is quite an amusing tradition to the effect that when the old man was ninety years of age he became possessed of matrimonial intentions. Accordingly he mounted his nag and rode twenty-five miles across the country on horseback to visit the lady in question. On arrival, he was met at the gate by a servant who offered to help him alight. But the old man waived him aside. "Tut, tut!" said he; "get away ! I've come a-courtin."
His last will and testament, dated April 29, 1831, when his age was 109, is on file in the county court house at Appling. He begins by saying that he is "extremely debilitated" but-despite his five score years and nine- in full possession of his mental faculties. To the two children of his grandson, Senator Thomas W. Cobb, he left nineteen negro slaves, besides a half interest in the proceeds of his estate, real and personal. He adds that he is under greater obligations to Senator Cobb than to his other relatives "for circumstances not necessary to be made known." To his granddaughter, Sally Cobb Lamar, he left seventeen negro slaves, in addition to a half interest in his estate, real and personal; and she became the largest beneficiary of his will since her handsome portion was undivided. He also appor- tioned a lot of slave property among other relatives. The executors named in his will were Peter Lamar and Wil- liam Payne, but the former alone qualified. The old home place of Captain Cobb stood near the present boundary line between Columbia and MeDuffie Counties; and in this
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immediate locality, but on the MeDuffie side of the line, there is still a post-office called Cobbham.
The climate of Columbia seems to have been conducive to old age. Another centenarian was David Hodge. It is not known exactly to what limit of life he attained but at the age of 102 years he took the marriage vows. The unique event called forth the following comment from the Augusta Chronicle:
"The spirit of Seventy-six! Another hero of the Revolution has fallen-before the shrine of hymen! On the 23rd ult. was united in the holy bonds of matrimony, by John McGehee, Esq., Mr. David Hodge, aged one hundred and two years and two months, to Miss Elizabeth Bailey, aged forty years, both of Columbia County, Ga. Mr. Hodge was at Braddock's defeat and served through- ont the whole period of the Revolutionary War."
Captain Leonard Marbury died at the age of 93. He left ninety-six descendants. During the past decade two unmarried daughters of the late Dr. Nathan Crawford died, both of them near the century mark.
Lieutenant James Hamilton, a patriot of the Revolu- tion from Columbia, lies in an unmarked grave on Kiokee Creek.
Original Settlers. Among the original settlers of Colum- bia were: Colonel William Candler, Captain Thomas Cobb, Colonel William Few, Colonel Benjamin Few, Captain Ignatius Few, Captain Charles
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Crawford, Dr. Nathan Crawford, Hon. Peter Crawford, Major Joel Crawford. Rev. Daniel Marshall, Rev. Abra- ham Marshall, John Lamar, Basil Lamar, John Benning, Jesse Bull, James Fleming, Richard Dunn, Benjamin Dunn, John Dunn, Thomas White, Joseph Mattock, John Holliday, Colonel Daniel Appling, David Bushnell, Joel Cloud, William Drane, Jesse Winfrey, John Ray, the Doziers, the Waltons, and numerous other families. Most of these bore an active part in the War of the Revolution, not a few of them officers of distinction. Some of the early settlers of Columbia lived in the neighborhood of Wrightsboro, a part of the county afterwards included in McDuffie.
Columbia's Distin- In the year 1768, when Columbia was guished Residents. still a part of the parish of St. Paul, Colonel William Candler, a surveyor by profession. came to Georgia and located in the neigh- borhood of the old Quaker settlement, which was first known as Brandon but which in 1770 became Wrights- boro. The old town is still to be found upon the map in the upper part of what is now McDuffie: but from 1777 to 1790 it formed a part of the county of Richmond. Colonel Candler was a native of Ireland, who traced his lineage in an unbroken line back to an officer of the same name in Cromwell's Ironsides. The family in after years adhered strongly to the established church; but Colonel Candler, if not himself a Quaker, was allied to this gentle sect through his wife, who, according to Dr. Ignatius A. Few, was not only a Quaker but a preacher .* With such an impulse of heredity. therefore. it is not a matter of surprise that an army of distinguished ministers should have sprung from this virile and devout stock.
Colonel Candler bore an active part in the struggle for independence; and when Upper Georgia was over- run by the Tories he assisted General Elijah Clarke in transporting the helpless women and children of the
* Colonel Wm. Candler, of Georgia: His Ancestry and Progeny, by his great grandson, Allen D. Candler, Atlanta, 1902.
