USA > Georgia > Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I > Part 55
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Years ago, the old mint fell a prey to the flames, but the college was too well established to be affected by the loss. Its mission had been accomplished.
Colonel Price possessed the personal friendship of General Grant, who often consulted him in regard to Southern matters. When dying at Mount Gregor, the old ex-President sent his love to his Georgia friend, whom he cherished to the very last. As a member of the Legislature just after the war, he gave much thought to the bill establishing the public school system, under the Constitution of 1868, and he wrote two of the most im-
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portant provisions: the one requiring the races to be taught separately and the one which defines the Christian attitude of the State toward the Bible. Colonel Price spent his entire life in Dahlonega, beloved by the people among whom his lot was cast-a man faithful to every trust. In his personal appearance he was strikingly handsome, and whether to friend or to foe he addressed himself with an air of courtesy which suggested the gen- tleman of the old school.
The first executive head of the college at Dahlonega was Hon. David W. Lewis, a native of Hancock County, Ga. Both as an educator and as an orator he took high rank and stamped his impress indelibly upon his times. He was one of the organizers of the Georgia State Agri- cultural Society, a member of the first Confederate Con- gress, a Trustee of the University of Georgia for thirty years, and President of the North Neorgia Agricultural College, from 1873 until the time of his death December 28, 1885. On the campus at Dahlonega is a monument which bears this inscription : "Erected by the old students of the North Georgia Agricultural College, by the Georgia State Agricultural Society, and his friends, to perpetuate the memory of one whom they loved and honored, and to teach the lesson of a noble life, unselfishly given to lofty purposes. Dedicated June 29, 1891." At the exercises of unveiling, which occurred amid the festivities of commencement, Ex-Congressman William P. Price, Hon. William J. Northen, afterwards Governor, and Hon. S. D. Bradwell, State School Com- missioner, delivered addresses.
Nuckollsville. Nuckollsville, an old mining town, the name of which was changed to Auraria, rivalled Dahlonega in the early days of the gold excite-
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ment in Georgia. Six miles to the south of the latter town, on the road to Gainesville, it was once a bee-hive of industry, with a population of several hundred inhabi- tants. It possessed a bank, two newspapers, and a num- ber of retail establishments, and there was an effort to make it the county-seat. Today it is an ideal picture of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village." The name of the place was changed to Auraria, through the influence of Senator John C. Calhoun, who then owned the Calhoun gold mine, not far distant. With the discovery of gold in California in 1849, the fortunes of Auraria began to de- cline, while Nuckollsville became only a hazy dream of the flush times.
Mr. Stuart W. Cramer, in a statistical table of the gold production of the South, published in the Report of the Director of the Mint for 1892, estimates the amount of gold produced in Georgia, from 1829 to 1892, at $15,- 902,260. White's Statistics, published in 1849, contains this item in regard to Dahlonega: "Gold is often found on the court-house square, particularly after a shower; and the little boys often pick up pieces of gold weighing from a fourth of a pennyweight up."
There are few beauty spots in America to compare with Amicololah Falls, seventeen miles to the west of Dahlonega. The surrounding scenery is grandly pictur- esque, consisting of the most superb mountain views. The name Amicololah is said to be derived from two Cherokee words, "ami" signifying water and "calolah" meaning to roll or to tumble, hence tumbling waters, an apt descriptive name for this almost unrivalled cataract.
Frogtown, a creek at the head of Chestatee River, also a settlement by this name, to the north of Dahlonega,
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was the designation formerly given to a mountain, in the neighborhood of which a hunter is said to have seen a frog as large as a house.
Head Quarters was the name originally given to the mining camp at Dahlonega. When the county was laid out in 1832, there was a contest between Head Quarters and Nuckollsville for the county-seat. The former won and the name was changed to Dahlonega.
Original Settlers. Ais given by White, the original set- tlers of Lumpkin, were as follows: C. J. Thompson, Colonel Riley, General Fields, Lewis Rols- ton, Mr. Leathers, and J. Blackwell.
To the foregoing list may be added James H. Gurley, who settled near Dahlonega in 1828. He was the first Justice of the Peace in Dahlonega, and afterwards be- came Sheriff for two terms and Clerk of the Superior Court for fourteen years.
Elijah Grisson, an early miner, settled near Dah- lonega long before the removal of the Indians. John Harris was another early comer.
