USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 15
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The conflict between the Federal and Republican parties was now very fierce. It had begun during the latter years
* I found these forgotten facts in an old pamphlet, kindly given me by Mr. Garlick, in Waynesboro, Ga., in which there was an official report of the court-martial and impeachment trial.
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of General Washington's rule, and had become very serious during the days of John Adams. The feeling in Georgia was very intense. The governor was a Republican of most decided convictions, and so was the main body of the people. It would seem from the vote of 1796, when Jack- son received 6,200, Abercrombie 4,357, Barnett 3,965, Thomas Glascock 2,644, George Walton 2,357, John Milton 1,042, that Jackson, Tel- fair and Barnett were Re- publicans, and Glascock, Walton and Milton were Federalists .* . The Re- publicans were largely in the majority, and Abra- ham Baldwin and James Jackson were elected senators. Governor Jack- son then resigned his place as governor and re- turned to the Senate.
The rush of immigrants to upper Georgia during this period was constant, FOLGER GIN. and the State doubled its ABRAHAM BALDWIN. population in ten years. The lands were given away and the Virginians and North Carolinians came in great colonies to take up headrights These newcomers were of all
and make settlements. classes. Many of them had little property other than they could bring on a pack-horse, but some of them had a few slaves. They built their cabins in the wilderness. A small smoky cabin with a dirt floor was the home of most of them. They came mainly from Virginia, and the
* I am indebted for this fact to my young friend, Professor Phillips, of the University of Georgia.
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best blood of England was found in the veins of many an im- migrant who had but little education and but little property. There was a very large immigration from middle North Carolina of Scotch-Irish people who came to Warren, Han- cock and Wilkes. The farms taken by them were gener- ally small, two hundred acres being, as a rule, the size of a farm. They raised cattle, sheep, hogs and horses, and as a rule aimed only at first to make a living. In our study of the counties the features of every-day life will be more clearly brought out.
During the period under survey the first Catholic church in Georgia was founded by a body of Maryland Catholics who settled in what was then Wilkes, and afterward Talia- ferro county. The Catholics had been forbidden a settle- ment in Georgia during the colonial days, but after the Revolution, when there was freedom of religious worship, they began to come into the seacoast city of Savannah and a number of refugees from Hayti went to Augusta, and in 1802 a church was built in Savannah, but according to Evans, who is very accurate, they had a congregation in Wilkes in 1794.
There was little prosperity in any of the churches during this period. The bitterness of politics, the wild specu- lation in lands, and the general excitement aroused by the Yazoo sale, with its fierce antagonism, were not favorable to the progress of religion, and the churches all declined.
It was impossible under the circumstances of the pio- neers for regular schools to be conducted, and many a man who owned in after time one thousand acres of land could barely write his name, and very many women of the best families were never a day in a schoolroom. The want of education among the better classes in upper Georgia re- sulted largely from the state of things we have just seen. The same thing was true except in rare cases in Southern Georgia. Governor Gilmer says his first teacher was a
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vagabond sailor, a cruel disciplinarian who used to whip the children on cold days for exercise. He was a thief and fled the country.
In that inimitable book "Georgia Scenes," there is a graphic picture of the "Turn-out," in which Mr. St. John, the Yankee teacher, after a brave fight with his pupils, ·came out second best; and Mr. Malcolm Johnston, in his " Dukesboro Tales," presents a realistic picture of the old- . field school after the century began. The house of the old- field school was of logs, the seats were backless benches made of split logs. The light came into the schoolrooms from an opening in the logs, closed merely with a shutter of clapboards. The teacher began his school at seven in the morning in summer and closed near sunset, and in winter began as soon as it was possible for the scholars to get to school after the sun was up. There was little studied besides, in the language of the times, the three R's, "readin', ritin', and rithmetic," and it was considered by no means best for girls to study arithmetic. For these services the school-teacher received the full payment of fifty cents per month, payable generally in provisions.
