USA > Georgia > Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I > Part 54
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LINCOLN
Created by Legislative Act, February 20, 1796, from Wilkes County. Named for General Benjamin Lincoln, a distinguished officer of the Revolution. Early in the struggle he was placed in command of the Southern Department. At the battle of Briar Creek a detachment of his army was repulsed with great loss, after which he combined forces with Count D'Estaing, at the unsuccessful siege of Savannah. Fate seemed to be somewhat against him at this time; but in 1781 he was transferred to Virginia where he joined Washington and was chosen by him to receive the sword of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. He was afterwards Secretary of War in the Cabinet of the first President of the United States. By a co- incidence, not altogether rare in New England, General Lincoln died at the home of his birth, a plantation, near Hingham, Mass., in his seventy-eighth year. Lincolnton, the county-seat, named also for General Lincoln.
General Elijah There is strong presumptive evidence, if Clarke's Tomb. not indeed conclusive proof, that, in the northern part of Lincoln, on what is known as the Oliver place-a plantation owned by Marcus A. Pharr, of Washington, Ga .- rest the mortal ashes of Georgia's most illustrious soldier in the first war for in- dependence: General Elijah Clarke. It was for a long time quite generally believed that the old hero was buried in Wilkes, a theory supported by the fact that he was most conspicuously identified with this county during his life-time and that, near the battle-field of Kettle Creek, some of the members of his family were known to be buried. The fact that General Clarke lived in what was originally the county of Wilkes cannot be gainsaid. But a number of counties were subsequently formed from Wilkes, in any one of which there is the possibility that he might have been buried. It is a matter of record, however, that he owned an extensive plantation in a part of the county which was afterwards erected into Lincoln.
Moreover, a document has recently been unearthed which sheds an additional light upon this problem. Dur- ing the past year, a Daughter of the Revolution-Miss Helen M. Prescott, of Atlanta-while engaged in making researches discovered the old soldier's will in the ordi- nary's office at Lincolnton. So putting two things together-the finding of his will and the fact of his resi-
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dence-there is little room for doubt that somewhere on the old Oliver place the mortal ashes of General Clarke lie entombed. It is true that White, in his "Collections of Georgia," states that Mrs. Clarke, some twenty-eight years later, was buried beside her husband at Woodburn; and, while there is no such place in Lincoln known at present by this name, the same is equally true of Wilkes; and the probability is that it was merely the name which General Clarke, after the fashion of the period, gave to his Lincoln County plantation .*
Tory Pond. Six miles north-east of Lincolnton, on the road leading from Goshen to Dallas Ferry, is Tory Pond, one of the most historic spots in the county of Lincoln; for here it was, according to
* The following letter addressed to Dr. W. B. Crawford, of Lincolnton, by Mr. James T. Hudson, a lineal descendant of the old soldier, contains some additional particulars which will doubtless be read with much interest. It runs as follows:
Amity, Ga., July 25, 1911.
"Dear Doctor :- Your favor of the 22nd inst. relative to data desired by Mr. Knight, in support of the conclusion that General Elijah Clarke was buried in Lincoln County, now claims my attention. I regret that local traditions are very meagre. Possibly they are not conclusive enough to those who are looking for evidence so conclusive as to exclude all doubt. But such as I have heard I give you.