Colonel Riley, who is mentioned by White in the above list, afterwards became a Brigadier-General of Militia. He served in both branches of the State Legislature, and exercised great influence throughout the gold region.
Frank W. Hall located in Dahlonega in 1868 to sup- erintend the interests of a company in Boston, Mass. He became one of the leading financiers of North Georgia, served in the General Assembly, and was for years treas- urer of the North Georgia Agricultural College at Dah- lonega.
Edward Singleton, a soldier of the Revolution, is buried somewhere in Lumpkin. Wiley McLane, a private in the patriot ranks, was granted a Federal pension in
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1849, while a resident of this county at which time he was almost a centenarian. According to White, there were two Revolutionary soldiers who died in Lumpkin: Rich- ard Ledbetter and John J. Williams. The latter was at King's Mountain. Both lived to be old men, while Rich- ard Ledbetter died at the age of 100.
MCDUFFIE
Created by Legislative Act, October 18, 1870, from Columbia and Warren Counties. Named for Hon. George McDuffie, the great orator and states- man of South Carolina. Thomson, the county-seat. Origin of the name unauthenticated, but is doubtless to be traced to a family of pioneer settlers.
The great orator and statesman, for whom this county was named-though commonly reckoned among the distinguished sons of South Carolina-first saw the light of day on the western side of the Savannah River. Mr. McDuffie was born in Columbia County, Ga., some thirty miles above Augusta, on August 10, 1790, of parents who were both natives of Scotland. He received his education at the famous academy, in Willington, S. C., taught by the noted Dr. Moses Waddell, and at the College of South Carolina, from which he graduated with the highest honors.
His speech at commencement on "The Permanence of the Union" is said to have foreshadowed his career in politics. He became a member of Congress in 1821, Gov- ernor of the State of South Carolina in 1834 and United States Senator in 1842. Mr. McDuffie was a free trader. At first he advocated a liberal construction of the Con- stitution, but eventually he planted himself fairly upon the letter of the great document and became the recog- nized "Orator of Nullification." In a State which felt the spell of Calhoun's masterful genius, his powers of eloquence never failed to fire an audience to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. We quote from an eminent writer of South Carolina the following critical estimate of
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McDuffie as an orator. Says this authority :* "His speeches were prepared with extreme care. They ap- peared to be spontaneous, however, due to the tremend- ous energy of the man. Milton was his favorite poet. from whom he frequently quoted. There was always in McDuffie a harshness of manner, of which he never en- tirely freed himself. He had one gesture-and with this, by sheer physical force, he seemed to hurl the truth at the Speaker of the House. He appeared best in invec- tive. William C. Preston himself one of the greatest of American orators, is quoted as having said of McDuffie that he came nearest to his conception of Demosthenes. He broke into the political arena with the fury of a com- petitor too late for combat; and, as if to redeem lost time or to annihilate as soon as possible the antagonist who had summoned him to the fight, he amazed all by the un- exampled impetuosity and fierce earnestness with which he smote down his foes. In the control and sway of his audience, McDuffie has been rarely equaled in ancient or modern times. When it was known that he was to speak, the galleries were filled. He was thoroughly honest and sincere in his convictions. An infringement on the real or fancied rights and liberties of his people awoke all the indignation of his soul."
In 1822, Mr. McDuffie exchanged shots on the field of honor, with Colonel William Cumming, of Augusta, a duel in which he received a wound which proved little short of fatal. He relinquished the toga in 1846, on account of ill-health. Five years later-on March 11, 1851, he died at the home of his father-in-law, Colonel Richard Singleton, near Wedgefield, in Sumter County, S. C., where his ashes lie buried.
Brandon: A For- Near Little River, on land embraced gotten Settlement. within the present limits of McDuffie, one of the oldest communities in Upper Georgia was formerly located. It was called
* E. L. Green in Sketch of George McDuffie, p. 3547, Vol. VIII. Library of Southern Literature, 1907, Atlanta, Ga.
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Brandon, a name which has long since disappeared from the map. Says Colonel Charles C. Jones, Jr .:* "Bran- don may be recognized as still maintaining a feeble exis- tence in the later village of Wrightsboro, although its original features and peculiarities have encountered es- sential modifications. The founder of Brandon was Ed- mund Gray, a pretending Quaker, who came from Vir- ginia with a number of followers. A man of strong will and marked influence, he was nevertheless a pestilent fel- low and, during the administration of Gov. Reynolds, was compelled to abandon his little town. He subsequently formed a settlement on the neutral lands lying between the Altamaha and the St. Johns. Thither flocked crimi- nals and debtors anxious to escape the just demands of creditors." The town of Brandon was settled not later than 1754 and the land was probably obtained by direct purchase from the Indians.