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Broad River region to a place of safety beyond the mountains in Tennessee. He died in 1784, while still in the prime of life. His descendants in Georgia are legion. The long list includes: Dr. Ignatius A. Few, the first president of Emory College; Governor Allen D. Candler; Bishop Warren A. Candler; Judge John S. Candler, a former occupant of the Supreme Bench; Asa G. Candler, the well-known financier and manufacturer; and a host of others.
On the eve of the Revolution came also the Fews, who likewise settled in the neighborhood of Wrightsboro. Captain Ignatius Few married a daughter of William Candler and from this union came Dr. Ignatius A. Few, who was early in life a skeptic but afterwards became a 'minister and a college president. Colonel William Few and Colonel Benjamin Few were both officers of note in the patriot army, while the former was also a member of the Continental Congress and a delegate to the Con- stitutional Convention of 1787, which framed the organic law of the United States. Captain James Few, another brother, was styled "the first martyr of American lib- erty." He was one of the leaders in the famous insur- rection of 1771, in North Carolina, known as the battle of Alamance; and for the part which he played in this tragic prelude to the drama of independence he was hanged by order of Governor Tryon. The Fews were of Quaker antecedants, but embraced Methodism at an early period.
The noted Dr. Moses Waddell for a number of years taught school at Mount Carmel.
It was on Kiokee Creek, in Columbia, not far from the Savannah River, that the standard of the Baptist faith was first planted in Georgia by the Marshalls-
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Daniel and Abraham. Billington M. Sanders, another land-mark of this denomination, first saw the light in Columbia.
The famous old centenarian, Captain Thomas Cobb, settled upon his baronial acres in this county, at the close of the Revolution; and here his illustrious grand-son, Senator Thomas W. Cobb, was born. For the latter, Cobb County was named. John Benning, who married his daughter Sarah, was the grandfather of Judge Henry L. Benning, of Columbus.
Colonel Daniel Appling, an officer of distinction in the war of 1812, lived and died in Columbia. The county- seat was named for his father, John Appling, an early settler, whose residence was at this place while the county of Appling, in the lower part of the State, was named for Colonel Appling himself.
Here, too, lived the Crawfords, a family whose gifted representatives have been prominent in the public life of the State, since the days of the Revolution. The great William H. Crawford, though a native of Virginia, was for years a resident of Columbia. He represented this country at the Court of France, where his impressive figure when arrayed in court dress is said to have fasci- nated the great Napoleon. He was twice United States Senator, twice Secretary of the Treasury, and, except for an unfortunate attack of paralysis, might have become President of the United States, an office which he missed by only a few votes. The distinguished George W. Craw- ford, Secretary of War, member of Congress, and Gov- ernor of Georgia, whose last public service was to preside over the famous Secession Convention of 1861, was born in Columbia. Major Joel Crawford, a member of Con- gress and one of the commissioners to run the boundary line between Georgia and Alabama, was born here. This was also the home of Dr. Nathan Crawford, one of the
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first physicians successfully to perform the delicate sur- gical operation known as trepanning in cases of fracture of the skull. The noted George McDuffie of South Caro- lina, was a native of Columbia. George Cary, an early member of Congress from Georgia, lived in this county ; and here was born Colonel John C. Reed, an author of legal text-books widely-known throughout the South.
COWETA
Created by Legislative Act, December 11, 1826. Named for
the Cowetas, or Lower Creeks, whose chief capital was Coweta Town, on the west banks of the Chattahoochee River, two miles below the present city of Columbus. Fort Mitchell was afterwards built on the site of the old town, which here commanded an important bend in the stream, known to the scattered tribes, far and near, because of its fancied resemblance to a serpent. Coweta Falls was the name given to the Rapids in the Chatta- hoochee above Columbus. The county of Coweta was formed from some of the land acquired by the State, under the treaty of Indian Springs, in 1825, and was so called in commemoration of the part taken by the brave chief of the Cowetas, General William McIntosh, in ceding the Creek lands to the whits, an act of friendship for which he was subsequently murdered by a band of Creek Indians. Newnan, the county-seat of Coweta, was named for General Daniel Newnan, a distinguished soldier of Georgia in the Indian wars and a membr of Congress. General Newnan fills an unmarked grave in Walker county, at Green's Lake, near Rossville, Ga. When organized in 1826 Coweta included parts of two other counties: Campbell and Heard.
