USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 26
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HALL.
Hall county was laid off in 1818, and named in honor of Lyman Hall. It was very rapidly settled by a class of worthy but poor people.
The land is not generally fertile, but most of it repaid the tiller's toil, and there are some beautiful and productive farms on the creeks and on the Oconee and Chattahoochee rivers.
It was, like Habersham, famous for the salubrity of its summer climate, and early drew to it a class of wealthy people from the low-country, who fixed their summer homes in Gainesville. The celebrated New Holland springs and the White Sulphur springs were excellent summer resorts near Gainesville, and when the Southern railway was built Gainesville developed into an excellent market for the mountain counties bordering it, and became a place of large trade. The manufacturing of shoes became a leading industry, to which has since been added the man- ufacturing of cotton.
It has been an educational center, and the Gainesville
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Female College has become famous as a school for young women.
Gainesville has now grown into a city of considerable size, populated by a class of enterprising and intelligent people, and has become the leading summer resort of the up-country.
The celebrated Glade mines are in this county. They were owned by Dr. Richard Banks for many years, and while working the mines some beautiful diamonds were found which are still in the family of Dr. Banks. The mines are now owned by a northern company.
Dr. Richard Banks was long a citizen of this county. He was a member of that distinguished family who sprang from Ralph Banks, one of the first settlers of Elbert county, and was long noted for his sterling worth and his tender philanthropy.
The celebrated banker, Richard T. Wilson of New York, began his life in this county as the son of a Scotch tanner, and made his first money as a boy on a Hall county farm.
The religious character of the people has always been good, the Methodists and Baptists being the leading de- nominations.
The villages of Flowery Branch and Belton, considerable little hamlets, are in this county.
The city of Gainesville, with its handsome court-house and its neat churches and handsome private residences, as well as its well-built stores, is the most important point of northeast Georgia.
The population of Hall as early as 1830 was nearly twelve thousand, but in 1850 eight thousand seven hun- dred and thirteen.
The first settlers of this county as given by Mr. White were: W. H. Dickson, E. Dunnegan, Jos. Wilson, John Bates, B. Reynolds, R. Armour, Jos. Gailey, T. Terrell, John Miller, D. Wofford, M. Moore, W. Blake, Jos. Read,
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R. Young, J. McConnell, R. Wurm, Thos. Wilson, William Cobb, Joseph Johnson, John Barnet, E. Cowen, A. Thomson, Jesse Dobbs, James Abercrombie, Solomon Peake, Richard Banks, Wm. Cotter.
HABERSHAM.
The county of Habersham lies north and northwest of the county of Franklin. It was originally owned by the Cherokees and was surrendered by them to the United States commissioner in 1818. It is in the main a very poor county. Along the Tugalo, the Sequee and the Chattahoo- chee there are some beautiful valleys, but in the main the land is a thin red land which is soon exhausted.
It has, however, such an altitude, being from fifteen to eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, and at Tallulah falls over two thousand two hundred and fifty feet, that it has almost unrivaled advantages as a summer climate; and before the railroad system was fairly opened, and when it was necessary to find mountain resorts as near home as possible and reach them by private conveyance, the people from the low-country and from the cities of Savannah and Augusta fixed their summer homes on these foot-hills. They came to the up-country in June and re- mained until November. They built neat villas and sur- rounded themselves with many comforts, and formed a delightful if somewhat exclusive society. The population, however, was largely of those sturdy yeomanry who have done so much for Georgia; and in 1830, when Habersham included White, there were ten thousand people in the county. The most of these were poor people, and life among them was very primitive.
There was much inducement for the landless South Car- olinian and North Carolinian, or Georgian, to settle when he could get one hundred and sixty acres of land, much of it arable, for one hundred dollars; so the tide of settlers
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poured into the country, and one-roomed cabins sprang up like magic in the forests. The rich lands on the rivers were soon occupied by the well-to-do immigrants from North Carolina.
