Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I, Part 36

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

USA > Georgia > Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I > Part 36

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William Harris Crawford, in the opinion of many competent critics, was Georgia's greatest intellect. He arose from the plow handles to the United States Senate, became Secretary of the Treasury under two administra- tions, represented this country at the Court of Napoleon, and barely missed the highest office in the gift of the American people, after a protracted contest in the Nat- ional House of Representatives. During the campaign an attack of paralysis, supposed to have been caused by an improper use of lobelia, for which an inexperienced doctor was responsible, made him an almost complete physical wreck, though prior to this time he was a giant

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in stature and a man of the most superb personal aspect. He recovered his health in sufficient measure to become an efficient Judge of the Superior Court and, to the last, his memory was something marvelous. It is said that he could quote whole chapters from the classic authors of antiquity and was as familiar with the dead languages as with the English tongue. But he was never again the same man. Mr. Crawford died at the age of sixty-one, while making the rounds of his circuit, and was buried at Woodlawn, his country-seat in Oglethorpe.

Mr. Crawford at the In a letter written to Major Stephen Court of Napoleon. F. Miller by Col. George M. Dudley, son-in-law and biographer of Mr. Crawford, the following authentic account is given of a famous episode which occurred at the French Court in 1813. Says Col. Dudley :* "Though Mr. Crawford has told us of the bow he made on his presentation to the Emperor Napoleon, his modesty prevented him from saying what special favors he received in return. We are indebted to his Secretary of Legation [Dr. Henry Jackson], for the following incident: So impressed was the Emperor with his firm step, his lofty bearing, his tall, manly, and imposing figure, decorated for the first time in the court dress of the Empire that he avowed [on meeting the American Ambassador] that Mr. Crawford was the only man to whom he had ever felt constrained to bow and that on this occasion he had involuntarily bowed twice as he received the minister from the United States. The homage thus paid by the Emperor was said to be a rare if not an unprecedented occurrence at this court; and the Emperor himself was one of those who observed, upon looking at Mr. Crawford, that he was among the few distinguished men whose actual appear- ance more than realized what one anticipated before seeing them."

* Miller's Bench and Bar of Georgia, Vol. I, Sketch of Mr. Crawford.

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Old Creek Indian Agency: Where a Patriot Sleeps.

Page 18.

Where the Creek Claims Were Finally Extinguished. It was at the Old Agency on the Flint that the State of Georgia, on November 15, 1827, acquired a per- fect title to the remaining lands of the Creek Indians between the Flint and the Chatta- hoochee Rivers, thus removing the last vestige of the old Creek Confederacy in Georgia. The treaty at Indian Springs, of February 12, 1825, was abrogated by the United States government, on the ground that it repre- sented a minority of the nation, the Upper Creeks, who opposed it, outnumbering the Lower Creeks, who favored it. The Treaty of Washington, on January 24, 1826, by a change in the boundary lines, gave back to the Creeks a part of the territory originally ceded. But in the com- pact made at the Old Agency, on November 15, 1827, everything was harmoniously adjusted. At this time, in consideration of a quit claim title to the remaining lands within the State of Georgia, the United States government agreed to pay the Creek Indians $27,491, an amount which finally appeased the reluctant tribes and ended the pro- longed litigation. It was signed by two commissioners on the part of the Federal government, John Crowell and Thomas L. Mckinney, and by eighty-four head men and warriors of the Creek nation, who by this solemn act forever relinquished claim to the Georgia lands. Two other important treaties were concluded at the Old Agency -one, on November 3, 1804, between Benjamin Hawkins and Hoppoie Micco, by which certain lands between the Oconee and the Ocmulgee were acquired by the State; and one, on April 22, 1818, negotiated by ex-Governor David B. Mitchell, then agent of Indian Affairs for the Creek nation, who, as sole commissioner for the purpose, obtained an important cession of land south of the Ocmul-

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gee, not included in the cession of Fort Jackson, during the War of 1812. -

General Lafayette, on his visit to this county in 1825, was entertained at the Old Agency on the Flint. He spent the night here after leaving Macon en route north- ward.

Where the "Lone The State of Texas will erect a Star" Flag of Texas Originated. monument in the near future to the memory of the lamented Geor- gia woman who designed the "Lone Star" flag. During the month of February, 1913, the remains of Mrs. Vinson, formerly Miss Joanna Trout- man, were exhumed from a neglected little country grave- yard near Knoxville, Ga., and forwarded to Texas, to be reinterred with public honors in the soil of the great Commonwealth whose historic emblem she originated. The removal of her body from Georgia to Texas was the result of an extended correspondence between Mrs. L. L. Brown, of Fort Valley, Ga., and Gov. O. B. Colquitt, the present Chief-Executive of Texas, a native Georgian. Miss Troutman was twice married, first to Solomon Pope, and second to Green Vinson. She was a sister of the late John F. Troutman, Sr., of Fort Valley, Ga. The remains of Mrs. Vinson will repose in the State Cemetery, at Austin, Texas. Volume II.

