USA > Georgia > Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I > Part 38
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* Historical Collections, Baker County, Savannah, 1856.
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day for this region of Georgia. Conditions were revolu- tionized. Today the city of Albany is one of Georgia's best regulated and most progressive municipalities. The government, under a charter of 1899, is administered by a mayor elected every two years and by a city council whose consent is required for all appointments of ad- ministrative officials made by the mayor. Up-to-date electric light and water plants are owned and operated by the local authorities. Wide streets, substantial office- buildings, and beautiful private homes are the chief physical characteristics of the town. Albany boasts five banks, a splendid public school system, in addition to a normal school for the negro race; numerous churches, including a handsome Jewish synagogue; several busy manufacturing plants, and scores of solid mercantile establishments. One of the most cultured communities in the State. Albany was one of the first of Georgia cities to organize an annual chautauqua and here on the issue of free silver Speaker Crisp, of the National House of Representatives met Hon. Hoke Smith, former Secretary of Interior, in a famous joint debate.
"Thronateeska" was the name originally given to the Flint River by the Creek Indians. The local chapter of the D. A. R. bears this beautiful Indian name; and, besides possessing a most enthusiastic and loyal member- ship, it probably boasts a larger number of genuine Revo- lutionary relics than any chapter in the State, not even excepting those of Savannah and Augusta.
Original Settlers. See Baker from which county Dough- erty was formed.
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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
To the pioneer list belong the names of the following early residents of Albany : Nelson Tift, who founded the town in 1836; Judge Lott Warren, one of the first lawyers to locate here, a Congressman and a jurist, who came from Palmyra; Judge Richard H. Clark, a former resi- dent of Savannah, afterwards a noted occupant of the Bench; Rev. Jonathan Davis, who founded the First Baptist Church, of Albany, a former resident of Pal- myra; Dr. Jeremiah Hilsman and Dr. John B. Gilbert, two pioneer physicians, who came from Palmyra; C'apt. Wm. E. Smith, a gallant Confederate soldier, afterwards a member of Congress; Judge David A. Vason, a distin- guished lawyer and jurist; Capt. Y. C. Rust, commander of the famous Albany Guards; Jeremiah Walters, N. J. Cruger, John Temple Hester, Henry A. Karver, Samuel B. Wright, C. E. Mallory, Rev. J. H. B. Shackleford, Dr. W. L. Davis, Capt. John A. Davis, Capt. Richard Hobbs, George W. Collier, Davis Pace, Judge L. D. D. Warren, Dr. P. L. Hilsman, Colonel .J. L. Boyt, the Coleys, the Godwins, and other pioneer families. Mrs. Adelaide E. Jackson, who came to Albany a bride, on November 5, 1842, still lives here in the enjoyment of a green and beautiful old age. She is the oldest resident of Albany and is universally beloved .*
Dougherty's Noted Nelson Tift, the founder of Albany, Residents. was for more than fifty years a resi- dent of the town which he gave to the map of Georgia. For two consecutive terms prior to the Civil War, he ably represented the State in Con- gress. He afterwards served the Confederacy by con- structing boats for the government and by furnishing supplies to the troops. Mr. Tift was one of the great industrial pioneers of Georgia. To the vigorous initia-
* Authority: Mrs. S. J. Jones, of Albany.
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DOUGHERTY
tive of this one man is due in large measure the develop- ment of the entire south-western area of the State.
Albany was the home of Captain Wm. E. Smith. Los- ing a limb on the battle-field, he returned home to repre- sent Georgia in the Confederate Congress. It was this gallant soldier who in after years rescued the second dis- trict from the carpet-bag regime and made it a Demo- cratic stronghold. He was the only representative from Georgia who raised his voice against the high-handed fraud which seated Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House at the expense of Samuel J. Tilden. In comment- ing upon his courageous course, Gen. Toombs paid him this high tribute. Said he : "The people of Georgia should build Tete Smith a monument, whose summit should tower among the clouds, as a lasting memorial to the man whose wisdom, foresight, patriotism, and grand sense of duty caused him to brand the electoral humbug with infamy in its conception and to vote against its pass- age by the Congress of the nation."
