Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume II, Part 73

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

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How the Name It is the general belief that the town of Originated. Hawkinsville was named for the distin- guished Revolutionary soldier and friend of Washington, afterwards a United States Senator from North Carolina, and for sixteen years resident agent among the Creek Indians of Georgia: Colonel Benjamin Hawkins. But the late Judge J. H. Martin, of Hawkins- ville, at one time State Commander of the United Con- federate Veterans, held to an altogether different view. In a published letter on this subject, Judge Martin says :

"The general and popular opinion is that the town of Hawkinsville was named for General Hawkins, or old Fort Hawkins, but this is not true. Pulaski County was organized in 1808, and the town of Hawkinsville in- corporated in 1830. The court-house was moved from Hartford to Hawkins- ville in 1836. At the time the town was surveyed and laid off Mr. John Bozeman, father of Judge C. M. Bozeman, deceased, and grandfather of our present esteemed townsman, Colonel F. H. Bozeman, was running a hotel built of logs on the lot now known as the brick kiln lot and lying immediately south of and adjoining the road leading on to the public bridge across Ocmulgee River. A Jew, whose name was Levy, kept a little store on the north side of the road, the river being then crossed on a flat boat. Out in the country and near by lived a countryman named Hawkins, who bought a peek of salt from Levy, and as the measure was

*Acts, 1830, p. 314.

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short Hawkins went on to Levy, Hawkins declaring Levy had swindled him and Levy declaring the salt had settled down. When Hawkins attacked Levy, Levy went through the back window and ran across the road to the hotel and begged Mrs. John Bozeman to protect him against the assault of Hawkins. The town was named for this man Hawkins. The name first selected was Tarversville, for the Hon. Hartwell Tarver, of Twiggs County, but as there was a Tarversville in Twiggs County this name was dropped and Hawkinsville substituted.

"Judge C. M. Bozeman, then a boy, was present and with the party surveying and laying off the town. My information was obtained from Judge Bozeman. Col. F. H. Bozeman says that he has often heard his father narrate the facts. Judge P. T. MeGriff and Judge Bozeman were intimate friends and doubtless he has heard Judge Bozeman speak of the matter. In order to perpetuate as far as I can the statements of Judge Bozeman, one the most reliable men the county ever had, this article is 1 written. "'

PUTNAM

Historic Old Eatonton, the county-seat of Putnam, was Eatonton. named for General William Eaton, an American soldier of fortune, whose brilliant exploits in Tripoli were the talk of the State when the bill creating Putnam County was introduced in the Leg- islature of Georgia. In the year 1805, General Eaton, at the head of a small force, numbering perhaps five hun- dred men, marched across the Lybian desert to effect the successful capture of Derne, the second largest city of Tripoli. The expedition was planned in the interest of the rightful Pasha. General Eaton held the town against three repeated assaults of the Arabs, but was finally obliged to relinquish it, on account of a treaty of peace concluded with the usurper by the United States Consul- General at Algiers, acting in agreement with Commodore Rogers, who commanded the American fleet.

Situated on a high ridge in the center of the county, Eatonton is 22 miles distant from Milledgeville, 22 from Greensboro, and 22 from Madison, and is on a brancli line of the Central of Georgia running from Milledgeville to Covington. The town was laid off soon after the county was organized. On December 12, 1809, for the

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better regulation of local affairs, an Act was approved conferring plenary powers upon the following commis- sioners : Barnes Holloway, Lewis Kennon, John C. Mason, Henry Brown and William Wilkins.1

Two years later, on December 15, 1809, the famous Union Academy was chartered with the following board of trustees: Brice Gaither, Robert Iverson, Simeon Holt, Edward Lane and Barnes Holloway .? This was the school where the afterwards celebrated William H. Seward, of New York, taught the youth of Putnam County during his brief sojourn in Georgia, when quite a young man. It was located near the famous Turner plantation, some nine miles from Eatonton, and was burned to the ground soon after the war. On December 4, 1816, the old Eatonton Academy was chartered by the Legislature, at which time the following citizens were named as trustees: Christopher B. Strong, Thomas Hoxey, Coleman Pendleton, William Williams, John J. Smith, John C. Mason, Irby Hudson, William Wilkins and William E. Adams.3

