Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume II, Part 14

Author: Knight, Lucian Lamar, 1868-1933
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga. : Byrd Printing Co.
Number of Pages: 1274

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CHAPTER XV

Thomas Holley Chivers: An Erratic Genius

O NE of America's most gifted poets, an erratic genius from whom the renowned author of "The Raven" is said to have borrowed the strange metrical lilt of his immortal masterpiece, was a Georgian, the closing years of whose life were spent in the town of Decatur, Thomas Holley Chivers. Older than Poe, he was an earlier contributor of verse to the periodicals of the day, and there is no lack of solid basis for the infer- ence that the latter was unconsciously influenced by him to a marked extent. Both were men of peculiar mental temperaments, whose writings are tinctured throughout by an habitual melancholy; both wrote in doleful mneas- ures and dealt with weird and fantastic subjects, the spec- tral character of which haunts the imagination; both sang mystical songs, whose meaning it is difficult to inter- pret; both reveled apparently in weaving shrouds and shadows for the dead. There can be no difference of opinion concerning the marvelous similarity in mechan- ical structure between the rythm of Poe's "Raven" and the lines of some of the best known poems of Chivers, for example: "Lily Adair" and "To Allegra Florence in Heaven." The coincidence is startling.

But most of the critics scout the idea of Poe's indebt- edness to Dr. Chivers. Says one of these :* "Of course, Poe read the poems of Chivers, and they probably influ- enced him as much as any other poems in the world's

*John Townsend Wilson, in The Library of Southern Literature, Vol. II, p. 848.

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literature; but beyond the fact that they both reveled in extravagant, weird, mystical language, one cannot go." He is inclined to think that by reason of long correspon- dence between the two men it was Poe who influenced Chivers ; he deplores the controversy started by the doc- tor, stating that he made his great mistake in suppos- ing plagiarism and parallelism to be identical, and that it will ever be a source of regret that he refused to let his poetry stand on its own merits. But this same critic adds: "After all is said, Chivers, with his nine hundred pages of poetry and his unsubstantiated claims, remains among the most picturesque, the most pathetic, and the most elusive figures in the whole range of Southern letters."

Dr. Chivers was reared a Baptist. He became, how- ever, a Swedenborgian and a Transcendentalist. He lacked friends at the North, because he was the son of a slave-holder. He lacked friends at the South, because he was in sympathy with Boston vagaries. He was, more- over, a devotee of Shelley, whose religious views were not popular; and altogether he had fallen upon unpro- pitious times. Some have harshly declared that he was solely dependent upon his fictitious claims for what little notoriety he gained, and that only by attaching himself to Poe has he rescued himself from oblivion. But there is neither truth nor justice in this unkind slur. Says Major

Hubner :* "His versatility of talent was remarkable; even as an inventor he achieved success, receiving a prize at a State fair held in Savannah for his invention of a machine adapted to the unwinding of the fiber of silk co- coons; and he was also noted for his skill as a portrait painter. His decease was widely noted in the press of the United States and was mentioned by several Euro- pean journals. Besides, a distinguished Danish author, Professor Gierlow, wrote and published a beautiful poem

*Chas. W. Hubner, in Representative Southern Poets, p. 177.

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as a tribute to the memory of Dr. Chivers. In a neglected and obscure spot, in the little cemetery at Decatur, in an unnoticed grave, the poet's remains lie buried. Well may we ask, What is fame?"

With respect to the personal characteristics of this most extraordinary man, he adds: "Judged by the por- trait of him, which I have seen, Dr. Chivers was a very handsome, distinguished-looking gentleman. His mouth was full and expressive, while a broad forehead, large and lustrous eyes and long dark hair marked him dis- tinctly as a person of culture and of intellectual promi- nence. Those who knew him personally bear witness to his courtly manners, and the charm of his conversa-

tional powers. William Gilmore Simms took great inter- est in Chivers, playfully calling him the 'wild Mazeppa of letters,' teasing him about his choice of strange words, and rallying him on the 'monotony of his sor- row,' to which friendly censure Chivers is said to have replied, with equal good humor, advising Simms to stop writing stupid novels and to take up literature as a pleas- ure." If not the forerunner of Poe, Chivers was un- doubtedly a man of singular gifts, bearing no fanciful or slight resemblance to the unhappy bard, like whom also he was an ill-starred child of genius.