The beautiful Nacoochee valley, one of the fairest spots of earth, comprising a narrow strip of land on the Chatta- hoochee, at the foot of Mount Yonah, had been bought at the first settlement of the county by Major Williams and by a few other North Carolina settlers. It was evident that in the days of De Soto the Spaniards had mined for gold in this valley, and in the garden of a local Methodist preacher, a Mr. Richardson, a rich placer mine was discovered in 1829. This was the beginning of the wild gold excitement which made the unpeopled mountains of upper Georgia for a long time as populous as a city full. Along the Chatta- hoochee and on Duke's creek, after the placers were washed out, the veins were opened and stamp-mills were put up. While digging for gold a subterranean town, evidently of De Soto's time, was discovered.
The county was early a favorite with tourists, and the railroad from Atlanta to Charlotte opened up the country to them, and the marvelous beauty of Tallulah Falls in this county, began to draw visitors from all sections. This wonderful freak of nature has but few equals east of the Rocky mountains. The Tallulah river, a limpid and rapid stream, dashes its way through the hills into a deep cañon, and then over sundry precipices until it reaches the grand chasm, where it is eight hundred feet below the surface of the earth. A pool at the base of one of the cascades is called "Hathorn pool," in memory of a Presbyterian minister who many years ago lost his life while bathing in it.
There is a beautiful cascade of one hundred and eighty feet near the city of Toccoa, also in this county.
There was quite an immigration of Swiss people to these
·
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bot-hills some years ago. They have been thrifty people nd have done well raising grapes and other fruits and cul- vating small farms.
Although Habersham has been remote from the center f population in Georgia, and has, in the main, been inhab- ed by a very plain, uncultured people, no county has had it a finer class of cultured men and women, Most of hese have, however, only resided here a part of the year, ut some have been permanent residents.
Among the distinguished citizens of the county was Dr. George D. Phillips, long a prominent physician and a dis- inguished member of the Senate of the State. He was a. Virginian by birth, who came from the mountains of North Carolina to Georgia, and won by his probity and ability the ighest place in the confidence of the people. His three ons, General Wm. Phillips, Colonel Charles D. Phillips nd Major Jas. P. Phillips, were distinguished officers in the Confederate army.
Colonel McMillan, who lost his life during the war, was rom this county. He was a gallant Irishman by descent, nd led a regiment.
The county has always been a religious one, and the Mossy Creek camp-ground has been in existence for over eventy years. The Baptists have a strong hold in this county, and the Presbyterians and Episcopalians have each of them churches in it.
The mining interests of the county have been more or ess prosperous since the first opening of the mines seventy years ago.
In the last few years the manufacturing interests of the county have been greatly developed, and the prospect of rapid advance in this direction is bright.
Among the early settlers were: Gabe Fish, Major Wil- iams, Alex Walden, B. Cleveland, John Whitehead, John Grant, Jesse Kinney, Chas. Rich, Mr. Vandiver, H. Moss,
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Wm. Herring, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Lumsden, Mr. Logan, Josiah A. Kees, James Quillian and General Wofford.
RABUN.
Rabun was formed from the Cherokee country in 1819, and was named in honor of Governor Rabun. It was in the extreme northeast of Georgia, with South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee bounding it.
The county was a wild one. There was one beautiful valley of considerable extent, known as the Tennessee val- ley, and some smaller valleys on the creeks and on the Tallulah river. The larger part of the country was exceed- ingly mountainous, and the mountains, while covered with timber, were unsuited for pasture lands or farms.
The remoteness of the county from any market and the general sterility of the soil prevented its rapid settlement; and the fact that it was possible for a fugitive from justice to hide in these mountains of another State led not a few men of shadowy character to hide in Rabun. But there were many excellent people who came at an early day and fixed their homes in the then wild valleys and in the county town Clayton. The first settlers were generally from North and South Carolina, and in the main were very poor and uncultivated people. There was but little hope, out of the few small valleys, for remunerative farming; but the range was wide and wants were few, and the hill farmer managed to live, while the valley farmer was often well- to-do. The county was slowly peopled, and a part of it is even now uninhabited.
The celebrated senator, Dr. H. V. M. Miller, was born in this county and brought up here, and from here went out to win a place among the great men of his State. Judge Logan E. Bleckley, the many-sided sage, who, as a philos- opher, a wit and a lawyer, has been equally distinguished,
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was born in Rabun and reared under the shadow of these mountains.
The county has never had a railway in it; but when one comes and the taste for mountain-ranging becomes more common in Georgia it will be the tourist's favorite resort.
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CHAPTER VIII.