Wrightsboro: One of Georgia's Historic Towns. Some eight miles to the north of Thomson may be found the moss- covered remnants of an old town which has played an important role in Georgia's annals-the historic old town of Wrights- boro. During the Revolutionary period, when the State was overrun by Tories and Red-coats, the seat of govern- ment became somewhat migratory, shifting from Savan- nah to Ebenezer, when the former town fell into the hands of the British; thence to Augusta, thence to Heard's Fort, on the site of the present town of Wasit- ington; thence back again to Augusta, where it remained until the recapture of Savannah. There is a tradition to the effect that the law-making power of Georgia took refuge at one time in Wrightsboro. Today the quaint old
* Dead Towns of Georgia by Charles C. Jones, Jr., p. 247, Savannah, 1878.
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town presents a typical picture of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," where-
"The hollow-sounding bittern guards her nest
And the long grass o'ertops the mould'ring wall."
But more than one page of Georgia's history has been written among the ruins of this deserted borough.
It was in the year 1770 that Joseph Mattock, a Quaker, having obtained from the royal governor a grant of 40,000 acres of land in this vicinity, undertook to revive the old settlement at Brandon. He called the new town Wrightsboro, in honor of Governor Wright. Here, in 1773, he entertained the celebrated naturalist, William Bartram, who afterwards wrote of him in most compli- mentary terms as "a public-spirited chief-magistrate." At the outbreak of the Revolution, the Quaker Colony at Wrightsboro embraced some two hundred families. Joseph Mattock was elected a member of the famous Pro- vincial Congress which was called to meet in Savannah, on July 4, 1775, but on account of his pronounced Tory sentiments he declined a seat in this body, the member- ship of which was hostile to England.
Mr. St. Elmo Massengale, of Atlanta, whose ancestors were pioneer settlers of Wrightsboro, speaks thus of a recent visit to the old town. Says he: "The little place is almost deserted. Some few of the old homes are left, but they are gray with age, forlorn and desolate. I failed to find the old house which was used as the State Capitol, but it survived for more than a century, one of the most conspicuous landmarks of the village. It was a treat to wander among the old ruins, with each of which there was associated some choice bit of romance, some legend of the old days, full of the spice of historic inter-
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est. I could almost fancy myself back in the Wrights- boro of a hundred years ago, wandering among trim box hedges and quaint gardens of roses and holly hocks- watching time flit by on ancient sun-dials. I seemed to be once more in the company of gay belles, patched and powdered and dressed in brocaded gowns and picturesque hats, and of gallant beaux with silver snuff-boxes and knee buckles and gracious ways. The old Seay home where many a stately minnet had been danced was only an old ruin, haunted by memories-but to me these memories were sweet and fragrant like the breath of violets; for the hospitality of this home has been handed down in my family for generations. Just a red clay mound marks the spot where stood the old fort which my great-great grandfather, Thomas White, commanded during the Revolution. Here for nearly half a century he lived with his lovely wife, a fellow-traveller on the same vessel which brought him to America in 1773 and whom he wedded three years later. Lucy White, a daughter by this marriage, became the wife of Mark A. Candler."
The Quaker Burial The little church in which the Quak-
Ground. ers worshipped still stands in Wrightsboro, surrounded by tall dark cedars. Equipped with highback pews, with an old- fashioned pulpit, and with long narrow windows, it rep- resents a style of architecture severely simple, but char- acteristic of the pious sect whose weakness was not for outward show. Yellow with age, the tombstones here cluster thick in God's acre. Fragments alone remain of some; while over most of them the weeds have grown, and into the deep-cut epitaphs have crept the green moss. It is worth a visit to Wrightsboro, if only to wander among the grim memorials of the little church yard, where-
"Each in his narrow cell forever laid
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."' .
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MCDUFFIE
On one of the old tombs which the years have lightly touched may be read the following epitaph to a patriot of the Revolution :
Our father, Thomas White, born in Dublin City, April 1753; emigrated to this place in 1773; married our mother in 1776; was fighting for liberty over these hills in 1777; and left the field not a captive but a conqueror, December, 1824.