Judge Lott Warren, a noted jurist of the ante-bellum period, who served in Congress from 1839 to 1843, spent the last years of his life in Albany, where he died at the beginning of the war. Here also lived Judge L. D. D. Warren, a leading lawyer of this section, who wore the ermine for a short while. Judge David A. Vason, long a trustee of the University of Georgia; Capt. Richard Hobbs, Capt. John A. Davis, and Dr. P. L. Hilsman, were also prominent citizens of Albany and men of wide repu- tation
Judge Samuel Hall, in the opinion of many, one of the ablest occupants of the Supreme Bench of Georgia since the war, was a resident of Albany for years. Judge Richard H. Clark began the practice of law in Albany, to which place he rode on horseback from Savannah. With Thomas R. R. Cobb and David Irwin he was one of the
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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
original codifiers of the laws of Georgia. With C. E. Mallory he represented Dougherty in the secession con- vention.
Brigadier-General Gilbert J. Wright was long a resi- dent of this town. He was a gallant Confederate soldier and a judge of the Albany circuit from 1875 to 1880.
Judge C. B. Wootten, one of the leaders of the Geor- gia bar, lived here. His son, William E. Wootten, the late Solicitor-General of the Albany circuit, was one of the most brilliant lawyers of the State.
Henry M. McIntosh one of the best known editors in Georgia, a man of affairs and a leader in politics, has been for years a resident of Albany. He recently de- clined a nomination to Congress, on the ground that he could best serve his people at home.
Robert N. Ely, who held the office of Attorney-General under Alfred H. Colquitt and who collected a quarter of a million dollars in back taxes from the railroads, lived here. When a member of the State Legislature, in 1860, Colonel Ely reported to the House the famous Dough- erty County resolutions, urging conservatism in the matter of secession and suggesting the wisdom of co- operation among the Southern States. In his old age, Colonel Ely suffered financial reverses.
DOUGLAS
Created by Legislative Act, October 17, 1870, chiefly from Carroll County. Named for Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, a distinguished ante- bellum Democrat and a candidate for President of the United States, in 1861. Douglasville, the county-seat, also named for Senator Douglas.
Skin Chestnut. Dr. R. J. Massey, a former resident of Douglas, contributes the following bit of local history. Says he: "The original site of Douglas- ville was known for almost one hundred years as "Skin
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DOUGLAS
Chestnut." At this point, the landscape rises to an elevation some two hundred feet higher than the city of Atlanta, and on the summit of this ridge there once stood a large chestnut, which for years before the white man occupied the country was used by the Indians as a land- mark. Afterwards, in order to make the tree still more conspicuous, the Indians skinned it from top to bottom. Here, in the course of time, the roads began to converge; and as a place from which it was convenient to measure distances, the settlers called it by the name of Skin Chestnut. When the county was organized, the seat of government was located at this point, and quite naturally a more euphonious label was needed for the new town site, to harmonize with the honor which was thus bestow- ed. Hence the name of Douglasville, so called for Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, candidate of the national democracy for President, in 1861, after whom the county was also named. The stump of the old tree continued to be an object of much interest for years after the settlement of the town. The extensive wholesale warehouse of Duncan Brothers now covers the ground on which the tree formerly stood, and in the rear of this establishment can still be seen the old stump which tells where the Indian trails once centered and which marks the birth-place of the modern town of Douglasville."
Original Settlers. According to Dr. Massey, the original settlers of this county included : Dr. E. W. Maxwell, F. N. Mitchell, Richard Abercrombie, Wil- liam Hunter, Henry Morris, Dr. W. H. Poole, F. M. James, John Ergle, and Captain Fountain. Moreover, the following families were established in the county at the time of organization; the Baggetts, the Arnolds, the Bullards, the Gormans, the Fergusons, the Summerlins, the Whites, the McClaughtys, the Wynns, the Watsons, the Bobos, the Carvers, the Bowens, the Lipscombs, the
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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
Stones, the Selmans, the Dorsetts, the Prays the Mc- Guirks, and the Holders. Colonel Joseph S. James, U. S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, under President Cleveland, has long been a resident of Douglasville, and here lived for many years Hon. Joseph G. Y. Camp, a distinguished legislator, afterwards one of the foremost figures on the American lecture platform.
EARLY
Created by Legislative Act, December 15, 1818, out of treaty lands acquired from the Creeks. Named for Hon. Peter Early, a noted chief- executive of Georgia, who served the State in Congress and on the Bench. Blakely, the county-seat, named for Captain Johnston Blakely, a gallant naval officer of the War of 1812. He commanded a famous sloop called the Wasp; and besides capturing a number of prizes he defeated two well-equipped vessels, the Avon and the Atalanta. In the fall of 1814, the Wasp started on a cruise, but failed to return to port; and the brave sloop was presumably wrecked. Captain Blakely was a native of Ireland and a graduate of the University of North Carolina. He entered the United States navy soon after receiving his college diploma; and at the time when his vessel mysteriously disappeared at sea, was in his thirty- fourth year. When organized in 1818 Early included Baker, Calhoun, Decatur, Dougherty, Grady, Miller, Mitchell and a part of Thomas.