Eatonton has been the home of some of the best people of Georgia, not a few of whom have been men of distinction. The hospitality of the town is famed throughout the South; and few communities have sur- passed it in the graces of social life or in the charms of intellectual culture. The stately old homes of Eatonton, built on the classic models of ancient Greece and em- bowered in the luxuriant shade of forest oaks, are remin- iscent of the best days of the old South. Here lived the Reids, the Wingfields, the Nisbets, the Terrells, the Law- sons, the Meriwethers, the DeJarnettes, the Lamars, the Holts, the Abercrombies, the Hudsons, the Branhams, the Adamses, the Dennises, the Hurts, the Cozarts, the

1 Clayton's Compendium, p. 555.

2 Clayton's Compendium, p. 581.

3 Lamar's Digest, p. 10.

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Trippes, the Shorters, the Turners, the Jenkinses, the Edmonsons, the Maddoxes, the Flournoys, the Harde- mans, and scores of other aristocratic old families, whose names have long occupied a large place in the heraldry of Georgia. The old colonial home of Colonel Sidney Reid is now owned by Mr. T. G. Greene, a wealthy citi- zen, who maintains it in a style worthy of its splendid historic traditions. The Edmondson country-seat, once surrounded by its thousands of acres, is a few miles out from Eatonton, where a member of the family still owns a large tract of the original land. Mr. John T. Dennis owns the old William Dennis home, which is just below the Edmondson place.

Eatonton was one of the early Georgia towns to 'or- ganize a U. D. C. Chapter, with Mrs. Josesph S. Turner as president, and recently this chapter-the Dixie- has erected a handsome Confederate monument on the town square. During the past year a D. A. R. chapter has been organized, with Mrs. Francis Hearn as regent and Miss Martha V. Edmondson as vice-regent. It has been given the name of Samuel Reid, a distinguished former resident of Eatonton and a grandfather of Mrs. John M. Slaton, the wife of Georgia's present Governor. Perhaps the longest tenure of service on record in the office of Postmaster belongs to Mr. Sidney Prudden, a life-long resident of Eatonton, who held this office for fifty years.

The Old Cemetery. In the Academy grove is the old cem- etery of Eatonton, a sacred area of ground, in which some of the oldest inhabitants of the town sleep. Most of the monuments are yellow with age, and from not a few of them, due to the destructive forces of time, the inscriptions have disappeared. Here lies Irby Hudson, for years Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, and one of the earliest champions of co-operative effort in behalf of internal improvements.

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Within this same enclosure sleep the Branhams, the Shorters, the Meriwethers, the Cozarts, the Coopers, the Trippes, and scores of others, whose names appear on the oldest records of the town.

Union Church. Until recent years, there stood in this same grove, sacred to the earliest memo- ries of Eatonton, an ancient structure known as old Union Church. It was built in 1819, and, when first erected, was said to have been the finest in the State out- side of Augusta and Savannah. The church belonged jointly to four denominations: Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and Disciples of Christ, each of whom, on successive Sabbaths, used it for divine worship. When- ever there was a fifth Sabbath in the month, it was used by the Masons. The church was abandoned by the Meth- odists in 1857, by the other denominations in 1897 and was finally torn down and removed. But it still lives in literature; for the silver tones of the old bell, which for so many years called the little hamlet to worship, has furnished the inspiration for an exquisite poem entitled : "The Old Church Bell," written by Colonel William H. Sparks. The opening stanza of the poem reads as fol- lows :

"Ring on, ring on, sweet Sabbath bell, Thy mellow tones I love to hear. I was a boy when first they fell In melody upon mine ear. In those dear days, long past and gone, When sporting here in boyish glee The magic of thy Sabbath tone Awoke emotions deep in me."

Colonel W. H. Sparks, the author of this poem, was a native of Putnam County; and, after a lapse of many years, the above lines were written on a return visit to his boyhood's friend, Mr. Edmond Reid. It was at Eatonton, in 1833, during a church convention, that a schism occurred in the Baptist ranks, and from this old

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church the celebrated Jesse Mercer, with other devout spirits, organized the Missionary Baptists .*

Pioneer Settlers of Putnam.

Volume I.