There are doubtless a number of patriots of the first war buried here. When the time came for fighting, the Quakers were not laggard. In the neighborhood of Wrightsville lived Colonel William Candler, whose wife was a Quaker preacher. Here, too, lived the Fews, Wil- liam, Ignatius and Benjamin. William Few is buried on his daughter's estate, at Hastings, overlooking the Hud- son ; but the other two are undoubtedly buried somewhere in this belt of Georgia. On the old Fulton place lies Thomas Carr, a soldier of the Revolution in a grave un- marked. His daughter married Dr. Ignatius A. Few.
Georgia's Quaker Colony Files A Pro- test : Some of the Signers.
From a protest, signed by most of the inhabitants of Wrightsboro, re- pudiating the resolutions passed on August 10, 1774 by the hotheaded patriots of the coast, almost a full list of the early settlers can be obtained. There was com- paratively little hostility to England in this part of the Province, at least until the battle of Lexington. The dis- trict had just been purchased from the Indians by Gov. Wright, who had promised the settlers every protection against the savages, and they were less exercised over the Boston Tea Party and the revocation of the charter of
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Massachusetts than they were over the perils of the frontier. On the list appear the following names :
John Oliver, J. P.,
Drury Rogers,
Joseph Kallensworth,
John Stubbs,
James Anglin,
Abram Hilton,
Isaac Vernon,
Jacob Watson,
William Mitchel,
Josias Pewgate,
Robert Cowin,
John Evans,
John Jones,
Lewis Powell,
John Evans, Jun .;
Thomas Watson, Sen.,
Jacob Collins,
Peter Williams,
David Baldwin,
William Childre,
John Stewart,
Henry: Ashfield,
Robert Harper,
Jonathan Sell,
Samuel Hart,
Jacob Dennis,
William Welden,
Alexander Ottery,
Nicholas White,
John Thompson,
Jesse Morgan,
John Moor,
Joseph Millen,
Ellis Haines,
Joshua Sanders,
William Penton,
Aaron McCarter,
Robert Jenkins,
Alexander Oliver,
Stephen Bigshop,
Robert Nelson,
Ambrose Holiday,
Abram Louders,
Hillery Gray,
Abraham Johnston,
James Oliver,
James Bishop,
Nathaniel Jackson,
John Greason,
John Fairchild,
George Waggoner,
William Daniel,
John James,
Robert Walton,
Silas Pace,
Zachariah Phillips,
Walter Drummond,
Gereiom Woddell,
Edward Hill,
Charles Dunn,
Absalom Beddell,
John Hill,
Ezekiel Millar,
William Foster,
Joshua Hill,
John West,
John Clower,
John Davis,
John Hodgin,
Abraham Parker,
Isaac Greene,
Peter Cox,
James Jenkins,
Samuel Sinquefield,
Joseph Brown,
Oliver Matthews,
William Sinquefield,
Henry Jones,
Edward Greene,
Reuben Sherrill,
John Dennis,
Joseph Jackson,
Morris Callingham,
Francis Jones,
Joel Phillips,
Joel Cloud,
Peter Weathers,
Matthew Hobbs,
John Stewart, Jun.,
Timothy Jourdan,
Joseph Haddock, J. P.,
John Lang,
Watkin Richards,
Thomas Ansley,
James Ryan,
Abraham Davis,
John Lindsay,
Henry Walker,
Jolın Davis,
Abram Dennis,
Peter Perkins,
Isaac Davis,
Richard Webb,
Thomas Gilliland,
John Pirks,
Benjamin Ansley,
Uriah Odom,
Jacob Davis,
John Watson,
Richard Hokitt,
Jonathan Sell, J. P.,
Robert Day,
Edward Hagan,
Thomas Pace.
The foregoing list is most important. Among the early settlers of Wrightsboro were the progenitors of some of the oldest and best families of Georgia. Not a
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few of the names above mentioned are still prominent throughout the whole middle belt. These men were Quakers-most of them at least-inclined to the arts of peace rather than to the pursuit of war. But the sub- sequent history of Georgia proves that they could fight like lions at bay when the necessity for resistance arose ; and from these gentle molds of ancestry has sprung the Ajax Telemon of modern State politics: Thomas E. Watson.
