Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume II, Part 64

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

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On the following day, nothwithstanding a downpour of rain, another splendid crowd was present to hear an eloquent address from the special orator of the occasion, Judge William Law, of Savannah, who pronounced an oration the echoes of which have not ceased to vibrate among the sacred timbers.

Religious Work Among the Slaves : The Mission of Dr. Chas. C. Jones. To our good friends at the North it will be a matter of some interest to know that the largest slave-holders in Georgia during the prosperous days of the old regime were the devout Puritans who lived in the Midway settllement. Most of them were rice planters, who cultivated the rich alluvial bottoms, and they were compelled in the nature of things to em- ploy slave labor. As they enlarged the fertile acres which they tilled, they naturally increased the number of slaves which they employed, and, on the eve of hostilities with England, in 1776, it is estimated that one-third of the entire wealth of the Colony of Georgia was concentrated in the Parish of St. John. According to Dr. Stacy, whose observations are based upon the Midway records, the Dorchester colonists brought to Georgia five hundred

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and thirty-six slaves, and these were divided between seventy-one families. At a period somewhat later, when the community was well established in Georgia, he estimates that it numbered three hundred and fifty whites and fifteen hundred blacks, the average increase of population being in favor of the latter class. With these figures Colonel Jones is in perfect agree- ment. It was by means of slave labor that the residents of Bermuda Island built Fort Morris. It was also by means of slave labor that the inhabitants of the district usually built the homes in which they lived, but, of course, under intelligent supervision. And the extent to which the Puritan settlers of Midway employed slave labor only tends to prove that the burning issue of American politics during the ante-bellum decade was purely an economic one, the attitude of the individual mind toward which was determined largely by environment.

The rice which was forwarded to Boston to relieve the distress incident to the closing of the harbor to commerce, in 1774, was grown entirely by slave labor on plantations owned by the Dorchester Puritans in the Parish of St. John.

But the care of the slaves was always an object of the utmost solicitude to the residents of the Midway settlement. Between master and servant there was always the closest tie of attachment, and nowhere in Georgia was the feudal relationship characterized by greater tenderness. The re- ligious welfare of the slaves was taken into account from the very start. In the house of worship, which was built by the whites, there were galleries for the accommodation of the colored members, who were never organized into separate religious bodies, but continued to worship with the whites throughout the entire existence of the Midway Church. On Sacramental Sunday both races communed together, the blacks in the galleries above, the whites in the pews below; and in like manner both races were admitted to the ordinance of baptism, beneath the same shelter, and at the hands of the same man of God. However, it was not until the distinguished Dr. Charles C. Jones began his useful labors on the plantations of Liberty County that the work of religious instruction assumed definite and sys- tematic proportions. His field of labor embraced an area of twenty miles square. Besides holding religious services at stated times and places, he compiled catechisms, trained teachers, and in other ways sought to accom- plish the religious uplift of the slave. He afterwards wrote a book in which he outlined his methods of work for the benefit of the religious public. Like the noted Dr. John L. Girardeau, of Columbia, S. C., with whom he was afterwards associated, it was his chief delight to preach to the negroes, though a man of marvelous intellect and power; and even after becoming a professor in the Theological Seminary at Columbia he spent his vacations in evangelistie work among the slaves. Altogether, he was the means of converting not less than 1,500 negroes, whose names were duly added to the church rolls.

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LIBERTY

Laurel View: The Home of Sena- tor Elliott. Overlooking the Midway River, at Hester's Bluff, stood the old Colonial home of United States Senator John Elliott, one of the most distinguished members of the Midway settlement. His grand- father, who bore the same name, was one of the original settlers, who moved into the district from Dorchester, S. C. His father, by marriage to Rebecca Maxwell, acquired the handsome estate at Hester's Bluff, to which, because of the superb prospect which it commanded, through vistas of the most luxuriant foliage, was given the name, "Laurel View." Sen- ator Elliott married Martha Stewart, a daughter of General Daniel Stewart, an officer of distinction in the Revolution. His wife accompanied him to Washington, D. C., to take her place in the brilliant social circle at the nation 's capital. The trip was made overland in a carriage drawn by four horses, and occupied more than a week, but was broken by easy stages and attended by no serious mishap. Senator Elliott wore the toga of the nation 's highest legislative forum, from 1819 to 1825. He died at his home in Liberty some two years after relinquishing office, in his fifty-fourth year. His widow afterwards married Major James Stephen Bulloch, a grandson of old Governor Archibald Bulloch; and from this union sprang Martha Bulloch, whose marriage to Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., of New York, made her the mother of the future President of the United States.