Among the amusements of the people at that period and for a score of years afterward, were gander-pulling, horse- racing, shooting-matches, and country dances. Each man owned a Kentucky rifle with a long barrel, a delicate trig- ger and accurate sight. Accustomed from his boyhood to shoot the rifle, the frontiersman became wonderfully expert and was proud of his skill. To hit the bull's-eye with every bullet was the aim of the rifleman. The crowds met at the cross-roads, a beef was to be shot for, and each man paid his fair share of what the beef was worth, which was generally about twenty-five cents. The mark was set up and the best shot had the choice of one of the quarters into which the beef was divided.
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The quarter race was another favorite sport. Wherever
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there was a cross-roads grocery there was a race-track of a quarter of a mile. The races were between the horses from the farms. The bets were small generally, a quart of whisky or peach brandy.
Gander-pulling was another favorite amusement. The feathers were clipped short on the bird's neck, which was then greased or soaped. The poor bird was suspended from a bar between two poles. The horseman dashed under the bar at full speed and caught as he ran the neck of the gander and endeavored to pull off its head. The rider who succeeded in tearing the head from the body of the doomed bird had the body for his pay.
The country dance, so graphically described by Judge Longstreet, was universal until it was driven away by the opposition of the Baptists and Methodists in the early years in the century.
The fight in the ring, for the championship, was as cer- tain as the crowd gathered. In every county there was a best man. He was the champion but not the unchallenged king of the ring. Bob Stallings and Bill Durham were not fictitious characters, and the fight so graphically de- scribed by Judge Longstreet was such as was seen on every justice court day for many years after the settlement of Georgia. One of the first laws ever passed by the Georgia Legislature was to punish biting and gouging.
These barbarous customs were not confined to the hum- bler classes, for in a rough-and-tumble fight between two great politicians, distinguished lawyers both, one of them said, to prevent the other from gouging him, he caught his finger in his mouth and bit it to the bone. Disgusting as these details are, they are history.
Horses were abundant; they were cheap and were indis- pensable to the farmer, however small his farm, and no man was too poor to own one. Horse-swapping was a fine art, and a horse-jockey was a regular professional who
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prided himself on his ability to palm off a poor plug on an unsuspecting victim.
The drinking habits of the people were fearfully bad. Everybody drank, many to excess, nearly all moderately. No one condemned drinking except the Methodists, whose general rules forbade all drinking except in cases of neces- sity, which cases were, alas! too common.
To distil corn whisky and peach brandy was not at all rep- rehensible, and one of the best men in Georgia, an enthu- siastic and liberal Methodist, who, because he thought sla- very was wrong, freed all his slaves, left his still to his son, who was himself a Methodist class-leader. To get drunk was mildly blamable, but to drink in moderation was tem - perance.
The people as a body were honest and truthful, and as considerate of women as a knight-errant. They were good husbands and tender fathers. They feared no peril, and shrank from no hardship. Most of them had been brought up on the frontiers of Virginia and North Carolina, or Geor- gia, and had never known restraint, and were as free as the deer on their hills.
There were now two Georgias-the old Georgia around and below Savannah, and the new Georgia which was above and west of Augusta. In these the social life was very dif- ferent. The low-country had rallied rapidly after the Rev- olution, and society had taken on again the features it had borne before the war came. It had not as yet recovered entirely from the devastating effects of the war, but was rapidly doing so. In Columbia and Wilkes life had to be- gin over again after the war closed, and on the Oconee fron- tier everything was in a formative state. In the eastern counties of the up-country the rudeness of the first days of frontier life was now gone from some of the homes, and the comforts and even elegancies of life were to be found. The best homes were still double log cabins, but they had tight
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roofs and stone chimneys, and there was now more than one room for the entire family.
Perhaps the account given of Wilkes and Greene in the last chapter is as accurate a picture of life in the up-country as I can give. The amusements of the people were of a rude kind, but were much the same as were to be found on the border in all the States where Virginians were largely settlers.
There is nowhere else so graphic and exact an account of social conditions of this period as are found in the writ- ings of Judge Longstreet, and in a sketch written by the Judge, and only lately published by Bishop Fitzgerald, there is in his story of the "Rise and Fall of Darby An- vill" a most interesting statement of the condition of things in middle Georgia just before the beginning of the century.