Francisville : On the site of the old Indian Agency

A Buried Town. there arose subsequent to the death of Colonel Hawkins a town called Francis- ville. It stood almost upon the identical site of his official residence, but the town has long ago ceased to exist even in the memory of the oldest inhabitant of the region. We quote the following account of this long

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deserted village from Colonel Charles C. Jones, Jr .* Says he: "For several years after the death of this prominent man, neglect and decay supervened. New life was infused into the settlement, however, by Francis Bacon, of Massachusetts, who married Jeffersonia, the youngest daughter of Colonel Hawkins. He established himself on the site of the Old Agency about 1825 and founded the town of Francisville. Traffic with the sur- rounding country was freely invited. Being a man of means, of intelligence, and of enterprise, matters pros- pered. From 1830 to 1850 the town numbered an average population of one hundred whites, but, on the completion of the railway running from Macon to Columbus, the resident merchants sought other and more convenient localities. Trade began to languish and soon the town entirely disappeared."

Original Bettlers. As given by White, the original settlers of Crawford were: John Hancock, William Hancock, H. B. Troutman, Stephen Wright, Ben- jamin Beland, John S. Brooks, Henry Bradford, Samuel Dukes, Benjamin Lightfoot, Elisha P. Turner, Willis Taylor, William Richardson, Matthew J. Jordan, Benja- min Dickson, James Lang, William Zaigler, W. C. Cleve- land, Mancel Hancock, T. D. Hammock, S. D. Burnett, Green P. Culverhouse, John Culverhouse, William Sim- mons, George R. Hunter, James Clark, John Perry, John Dent, Ezekiel Hall, Elijah M. Amos, E. Whitington, Adam Files, Wm. T. Brown, James A. Everett, Henry Crowell, John Andrews, John Robinson, William Williamson, Samuel Calhoun, William Trice, Robert Howe, Archibald Grey, James A. Millar, and Rev. Henry Hooten. Some of these lived on the west side of the Flint River, in the section afterwards set apart to Taylor.

* Dead Towns of Georgia by Charles C. Jones, p. 241, Savannah, 1878.

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The following Revolutionary soldiers were living in Crawford in 1840 and were drawing pensions at this time from the United States government: Phillip Mathews, aged 88; Jason Meadow, aged 81; James Bailey, aged 80; Joel Etheridge, aged 77; Thomas Turner, aged 89; Daniel Hart, aged 97; Lewis Goodwin, aged 74; and Jacob Fudge, aged 82.

Chief-Justice Hiram Warner began the practice of law at Knoxville, in Crawford County, where he remained until his election to the Superior Court Bench, when he removed to Greenville.

Dr. Ezekiel Hall, a native of South Carolina, settled in Crawford in 1836. He was the father of Judge Samuel Hall, who rose to the Supreme Bench, and of Robert P. Hall, a gifted man of letters, whose early death was a bereavement to the State. Chief-Justice Thomas J. Sim- mons was also a native of Crawford.

CRISP

Created by Legislative Act, August 17, 1905, from Dooly County. Named for the noted jurist and statesman of Georgia, Hon. Charles F. Crisp, former Speaker of the National House of Representatives. Cordele, the county-seat, named for Miss Cordelia Hawkins, of Americus.

Charles Frederick Crisp-the second Georgian to wield the gavel of the national House of Representatives -was born in Sheffield, England, on January 29, 1845, of actor-parents, who were touring the British Isles. Mr. Crisp's father and mother came of good American stock; and, though the subject of this sketch was born under the English colors, his allegiance to the Stars and Stripes was not impaired by this accident of fortune. Indeed, he only tarried long enough upon foreign soil to prepare

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for the journey homeward. The very same year which ushered him into life found him speeding upon the ocean highway to New York; and in literal fact he was "rocked in the cradle of the deep".