Sometime in the '80's I was at the home of Mr. John Chenault. Know- ing that I was a kinsman of the sturdy old pioneer, my host informed me that he was buried on the Pharr plantation, now known as the Oliver place in Lincoln. This he stated, not as a conjecture but as a fact. Talking with Mr. John T. Shewmate, a year or two later, he verified Mr. Chenault's assertion and promised to accompany me to the spot and point out the grave which he had often been told held the remains of a Governor of Georgia. Now, of course, we know that John Clarke was the Governor. We are likewise sure that he removed to Florida, where he died sometime in the thirties and where a shaft was erected to his memory, near St. Andrew's Sound. But the tradition is nevertheless significant as showing that some distinguished man was here buried. Again, in 1902, I was at the home of Captain D. B. Cade, in historic old Petersburg, a quondam rival of Augusta. The Captain, a most entertaining talker, carrled me over the site of the old town. Incidentally he pointed out the site of the old tobacco warehouse; and, passing a certain spot, remarked that General Elijah Clarke once had a law office there. We laughed at the Captain and informed him that this was a role in which we had never known General Clarke to figure. The Captain then told me that Genreal Clarke lived and died at the Pharr place and was buried there. Curious to relate, in search-
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tradition, that the Tories who murdered Colonel John Dooly were hanged. Dr. W. B. Crawford, of Lincolnton, whose boyhood days were spent within half a mile of Tory Pond says that among the credulous darkies it is still a prevalent belief that the woods in this vicinity are patrolled by spooks, and even to this day it is the rarest thing in the world for a negro to be seen in this neighbor- hood after nightfall. Colonel Dooly lived some three miles to the south of Tory Pond. The ruins of the old house, in which the murder took place, are still to be seen, near the road side; and the grave of the sturdy old patriot is supposed to be somewhere in this neighbor- hood, but the exact spot is unknown. At the time of his death, he was prosecuting attorney for the county of Wilkes and was pursuing the Tories with a vindictive spirit for the murder of his brother, Colonel Thomas
ing the minutes of the Superior Courts of both Wilkes and Lincoln for data concerning the record of Mrs. Carrie Tait Thompson's grandfather, during his tenure of office as judge of the Western Circuit, I found Elijah Clarke's name as attorney attached to several cases then litigated. But since General Clarke died prior to this time, we must conclude that the party in question was his grandson. In support of the belief that he lived in the neighborhood of Petersburg is the fact that the names of the parties litigant are still very common names among people now living in upper Lincoln and in lower Elbert. * * *
"We threshed out our respective claims, and Hon. T. W. Hardwick formally presented a bill in Congress to appropriate $5,000 to mark the graves of Lincoln County's two noted Revolutionary heroes: General Elijah Clarke and Colonel John Dooly. In regard to the present status of this bill, I am not apprised. In his letter to me, Mr. Hardwick was of the opinion that I had established my case and he anticipated favorable action. Now, if you will re-peruse the probated will and the recorded returns of John Clarke, executor, you will further see that the estate was not fully wound up before Mr. Clarke's death. One of the daughters of General Clarke married B. Smith; and, on examination, it will be found that B. Smith was Benajah Smith, who was sheriff of Lincoln in 1802-3. In an entry on the clerk's books there is recorded a coroner's sale, the sheriff having been disqualified as a party defendant, in which appears an advertisement of the land to be sold to satisfy the fl. fa. The land was purchased by a party and subsequent transfers show unmistakably that it lay in upper Lincoln, in the vicinity of the Oliver place. Mr. Shewmate tells me that there are here four graves in juxtaposition, two walled with rock and two bearing the names of the Smiths-B. Smith and , B. Smith's wife. The last two are still standing; the other two have been partially demolished. If you have waded through this mass, hurriedly penned, in an effort to comply with your resquest, and can use it, I shall be glad.
"Yours truly, "JAMES T. HUDSON."
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Dooly. Both of the Doolys participated in the battle of Kettle Creek. It is said that the murder of Colonel John Dooly, which occurred in his bed at home, was witnessed by his son, the afterwards celebrated jurist and wit, Judge John M. Dooly.
Judge Dooly's Last Judge John M. Dooly, one of Geor- Resting-Place. gia's most illustrious sons, is buried in Lincoln on his former plantation, some seven miles north-east of Lincolnton, near the Savannah River. Here he spent practically the greater part of his life. The house which he built and occupied is still well preserved. It is known as the White House because it was the first house in this region to possess a coat of white paint. The house is occupied at present by Mr. Rob Sims, one of the county's most progressive young farmers, but is owned by Mr. C. L. Groves, of Lin- colnton. The burial ground is in the rear of the old garden and Judge Dooly's grave is easily pointed out but, save for a crumbling sacophagus of brick and mor- tar, is unmarked. No shaft rises above the spot where sleeps one of the most noted men in Georgia's historic annals.
Sterne Simmons : In the old Simmons burial-ground,
Weight 650 Pounds. at Goshen, on property today owned by Mr. E. H. Samuels, is the grave of a Georgian who doubtless held the record of the human family in the matter of weight; and, on the upper surface of the immense marble box which covers the tomb, is the following epitaph :
Sterne Simmons. Born August 22, 1824. Died August 25, 1853. Aged 29 years and 3 days. The deceased weighed at the time of his death 650 pounds.