Darby Anvill was an ignorant but thrifty Virginia black- smith who aspired to a place in the Legislature, and in giv- ing an account of the campaign the Judge brings out a fine picture of the motley company who took up headrights in upper Georgia. Although these plain, uneducated, inde- pendent, narrow-minded people had in many cases sprung from the best English and Scotch stock, they had had no advantages of education, and were in the main people of little property, but in every county there were a few people, doctors, lawyers and teachers, and a few preachers, who were recognized because of their culture and position as rightful leaders.
The wise and witty story of the Judge brings out so vividly the two classes that his own account is better than any which another can give.
Darby the blacksmith had become ambitious to go to the Legislature. Some of his friends had espoused his cause, and the intelligent few were shocked at his impudence. The little extracts from the sketch of the Judge gives an
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accurate rendering of the dialect, as well as a true picture of the rural people of the humbler class.
"Well," said Jimmy Johns, "may I say you is a candi- date?"
"Jimmy, you is a free man, and has a right to say what you please."
"And I am a free man and I'll say what I please, too," said Job Snatch.
"And so am I," said Seth Weed.
"Why, what's got into these boys," chuckled old Darby. "I believe they are gwine to make me a can'date, whether I will or no. . I did not know I had so much pop'larity."
* *
"Darby," inquired Smith, "is it possible that you are a candidate for the Legislature?"
"Why not?" said Anvill, with a blush.
"Why, you are utterly unqualified ; you will disgrace yourself."
"I know," said Anvill, "that I'd make a mighty poor out speakin' agin' lawyers, but I reckon as how I could vote as good as them."
"You are mistaken, Darby," said Jones; "it requires a better head to vote right than to speak right."
* * *
"Now, Mr. Smith, you say I'd disgrace myself to go to the 'Sembly, and I reckon it's so, for I'm like my neighbors here, hard-working people, what hain't got no business do- ing nothin' but workin' for great folks and rich folks, no- how. Now, I want to ax you a few questions, and firstly of the first place, to begin at the beginnin', hain't a poor man as free as a rich man?"
"Certainly."
"And didn't they fight for liberty as well as rich ones?" "Yes."
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"Well, hain't they as honest as rich men?"
"No doubt of it."
"Well, if a poor man is as free as a rich man, and they fit for liberty as well as them, and is as honest, how comes it that some people that's the smartest in the world votes for nobody havin' votes but them that's got land?"
I have merely made this extract to give a clearer insight into the state of society than could be secured from any description. As the lands were given away all classes found homes in the new settlements, and men of the class of the ambitious blacksmith were side by side and equals before the law with those whose pride of family rose as high in their Georgia cabins as in their ancient Virginia homes.
It was during this period that an invention was made at Mulberry Grove, near Savannah, that had an influence on the world's future greater than perhaps any other invention of that century then closing. It was the invention of the cotton-gin. Eli Whitney, a young New Englander, and a kinsman of Mrs. General Green, had come on a visit to his aunt at Mulberry Grove. At that time the cotton produced on the plantations was generally prepared for the loom by laboriously picking the seed from it by hand. It was a slow process, and what was called a cotton-gin was invented, which consisted of two rollers through which the lint was drawn. It was turned by hand, and was of but little value.
A Mr. Jos. Eve, of the Bermudas, invented a machine of the same order on a larger scale. This was better and was in use for many years on the sea island cotton plantations, still it worked but slowly. Whitney put his head to work, and finally fell on the idea upon which the modern gin is constructed. It has been said that Mrs. General Green made a suggestion which resulted in his perfecting it so as make it useful. He found it somewhat difficult to get a patent, and after filing his application and securing a caveat
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he put the gins, or machines as they were called, to work in sundry places. The idea of his gin was seized by Jacob Lyons, who made further improvements on it and began to manufacture the machines in Columbia county. There was a long and expensive litigation, and Whitney's claim to the invention was established, but he profited little by it. There were but few machines set up until after the begin- ning of the new century.
We turn our attention to the counties formed during this period.
ELBERT.