CHAPTER XVI

Georgia's First Governor : His Mysterious Death

G EORGIA'S first Governor under the Constitution was John Adam Treutlen. When the Revolution began he was an official member of the famous Salzburger Church at Ebenezer and, though the congregation was somewhat divided on the issues of the period, he zealously espoused the cause of the Colonies. Little is recorded of the sturdy patriot, but his election to the office of Governor, on the formal assumption of statehood by Georgia, implies his promi- mence in political affairs. During his term of office an effort was made by South Carolina to absorb the State of Georgia, and William H. Drayton came to Savannah as the bearer of the proposed overture for consolidation. It meant the practical elimination of Georgia from the map and the expansion of South Carolina to the waters of the Mississippi. Strange to say, not a few shrewd Georgia financiers had been won over to the contemplated merger, and it required great firmness to deal with an emergency thus created. On July 14, 1777, the Execu- tive Council requested the Governor to offer a reward for the apprehension of Mr. Drayton. He did so in a proclamation, which was most vigorously written and widely distributed. The sum of one hundred pounds was nut upon the head of the offender, but he wisely kept on the South Carolina side of the river, and thus escaped the clutches of an indignant Commonwealth.

But strange are the caprices of fortune. Though the first of Georgia's citizens to be honored with the high

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office of chief magistrate, Governor Treutlen completely disappears from view, after relinquishing the adminis- trative reins, and, beyond any other Georgian who has served the State in exalted positions of usefulness, his life is shrouded in an atmosphere of mystery, which time has not yet dissolved. There is a tradition to the effect that on a visit to relatives in Oraneburg District, S. C., he was tracked by the Tories, who murdered him in the most brutal manner. It is said that he was hacked to pieces with swords in the presence of his family, after first being tied to a tree, and that what was left of his body was then buried. But whether the rites of inter- ment were performed by friends or by foes, his grave has never been discovered, and his memory likewise has be- come entangled with the weeds and briars of neglect. There is no one today in Georgia who bears his name- no town, village, county or precinct which perpetuates his services-and no memorial of any kind to tell pos- terity of Georgia's first Governor, who passed from earth doubly the victim of one of the most pathetic of tragedies.

CHAPTER XVII

Two Pioneer Baptists: The Story of the Mercers

T HERE is a well-authenticated tradition to the effect that Jesse. Mercer was immersed in a barrel of water, while his father was still a member of the Church of England. It is said that the elder Mercer began to question the validity of sprinkling as the scrip- tural mode of baptism long before he became a follower of Daniel Marshall, and that, with no thought of enter- ing the ranks of a sect for which he entertained a tradi- tional antipathy, he insisted upon having his two eldest children immersed according to apostolic precedent. Thus Jesse Mercer was twice immersed, first into the Church of England, and afterwards-when he was eight- een-into the Baptist Church, of which he became one of the most illustrious pioneers and pillars.

But it was Silas Mercer who first planted the stand- ard of the Baptist faith on the frontier belt of Wilkes. Strange to say, he continued to be a devout member of the Church of England until he was nearly forty years of age, despite his peculiar views on the subject of bap- tism. The frost was upon his brow when he became a member of the famous old Kiokee Church; but there was a suggestion of buoyant youth in the quick and eager step with which he entered the waters of the creek, to be immersed by Alexander Scott. The traditional ac- counts tell us that as soon as the ceremony was per- formed he leaped upon a log in the middle of the stream and began to exhort the multitudes on the bank to flee from the wrath to come.

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There is no reason why this story should be dis- credited. It is not in the least at variance with the character for zeal and fervor which belonged to this bold apostle of righteousness; for Silas Mercer was trained in the same school of homiletics which produced Elijah and John the Baptist, and, through the forest stretches of Wilkes, his voice reverberated in accents of thunder. The records of the Phillips' Mill Church-where Jesse Mercer was converted under his father's powerful preaching of the Word-show that when the former was immersed for the second time it was by the hand of the elder Mercer that the solemn rite was adminis- tered.