Fragrant associations cluster about the site of the old Elliott home at Hester's Bluff. It was one of the stately mansions of the old regime, and though the rigid Puritan code of the Midway settlement outlawed the frivolities typical of cavalier life, it was the abode of generous hos- pitality and of good cheer. The old home place has long since fallen into ruins'; but near the spot on which it once stood there rises today upon the bluff an attractive and up-to-date club-house, the property of an organiza- tion, composed of certain members of the Savannah Bar. Judge Paul E. Seabrook, the present lessee of the property, has permitted this organiza- tion, as an act of courtesy, to enjoy the privileges of fishing and hunting over the entire estate, and the name Liberty Hall which has been given to the club-house suggests that the traditions of the locality are well pre- served .*

Liberty's Oldest Before the first emigrant from the Puritan settle- Family : The Maxwells. ment at Dorchester, S. C., located in this beautiful region of live oaks, the Midway district was repre- sented by Audley Maxwell, in the first General As- sembly of the Province, in Savannah, in 1751, and to this very day, in the County of Liberty, the descendants of Andley Maxwell are still living

*Consult the author's former work: Reminiscences of Famous Georgians, Vol. I, p. 20. Additional authorities: Judge Paul E. Seabrook, of Savannah; Miss Julia King, of Dunham, etc.

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

upon the ancestral acres. Mark Carr, who owned the ground on which the town of Sunbury was built, may have been an earlier comer into the dis- triet, but his name has long since disappeared from the region. The Max- well family is of Scotch-Irish extraction. Without a break in the chain of connection its members trace lineal descent to the old homestead on the Nith, in Dumfries, Scotland, the inspirational fountain-source of the famous air:

" Maxwelton's braes are bonnie Where carly falls the dew."

"It is said that the family is descended from the earls of Nithdale; but the Georgia Maxwells have always been too democratic to lay any stress upon the claim. Besides, there has been little need for them to go beyond the Revolution for deeds of prowess with which to brighten the family crest. From the south of Scotland, the Maxwells first migrated to the north of Ireland, where they must have lived for some time in the neighborhood of Belfast, and where they continued in steadfast and un- broken allegiance to the kirk. The exact time when the family escutcheon was planted in America is unknown; but there were Maxwells living in South Carolina before the settlement of Georgia. Audley Maxwell came to St. John's Parish in 1748. He did not come from South Carolina, however, but from Pennsylvania ; and he seems to have married in Boston, Mass. His wife was Hannah Powell. Locating on a traet of 500 aeres at the head of Midway River, he called his home place Limerick, a name which is still to be found on the map, though an old stone well is said to be the sole memorial which today marks the site on which his residence onee stood. He was one of the commissioners, of which there were three in number, to lay out the important military road between Sunbury and Darien. Two brothers, James and Thomas, obtained land grants at or near the same time and located- the former at Belfast, the latter at Hester's Bluff, on opposite sides of the Midway River. James was one of the founders of Sunbury. The daughter of Thomas married an Elliott and became the mother of United States Senator John Elliott.

Colonel James Maxwell, a son of Audley Maxwell, was an officer of some prominence in the Revolution. He was also closely associated with Dr. Abiel Holmes, in bettering the conditions of life for the new settlers; and in this connection it may be said that while the Maxwells anticipated the Dorchester colonists by several years in oeenpying the Midway distriet they joined them in religious worship and became zealous supporters of the historie old organization. Colonel Audley Maxwell, his son, was another man of mark. He located on Colonel's Island, where he cultivated an ex- tensive plantation, and the old home place, Maxwell Point, on the south end of the island, is still the property of his descendants. Rebecea Max- well, a sister, married the famous John Cooper, and lived at Cannon's Point, on St. Simon's Island, where they kept open house and entertained English and Scotch lords. The Maxwells have always been handsome in

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LIBERTY

feature, erect and patrician in carriage, and have splendidly exemplified the old school of Southern manners. They have also represented the cul- ture of the Georgia coast. The family of Mr. J. A. M. King, of Colonel's Island, is descended from the first Audley Maxwell and from the noted Roswell King, who founded the town of Roswell .*

John Quarterman : One of the very earliest settlers in A Patriarch the Midway district was John Quar- in Israel. terman. Concerning this devout pio- neer, who was a man eminent for pi- ety, there are only meagre entries in the church records; but he holds an exalted place in the traditions of the set- tlement. He is today revered as the progenitor of a dis- tinguished multitude of descendants. Embraced among his offspring are eight eminent educators, including the LeContes, seven foreign missionaries, and twenty-three ministers of the gospel. Robert Quarterman, his grand- son, was the first native born pastor of the Midway flock and he served the congregation for a period of twenty- four years.