McDuffie's Noted Colonel Thomas Cobb, an officer in the Residents. Revolution, came from Virginia to Georgia soon after the struggle for independence was over, settling in a part of Columbia, from which McDuffie was afterwards formed; but his baronial acres lay within both counties. There is still a postoffice in the upper part of McDuffie, near the border line of Columbia, called Cobbham, and it marks the approximate site of his old home place. He reached the phenomenal age of 110 years. The old patriarch is doubtless buried somewhere in the neighborhood of Cobb- ham; but efforts to locate his grave have been unsuccess- ful.
Both the Fews and the Candlers lived in the immedi- ate vicinity of Wrightsboro. Ignatius Few held the rank of Captain in the patriot army. His brothers, William and Benjamin, were Colonels. William Few was also a member of the Continental Congress and a delegate from Georgia to the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787. William Candler was the founder of the noted Candler family of this State. He came to Georgia from Virginia, settling in this neighborhood when it formed a part of St. Paul's Parish. He commanded a regiment during the Revolution and took an active part in the con- flict of arms.
George McDuffie, the great statesman and orator for whom this county was named, first saw the light of day within three miles of the present town of Thomson.
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Augustus R. Wright, a former member of Congress and a noted jurist of the ante-bellum period was born at Wrightsboro. He afterwards located for the practice of law in Rome.
For more than twenty years, the county seat of Mc- Duffie has been famous as the home of the great political leader and man of letters-Thomas E. Watson. Twice the candidate of the people's party for the high office of President of the United States, Mr. Watson has long been one of Georgia's most distinguished citizens. Both in the arena of polities and in the forum of letters, he has been the consistent champion of the great Democratic masses; but doubtless his most enduring fame will rest upon the achievements of his gifted pen.
McINTOSH.
Created by Legislative Act, December 19, 1793, from Liberty County. Named for the distinguished McIntosh family of Georgia, whose members have illustrated the State, in both field and forum, since the days of Ogle- thorpe. Darien, the county-seat. Origin of the name unauthenticated. There is no locality in Scotland by this name of sufficient importance to be . represented on the map. The name of the town may possibly commemorate the colossal experiment made by Scotch merchants, in 1695, to form a settlement on the Isthmus of Darien, for the purpose of controlling trade between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. It was one of the most stupendous enterprises 'in the history of commerce, to the consummation of which nearly a million pounds stirling was subscribed. For the derivation of the name, reference must be made to Spanish antiquities. As early as 1513, Balboa, a Spaniard who discovered the Pacific Ocean, was Governor of a province on the mainland of South America to which the Isthmus and Gulf of Darien were appurtenant; and even then the settlement was an old one, running back to unrecorded traditions. There is also a province of Darien in New Granada. The Scotch settlers of Georgia may have found the name existing already in a region to which the Spanlards were by no means strangers; and while they named the town which they built New Inverness, it was the country which lay around it to which they first gave the name of Darien.
New Inverness : The Story of the Scotch Highlanders.
Volume I.I.
Fort Darien. This seems to have been the name given from the very first to the mili- tary post which the Scotch Highlanders established at
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New Inverness. It was also given to the surrounding dis- trict. Though few of the original settlers returned to this place after the disastrous war with Spain in which vic- tory was won at such heavy cost to the Highlanders, some of them settled upon the rich alluvial bottoms and be- came extensive and prosperous rice planters in the im- mediate neighborhood. They were dominant factors in the life about them and the descendants of these pioneer Scotchmen are still to be found in the county of Mc- Intosh. Some of them are influential men of affairs in the town of Darien. But the clans have scattered. Over the entire area of the State they have since dispersed, preserving the sturdy virtues of the parent stock and gathering gear wherever they have tarried. The site of the original settlement soon lost the name of New Inverness. In fact, the rude dwellings of the Highland- ers fell into ruins, until scarcely a vestige remained. Even the little house of worship shared in the besom of destruction. Strangers came upon the scene. But the name which was borne by the military post and by the neighboring region still clung to the locality, and when the new town arose on the ashes of the old settlement it was called by the name of Darien. At this point, the large turpentine and lumber trade of lower Georgia for years found an outlet to foreign and home markets. It also became a shipping-point for other products. Com- petition with Brunswick, the incessant crusades for tim- ber, which have denuded the once splendid forests of pine and oak, the prevailing unhealthfulness of the re- gion, due to the malaria of the swamps-these and other causes have operated to check the growth of Darien, but with the conversion of the pine barrens into produc- tive farms, the adoption of better methods of sanitation, and the return of prosperity to the abandoned places along the coast, there is sure to come to this historic old town the quickening touch of renewed life.
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