Peter Early was Georgia's twenty-third Governor under the Constitution. He was also for six years a member of Congress, serving from 1801 to 1807, and his speech in the famous impeachment trial of Judge Samuel Chase is said to have been the ablest argument made by the prosecution. Afterwards for four years he became Judge of the Ocmulgee Circuit and in 1813, at the age of thirty-eight, he was elected Chief-Magistrate of Georgia. It was during the period of the second war with England that he was called to the helm of affairs in Georgia and the policy of his administration was resolute and vigor- ous. He made himself unpopular by vetoing a measure which meant the practical repudiation of righteous con- tracts, costing him the support of his party in the State, though it was passed over his protest. At the close of his term, he retired from office never expecting to re-enter
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EARLY
politics. But the people of Greene, in compliment to his Roman integrity of character, immediately elected him to the State Senate, and while serving in this body he died, August 15, 1817, at the age of forty-four. He was buried at Scull Shoals, on the east bank of the Oconee River, near his summer residence, where his grave is marked by an unpretentious monument. Judge Early was born in Madison County, Va., June 20, 1773 but came to Georgia at an early age with his parents.
Recollections of Peter Early. 1
Volume II. 1
Memorials of an Says White: "Six miles north of
Ancient Civilization. Blakely, on little Colomokee Creek, at the plantation of Judge Mercier, is a mound 52 feet high, with an embankment surround- ing it and a ditch leading to the creek. Upon the summit are large trees. This mound has recently been penetrated for a distance of 50 feet by parties who expected to find buried treasure, but nothing has been unearthed except bones. There are other mounds on Dry Creek and Chat- tahoochee River."* Investigations made by scientists confirm the belief that these tumuli were built by the Mound-Builders, an unknown race of people, who pre- ceded the Indians. In general characteristics, these tumuli are not unlike the famous mounds of the Etowah.
In Pickett's History of Alabama and Georgia, pub- lished in 1851, the author states that trees were then growing on the top of the large mound from 400 to 500 years old. He says that a shaft was sunk in the center of this mound to the depth of sixty feet and that a bed of
* Historical Collections of Georgia, Early County, Savannah, 1854.
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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
human bones five feet in thickness was found at the bot- tom. He estimates the height of the large mound at 70 feet and the circumference at 600 feet. It is supposed to have been used for sacrificial rites.
Original Settlers. According to White, the original set- tlers of Early were: Isham Shef- field, Arthur Sheffield, James Bush, John Hays, Joseph Grimsley, Richard Grimsley, Richard Spann, Frederick Porter, Joseph Boles, John Roe, Abner, Jones, Nathaniel Weaver, James Jones, Solomon V. Wilson, John Dill, Alexander Watson, James Carr, John Tilley, William Hendrick, John Floyd, D. Roberts, Andrew Burch, B. Collier, J. Fowler, Martin Wood George Mercier, Wil- liam Dickson, A. Hayes, E. Hays, West Sheffield, and James Brantley. Some of these resided in the neigh- borhood of Fort Gaines a part of the county which is now embraced within the limits of Clay. See also Baker and Decatur Counties
Jesse Brown, a soldier of the Revolution, settled in Early where he resided until the time of his death.
James Bush, a soldier in the Seminole wars, was an early settler. He was thrice married and reared a fam- ily of twenty children. His father came from North Carolina with General Blackshear and settled in Laurens.
James Buchanan, a lientenant in the patriot army, was granted a pension while a resident of Early in 1847.
Major Joel Crawford, a member of Congress and a candidate at one time for Governor, died on his planta- tion in Early County, at the age of 75. He was also a soldier in the Indian wars and one of the commission- ers to survey the boundary line between Alabama and Georgia.
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ECHOLS
ECHOLS
Created by Legislative Act, December 13, 1858, from Appling and Irwin Counties. Named for Gen. R. M. Echols, a gallant officer of Geor- gia, who fell in the Mexican War. Statenville, the county-seat. Origin of the name unauthenticated.