Bullsboro: A Lost Two miles and a half to the north-east Town. of the present town of Newnan, on the old Fayetteville road, there for- merly stood a settlement, the last vestige of which has long since disappeared. The name of the village was Bullsboro. Here Coweta County's first seat of govern- ment was located. The distinguished Judge Walter T. Colquitt, afterwards a United States Senator, organized at this place the first Superior Court and empanelled the first Grand Jurors. The following outline sketch of this forgotten town, is furnished by Mrs. R. H. Hardaway, regent of Sarah Dickinson chapter of the D. A. R. Says she :
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"At the beginning of the last century Coweta County was a wilderness occupied by the Indians. As early as 1820, however, settlers began to enter this region, coming from the eastern counties of Georgia and from the two Carolinas. The town center which seemed to leap spon- taneously into existence was called Bullsboro. The little community boasted a store, a physician, and two churches -Baptist and Presbyterian; and this modest combina- tion was the only excuse for a town which Coweta could boast until a gentleman named Winfield gave to the Bap- tists several acres of land situated where the town of Newnan now stands. The donation thus made was in- tended to furnish a pastor's home, a cemetery, a church, and a school house. There were already in this locality quite a few residents; and after the Baptist church was removed from Bullsboro to this new site, a number of other people settled in the neighborhood."
"It was not long before a gift of land was also made in this quarter to the Presbyterians, with the result that in 1827 the members of this denomination likewise ceased to worship at Bullsboro and came to the new town site, where an excellent school was built. Stores multiplied ; and at an early date the growing importance of the young town as a center of trade and travel necessitated two taverns. It was called Newnan, in honor of an officer of the State militia, General Daniel Newnan, who achieved some note as a fighter in the Indian wars and afterwards represented the State in Congress."
"Bullsboro is now marked by an old pecan tree which some ignorant negro has girdled."
"There are two or three small cabins near by; but except for these flecks in the snowy whiteness of an area which is now covered by rich cotton fields there are here no other signs of life."
"Dr. North, who was assistant surgeon in the 7th Georgia regiment, once told me of a visit which his father and mother made years ago to the doctor at Bullsboro. Mr. and Mrs. Anthony North lived in the White Oak
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neighborhood, about fifteen miles south of the old county- seat; and after Mrs. North had for several days suffered tortures from toothache they decided to go to the doctor's office in the little town and have the tooth extracted, for there was no other means of cure for toothache, in pioneer days, except the forceps. They rode horse-back through the rough woods and, in due time, arrived at the doctor's office, where the troublesome tooth was taken out; and such was the relief which the sufferer experienced after an ordeal of pain which made her for days a stranger to food of any kind that hunger at once asserted itself. The doctor's wife invited them to remain to dinner, a courtesy which they were glad to accept in view of the distance which separated them from home, and they shortly after- wards sat down to a meal, which consisted of wheaten hoe-cakes, served with cucumbers pressed in salt, pepper, and buttermilk; but Mrs. North declared that never in her life had she eaten so delightful a dinner."
"This old lady reached the age of 102 years and died in 1895. By a strange coincidence an English magazine chronicled the death, in the north of England, of a woman of the same name, Mary North, in the same year and at the same age. It is of further interest to note that Mrs. North received a pension, during her life-time, as the daughter of a Revolutionary soldier and as the widow of a soldier of the War of 1812, a double distinction some- what unusual. Dr. North, mentioned above, was the youngest of a large family of children and devoted to the cause which they call lost."
The first session of the Superior Court of Coweta County was held at Bullsboro, in the fall of 1827. Judge Walter T. Colquitt presided. The Solicitor-General was Samuel A. Bailey, and the following pioneer citizens qualified as Grand Jurors: Isaac Gray, foreman; Eli Nason, James Caldwell, Anthony North, Samuel Walker,
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Nathaniel Nichol, Edward Secour, Thomas Dyer, Edward Reeves, Daniel Webster, Moses Kelley, Lewis M. Paulett, Robert O. Beavers, Elijah Hammond, John Caldwell, S. Green, John Kisor, Miles Wood, and Daniel Hull.
Says White: "On a tract of land belonging at one time to Major Cheedle Cochrane are the remains of an old fortification, circular in form, containing an area of from six to ten acres, situated on a point of land between a small creek and a branch. Facing the creek is an almost perpindicular precipice, by means of which the fort was made secure against attack, while in the rear there was a gentle slope, which gave the garrison a convenient means of access."
College Temple was quite a noted school in the early days. It was located in Newnan and was taught by Professor M. P. Kellogg. Other fine schools which came later were Longstreet Institute, Senoia Institute, and Rock Springs Academy.