Elbert county was laid off from Wilkes in 1790, and named in honor of General and Governor Elbert. It was one of the first settled parts of Wilkes, and much that has been said of Wilkes refers to Elbert. When laid off it in- cluded a part of Hart and Madison. The land was of four sorts: Rich red hills covered with grand forests; beau- tiful valleys along the streams, and a wide area of what was regarded as almost waste land, the flat woods; and the thin gray lands covered with post-oaks. These red lands and valleys were very fertile and attracted the Virginians, who were seeking homes in a new country, and who were seeking rich lands to grow tobacco.
There was a large area known as the flat woods, where wild grasses grew luxuriantly. The lands were suited for pasturage but not for culture, and for many years were not valued highly. Of late these lands have been among the best in the county, being rendered productive by the liberal use of kainit.
The first settlers, according to Mr. White and others, were:
Dr. Bibb, Wm. Brown, A. Brown, Wm. Barnett, Billy Allen, James Bell, P. M. Wyche, Jos. Deadwyler, David White, Dozier Thornton, Thos. Maxwell, R. Tyner, William
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Key, William Grimes, J. Watkins, Colonel Jack Howard, Nehemiah Howard, Peter Oliver, Wm. Rucker, N. High- smith, P. Duncan, Wm. Haley, Wm. Ward, E. Shackleford, W. Woods, Middleton Woods, Stephen Heard, D. Oliver, J. Cason, W. Brown, W. Moss, Wm. Tait, Enos Tait, Zimri Tait, Robert L. Tait, James Alston, Wm. Alston, Ralph Banks, Wm. Hodges, S. Wilson, Thos. Carter, John A. Banks, Samuel Davis the father of Jefferson Davis, Absalom Davis, S. Nelson, Thos. Burton, Isham Thompson, Wm. Hodges, S. Nelson, J. A. Carter.
Some of these came just before the Revolution, some of them in the early years of it, and many more of them just after its close.
There were but few people of property who came with the first settlers, but there were not a few who had some slaves.
There was much rudeness in the frontier life of those trying days, when the wild Cherokee and the crueller Tory menaced the newcomers. During the Revolution there was a bitter contest with the Tories, and among the more famous of the Whigs of those days was a woman, Nancy Hart. She is the only woman Georgia ever honored so far as to name a county after her. It must be admitted from all accounts that she was by no means comely in features, nor amiable in temper, nor choice in her language, and the report is that she was said by the frontier people to have been a " honey of a patriot but a devil of a wife." This I think is a slander.
The old governor, in an amusing chapter devoted to her, from which most of the stories concerning her are drawn, may somewhat overstate things about her, and make her a ruder woman than she really was; but she certainly was an intrepid Whig, and doubtless captured several Tories and had them safely hung. In her old age the gov-
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ernor says she became a shouting Methodist and was recog- nized by all as a good woman. She married an uncle of Thomas Hart Benton, the famous senator, and the sterling old statesman was always proud of his connection with her. It is certain she was a woman of substance and fam- ily and integrity, and her family was among the best.
Land was very cheap and living very simple, and Gov- ernor Gilmer has not drawn on his fancy for the picture he has painted of the first years of the Wilkes and Elbert people.
There were few opportunities to secure an education. A large number of the wills and deeds are signed with a mark, and there were but few women whose signatures are attached to legal instruments before 1811 who could write their names.
After the coming of the Broad river people in 1785 there was a steady influx of people of wealth into Elbert, and while wills show much illiteracy and much poverty, they also show that Elbert was now being peopled with a class of substantial Virginians, who brought some culture and wealth with them into what was then regarded as the wilds of Georgia.
The Virginians who largely settled Elbert believed to- bacco was the only crop which could be raised to profit, and chose these lands with an eye to its culture, but the first comers were compelled to wrestle with the question of securing subsistence in these remote quarters. They were obliged to have some ammunition and some tools, and they bought them from the traders who had their supplies at Fort James, or perhaps in Augusta, but they had nothing but peltry to rely on for barter. During the war the people of Elbert were reduced to great straits, and after it was over for some years there were few slaves and but little raised for market. The nearest market was Augusta and
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their visits to it were few. There was little tobacco and no cotton made for market till after 1805. The wealth of the county was in cattle and hogs.