Dr. McWhir: His On the importance of an education, the Academy Once a early Puritans of Georgia laid great Noted Institution. stress. It was not long after the Revo- lution that the foundations of the fa- mous Sunbury Academy were laid, in 1788; and, under the management of Dr. William McWhir, a Scotch-Irish- man of rare attainments, it became an institution of high rank and of wide favor. The following brief sketch is condensed from an account by Colonel Charles C. Jones, Jr.,* a scion of the Midway settlement. Says he :

"The most famous institution of learning in southern Georgia, for many years, was the Sunbury Academy. It was established by an Act of the Legislature, passed February 1, 1788, in which Abiel Holmes, James Dun-

*Authorities: Colonial Records of Georgia; old residents of Liberty; an article by Miss Julia King, of Dunham, Ga.

*Dead Towns of Georgia, pp. 212-215, Savannah, 1878.

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

wody, John Elliott, Gideon Dowse, and Peter Winn were named commis- sioners. With the sum of 1,000 pounds stirling realized from the sale of confiscated property, these well-known citizens, after giving bond, pro- cecded to provide an adequate building in which to house the school; and in due time the institution was opened. The teacher, whose name was for the longest period most notably associated with the management of the Academy and who did more than all others to establish a standard of schol- arship and discipline was the Rev. Dr. William MeWhir. He was a thor- ough Greek and Latin scholar, a strict observer of prescribed regulations, and a firm believer in the virtue of the birch. To the studious and ambi- tious he always proved himself a generous instructor, full of suggestion and encouragement. The evening of his days was spent chiefly in the homes' of his old scholars, by whom he was always cordially greeted, and the wel- come in turn was peculiarly relished by him when accompanied by a generous supply of buttermilk and by a good glass of wine. The latter might be omitted; but a failure to provide the former was a breach of hospitality which impaired the comfort of his sojourn. The building-a large two story and a half wooden structure, located in King's Square-was razed to the ground about the year 1842."

Two very interesting old heir-looms, formerly the property of Dr. McWhir, are now in the possession of his step-greatgrandson, Hon. William Harden, of Savannah, viz., a gold-headed walking cane and a silver drinking cup, the latter of which was presented to Dr. McWhir by his devoted friend, Rev. Murdock Murphy. The silver cup is shaped like a tumbler, and near the top is en- graved the date, 1815. At equal distances apart, there are three inscriptions engraved upon the sides : "Charity in Thought," "Liberality in Word," "Generosity in Action." On the bottom is inscribed : "Peace and Plen- ty." The gold-headed cane is made of Irish black-thorn, and is very substantial. On the top is engraved "W. Mc- W." Not far below the knob is a hole cut through the stick, on either side of which there is a silver guard, somewhat like the guards to key-holes. Dr. McWhir reached the ripe old age of ninety-two years. He sleeps beside his wife in the deserted little graveyard at Sun- bury, where there is much to suggest the pathetic pic- ture which Oliver Goldsmith 'has drawn of the Village Schoolmaster. On the marble slab which marks the grave

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of this pioneer teacher of Georgia may be deciphered this inscription, now blurred and indistinct :

"Sacred to the memory of Rev. WILLIAM McWHIR, D. D., who was born in the County of Down, Ireland, September 9, 1759, and died in Liberty County, Geor- gia, January 31, 1851. In 1783 he came to the United States and settled at Alexandria, Va., whence he re- moved to Georgia about the year 1793. His long and eventful life was devoted to the cause of Christianity and Education, and his labors to promote these objects were eminently successful."

Midway: The Stewart-Screven Monument. In the center of the historic old church- yard at Midway, ready to be unveiled in the fall of this year, stands a magnif- icent obelisk of marble, erected by the United States government, at a cost of $10,000, to two distinguished Revolutionary patriots, both residents of Midway : Gen. James Screven, and Gen. Daniel Stewart. President Woodrow Wilson, who married a daughter of Midway, and ex-president Roosevelt, a descendant of Gen. Stewart, have both promised to be present at the unveiling, and to take part in the ceremonies .. The shaft is fifty feet in height and thirty feet square at the base, with the following inscriptions splendidly cast, in re- lief, on beautiful copper plates, and set into the pure white marble :

(North Face.)