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Even to this day the traditions are numerous con- cerning the ponderous bulk of this youthful giant. It is said that on the day of his funeral it was necessary to remove the door-facings in order to take his body from the house. The stories in regard to his ravenous appetite are doubtless exaggerations, but the requirements of such an immense organism could not have been met by an ordinary meal. Besides his flesh was due to diseased conditions which probably intensified his cravings for food. As might readily be supposed he suffered intensely from the heat of summer. The buggy in which he trav- elled when he rode over the country was twice the size of an ordinary vehicle and was made specially for his use. He came of an excellent family of people. His brother, Dr. John Simmons, was a man of small statue, a master mason, and one of the finest presiding officers in the State. Captain Lafayette Lamar's first wife was his sister. The old Simmons home is still standing in Goshen.
Original Settlers. According to White, the original settlers of Lincoln were: Thomas Mur- ray, Robert Walton, John Lockhart, B. Lockhart, Thomas Mitchell, Sterne Simmons, J. Stovall, Captain John Lamar, Basil Lamar, Stephen Handspiker, M. Henley, Robert Fleming, James Wallace, and Peter Lamar. Quite a number of these pioneer settlers were veterans of '76.
Jacob Zellars, a soldier of the Revolution, settled in Lincoln at an early period and accumulated large means.
Rem Rensen, a native of Virginia, settled in Lincoln soon after the county was organized. His grandson, Judge T. H. Remsen, held for years the office of ordinary and owned at one time the old Judge Dooly home.
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Dr. Thomas Sandwich, a native of Harrow-on-the Hill, near Windsor, England, was an early settler of Lincoln.
Robert Fleming, the pioneer whose name is men- tioned above, was the grandfather of ex-Congressman William H. Fleming, of Augusta. Frank Fleming was another early settler. The Crawfords have been identi- fied with the county for a number of years, but the ances- tral seat of this family is in the county of Columbia.
Lincoln's Noted Thomas W. Murray, a noted legislator, Residents. who served in the General Assembly for sixteen years and who wielded the gavel as Speaker of the House for several terms in suc- cession, was a resident of Lincoln. He died on the eve of an unopposed election to Congress. The county of Murray was named for him.
Here lived the Doolys, two of whom were officers of note in the Revolution-John and Thomas. Both were murdered, the former by the Tories, the latter by the Indians.
Judge John M. Dooly, the celebrated wit, was a life- long resident of Lincoln. He was a son of Colonel John Dooly, of the Revolution, for whom Dooly County was named.
We quote this paragraph from Governor Gilmer : "If the sayings and doing of Judge Dooly could be known they would furnish more interesting matter for biography than Lord Campbell has furnished in many of the lives of the Lord Chancellors of England."
General Elijah Clarke lived on a plantation in what was formerly the north-eastern part of Wilkes but which was afterwards formed into Lincoln.
Here lived Colonel Peter Lamar, a wealthy planter and a dominant figure during the ante-bellum period in
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public affairs. He was a first cousin of Mirabeau B. Lamar, of Texas. His distinguished son, Captain La- fayette Lamar, gave his life to the Confederate cause, at Warrenton, Va., in 1861. The late Colonel Wilber- force Daniel, of Augusta, a gallant Confederate officer, was a grandson of Colonel Lamar. Dr. John B. Daniel, of Atlanta, one of the foremost manufacturers and mer- chants of the South, is also a grandson.
LOWNDES
Created by Legislative Act, December 23, 1825, from Irwin County. Named for Hon. William Lowndes a distinguished statesman of South Caro- lina. He was nominated for President of the United States by the Legisla- ture of his native State in 1821 but an enfeebled constitution called for rest and death overtook him while making a voyage at sea. Mr. Clay pronounced him the wisest man of his acquaintance in pubic life and on the floor of Congress, especially when engaged in the discussion of great economic questions he encountered no superior intellect. Valdosta, the county-seat, named for a famous plantation owned by Governor Troup, In Laurens County, where much of his time was spent. Originally Lowndes included Berrien and in part Brooks, Echols and Tift.
Troupville : A Dead Town. In an angle of land between Wil- lacoochee and Little Rivers, some four miles west of the present county-seat, stood the old town of Troupville, named in honor of Georgia's famous chief-executive-Governor George M. Troup. It promised at one time to become an important center of population. There were living here in 1849, when Dr. White published his Statistics of Geor- gia, something like twenty families .* The little town boasted three hotels, two churches, four stores, and sev- eral shops owned by mechanics. The professional lists included two physicians and four lawyers, a proportion which speaks well for the health of the town; and there must have been no small amount of business transacted here to have nourished a quartet of legal lights. But the little haralet among the pines failed to develop a growth
* W7 .e's Statistics of Georgia, p. 385, Savannah, 1849.