1820 TO 1829.
John Clarke-George M. Troup-The Treaty-John Forsyth-Purchase of the Lands between the Ocmulgee and Flint-Great Purchase between Flint and Chattahoochee-The Opening of the New Country-Banks-Education - Lotteries-Macon-Columbus-The Newspapers-Dueling-Religious His- tory of the Period-Great Revival-Jos. C. Stiles-John E. Dawson-C. D. Mallary-Stephen Olin-John Howard-Lovick Pierce-Settlement of the New Country-Flush Times-Education-Factories-Anti-Tariff Feeling- Counties Formed-Newton-Houston-Dooly-Monroe- Henry - Fayette -Dekalb-Bibb-Crawford-Pike-Upson-Decatur-Ware -Taliaferro- Butts-Baker-Lee-Troup-Meriwether-Harris-Coweta -Campbell- Carroll-Talbot-Marion-Thomas - Lowndes- Muscogee-Randolph. Authorities as in last Chapter, with Dawson's Compilation of Georgia Laws, Prince's Digest for the history of the counties, United States public docu- ments referring to the troubles of Georgia and the general government, Newspapers of the period.
John Clarke was elected governor by the Legislature in the fall of 1819, and was governor when the period which is covered by this chapter began.
He was the son of Elijah Clarke, the great partizan chief, and was with him in his Revolutionary campaign and in his forays against the Indians after it. He had won his spurs as a fearless, able soldier before he was a man, and. was especially distinguished in the last severe conflict be- tween the whites and the Creeks at Jack's creek.
The accounts of John Clarke differ, as they come from his friends or his foes. That he was a man of fine mind, that he was a brave soldier, that he was a man of generous heart when his passions were not aroused, that no charges of dis- honesty were justly laid at his door, none deny. That he was unsteady in his habits, that he had little education, that
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he had a violent temper and was an unrelenting foe, his best friends are forced to admit.
There was a bitter feud between him and Wm. H. Craw- ford, and the Clarke and Crawford parties divided the State into hostile camps for years.
He had a fierce hatred for Judge Charles Tait, who was a warm friend to Crawford, and whom Clarke suspected of having made an effort to defame him. His animosity to him reached such a height one day, while heated with drink, and while Judge Tait, the judge of the circuit, was riding quietly along the streets of Milledgeville, he attacked him with a horsewhip. Judge Tait was not only a judicial officer but a lame man, and Colonel Clarke's attack was loudly condemned. He was fined two thousand dollars for the assault, but the fine was remitted, though the verdict stood.
He assailed Crawford so virulently that Crawford chal- lenged him and went on the field. Crawford was shot through the wrist.
Clarke was said to drink to very great excess, and to be very violent when in his cups, and was in great disfavor with many, but he was the idol of the common people and was the favorite with many of the leading men of the State.
By this time political parties had divided mainly on social lines. The rich Virginians, the city people, and the low- country planters were antagonized by the plain and unedu- - cated denizens of the small farms. Crawford was a clas- sical scholar of excellent family, of commanding presence, and had been successful, while Clarke was the leader of the sansculotte, as well as a large party of respectables.
He wrote a very bitter pamphlet against Crawford, Tait and Mitchell, in which he labored to show that there was a shameful conspiracy between Tait and Crawford to rob him of his character as an honest man. He accused Mitchell, who was a friend to Crawford, of uniting with him in smug-
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gling a cargo of African slaves into the State. The impar- tial reader of this pamphlet, while he can but admire the vigorous English in which it is written and the evident sin- cerity with which Clarke makes his damaging charges, is obliged to decide that the angry man's charges were base- less suspicions; but there were a great many people in those bitter days who did believe that their political idol, the in- trepid soldier, who had fought for them against Tories and Indians, who was an up-country yeoman and not a low- country aristocrat, who was a poor man and not a large slaveholder, and who had few advantages of education and was not, like his antagonists, a Latin scholar, which, to them, was the highest culture, was a victim of a malicious persecution.