It was chiefly between Macon and Savannah that he spent the period of boyhood, though he passed a season in Virginia, where he went to school. The outbreak of the Civil War interrupted his studies in the Old Dominion, and, enlisting as a private in Company K, of the Tenth Virginia regiment, he went to the front with the historic brigade whose commander was the great Stonewall Jack- son. Emerging from the conflict with the rank of Lieu- tenant, though barely of age at this time, young Crisp joined his parents at Ellaville, Ga., where he began the study of law. Later he removed to Americus for the practice of his profession, and here he established his permanent home. For a few years he held the office of Solicitor-General, after which he became Judge of his circuit; but relinquishing the ermine in 1882, he entered the race for Congress.

Once upon the floor of the great national forum, the genius of the Georgia jurist for statesmanship became apparent and six times in succession he was re-elected without serious opposition. He was not an orator in the popular sense. He possessed none of the sophomoric attributes of the declaimer. Though fluent he was not florid of speech. He preferred logic to rhetoric-argu- ment to ornamentation; and he spoke to convince rather than to please. It cannot be said that he lacked anima- tion ; but his speeches, as a rule, were characterized by the pellucid crystal of the mountain stream rather than by the impetuous vaulting of the cataract. As a parlia- mentarian he possessed few equals. When Mr. Carlisle was promoted to the Senate, he succeeded the great Ken- tuckian as the leader of the minority forces upon the floor; and when Democracy swept the country in the elections which followed he wrested the gavel from Speaker Reed, the famous Czar of Congress.

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Amos J. Cumming of New York, has styled Mr. Crisp the "John Bright of the American House of Commons." His tilts with Mr. Reed, while the latter still occupied the chair, have become historic. On more than one occa- sion he successfully turned his batteries upon the auto- crat, causing him to seek cover under the terriffic fire. Though not without ambition to enter the Senate, he declined the toga in 1894, on the death of Alfred H. Col- quitt. The vacant seat was formally tendered to Mr. Crisp by Governor Northen; but fidelity to existing obli- gations constrained him to remain at his post of duty in the House and to waive a promotion which he honorably coveted. Later he met Mr. Smith in joint debate, on the money question, when the latter was Secretary of the Interior ; and, on the retirement of General Gordon, from the Senate, there being no further obstacles in his way, he aspired to become his successor. By an overwhelming expression of the popular will he, was awarded the toga; but, on October 23, 1896, while the glittering trophy was almost within his grasp, he died of heart failure; and like the great Hebrew lawgiver, on the heights of Nebo, in full view of the Promised Land-

"God's finger touched him and he slept."

Cordele : How a Metropolis Leaped From a Log House. Cordele, the county-seat of Crisp, was twenty-five years ago unknown to the map of Georgia. The nucleus out of which it grew was a solitary log house located on a tract of land, then the property of Mr. H. C. Bagley, of Americus, commonly known as the Joe Brown plantation, containing 1,200 acres. The story of how it leaped into life reads like a modernized fable of Aesop. In the year 1887, the Savannah, Ameri- cus and Montgomery Railway, an enterprise financed by the Americus Investment Company, was partially built through this land; and to avoid antagonistic individual

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interests Mr. Bagley, who was engaged in developing town sites at strategic points along the line of this rail- way, sold to the Americus Investment Company, of which he was president, the property in question. At the same time he negotiated with the Macon Construction Com- pany, which was then building the Georgia Southern and Florida Railway, a deal whereby in consideration of an undivided half interest in 200 acres of land in the center of the town, donated to them by the Americus Investment Company, they agreed to intersect his railway on the site of the Joe Brown plantation, rather than at a point two miles east on the Hamilton plantation, which was then contemplated.

This was the master stroke which located the future metropolis where it today stands. The town was incor. porated in 1888 and named Cordele in honor of the eldest daughter of Colonel Samuel H. Hawkins, president of the Savannah, Americus and Montgomery Railroad. Miss Cordelia Hawkins is now Mrs. T. Furlow Gatewood, of Americus. In recalling the pioneer days of Cordele, the founder of the town narrates some very spicy incidents. Says Mr. Bagley : "As I now recall, the first lots were sold by me, at a public sale conducted on the site of the future town, on November 9, 1887. Cordele was then some 33 miles from the nearest town and was reached only by private conveyance. These lots, which were fifty by one hundred feet each, were offered at a level price of $100 per lot, half cash and the remainder in twelve months. Similar lots were offered in the residence sec- tion for $50 per lot, on the same terms. Purchasers were given the privilege of selecting any of the unsold lots shown on the plat and in this way future bank sites were chosen according to the somewhat variant judg- ments of pioneer investors. At that time, the Joe Brown plantation, a double-pen log house, with shed rooms, stood on the present site of the Suwanee Hotel. The first building in the town was the village school house, erected by the Americus Investment Company, on the

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site where now stands the handsome four-story American National Bank building. The school house was removed to a lot in the rear of this structure where it is used at present by one of the local churches as a house of wor- ship."