Brigadier-General Robert M. Echols was a soldier of high rank who, at the outbreak of the war with Mexico, went to the front as Colonel of the 13th U. S. Regiment. He made a record for gallantry during the struggle and was breveted a Brigadier-General; but, while on dress parade, at the National Bridge, in Mexico, he was thrown from his horse, sustaining injuries from which he died on September 3, 1847. He was a native of Wilkes County, where he was born four miles from the town of Washing- ton ; but the family soon after removed to Walton County, settling on a plantation some five miles to the west of Monroe, at a place called Arrow Head. Before going to Mexico he achieved some distinction in public life, having served in both branches of the Legislature, where he was three times elected president of the Senate. Gen- eral Echols was buried in Mexico, but several years later an appropriation was made by the General Assembly for the removal of his remains to Georgia and he was re- interred in the soil of his native State, near his old home in Walton County, the leading officials of Georgia parti- cipating in the impressive ceremonies. The immediate family of General Echols has become extinct.
Original Settlers. See Clinch and Lowndes, from which counties Echols was formed.
To the list of pioneers may be added : Harris Tomlin- son and J. B. Prescott, who represented Echols in the Secession Convention at Milledgeville, in 1861.
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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
EFFINGHAM
Created by the State Constitution of 1777, from two of the old Colo- nial Parishes, St. Matthew and St. Philip. Named for Lord Effingham, a friend of the English Colonies in America. This distinguished peer of the realm held a Colonel's commission in the British army, but he relinquished it when his regiment was ordered to New York, to aid in subjugating English subjects who were fighting to maintain English prin- ciples. Said he: "A resignation appeared to me the only method of avoiding the guilt of enslaving my country and embruing my hands in the blood of her sons." Springfield, the county-seat. Origin of the name unauthenticated. But the town was not the first county-seat of Effingham. It belongs to a later period, and may have been named for the plantation of General David Blackshear, in Laurens County, on the Ocmulgee. Effing- ham originally included a part of Screven.
Ebenezer: The Story of the Salzburgers. Volume II.
Fort Ebenezer. In 1757, William DeBrahm, his Majesty's Surveyor General for the Southern Dis- trict of North America, erected a fort at Ebenezer. It was intended primarily to protect the settlement from Indian attacks. During the Revolution the town was still further fortified, first by the Americans and then by the British. It was in the possession of the latter almost uninterruptedly for five years; and during this time it became a famous rendezvous for prisoners. The church building served alternately as a hospital for the sick and wounded and as a stable in which the horses of the offi- cers were stalled.
Original Settlers. Quite a list of the early pioneer set- tlers of Effingham is given by Mr. Strobel in his excellent work on the Salzburgers. Accord- ing to White, the leading members of the German com- munity at Ebenezer, were:
Rev. John Martin Bolzins, Rev. Israel Christian Gronan, Thomas Gsohwandel,
Rupretch Zimmerman, Simon Steiner, George Swaiger,
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EFFINGHAM
Gabriel Maurer,
John Schmidt,
John Maurer,
Leonhard Crause,
George Kogler,
Peter Gruber,
Paulus Zittrauer,
Jacob Schartner,
Peter Renter,
Joseph Leitner,
Simon Reiter,
John Cornberger,
Matthias Brandner,
Andreas Grimmiger,
Christian Leimberger,
Matthias Bergsteiner,
Martin Lackner,
Veit Landselder,
Lupretcht Steiner,
Joseph Ernst,
Veit Lemmenhoffer,
John Michel Rieser,
Thomas' Pichler,
John Floerl, Carl Floerl,
John Spiel Biegler.
To the foregoing list should be added Jacob Casper Waldhauer, a member of the Provincial Congress of 1775 and a devoted patriot. He emigrated to America in 1725 on board the "Symond" and was for years an elder in the Jerusalem Church.
Bethany. Five miles northwest of Ebenezer a settlement was planted by William DeBrahm, in 1751. He established here one hundred and sixty Germans. Most of the new comers were either friends or relatives of the settlers at Ebenezer; and between the towns a road was opened across Ebenezer Creek. The settlers probably supplied the filatures at Ebenezer with cocoons. There is no evidence that they were themselves engaged in the manufacture of silk. The town was little more than an agricultural community and was fated to perish amid the clash of hostilities with England.
Goshen. Goshen was located about ten miles below Ebe- nezer, near the road leading to Savannah. It was another rural town of the pious Germans destined to become extinct soon after the Revolution. According to
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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
DeBrahm, there were fifteen hundred Salzburgers in Georgia, when the wave of emigration from Germany reached flood-tide.