To this list may be added : Thomas Edmondson, Will- iam Dennis, Joel Hurt, Wilson Bird, Andrew Jeter, Alex- ander Harrison, B. W. Clark, Rowell Ingram, Washing- ton Rose, David Bledsoe, Nick Tompkins, Henry Bran- ham, Allen Lawrence, Nathaniel Walker, Caleb Spivey, Isaiah Boswald and Alexander Reid. -

Rising Star Lodge. One of the oldest Masonic lodges in Georgia is the Rising Star Lodge, at Eatonton, the origin of which dates back to the earliest days of the town. It commenced work under a dispen- sation bearing date of January 8, 1818, which was the third anniversary of Andrew Jackson's celebrated vic- tory over the British at New Orleans. The charter was obtained on October 12, 1818, from Alexander McHunter, Grand Master, and Paul M. Thomason, Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Georgia Masons, and the following named residents of Eatonton were the charter members :

George M. Walcott, Worshipful Master; Augustus Haywood, Senior Warden; Lloyd Harris, Junior Warden; Henry Granham, Secretary; Em- met Shackelford, Treasurer; Irby Hudson, Senior Deacon; William Evans, Junior Deacon; Isaac Holland, Tyler; John H. Broadnax and West Good- rich.

In 1827, the number of this lodge was changed from 33 to 4, which rank it still holds, making it one of the oldest in the State. The old Masonic Hall at Eatonton was erected in 1820. It has withstood the storms of al- most a century of time, showing that the best of materials

*Miss Martha V. Edmondson, of Meda, Ga.

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were used in its construction. The building is today owned by Mr. Champion, and is used as a storeroom.

Distinguished Res- idents of Putnam.

Volume I.

Boyhood Haunts of Joel Chandler Harris, the South's "Uncle Remus." most noted man of letters, was born in 1849 in the town of Eatonton. His father, a farmer, died while the child was still an infant. The mother was very poor, and the boy was probably the least noticed youngster of the neighborhood. Some of his childhood playments still live in the old town of Eatonton. One of them, Charles A. Leonard, knew him when he was quite young. Says Mr. Leonard :

"Our playground was divided between Big Gully and Mr. MeDade's livery stable. In the latter were fine horses, while the Gully was a good place in which to pay hide-and-seek. At the stable we sometimes had the privilege of riding the horses to the blacksmith 's shop, and when the drovers came we were allowed to exercise them. Midway between Big Gully and McDade's lived an old free negro named Aunt Betsy Cuthbert, whose abilities in making potato biscuit, ginger cakes, and chicken pies could hardly be equalled.

"We entered the school taught by Miss Kate Davidson, where there was little play, except at recess; and it seemed then that school held from sup-up to sun-down. After a while we entered the male academy. It was not long before we made the acquaintance of one of the larger boys, Hut Adams, and when out of school we were boon companions, playing marbles, jumping holes and enjoying similar amusements. Whatever Hut did was right, even to foraging on Mr. Edmund Reid's watermelon patch. We organized what was known as the Gully Minstrels. Hnt was manager, I was treasurer, and Joe was the clown, with a fiddle, which he couldn't play. But he would make a noise, which would bring down the house. The price of admission as ten pins.

"Hut, about this time, became the possessor of a shot-gun, in which Joe and I were as happy as he, and nearly every Saturday we would be off for the fields or woods, Joe's part and mine being to carry the game. Sometimes we would get a chance to shoot just once when the hunt was over. Besides his love for hunting, there was nothing which gave Joe more delight than to play pranks; and, since he was clever enough to get the best of us each time, he enjoyed it to the full limit."'

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

But life was a very serious matter in those days. It was just at the beginning of the war, and few were the years which could be devoted to school. The next step in his life is best told in his own words. They are taken from an interview which he gave to one of the Atlanta newspapers a few years before he died. Says he :

"It so happened that I was in the post office at Eatonton, reading the Milledgeville papers, when the first number of The Countryman was depos- ited on the counter where the newspapers were kept. In reading it through, I came upon an advertisement wheih announced that the editor wanted a boy to learn the printer's trade. This was my opportunity, and I seized it with both hands. I wrote to the editor, whom I knew well, and the next time he came to town he sought me out, asked if I had written the letter with my own hand, and, in three words, the bargain was concluded.

"The paper on which I started out in life," said Mr. Harris, in after years, "was unlike any other one; it stands solitary and alone among news- papers. It was published nine miles from any post office, on the plantation of Mr. Joseph A. Turner. Over the roof of the printing office the squirrels scampered about and the blue jays brought acorns there to crack them. What some people call loneliness was to me a great blessing. I used to sit in the dusk and see the shadows of life's great problems flitting about me, and I then had time to think about them. So far as I learned it, the printer 's trade: was a liberal education; and Mr. Turner owned a large private library, full of the best books. It was specially rich in the various departments of English literature, and it would have been the most won- derful thing in the world if, with nothing to do but set a column or so of type each day, I had failed to take advantage of the library, with its perfect mine of treasures.