Helena, DeSoto, Lyons, and other towns on the line of the old S. A. and M. Railway, now the Seaboard, were likewise founded by Mr. Bagley. But the predestined flower of the group was Cordele. Today it forms the center of a perfect cobweb of iron rails. Twenty-six passenger trains daily enter the local depot; five banks, with an aggregate capital of $300,000, finance the busi- ness activities of the town ; fifteen vigorous manufactur- ing enterprises give it a recognized industrial prestige; and out of more than two hundred commercial establish- ments not a failure has occurred since the panic of 1907. It claims to possess a lower record of mortality than any city south of Baltimore and to hold the key to a region of country larger than the whole of the Netherlands- the rich and fertile domain of the Georgia wire-grass.

Original Settlers. See Dooly, from which county Crisp was formed.

To the list of early comers into this section may be added the following pioneer residents of the city of Cordele : Judge S. W. Coney, Judge E. F. Strozier, Dr. Thomas N. Baker, James H. Dorough, Z. A. Littlejohn, William S. Thomson, Joseph B. Scott, and Prof. James M. Kelley. Besides these, some of the old established families of this belt include the Dunlaps, the Coles, the Durretts, the Flemings, the Frasners, the Palmers, the Musselwhites, the O'Neals, the Hamiltons, the Williamses, the Jenningses, the Hunts, the Cannons, the Perrys, and many others.

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DADE

Created by Legislative Act, December 25, 1837, from Walker County. Named for Major Francis Langhorne Dade, of the U. S. Army, a gallant Virginian who distinguished himself in the Indian Wars. He was killed from ambush, on the morning of December 28, 1835, ty a band of Semi- noles, with seven of his officers, at a point sixty-five miles distant from Fort Brook, in the State of Florida. His body was interred near the site on which he fell but was afterwards removed to St. Augustine, where it sleeps in the Marine Cemetery, under a pyramid of rock. The bones of sev- eral other victims of the same tragic ambuscade share his sepulchre. Trenton, the county-seat, named for the famous New Jersey capital, in the neighbor- hood of which one of the most celebrated victories of the Revolution was achieved by Washington, on the morning of December 26, 1776, after cross- ing the frozen Delaware on blocks of ice.

Says White: "On the farm of Colonel Perkins there is a stone fort enclosing three or four acres, concerning which the Indians could give no account whatever. There are more than fifty mounds in this county, besides which many of the rude cabins in which the red men once lived are still standing (1854). These are now occupied by the farmers."

Original Settlers. Among the pioneers who first settled in Dade, according to White, were: J. B. Perkins, Joel Hulsey, James Stewart, Howell Tatum, John Guinn, Isham Cole, A. Hale, William Hughs, T. L. Tanner, Jacob McCollum, W. Hulsey, G. Stephens, A. B. Hannah, Z. O'Neal, L. Hendricks, Jesse Carroll, Jeremiah Pace, M. Cunningham, M. Morgan, Jacob Sitton, W. H. Taylor, R. L. Taylor, David Killion, Daniel Killion, Alfred Garner, James M. Hall, Leroy Sutton, and George Sutton.

DAWSON

Created by Legislative Act, December 3, 1857, from three counties, Forsyth, Gilmer, and Lumpkin, all originally Cherokee. Named for Hon. William C. Dawson, a noted ante-bellum statesman and jurist of Georgia. Dawsonville, the county-seat, named also for Judge Dawson.

William Crosby Dawson was one of Georgia's most distinguished sons. Beginning public life as clerk of the

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Georgia House of Representatives for twelve years, he afterwards served with credit in both branches of the General Assembly, compiled the laws of Georgia from 1820 to 1830, was commissioned Captain of a volunteer corps in the Creek War of 1836, represented Georgia in Congress for five years, after which he became Judge of the Ocmulgee circuit, and, from 1849 to 1855, he occupied a seat in the Senate of the United States. Judge Dawson was born in Greene County, Ga., June 4, 1798, and died at his home, near Greensboro, May 5th, 1856, at the age of fifty-eight. The family was of English extraction and came to Georgia from Virginia. During his term of office in the United States Senate, Judge Dawson acquired a reputation which was national in extent ; and, on retiring to private life, some of his friends in Washington, D. C., tendered him an elegant set of silver.

Said Chief-Justice Lumpkin: "The flatterers of George IV of England were accustomed to speak of the royal debauchee as the first gentleman of England. How much more properly might William C. Dawson be held up to the imitation of all as the first gentleman of Georgia."