Silas Mercer was of Scotch-Irish lineage-a typical Highlander in his rugged molds, both of speech and of character. He came from North Carolina to Georgia some time before the Revolution, but refugeed with his little family to the mountains of his home State for safety when the tide of war threatened to invade the foot-hills. At the close of hostilities he returned to Georgia, where the remainder of his days were spent, making the rounds of the wilderness on horseback and preaching the Gospel wherever he went. He founded the famous old church at Powelton, a landmark of Baptist history; Sardis and Bethesda were also vines which he planted, and, last but not least, the church at Phillips' Mill, where Jesse Mercer first saw the new light, was an- other stronghold of faith which he added to the king- dom. Rude temples of worship in numberless places sprang into existence at the call of this good man, bloom- ing like wild flowers along the woodland paths; and, if the notes which he sounded were sometimes harsh and stern, it may also be said of him that he testified for the Master until the whole region of Wilkes breathed of the wayside balms of Galilee.

He established his home on a plantation seven miles to the south of Washington, where he died in 1796, at

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the age of fifty-one. The place is today known as the Ficklen plantation, so called after Dr. Fielding Ficklen, a subsequent owner; and here in the Mercer burial ground may still be seen the grave of Silas Mercer-one of the most unique figures in the Baptist annals of America.

Converted at the age of eighteen, it is said that the younger Mercer's first attempt at public speaking was witnessed by an audience of only one person, at which time he preached to his grandmother on the final judg- ment. Though a native of Halifax County, N. C., where he was born in 1769, he spent the greater part of his boyhood in Wilkes, on his father's plantation. Jesse Mercer became the most influential minister of his day in Georgia. He was not a scholar like Dr. Henry Hol- comb. It is doubtful if he was quite the equal of either Silas Mercer or Daniel Marshall as a hair-lifter in the pulpit. But he was nevertheless a man of peculiar power. The secret of his success lay doubtless in his saintliness of character. He was the Sir Galahad of his day among the Baptists of Georgia-a champion strong in the strife for righteousness because his heart was pure.

It cannot be said that Mr. Mercer was even an edu- cated man in the present-day sense of this term. Per- haps it was due largely to his own lack of advantages in early life that he became such an ardent friend of learn- ing in later years. It was not until after his first mar- riage that he put himself under the tutelage of Dr. Springer, a Presbyterian divine who conducted a school at Walnut Hill, four miles from Washington. In the great anxiety of Mr. Mercer to increase his scanty store of knowledge, he sold his little farm and either rented or built a modest home on Fishing Creek, to be near Dr. Springer; and here he laid the educational founda- tions upon which his future work as a minister was reared. Brown University conferred upon him, when

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at the height of his career, the degree of D. D .; but he was seldom recognized or addressed as Dr. Mercer.

Titles could add nothing to the inherent greatness of one who, equally, in the ecclesiastical courts and in the religious assemblies of the people, wielded a scepter of power and who, more than any other man of his time, shaped the destinies of the great denomination to which he belonged. For nearly forty years he served a group of country churches organized by his father. At one time he made a tour of three thousand miles through the Alleghany Mountains, for the purpose of strengthen- ing weak outposts. There was scarcely a cabin in the remotest part of the wilderness to which his name was not familiar; and he virtually founded the Georgia Bap- tist Convention, in his zeal for co-operative effort. But it was not until after his second marriage that Mr. Mer- cer acquired the large means which enabled him to fur- ther the interests of religion by liberal gifts.

At the age of fifty-seven Jesse Mercer found himself a widower, bereaved of the gentle helpmeet who had been his fireside companion for nearly forty years. The name of his first wife was Sabina Chivers. She died while on a visit to relatives in South Carolina, but was brought back to Georgia, where she was laid to rest in the Mercer burial ground, at Ficklen. But living near the brick school where he held meetings in Washington there was a lady by whom he was soon consoled; and without any suggestion of improper haste he laid siege to the heart of the Widow Simons, a member of his flock, who had lately inherited from her husband a fortune of ample proportions. She smiled upon his suit, and when the Christmas holidays arrived, in the year following, she became his bride. This auspicious event supplied the golden lever which, under divine providence, was em- ployed by Jesse Mercer to lift the Baptist Church in

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Georgia to a higher vantage ground of power and use- fulness.

In 1827-the year after his second marriage-he or- ganized the Baptist Church in Washington, Ga., where, dating from this time, he established his permanent Ebenezer. The flock was constituted of ten members, most of whom came from the old Phillips' Mill Church, and over this congregation Jesse Mercer presided for the remainder of his days.

He relinquished at this period his long journeys into the wilderness and devoted himself more largely to lit- erary labors.