1750 1778

Sacred to the Memory of BRIGADIER-GENERAL JAMES SCREVEN, who Fell, Covered with Wounds, at Sunbury, Near this Spot, on the 22nd Day of Novem- ber, 1778. He Died on the 24th Day of November, 1778, from the Effects of his Wounds .*

*Gen. Screven fell mortally wounded about a mile and a half south of Midway Church. This point is fully ten miles distant from Sunbury. Con- sequently, it is difficult to understand this variation on the monument. We are indebted to Hon. H. B. Foisom, of Montgomery, Ga., for a description of this obelisk, together with the inscriptions.

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

(Continued) (East Face.)

Reared by the Congress of the United States as a Nation's Tribute to BRIGADIER-GENERALS JAMES SCREVEN and DANIEL STEWART.

(South Face.)

1759. 1829.

Sacred to the Memory of BRIGADIER-GENERAL DANIEL STEWART, a Gallant Soldier in the Revolu- tion and an Officer Brevetted for Bravery in the Indian Wars.

(West Face.)

(The west face is fittingly adorned by a copper re- lief representation of Midway Church, as perfect as skill and enduring copper can make it. No inscription what- ever.)

Seven of Georgia's Perhaps the most eloquent attesta- Counties Named for tion of the part played by the Mid- Liberty's Sons. way settlement in the drama of the Revolution is to be found in the fact that seven counties of Georgia bear names which can be traced to this fountain-head of patriotism.

1. Liberty. This name was conferred by the Consti- tution of 1777, upon the newly created county which was formed from the old Parish of St. John. It was bestowed in recognition of the fact that the earliest stand for inde- pendence was here taken by the patriots of the Midway settlement, whose flag at Fort Morris was the last to be lowered when Georgia was overrun by the British, and whose contributions to the official lists of the Revolution were manifold and distinguished.

2. Screven, formed December 14, 1793, was named for General James Screven, a resident of Sunbury, who fell mortally wounded, within a mile and a half of Midway church, on November 22, 1778, and who lies buried in Midway graveyard.

3. Hall, created December 15, 1818, and named after Lyman Hall, a resident of the Midway district, who was

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the first delegate sent from Georgia to the Continental Congress and who was afterwards a Signer of the Dec- laration of Independence and a Governor of Georgia.

4. Gwinnett, established December 15, 1818, was called after Button Gwinnett, whose home was on St. Cather- ine's Island, but business affairs connected him with Sunbury, who was also a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a Governor of Georgia.

5. Baker, constituted, December 12, 1825, was named for Colonel John Baker, of the Revolution, one of the early pioneer settlers of St. John's Parish.

6. Stewart, organized December 30, 1830, was named for General Daniel Stewart, an eminent soldier both of the Revolution and of the Indian wars. He was a native of the district, a member of Midway church, and an an- cestor of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. He sleeps in Midway burial-ground.

7. Bacon, created by Legislative Act, during the ses- sion of 1914, in honor of the late United States Senator Augustus O. Bacon, whose parents repose. in the little cemetery adjacent to Midway Church.

LINCOLN

Lincolnton. Zachariah Lamar, of Wilkes, was author- ized by an Act approved February 8, 1786, to lay out a town at the mouth of the Broad River, on the south side, to be called Lincoln. It does not appear from the records what was ever done in pursuance of this Act; but, in 1796, a part of Wilkes County was or- ganized into Lincoln, with Lincolnton as the new county- seat. Both the town and the county were named for Gen. Benj. Lincoln, of the Revolution, at one time in command of military operations in Georgia. Lincolnton was in- corporated by an Act approved December 19, 1817, with the following town commissioners, to wit: Peter Lamar,

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Rem Remsen, and Lewis Stovall .* The Lincolnton Fe- male Academy was chartered in 1836, and was an excel- lent school for the times. Near Lincolnton lived the noted wit, Judge John M. Dooly, and the distinguished pioneer legislator, Thomas W. Murray. Just six miles above the town is Tory Pond, where, according to tradi- tion, six Tories were hanged. Without railway facili- ties, the growth of Lincolnton has been retarded; but whenever the iron horse arrives a new era will begin for this fine old ante-bellum town, once the home of such noted Georgia families as the Lamars, the Currys, the Dallases, the Crawfords, the Remsens, the Simmonses, the Flemings, and the Lockharts. Here was born the dis- tinguished Dr. J. L. M. Curry, statesman, diplomat, and educator, whose statue has recently been placed in the nation's Hall of Fame by Alabama, his adopted State for many years.