Original Settlers See Forsyth, Gilmer and Lumpkin, from which counties Dawson was formed.

Alfred Webb and R. H. Pierce, delegates to the Seces- sion Convention at Milledgeville, were among the pioneers of this section of Georgia. The old established families of the county include: The Tuckers, the Allens, the Evanses, the Beardens, the Kelleys, the Hugheses, the Palmours, the Howards, the Gentrys and the Vandivers.

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DECATUR

Created by Legislative Act, December 8, 1823, from Early County. Named for Stephen Decatur, an illustrious Amrican Commodore, who was killed in a duel by James Barron, an officer of the same rank. Bainbridge, the county-seat, named for William Bainbridge, a gallant naval officer, who commanded at one time the celebrated frigate "Constitution." He first dis- tinguished himself in the war with Tripoli. When organized in 1823 Decatur included a part of Grady.

Bainbridge. Bainbridge, the county-seat of Decatur-for- merly known as Fort Hughes-was founded in 1823, under a commission form of government, with three commissioners. On the authority of a well-recog- nized local tradition there was a settlement here as early as 1810. The old fort commanded a bend in the Flint River a mile distant from the site of the present town. On account of fine advantages of location, Bainbridge became at an early period the center of very important commercial activities. It monopolized the trade of quite · an extensive area of country, but with the development of railroads, other localities began to enter the lists of competition. For years after the advent of the iron horse, the growth of the town was only normal. But the export trade in lumber inaugurated a marvelous change; and, with the completion of the Panama Canal, it is more than likely that Bainbridge will become one of the most important towns in the South. The Chatta- hoochee River borders the county on the west, while the Flint flows through the center, thus giving it two fertile valleys, and supplying it with abundant facilities for water transportation. The soil of Decatur is adapted to the culture of tobacco as well as of cotton, and is other- wise rich in possibilities.

Decatur is honey-combed with caves. Says Dr. Cot- ting, who once made a survey of this portion of the State : "Decatur abounds with what are called lime-sinks. Some are filled with water, others are empty. Some have

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streams passing through the bottom, by means of which they communicate with the river. The walls of these caves are lined with slag, in which there are quantities of marine organic remains. At Curry's Mills there is a large sink. The rim or crater is nearly circular in shape, with a circumference of 666 feet and a depth of 102 feet. Sixteen miles from Bainbridge there is a cavern which has been explored for a distance of 83 feet, and through it runs a small stream. Three miles east of the Flint River there is a large fissure, one hundred yards long, ten feet in breadth, and thirty feet in depth."

One half mile south-east of Black Creek, Dr. Cotting found fragments of huge animal tusks.

Original Settlers. According to White, the original set- tlers of Decatur were: G. Mitchell, Wil- liam Martin, Wm. Donalson, Joel Darsey, John Darsey, W. Williams, H. Ingram, B. Crawford, James Griffin, M. Hardin, James Brown, Samuel Cherry, William Powell, Samuel Williams, Daniel O'Neal, Hiram Atkinson, James T. Neal, William Forson, M. Kelly, William Hawthorn, John White, John Jones, Duncan Ray, Edmund Herring, Joshua Proctor, William Whigham, Elias McElvan, Wil- liam Powell, Philip Pitman, John Donalson, R. B. Doug- las, Abner Bishop, Jeremiah Slade, William Chester, Captain Parham, R. Strickland, J. Saunders and G. G. Gaines.

To the foregoing list may be added : Alexander Shot- well, the original owner of the site on which the city of Bainbridge today stands Jacob Harrell, Jonathan Donal- son, William Williams, John Harrell, W. W. Harrell, Duncan Curry, Charles Munnerlyn, Len Griffin, S. H. Dickenson, Hezekiah Thomas, Isaac Boyett, Sutton H. Trulock, and Dr. M. H. Martin.

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John Donalson, one of Decatur's pioneer settlers, was a patriot of the Revolution.

Decatur's Noted Hon. Benj. E. Russell, a distinguish-

Residents. ed editor of Bainbridge, served the State in Congress from 1893 to 1897. He was also a gallant Confederate soldier. Here lived Colonel Charles J. Munnerlyn, a member of the Confed- erate Congress, who, relinquishing the forum for the field, became an officer of high rank; Colonel John W. Evans and Captain R. A. Smith, the former of whom fell in battle, fighting for the cause of the South; Judge W. O. Fleming and Judge Byron B. Bower, both noted jurists; and Colonel John D. Harrell, U. S. Marshall for the Southern District of Georgia under Mr. Cleveland.

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Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I, Part 36

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