Abercorn. Abercorn was located in the extreme southern part of this county, on a tributary stream or creek of the Savannah River. The site of the old town was some fifteen miles north of the city of Savannah and four miles inland. It was settled in 1733 by a colony of ten families detached from the main body of settlers at Savannah and was named in honor of the Duke of Abercorn, an English nobleman who encouraged the philanthropies of Oglethorpe. The original plan of the town embraced twelve lots, besides two for the Trustees, located at the opposite extremes. The location seemed at the time to have been wisely made. It was not only within easy access of Savannah but convenient also to South Carolina. But there was not one of the pioneer families to be found at Abercorn in 1737, when John Brodie, with twelve servants, moved into the settlement, and he in turn abandoned the place three years later. William Stephens visited the town in 1739, in company with Noble Jones, to inspect a ferry-boat built here by a resident of the town named Bunyon. He pronounced the locality an ideal one, surpassed by no settlement of equal area in the Province but nevertheless it continued to languish. Eventually the town passed into the hands of two Englishmen who converted it into an extensive plantation. In December, 1778, Colonel Campbell selec- ted this immediate neighborhood as a convenient base for operations against the interior of the State. But the place was only a memory when White wrote his Statistics in 1849, with nothing to mark where it stood. Though one of the earliest of the settlements of Georgia, it was also one of the very first to suffer complete extinction.
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EFFINGHAM
Georgia's First Governor: His
Mysterious Death.
Volume II.
Effingham's Brigadier-General Claudius C. Wilson,
Noted Residents. a gallant Confederate officer, was a native of Effingham.
Judge Richard H. Clark, a noted jurist and one of the original codifiers of the laws of Georgia, was born at Springfield.
Hon. Morgan Rawls, a former member of Congress, lived at Guyton; and Hon. Angus N. Grovenstein, a State Senator and a descendant of the original Salzburgers, resides here.
Benjamin Blitch, Jr., a native of Effingham, was a noted patriarch in this section of Georgia. From the loins of this pioneer minister of the gospel has come an army of descendants, not a few of whom have risen to high distinction. He married Harriet Wilson, grand- daughter of James Wilson, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence from Pennsylvania; and when a young man he was known to walk eleven miles in the dead of winter and to wade streams of water in which the ice was floating, to superintend a Sunday school. He was after- wards ordained to the field work of the gospel ministry, and for a period of forty-one years, with scarcely the loss of a day, he labored in obscure parts of the Master's vineyard. But he reaped his reward. There were born to him fourteen children, five of whom became Baptist ministers of note; and between them, they preached in nearly every State in the Union. Without an exception, they were men of talent. James E. Blitch, the eldest son, was a minister, a Confederate soldier, and a historian; Daniel I. Blitch, a minister, a Confederate soldier, an artist, a theologian, and a machinist; Joseph L. Blitch, a minister and a theologian; S. E. Blitch a minister, a Con-
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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS
federate soldier, a theologian, and a poet ; and - William W. Blitch, a minister, a theologian, and a historian. Be- sides these a grandson, Benjamin R. Blitch, became an ordained minister. The descendants of the old patriarch today number more than four hundred. They are scat- tered throughout the South, there is not a black sheep among them, nor an infidel, and they are faithful and devout witnesses to the same gospel which he preached.
ELBERT
Created by Legislative Act, December 10, 1790, from Wilkes County. Named for General Elbert, a distinguished officer of the Revolution and one of the earliest of Georgia's chief-executives. Elberton, the county- seat, also named for Gen. Elbert. When organized in 1790, this county included parts of two others, Hart and Madison.
Major-General Samuel Elbert was a distinguished officer of the Revolution and Governor of Georgia at the close of hostilities. He was born of English parents in the State of South Carolina, in 1740, but engaged in mer- cantile pursuits in Savannah. Partial to military life, he became one of the King's soldiers. But he resented the oppressive measures of the British Parliament and identified himself with the Colonial partiots. He was a member of Georgia's first Council of Safety, a delegate to the Provincial Congress, on July 4, 1775, and, when the Georgia Battalion of Continental troops was organ- ized he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel. On the departure of General McIntosh from Georgia, subsequent to an unfortunate duel with Button Gwinnett, the supreme command of the Continental forces in Georgia devolved upon Colonel Elbert.
Saved by the When Savannah fell into the hands of the Masonic Sign. British, in 1778, after a gallant but un- successful resistance, Colonel Elbert re- treated up the Savannah River; and, some time later,
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