Skeletons of the To discover, after a lapse of a century Six Tories Found. and a half, the well-preserved skele- tons of six men who were buried with- out coffins, during the Revolution, only six feet below the earth, in a climate which possesses little of the art preservative, is to say the least, a modern miracle. In the absence of scientific verification, the following story, which appeared in the Atlanta Constitution of December 22, 1912, is subject to the usual newspaper discount, but it nevertheless constitutes an item of some interest in this connection. The article reads :

"Skeletons of the six Tories captured at her dinner table and after- wards hanged to trees near her home by Nancy Hart more than a century and a half ago were unearthed last week by a squad of hands at work grading the Elberton and Eastern Railroad. They were buried about three feet under the ground, in what is known as the Heard field, near the mouth of Wahatchie Creek, some half a mile from where it empties into Broad River. The bones are all there, in a splendid state of preservation, but

*Lamar's Digest, p. 1044.

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have become disjointed. The skulls, in fact, all the bones of the heads and under jaws, are especially well preserved, and the teeth are perfect. The place where the skeltons were unearthed, together with the fact that they were so close together, near the surface, with no sign or trace of anything like a coffin anywhere around, makes the evidence convincing that these are the bones of the Tories captured by the Revolutionary heroine. The house in which Nancy Hart lived was located on Wahatchie Creek near a spring some half to three-fourths of a mile from where the skeletons were found. The place is now owned by the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. This place is about thirteen miles from El- berton."

State Senators. Lincoln during the early pioneer days was represented in the General Assembly of Georgia by the following

State Senators: Thomas W. Murray, Robert Walton, Rem Remsen, John M. Dooly, John Fleming, William Harper, Micajah Hanley, John Fraser, Peter Lamar, Benning B. Moore and N. G. Barksdale. Some of the early Representatives were: John M. Dooly, Philip Zimmerman, James Espey, Elijah Clarke, Jr., Samuel Fleming, Wheeler Gresham, Gibson Clarke, Peter Lamar, Thomas Lamar, John Fleming, Thomas W. Murray, John Lamkin, William Jones, William Curry, Nicholas G. Barksdale and John McDowell. William Curry was the father of Dr. Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, diplomat, statesman, educator and divine, whose statue has been placed in the nation 's Hall of Fame by the State of Alabama .*

LOWNDES.

Old County Sites. In 1826 Lowndes County was organ- ized out of a part of Irwin and named for Hon. William Lowndes, a distinguished statesman of South Carolina. Franklinville was the original county- seat of Lowndes; but in 1833 the site of public buildings was changed to Lowndesville.1 Still later, it was changed to Troupville, a town located in an angle between the Wil- lacoochee and the Little Rivers. On December 14, 1837, Troupville was incorporated with the following-named commissioners, to-wit .: Jonathan Knight, Sr., Jared Johnson, K. Jameson, Francis McCall, and William

1 Acts, 1828, p. 151; Acts, 1833, p. 317.

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

Smith.2 Finally, when the Atlantic and Gulf Railway was built, an Act was approved November 21, 1859, ap- pointing Messrs. James Harrell, Dennis Worthington, John R. Stapler and William H. Goldwire as commis- sioners to chose a new county-site on the above-mentioned line, and out of this Act grew the present city of Val- dosta, named for one of Governor Troup's plantations.

Valdosta.

Volume I. 1

LUMPKIN

Dahlonega: Early Gold-Mining in Georgia. According to the testimony of not a few residents in this neighborhood, some of whom have passed the patriarchal limit of four-score years, gold was found in Lumpkin County prior to the date given for its discovery in White County, on Duke's Creek, in 1828. Mr. Reese Crisson, one of the best-known of the practical miners who came to Dahlonega in the early day, was heard to say on more than one occasion that when he came to Dahlonega, in the above-named year, it was some time after the discovery of gold in this neighborhood. Mr. Joseph Edwards, a man of solid worth, still living at a ripe old age near Dahlonega, corroborates this statement. He also was one of the early miners; and, on the authority of Mr. Edwards, gold had been discovered in Lumpkin for some time when he came to Dah- lonega in 1828. At any rate, the discovery of gold brought an influx of white population into Cherokee Georgia, some mere adventurers, some pos- sessed of the restless spirit of discontent, ever on the lookout for something strange and new, but most of them men of high character, anxious to develop the rich treasures hidden in the hills of this beautiful section of Georgia. The Indians were still here and must have known of the gold deposits, though perhaps ignorant of their value; hence the name "Tal- oneka,"' signifying "yellow metal."

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Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume II, Part 64

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