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in keeping with the great name it bore; and when the first railway was projected through the county, Troupville was ignored by the surveyors, who ran the line some four miles to the east. Here another town arose; called "Valdosta," a name given by the great apostle of State Rights to his favorite plantation in the county of Laurens. Valdosta became the new county-seat. To this point the commercial establishments drifted one by one, until final- ly the little town became extinct; and today, according to Major Varnadoe, little more than a sand hill marks the site on which the first county-seat of Lowndes once stood.
On the authority of Dr. White, there were still to be seen near Troupville, in 1849, the ruins of an old town, whose origin probably dates back to prehistoric times .* Large live oaks were flourishing in the same neighbor- hood. The idea of spontaneous growth was precluded by the straight and uniform rows in which the trees were planted; but who could have set them out is a mystery which time has not solved. It is quite within the possi- bilities that an old Spanish town may have been located here before the days of Oglethorpe.
Valdosta : What the Valdosta, the present county-seat Name Means. of Lowndes, is one of the most pro- gressive towns in the State, a live cotton market, and the center of quite an extensive trade in lumber. The name is said to have been given to the town by a Mr. DeLyon, who then owned and edited the county newspaper. He was an ardent admirer of Gover- nor Troup; and since the town which bore the old Gov- ernor's name was likely to vanish from the map, he sug- gested the name of the latter's chief place of residence as
* Ibid, p. 387.
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an appropriate name for the new town. There were some who advocated Troupville. But the majority pre- ferred Valdosta. The original form of the word, Val d' Osta, is still to be found upon the map of Europe. The name was first bestowed upon a beautiful Alpine Valley, which descends into the vineyards of Northern Italy, a region famed throughout the world for charm of en- vironment. At the foot of the valley sits the old Italian town of Aosta, said by antiquarians to antedate the birth of Rome by 456 years.
When the county-seat was changed from Troupville to Valdosta, Dr. William Ashley, Judge Richard A. Peep- les, W. H. Bugg, A. Converse, Moses Smith, and others settled in the new town. Valdosta was located on land belonging chiefly to Captain J. W. Patterson. Among the early settlers also were the Varnadoes and the Platts. Samuel McWhir Varnadoe, a noted educator, here found- ed in 1866 the famous Valdosta Institute, at the head of which he remained until his death. It was afterwards continued for a short time by his son, Major James O. Varnadoe, in conjunction with Bishop Pendleton, now of Pennsylvania; but eventually it was merged into the local system of public schools. Prof. Varnadoe came from Liberty County, Ga., where his family was one of the oldest in the noted Midway settlement. He was at one time the nominee of the American party for Congress, but the district was a Democratic stronghold and he lost the election to his rival, James L. Seward, of Thomasville, by only a small margin of votes.
Wm. Peters, a veteran of '76, was granted a Federal pension while a resident of Lowndes in 1846, at which time he was a very old man.
Valdosta is the seat of an institution of learning destined to become one of the great educational plants of
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the State: the South Georgia Normal College. As yet the school is only an infant, but the enterprising citizen- ship of Valdosta is a unit in giving it support, and the splendid victory won by the town in securing this school for South Georgia shows what an aroused public senti- ment can accomplish when directed by men of vigorous initiative. Hon. W. S. West, the author of the bill creat- ing the institution, was enabled by his popularity as Pres- ident of the State Senate to put the measure through the General Assembly, in 1906, without a dissenting vote in the upper house over which he presided. But for lack of funds in the State treasury, the enterprise lay dormant until 1911 when Messrs. W. L. Converse and C. R. Ashley, the representative from Lowndes in the Legislature, sub- mitted a proposition which the State accepted. The terms of the agreement were as follows: Georgia was to give $25,000 for a building and $5,000 for equipment; while the town of Valdosta was to furnish a campus of fifty acres and $5,000 a year for ten years. Going far beyond the terms of agreement, the wideawake little metropolis has erected a magnificent structure, in the style of the Spanish Mission, at a cost of $50,000, to de- fray which Mr. Converse advanced the necessary cash. Georgia has this past year appropriated $25,000 for the maintenance of the school in 1913; and Prof, R. H. Powell, one of the brainiest educators in the State, has been called to the executive helm. On January 2, 1913 the college was formally opened with an elaborate pro- gram of exercises. Among the speakers on this occasion were: Governor-elect John M. Slaton; Hon. W. S. West, President of the Board of Trustees; Dr. David C. Barrow Chancellor of the University of Georgia; Dr. K. G. Matheson, President of the Georgia School of Tech- nology; State School Commissioner M. L. Brittain and Prof. R. H. Powell, President of the South Georgia Nor- mal. In the evening an elegant banquet was spread at the Hotel Patterson over which Colonel J. M. Wilkinson, of Valdosta, presided. No institution was ever launched in Georgia under brighter prospects.