The great rush of immigrants who sought the rich county of Wilkes when the Virginians came in such numbers rap- idly peopled that part of it which was afterwards Elbert. The land was granted by headright, and the better sections of the county were soon taken. There was for ten years after peace was declared a constant peril from the Chero- kees, who were not fifty miles from the Elbert frontier, but there was nothing that could deter the eager land- hunter, and the country became quite populous.
Petersburg, or old Fort James, was now selected as an inspecting place for the tobacco which was to find a market in Europe. Slave-owners came to the promising country in numbers before the century began. Virginians of wealth settled on Broad river and bought up the valuable lands in the valley of the Savannah. Petersburg became an impor- tant and bustling town. The tobacco, which was packed in large hogsheads, was shipped by flatboats to Savannah, where it was sent direct to England. Petersburg mer- chants were exporters and importers, and goods were sold more cheaply there than in Augusta. Tobacco gave way in the first decade of the new century to cotton, and Petersburg began to decline. With the coming of the steamboats and the growth of Augusta and the abandonment of tobacco planting, its decay was rapid, and now not a house re- mains.
Elberton was laid out as soon as the county was organ- ized. It had no special advantages as a commercial town, and was overshadowed by the more vigorous Petersburg and Ruckersville, but it was healthy and well located; and while it never before the war between the States became a town of importance, it was the county site and a school
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center, and had a small and choice population. An acad- emy was established as soon as the county was laid out. It was incorporated and chartered, and the second female academy chartered in Georgia was in Elberton.
With the decline of Petersburg Elberton was still over- shadowed by Ruckersville, nearer the river, where there was a bank and large warehouses, and it did a compara- tively small business.
The goods sold in the county were brought up the river in flatboats or in wagons from Augusta. The cotton made in the county was sent down the river in boats or carried to Augusta in wagons. The small farmer, as in other sec- tions, gave way in the early part of the century to the large planter who had many slaves, and who could ship his scores of bales of cotton to the Augusta market. By 1830 Elbert had become a county of great plantations, and the richer parts of the county were owned by a few large slave-owners. Some of these men of wealth lived in the village, but most of them in Wilkes on their plantations. It is the same story-negroes increased, lands grew poorer, and the Elbert county planter, finding he could not support his large family of blacks on the red hills of Elbert, re- moved his negroes to better lands on the rich bottoms of Mississippi, or the black lands of Alabama, or to southwest Georgia. The poorer people went to the flat woods, or the black-jack ridges of what was afterward Hart, or else to the cheap lands of the Cherokee counties. In 1810 there were 7,582 whites and 4,574 slaves in Elbert; in 1830 there were 6,589 whites and 5,765 slaves, nearly as many slaves as white people in the county, and in 1850 the whites were 6,692 and slaves 6,269.
After the war, however, Elbert began, as all the older counties, to take on new life. The old planter who had bought but little and who had aimed to make everything at
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home, gave way to the new planter who traded near home and whose negro employees bought their goods from the country store, and trade began to be brisk. A railroad was a necessity, and largely through the enterprise of the Elbert people a branch road was built from Elberton to Toccoa. Afterward the Seaboard Air Line railroad passed through the village, and Elberton was transformed from a country village into a city.
The Virginia people who came into Elbert at its first set- tlement were many of them Baptists, and some of them Methodists, and the first Methodist missionaries came into. this county, then known as Wilkes, and began their work. Beverly Allen, a scion of a prominent family in Virginia, who was a Methodist preacher, and long but incorrectly regarded the first Methodist preacher in Georgia, had his home in this county. He was a man of rare gifts and of great in- fluence, but become involved in trouble in South Carolina and was expelled from the church. He then became a merchant in Elbert, and incurred heavy debts to eastern creditors. He was sued in the United States court, and when Marshall Forsyth in Augusta, where he was at the time, made an effort to arrest him, Allen killed him and fled to Kentucky. Here he became a prominent physician and a wealthy man.
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