The Old Calhoun As the train leaves Newnan, going to- Mansion. ward LaGrange, there may be seen to the west of the railroad, in a magnifi- cent grove of forest oaks, the stately old mansion of Dr. Andrew B. Calhoun, long a dominant figure in the politi- cal and social life of this section. He came of the noted Abbeville stock and was a near kinsman of the Great Nul- lifier, who divided the laurels of statesmanship in ante- bellum days with Clay and Webster. Dr. Calhoun often served in the General Assembly of Georgia; but the demands of his large practice and the cultivation of his broad acres, baronial in extent, kept his love of politics
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somewhat in abeyance, though his advice was paramount in the shaping of policies. Without permitting his au- thority to be questioned, he governed by the golden rule of kindness the feudal estate over which he presided. In the finest sense of the phrase, he was a gentleman of the old school, given to hospitality, courteous and brave, a man without fear and without reproach. Beside the mansion house, there is still to be seen the little cottage to which Dr. Calhoun brought his bride, when he first came to Newnan in the early forties; and here, in this cosy nest of a home, were born his six children: Martha Frances, who married Dr. K. C. Divine; Ann Eliza, who married a Mr. Caldwell; Dr. Abner W., who became one of the most eminent specialists in the South; Susan Kath- arine, who married John B. Hill; Judge Andrew E., a jurist of high reputation, and Ephraim Ramsey, who died on the threshold of manhood. The father of this noted Georgia household attained to patriarchal years, passing away near the close of the last century at the ripe old age of eighty-nine.
Soldiers of the Revolution Buried in Coweta.
On an old box-fashioned tombstone, in the lot of the Robinson family, in Oak Hill cemetery, in the town of Newnan, is chiseled the following epitaph :
Randall Robinson, departed this life on the 27th day of February, 1842, in the 80th year of his age. He served a short time in the Revolutionary War and was for many years a member of the Baptist church.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
Mr. Robinson was a descendant of the first Governor of North Carolina. He enlisted at the age of fourteen and served for 189 days in a Palmetto State regiment.
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He became one of the earliest settlers of Coweta and with his family organized the first Baptist church. His great-great grand-daughter, Mrs. Marie Robinson Wright, is a well-known author, who has written some excellent books of travel.
From an obscure grave in the county the remains of William Smith, another soldier of the first war for inde- pendence, were brought to Newnan some time ago and re-interred in the Confederate burial-ground, in the south- east corner of Oak Hill. He was given the sobriquet of "Hell Nation", a somewhat descriptive title which may indicate the fiery quality of his valor. Mr. Smith died at the age of 81. He enlisted in Moore County, N. C., and was granted a pension on September 3, 1832.
Allen Gay, a soldier of the Revolution, died in Coweta County, at the age of 82, the year of his death unknown. According to White, he was only a lad when he joined a battalion in General Greene's army but at the battle of Eutaw Springs performed the feat of taking five of the enemy prisoners. It is said that he entered the war as a substitute for his father who had been summoned to appear at the high hills of the Sante to serve for twelve months. Subsequent to the close of hostilities, Mr. Gay removed to Georgia. He lies buried at Macedonia church, where his grave has lately been marked by the Sarah Dickinson chapter of the D. A. R. He was one of the founders of the church at this place, and was the first person to be buried in the churchyard. The monument over his grave was donated by the United States govern- ment.
It is also of record that the following soldiers of the Revolution died in Coweta: Colonel John Dickson, an elder in the Presbyterian church, in 1831, aged 80; Isham Huckeby, in 1835, aged 93; John Thurmond, in 1839, aged 80; and William Wood, the date of his death unknown. Major James Wood resided in Coweta for a number of years but died in Heard.
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The Grave of Under a handsome marble stone, in
Governor Atkinson. Oak Hill cemetery, in the town of Newnan, rest the mortal ashes of William Y. Atkinson, one of the ablest of Georgia's Chief- Executives. His death, in the prime of manhood, bereaved the State of an illustrious son who seemed to be predes- tined to wear still higher honors. The following epitaph is inscribed upon his tomb :
William Yates Atkinson. 1854-1899. As son, brother, husband, father, he was tender and true. A friend to the poor and the weak. In the path of duty he knew no fear. His fellow citizens recognizing him a leader among men called him to be Governor of Georgia. A friend of public education, he was the author of the acts establishing the Newnan Public Schools and the Georgia Normal and Industrial Col- lege.
While still in his young manhood he was called from earth to a more perfect life in Heaven.