He was a candidate for governor against Governor Troup and defeated him, and a second time he ran against him, with the same result. When Troup, who defeated Talbot by a very small vote, stood for reelection in 1825, Clarke was again a candidate. The two men were in many re- spects alike, and in many others very unlike. Both were fierce in temper, unrelenting and fearless; both fond of wine and always ready for a fray; but Troup was a man of gentle blood, an English aristocrat in every fiber of his being, although he was a decided Democrat politically. He had had all the advantages of a liberal education, had spent his life in the best social circles of the cities, and the culture and wealth of the coast and of the low-country was at his back, and the Crawford party, containing the wealthiest element of the up-country, supported him warmly. He had been elected to the Legislature from Chatham county before he was of age, and was sent to Congress as early as he could be admitted a member. Like his opponent he was a pronounced Republican and States' rights man, going beyond Mr. Calhoun or Mr. Jefferson in his States' rights
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views. General Clarke had opposed him before the Legis- lature, and, as we have seen, defeated him twice.
The proud and taciturn patrician would descend to none of the arts of a politician, and so he was no match for his wily antagonist, and Clarke triumphed; but in 1823 Troup ran against Talbot, a Clarke man, before the Legislature, and was elected by two votes.
The method of electing the governor by the Legislature was changed, and the election of 1825 was before the peo- ple. The Clarke men again called upon John Clarke to lead them to victory, and the fiercest strife Georgia had ever known was the result. The newspapers had become more numerous, and the style of writing was more vig- orous than polite. The election was, however, won by Troup by a majority of about seven hundred. Governor Troup's second term was perhaps the most notable, and it was the most stormy of any that up to that time had been known in Georgia, and the story of Troup and the treaty is ' in place here:
The Yazoo fraud was indirectly the cause of the most threatening collision which had ever taken place between the general government and any one of the States, for the famous conflict of Governor Troup with the president, John Quincy Adams, which put Georgia in positive rebellion against the general government, resulted from it. That the sale of the Yazoo lands would be recognized as a fact accomplished by any impartial court was apparent, and the Georgians were very willing to shift the issue and let the United States government meet the question. The cession of the lands in dispute was made, therefore, in the first years of the nineteenth century to the general government, and it agreed, among other things, to extinguish the Indian title to all lands held by the Creeks and Cherokees in Georgia and put Georgia in peaceable possession of them. The Georgia settlements by 1802, when the agreement was
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entered into, extended to the banks of the Oconee on the west and to the Cherokee nation, which occupied still a considerable section on the north and northwest. As we have seen, this line was advanced to the Ocmulgee.
The opening of the new lands in middle Georgia, the in- vention of the cotton-gin, the decline of tobacco-planting and the large increase of negro slaves in the older States had led to a very large immigration of Virginians and North and South Carolinians into Georgia, and the new counties east of the Ocmulgee had become thickly peopled. There was a large area of most excellent cotton land be- tween the Ocmulgee and the Chattahoochee which was still occupied by the Creeks as a hunting-ground, but was other- wise untenanted. The Georgians cast a longing eye on the beautiful domain, and persuaded themselves they had a good title to it and were kept out of it by the perfidious Creeks. The Creeks were now reduced to about twenty thousand. Of these fifteen thousand lived in Alabama and five thousand were scattered through Georgia. During the war of 1812 some of them had been friendly to the whites and some had been hostile. Among the friendly Indians was Colonel William McIntosh, a half-breed. He was the son of Captain McIntosh, who was an uncle of George M. Troup. Captain McIntosh was a British captain and had lived among the Creeks and had an Indian wife. Colonel William McIntosh, his son, was now a man of large prop- erty and of considerable intelligence, and was a chief among the Creeks. The hostile party had been perfectly subdued and had relinquished all the land they claimed in Alabama and Georgia except that which had been reserved to them by treaty. The United States government now proposed to them to buy all their possessions in Georgia and Alabama and give them acre for acre of better land across the Mississippi, in addition to a liberal payment for improvements. There were two parties in the tribe, one
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led by McIntosh, who thought it best to sell their lands and remove, and a much larger party who were opposed to any trade whatever.