"Mr. Turner was a man of varied accomplishments. He was a lawyer, a scholar and a planter. He owned a large plantation, and he managed it successfully; he acquired a good law practice; and he was one of the most public-spirited men in middle Georgia. He was pronounced in his views on the questions of the day, an independent thinker, a good writer, and, best of all, so far as I was concerned, he took an abiding interest in my welfare, gave me good advice, directed my reading, and accorded me the full benefit of his wisdom and experience at every turn.

"For the rest, I managed to get along like any boy would. I was fond of setting type, and when my task was over I would hunt or fish or read. Then at night I used to go to the negro cabins and hear songs and stories, It was a great time for me."

It was in Mr. Turner's library that the future creator of Uncle Remus acquired the literary taste which was to add so much richness to his art

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in later years; among books like Shakespeare, Moore, Byron, Burns, Gold- smith, Grimm's Fairy Tales, the Letters of Junius, and scores of others. The raw material with which he was to build his stories in later years he found amongst the slaves. The character of Unele Remus itself was com- posite. The original was, in most respeets, an old negro name George Terrell, owned by Mr. Turner before the war. Until a few years ago, the little cabin in which George Terrell lived was still standing; it has since been torn down. His descendants are yet to be found in Eatontou, and one of his contemporaries, a type of his kind, so bent and erippled it is hard to tell whether he is man or beast, still hobbles about the town.

In the ancient days, Unele George owned an old-fashioned Dutch oven, on which he made every Saturday the most wonderful ginger cakes. These and persimmon beer, which he brewed himself, he would sell to the children of planters for miles around. It was his custom to cook his own supper on this old oven; and at twilight, by the light of his kitchen fire, he used to tell his quaint stories to the Turner children, and at the same time to Joel Chandler Harris. Men now, who were boys then, still relate the joy they felt at listening to the story of the "Wonderful Tar Baby, " as they sat in front of the old cabin, munching ginger cakes, while Unele George was cooking supper on his Dutch oven.

Another prototype of the original Unele Remus was Uncle Bob Capers, a negro owned by the well-known Capers family, and hired by them as teamster to the cotton factory at Eatonton. Joel Harris, before he went to Turn-wold to set type for The Countryman, lived with his mother near the home of this old darkey, from whose lips eame many of the tales which delighted the children of the neighborhood.

Although but a mere youth, Mr. Harris very early burst into print. He wrote many anonymous artieles for The Countryman, but the first com- positions to which he signed his name were brief paragraphs; and the first poem which appeared from him was in the issue of September 27, 1864, entitled : "Nelly White." He was then little more than fifteen years old.

But the Turner plantation was in the direet path of Sherman's "March to the Sea." General Slocum's staff enjoyed the hospitality of the place for several days, and when they marched on there was not much left. The youth now felt that it was time for him also to move on. The year 1868 found him in Savannah, on the editorial staff of the Morning News. His employer was William T. Thompson, the famous humorist; and his office boy, Frank L. Stanton, afterwards the famous poet, with whom he was long associated on the staff of the Constitution. He married Miss Essie La Rose, a lady of Canadian birth ; and in 1876 the family refugeed to Atlanta to escape an epidemie; and here he became immortal .*

*Condensed from "Memories of Joel Chandler Harris," a work edited by Ivy L. Lee.

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GEORGIA'S LANDMARKS, MEMORIALS AND LEGENDS

The Old Lamar Homestead.

About eight or ten miles south of Eatonton is the old Lamar homestead. It was established in 1810 by John Lamar, a thrifty planter, and years after- wards became the property of Mr. Mark Johnson. The house still stands [1895] in good condition: a fine, old-fashion, two-story, frame building, constructed after the strong and enduring models of the period. Little River winds near by, and cultivated fields' offer a wide prospect. Here, at the home of his grandfather, on September 17, 1825, was born the future statesman and jurist, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar. To his latest days he retained a longing for the old place, and de- lighted to indulge in reminiscences of the old life when a child. There extended along the entire front of the mansion a wide gallery ; and the whitewashed walls of the airy rooms were hung with pictures. One of these, symbolizing a nightmare, was the work of "Uncle Mirabeau." It portrayed a beautiful woman asleep upon a sofa, and, thrust through the window above her, a great shadowy horse 's head. An immense front yard was filled with grand oaks and poplars. To the east lay rolling lands. In the rear, a widespread plain shelved gently down to the river, which gave to the owner of the farm the sobriquet of "Little River .John."'