In 1833 he acquired the Christian Index, a paper which was then edited and published in Philadelphia by Rev. W. T. Brantley. He then removed the plant to Washington, Ga., where it became the first organ of the Baptist denomination in this State-if not in the entire South. In 1840, when his health began to fail, Mr. Mercer generously donated the Christian Index to the Georgia Baptist Convention. From Washington, it was , afterwards removed to Penfield. Dr. James H. Lane bought and remodeled the old building in which the paper was formerly printed; and, when the mantels and wain- scotings were taken down, some rare old manuscripts were discovered. There is still in the possession of the Lane family an old desk which was used by Mr. Mercer in the writing of editorials. He found the labor of the pen somewhat irksome. Consequently, the bulk of the work devolved upon the Rev. W. H. Stokes. But he contributed, with great effectiveness, an occasional leader. At the close of the war, Atlanta became the home of the Christian Index. It is still in existence-one of the best edited and one of the best equipped weekly re- ligious newspapers extant.

The first Baptist hymnal ever used in Georgia was also the work of Jesse Mercer. It was compiled and published in 1823, and was entitled Mercer's Cluster.

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Purchasing the old Academy Building, near his home, on Mercer Hill-where the Convent of St. Joseph today stands-he next turned his attention to education. It was the dream of his life to establish a college in Wash- ington; and when Josiah Penfield left $2,500 with which to found a school, provided an equal sum was raised, Jesse Mercer endeavored to swing the proposed institu- tion to Washington, and he was keenly disappointed over the result. But there was no taint of selfishness in his great soul. He became the largest contributor to the new institution, which was finally christened with his name; and at the death of Mr. Mercer, with his wife's hearty approval, the bulk of the estate went to the great university which is today his noblest and best monu- ment.

Mrs. Mercer preceded her husband into the vale of shadows. While walking one day in her flower garden she was stricken with paralysis; and though she lingered for more than a year afterwards, she was never able to walk a step or to utter a word. She was buried under the boughs of an ancient cedar, beside the Baptist Church in Washington, Ga., where her grave is still to be seen on the grassy lawn, in plain view of the Sabbath wor- shipers. It is said that the entire area was covered with blossoms from her own flower garden on the hill; and some of the descendants of these same rare plants may still be seen in the flower beds tended by the gentle sisters of St. Joseph, who walk where the feet of Mrs. Mercer once trod.

Feeble in health, the great preacher survived his wife by only a few months. He attended a meeting in the fall of the year at Indian Springs, after which he went to the residence of Mr. James Carter, some eight miles distant. Here he was taken violently ill and, on Septem- ber 6, 1841, breathed his last. The burial occurred at Penfield, on the campus of the great school which was named in his honor.

It is not to be supposed that a man of Mr. Mercer's positive nature could have lived at a time when the great

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feud between Clark and Crawford was upheaving the State, without taking an active part in politics. We find him, therefore, in the Convention, at Louisville, which framed the Constitution of 1798. It is said that some one on the floor moved to debar ministers from serving in the General Assembly of Georgia, a resolution which Mr. Mercer moved to amend by substituting lawyers and doctors. He finally withdrew his substitute, on condition that the original motion be withdrawn also. In 1816 he was defeated in a race for the State Senate; and, in 1833, when friends urged him to make the fight for Governor, he politely informed them that he was surfeited with poli- tics. The personal appearance of Mr. Mercer was strik- ingly impressive. In height he towered above the normal standard and was inclined, as he grew older, to be some- what corpulent. His head, the peculiar, size and confor- mation of which was revealed by his extreme baldness, has long been an object of interest to phrenologists and students of character who have looked upon his portrait. The horizontal length from the eyebrows back was very great, while his forehead rose with a gently receding slope to the very crown, exhibiting a most extraordinary devel- opment of what is termed the organ of benevolence. He was characterized by great moral firmness, and when- ever principle or conscience were involved he stood like a wall of adamant, four-square, to every wind of heaven. -

CHAPTER XVIII

Ebenezer: The Story of the Salzburgers

T WENTY-FIVE miles above Savannah, on an emi- nence which at this point overlooks the historic stream, there is still to be seen a quaint little house of worship, from the belfry of which glistens a swan, copied from the coat-of-arms of Martin Luther. It stands alone in the midst of a silent waste; for the sturdy Germans who once peopled the surrounding area have long since disappeared from the region. Near the church is the ancient burial ground. The inscriptions upon the vellow tombstones can hardly be deciphered, so busily have the destructive forces of time been here at work. But some of the graves are almost, if not quite, as old as the Colony of Georgia; and, with naught to disturb them in this quiet spot, save the pitiless elements, most of the inmates have here slept for the better part of two centuries. It is the old deserted settlement of the pious Salzburgers: Ebenezer.