The Georgians were growing very restless. They stood on the banks of the Ocmulgee, an impatient, anxious horde, and made a loud clamor for their land. The parties of Crawford and Clarke were bitterly antagonistic to each other, but on this question they were both agreed. Georgia ought and should have her land. Governor Troup had defeated John Clarke for governor and was in the executive mansion. John Crowell, a bitter antagonist of Governor Troup and a warm friend of John Clarke, was in the nation as Indian agent; Mr. Monroe was in Washington spending the last year of his presidency; Mr. Calhoun was his secre- tary of war. There was to be of necessity a change in the administration early in 1825, and Mr. Monroe and his sec- retary decided it was necessary that the Georgia matter should be settled before the new administration came in, and if possible the Indian title to all land east of the Chat- tahoochee should be extinguished. Before taking anything like coercive measures, Duncan G. Campbell and James Meriwether were appointed as commissioners to treat with the Creeks and get their consent to the sale.
Campbell was a Clarke man. He was a friend of Crow- ell, the Indian agent, and a man of unquestioned integ - rity and good sense. James Meriwether, his colleague, was a member of an old and distinguished Virginia family, famous for sterling virtues and clear heads. These two men were selected for the purpose of making a treaty and went at once to the nation to confer with John Crowell, the Indian agent. It was clear to them that Crowell could do much to defeat the treaty, even though he might not be able to secure its ratification. Crowell was a wily and de- termined man, and Campbell, who was his friend and his party associate, was anxious to secure his help. Crowell
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was a good hater and Governor Troup was the object of his deepest animosity. Campbell feared that this animosity might lead him to oppose the treaty which Governor Troup was so anxious to have made, and which would certainly bring to the governor such popular favor. So he used all his influence with Crowell to lead him to help forward his mission. The agent did not commit himself one way or the other, but in accordance with his instructions from Washington he ordered the Indians called together and made arrangements for their maintenance while they were in council. The Indians came at the call of the agent to Broken Arrow, in Alabama, and met the commissioners. It was soon evident that they were in no humor to make any treaty whatever. McIntosh was in favor of the nation selling its Georgia lands, but he was almost alone. The commissioners found themselves antagonized at every point. It was evident that some secret influence was at work to defeat them. Crowell said he was neutral, and that while he favored the removal of the Indians, he did not, as their agent, feel at liberty to use his influence to bring it about. Walker, however, the assistant agent, who had married an Indian woman, was bitterly and avowedly opposed to the sale, and used all his influence against it, even writing the replies which the chiefs made to the commissioners. With Crowell doing nothing to help them, and Walker openly and secretly opposing them, their only hope was in McIn- tosh. Since the death of McGilveray there was no man among the Creeks that could compare with McIntosh in ability. He had visited the new land and came to his tribe with a favorable report, but it was in vain. The Indians were fixed in their determination not to sell an acre of their land in Georgia or Alabama, and the commissioners, de- feated at every point, left the nation and returned to Wash- ington city.
The government was determined the treaty should be
1776
SEAL CONTINENTAL GOVERNMENT.
ILGER-
GEO. WALTON.
LAFAYETTE.
Jos. HABERSHAM.
Gov. G. M. TROUP.
GEO. W. CRAWFORD.
7-835701
W. H. CRAWFORD.
JOHN FORSYTH.
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made and that nothing should be allowed to stand in the way, and so Walker was dismissed and Crowell was repri- manded, and a new council was called to meet in February at Indian Springs, on the Georgia lands, and Crowell was ordered to summon the chiefs and provide for them. They were summoned and provision was made and some of them were present. McIntosh was there favoring the treaty. Big Warrior and Little Prince were there to declare their opposition to it, and when they had protested they returned at once to the nation. McIntosh, however, and several other Indians, claiming to have authority, signed the treaty. There was no delay in conveying it to Washington. It was hurried to the Senate, and was there ratified. The day after it was ratified the protest against it came from the nation, but it was too late.
Up to this time the State of Georgia had had nothing to do with the matter. The United States government had been the sole actor; but now that the treaty was made Governor Troup decided as soon as possible to get posses- sion of the ceded lands. It had been agreed in the treaty that the Indians in the ceded territory should not be mo- lested for twelve months; but in a few weeks after the treaty was made Governor Troup made an agreement with McIntosh by which he secured permission to begin the survey at once. Governor Troup was a good hater, and regarded with a Scotchman's antipathy the new administra- tion with John Quincy Adams at its head and Henry Clay as secretary of state, and he had no disposition to consult this new government about what he, the governor of a sov- ereign State, should do; and so he made arrangements at once to send his surveyors into the field to run off the lines and form the new counties.
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