The house was a relay; and down the far-reaching red lane which stretched away like a long orange ribbon, the stage coach daily passed with rattle and halloo and call of bugle, emptying its bevies of bustling and hungry, but genial, travelers for the midday meal.1

With the old couple lived a bachelor brother, Zachariahª-a self-taught man-who, like many others, in old plantation times, gave himself up to the ideal world of literatuer and history, without any further purpose than the enjoyment of its fairyland; and over all his surroundings was cast the glamour of the realm of letters, in which he lived. When he led in family prayer, he did not think it inapt to thank God for heroic examples of Roman or English or American history, for the march of science, or for exemption from the crimes and miseries of the less favored lands into which his geographical studies had led him last. So when son after son was born to the head of the house this bookish enthusiast claimed the privilege of naming his infant nephews after his favorite of the moment, and the amiable and doubtless amused parents consented. Thus Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, Mirabeau Bonaparte, Jefferson Jackson, Thomas Ran-

1 Edward Mayes in Lucius Q. C. Lamar: His Life, Times and Speeches.

2 This was none other than Colonel Zachariah Lamar, of Milledgeville, the father of Mrs. General Howell Cobb, of Athens. Colonel Lamar mar- ried somewhat late in life. He was a man of rare culture and of ample means, and spent his younger days in the Lamar home at Eatonton.

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dolph and Lavoisier Legrand [a grandchild] indicated how his interest shifted from history to politics, and from politics to chemistry .*

At this old homstead, buried in a quiet garden by the side of his daughter, Evalina, lies John Lamar-father of the second President of the Republic of Texas and grandfather of the great jurist, cabinet officer and legislator, whose mature years were identified with the State of Mississippi. He must have been a man of rare mold to have been the progenitor of such an offspring. The grave is well kept, and is marked by a slab of plain marble, with the following inscription, written by Mirabeau:

"In memory of JOHN LAMAR, who died August 3, 1833, aged sixty-four years. He was a man of unblem- ished honor, of pure and exalted benevolence, whose con- duct through life was regulated by the strictest princi- ples of probity, truth and justice; thus leaving behind him, as the best legacy to his children, a noble example of consistent virtue. In his domestic relations he was greatly blessed, receiving from every member of a large family unremitting demonstrations of respect, love, and obedience. "'

Genealogy of There is a tradition amongst the Lamars the Lamars. of Georgia that the family was planted in Maryland by four brothers, who fled from France in the celebrated exodus consequent upon the re- vocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1686, but the records show that emigrants of the same name were living in Maryland much earlier; and the probabilities are that the first Lamars came to America to escape the oppres- sion of Protestants under the administration of Cardinal Richelieu.

John Lamar was the earliest member of the family to plant the escutcheon in Georgia, settling on Beach Island, in the Savannah River. His grandson, John Lamar, lived first in Warren County, but in 1810 moved into Putnam and established the famous Lamar home- stead, some eight or ten miles to the south of Eatonton.

*William Preston Johnston, in the Farmer's World of February 5, 1879.

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He married his cousin, Rebecca Lamar, and became the head of one of the most noted of Georgia households.

Two of his sons achieved eminent distinction. The elder L. Q. C. Lamar, Sr., succeeded to the Superior Court Bench before he was thirty-five years of age, and was al- most immediately styled "the great Judge Lamar." He also revised Clayton's "Georgia Justice," a rare book, and compiled the Georgia Reports from 1810 to 1820. Yet he died before reaching the full maturity of his powers. The younger, Mirabeau B. Lamar, became the second president of the Republic of Texas. He began life as an editor and was successively a poet, a soldier, a statesman and a diplomat. He published a volume of poetry entitled: Verse Memorials.

There were two other sons, Thomas Randolph and Jefferson Jackson, besides five daughters, one of whom, Loretta Lamar, married Colonel Absalom H. Chappell, member of Congress, jurist and author of "Georgia Mis- cellanies." To them were born J. Harris Chappell, the first president of the Georgia Normal and Industrial College, at Milledgeville ; Thomas J. Chappell, who served in both House and Senate of the State Legislature; and Lucius H. Chappell, ex-Mayor of Columbus, besides other children, including a daughter, Mrs. Toomer.

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Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume II, Part 73

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