Original Settlers. From a sketch of this county by Cap- tain William U. Anderson, the follow- ing list of Coweta's earliest residents has been compiled : Joseph Edmondson, Acquilla Hardy, Andrew J. Berry, Christopher B. Brown, George Pentecost, James Hicks, Major Nicholas Dwyer, John Underwood, Caleb Fields, James Stamps, John E. Robinson, Washington Arnold, Colonel Zachariah Phillips, Dr. Levi T. Wellborn, Turner Persons, Samuel D. Echols, Colonel W. B. W. Dent, Cap- tain William Hitchcock, Captain William U. Anderson, John Ray, James Hutchinson, Levi Phillips, Daniel Web- ster, William Nemmons, John Fleming, William Bailey, Robert Neal, John Neal, Clark A. Roney, Dr. James M. Lyons, Josephus Echols, R. T. Returns, James G. Lyle, Dr. Joel W. Terrell, William B. Cobb, John W. Hooper, Levi Willcoxon, John B. Willcoxon, Robert J. Pinson,
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COWETA
John S. Beavers, William Daniel, Winchester Dumas, John Hunter, Thomas Roney, Dr. J. Palmore, Colonel Thomas A. Latham, William B. Pryor, J. Pollard, Dr. Wheeler Randall, Dr. William P. Echols, Anthony North, Beniah Mclendon, Winston Wood, John McKnight, Judge Owen H. Kenan, Dr. Jeremiah Bell, Dr. W. P. Rainey, Isham H. Rainey, Herbert C. Rainey, John Terry, Joseph Shaw, Dr. A. B. Calhoun, Colonel John W. Pentecost, Judge Grigsby E. Thomas, Ansel B. Leigh, Benjamin Leigh, Dr. I. E. Smith, Dr. Cannon H. Shipp, Major Hugh Brewster, Samuel W. Minor, Richard B. Wooten, Major Beverley D. Thompson, Young J. Long, John Hardeman, Silas Reynolds, Captain Gilbert D. Greer, Norman Brad- ley, J. W. Bradley, William Taylor, George A. Wilson, Rev. Joseph Y. Alexander, General E. M. Storey, Colonel Augustus H. Stokes, Phillip Orr, Robert Cole, Samuel Dennis, Sr., William Westmoreland, Sr., Enoch Knight, Carrington Knight, Rev. John Bigby, Bennett H. Con- yers, Lewis Redwine, John Redwine, Captain William Speer, James Powel, Sr., Dr. Urquhart, Thomas Delk, William Askew, the Russells, the Carmichaels, the Bridges, the Dicksons, the Duncans, etc.
Coweta's Distin- Besides giving the State a Governor,
guished Residents. in the person of William Y. Atkinson, Coweta has been the home county of a number of distinguished Georgians. Judge John Ers- kine, an occupant of the bench of the United States Dis- trict Court in Georgia, during the days of Reconstruction, who rendered the State an important service when a friend in authority was needed, lived at one time in Coweta. Here also lived a number of other distinguished jurists, among them, Judge Dennis F. Hammond, Judge L. H. Featherstone, Judge Owen H. Kenan, Judge John S. Bigby, and Judge Hugh Buchanan.
The last two, in addition to gracing the ermine, also served the State in Congress.
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Hon. W. B. W. Dent was another resident of Coweta who served in the National House of Representatives. He was not a lawyer but a merchant, possessed of an unusual capacity for public affairs. Mr. Dent at one time owned Stone Mountain. Hon. Charles L. Moses, a member of Congress, lived at Turin. Dr. Abner W. Calhoun, one of the South's pioneer specialists, was a native of Newnan; and here for more than forty years lived Dr. James Stacy, a distinguished Presbyterian divine and a noted author. Dr. Luther M. Smith, a gifted president of Emory Col- lege, lived at Newnan ; and here resided until recent years, Hon. Peter Francisco Smith, a lawyer of distinction and a well-known man of letters, from whose pen have come a number of books. Two of Atlanta's pioneer bankers came from Newnan: F. M. Coker and John H. James. Here, too, was born one of the South's truest poets, Carlyle Mckinley.
CRAWFORD
Created by Legislative Act, December 9, 1822, from Houston County, and enlarged by subsequnt additions from two countis. Macon and Talbot; also from the lands of the Creek Indian Agency east of the Flint River. Named for the illustrious William H. Crawford, of Georgia, statesman, diplo- mat, and jurist. Knoxville, the county-seat, named for General Henry Knox, of the Revolution, founder of th socity of the Cincinnati. When organized in 1822 Crawford included a part of Upson.
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