To the outside world there were various names by which the little church was known. It was sometimes called the "Lutheran Meeting House." Occasionally, it was called the "Salzburger Church" or the "German Church," but in the official records of the parish it was always "Jerusalem Church," so named for the old original church of the Apostles at Jerusalem. It was indeed the center of a little German Palestine, here planted among the lowlands of Georgia, a religious cap- ital where the divine law was promulgated. The present unpretentious but substantial edifice of brick was

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commenced in 1767 and completed in 1769, on the site formerly occupied by a temporary struc- ture of wood. It was invested by the British during the Revolution, who used it first as a hospital for the sick and then as a stable in which the horses of the officers were kept. The house of worship was also desecrated in other ways. With unbridled license, these ruffians, who were most of the time under the influence of bad liquor, converted the pulpit, the windows, the mottoes on the walls, and other objects into targets, at which they discharged firearms. The result was that at the close of hostilities it was little better than a ruin; but the walls were intact, and, subsequent to the Revolution, it was restored to something like the appearance wlrich it formerly presented.

On April 21, 1911, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, a handsome tablet of bronze was unveiled on the walls of the old church at Ebenezer by the Georgia Society of Colonial Dames of America ; and lettered upon the tablet is this inscription :

To the Glory of God. In Memory of the Salz- burger Lutherans who landed at Savannah, Georgia, March 12th, 1734, and built this Jerusalem Church in 1767-1769. Erected by the Georgia Society of Colonial Dames of America.

On behalf of the Colonial Dames, the tablet was pre- sented by the Reverend D. Hoppe, and, on behalf of the congregation, was accepted by the Rev. P. E. Shealy, pastor of the Jerusalem Church, of Ebenezer. Addresses were also delivered by the following distinguished guests of honor-the Rev. F. A. Brown, rector of Christ Church, Episcopal, Savannah; the Rev. M. J. Epting, · president of the Synod of Georgia; the Rev. W. J. Finck, vice-president of the Synod of Georgia; the Rev. T. W. Shealy, secretary of the Synod of Georgia; and others. Quite a large assemblage witnessed the impressive cere- monies.

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To this gentle religious sect Georgia owes much. They were not given to martial deeds, but they were law-abiding, industrious and frugal people, and they have left behind them an incense of memory which has sweetened the whole history of the State. The story of how they came to settle in Georgia may be told in very few words. Says Dr. Lee :* "In the lovely district of the Tyrol there is to be found an historic city which the painter Wilkie has described as 'Edinburg Castle and the Old Town, brought within the cliffs of the Tro- sachs and watered by a river like the Tay.' It is the city of Salzburg, on the Salza, famous as the birth-place of Mozart and as the burial-place of Haydn. Almost simultaneously with the accession of George II there came to the principality, of which Salzburg was the capi- tal, a new ruler, who inaugurated an era of persecution. The Thirty Years War in Germany had ended with the complete suppression of Protestantism in Austria. In quiet nooks, here and there, however, it still lingerel on ; and Salzburg was one of these. The rulers of Salz- burg were ecclesiastics, and bore the title of archbishop. To this class belonged Count Firmian, who, on coming into power, determined to uproot the heresy which was contaminating his flock. He put into force all the terrors of the law-fine, confiscation, imprisonment. When the suffering people pleaded the provisions for religious tol- erance contained in the treaty of Westphalia, signed eighty years before, he dubbed them rebels, and bor- rowed Austrian grenadiers to suppress what he was pleased to call a revolt. The matter then became a na- tional one, and Frederick William of Prussia esponsed the cause of the Salzburgers. Under the provisions of the treaty of Westphalia, peaceful emigration offered the best solution of the problem. The Prussian king, Frederick the Great's stern old father, was the most powerful Protestant ruler in Germany, and he insisted upon fair treatment for the refugees. Count Firmian

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Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume II, Part 14

Author: Knight, Lucian Lamar, 1868-1933 Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Atlanta, Ga. : Byrd Printing Co. Number of Pages: 1274

Author: Knight, Lucian Lamar, 1868-1933
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga. : Byrd Printing Co.
Number of Pages: 1274