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Original Settlers. The first comers into Lowndes, accord- ing to White, were: Rev. William A. Knight, Benjamin Serman, Bani Boyd, William Smith, John Bryan, Jacob Bryan, John J. Underwood, Henry Parish, Fisher Gaskins, Jesse Lee, Jesse Carter, H. Colson, J. Jameson, J. Hall, S. Hall, G. Hall, John Hill, Rev. Mr. Alberton, J. D. Spanks, James Matthews, S. E. Swilley, Major Simmons, William Deas, J. Deas, William McMullin, Francis Rountree, Jesse Goodman, Captain Burnett, L. Roberts, and Captain Bell.
LUMPKIN
Created by Legislative Act, December 3, 1832, from Cherokee County. Named for Hon. Wilson Lumpkin, Governor, Congressman, and United States Senator from Georgia. Dahlonega, the county-seat, so called from a name given to the locality by the Cherokee Indians. The term signifies "yellow metal," referring to the abundance of gold in this neighborhood.
Wilson Lumpkin: A This extraordinary man was one of Brief Sketch.
the most dominant figures of his day in Georgia-a master of the science of politics. He was also a man of sound practical judg- ment; and, realizing the possibilities of the iron horse, as a motive power in commerce, he became one of the most zealous pioneers of railway development. He was a mem- ber of Congress and a United States Senator. Twice in succession he filled the office of Governor, and in 1823, was commissioned by President Monroe to mark the boundary line between Georgia and Florida. His residence on the border gave him an intimate knowledge of Indian life and character; and under the Cherokee treaty of 1835 he was appointed by General Jackson as one of the commis- sioners to act for the government. He was for years a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Georgia. Though he lacked collegiate advantages, he acquired by self instruction a vast amount of practical information and became early in life an accomplished surveyor. His family was of English origin. He was
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born in Pittsylvania County, Va., January 14, 1783, and died in Athens, Ga., December 28, 1870, at the patriarchal age of 88 years.
On account of the active part taken by Governor Lumpkin, in the building of the Western and Atlantic Railroad, the town of Marthasville, afterwards the capital of the State, was named in compliment to his daughter Martha. When past the age of seventy, Governor Lump- kin wrote an extensive account of the removal of the Cherokee Indians, a work into which he wove incidentally much of the history of his time. This work remained in manuscript until 1907 when Mr. Wymberley Jones De- Renne, of Wormsloe, published it in two volumes.
Gold Discovered : The Old U. S. Mint At Dahlonega. Page 184.
Where Mark Twain's Famous Expression Origi- nated : "There's Millions In It."
Page 188.
How the North Georgia Agricultural College Was Started.
At the close of the Civil War, there was started at Dahlonega a move- ment to convert the old mint into a college for Georgia boys. The building had been idle since 1861. It was beginning to show the marks of age; and since the State at this time, while hampered by financial embarrassment, was in sore need of facilities for educating the youth of the mountain region, the idea of utilizing the old structure was first sprung. It could be remodeled at comparatively small cost. As it then stood, it was of no practical use to the government, though it involved, first and last, an outlay
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of $70,000. Why not utilize the old mint to stamp the impress of character upon good citizens?
To an ardent champion of this project, Colonel Wil- liam P. Price, of Dahlonega, is due the success with which the enterprise was eventually crowned. While serving in Congress, he devoted his great energies to the task of securing from the government the proposed trans- fer. Though a Confederate soldier and a Democrat, he made it plain to the government that the mountaineers of Georgia were as a class, loyal to the Union during the Civil War, that, in the main, they were of the purest Revolutionary stock, and that it was largely for the pur- pose of educating the children of these mountaineers that the use of the old building was sought. He further- more promised to devote the remainder of his life to fur- thering the interests of the institution. As a result, the North Georgia Agricultural College was organized, and for more than a third of a century, Colonel Price was President of the Board of Trustees. To quote, in sub- stance, the language of Dr. G. R. Glenn, the present ex- ecutive head of the college: "He never missed an annual commencement, throughout this long period. The insti- tution never had a better friend. He redeemed his promise to Congress that if the building were given for the benefit of the boys and girls of Georgia, he would devote the balance of his life to an effort to wipe the dark lines of illiteracy from his native State."
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