USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 38
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The rural Presbyterians were very strong in what was afterwards Jefferson county, where a body of Scotch-Irish people had settled. They do not seem to have had any church before the Revolutionary war, but were organized into kirks which met in private houses. Their pastor sym- pathized with the Loyalists and fled the country, and it was some time after the Revolution before a successor was secured. After the Revolution there came into upper Geor- gia, into Franklin and Jackson counties, a number of North Carolina and South Carolina Presbyterians, who formed several churches in Franklin county, then including a num- ber of up-country counties.
There were several Presbyterian churches organized in Wilkes and Greene just after the Revolution, and several Presbyterian preachers were in charge of classical schools in the last days of the eighteenth and the first of the nineteenth century in different parts of Georgia. Many substantial citizens of Augusta were Scotchmen and were Presbyterians by inclination if not actually communicants. There was, however, no Presbyterian church organized until 1804, when one was regularly organized by Mr. McKnight, which held its services in the old St. Paul's church. In. 1809 the congregation began to build a new church where
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the First Presbyterian church now stands on Telfair street, and a pastor was regularly employed after 1807.
BAPTISTS.
The early story of the Baptists has been already told in the current history.
Silas Mercer had come to Georgia just before the Revo- lution, and settled first in Burke and then removed to Wilkes. He, too, in common with Marshall and Bottsford, had been driven from Georgia during the war, but he returned and did most efficient work in Wilkes, and baptized his son Jesse, who became a great man among his people. While he was at work in Wilkes there were a number of Baptist preachers zealously preaching in Elbert, Lincoln and Ogle- thorpe, and they gathered a large harvest of souls. As the tide of settlement rolled westward the Baptist evangelist was always found with the foremost. As they were Con- gregationalists and demanded no educational qualification for license to preach, there was always a supply of earnest, enthusiastic preachers to push on the work.
Young James Screven, the son of General Screven, whose father was killed at Midway, while at school in Charleston had been converted and had joined the Baptist Church. When he grew to manhood and returned to Sunbury, where he fixed his home and near where he had an estate, he be- gan to preach gratuitously to the people about him, and thus founded the Baptist Church in the low-country. During the year 1827 a very great religious awakening took place in all upper and middle Georgia, and the Baptists had a large part in the work and reaped a large return from their labors.
The Baptists by that time were among the wealthiest and most aggressive denominations in the State, and continued to press forward. Chas. D. Mallary, Sherwood, Dawson, King, Davis and Mercer were among the leading Baptist
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preachers. The Christian Index, of which we have spoken, is the organ of the Baptists, and has had a continued ex- istence for eighty years.
METHODISTS.
In the current history an account of the coming of the first Methodists into Georgia has been given.
In 1788 the first conference was held in the fork of the Broad river, and that year the first church among the Meth- odists in Georgia was built. The second conference was held in that church in 1789. Hope Hull, a gifted young Marylander, came to Georgia at that time and had much to do with building up the church. There was at first rapid progress, and then after a few years a steady decline; and ten years after the first preacher came to the State there were fewer members in the churches than there were two years after they began.
In 1798 Stith Mead, a young Virginian belonging to one of the leading families in Georgia, came to Augusta and there established and organized the first Methodist Church in any city west of the Savannah river. He joined the South Carolina Conference and was made a presiding elder. He was a man of fine parts, and there was for some years a constant advance. The camp-meeting was introduced, and there were frequent revivals and rapid increase in mem- bers for ten years. The conference, which had been de- pendent on Virginia for her preachers, now, in the first year of the century, began to furnish them from her own body, and men like Lovick and Reddick Pierce and James Russell began to preach. There was a great revival in 1809 along the Broad and Little rivers under the preaching of Russell, in which many of the famous Broad river people were con- verted and joined the Methodist Church. Methodism had
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now extended her circuits until they reached every part of the State of Georgia.
In connection with the South Carolina Conference the Georgia Methodists established the Southern Christian Advo- cate, and afterward, surrendering their joint interest in the paper to South Carolina, they established the Wesleyan Christian Advocate, which is now published in Atlanta and has ten thousand subscribers.
From the beginning the Methodists paid much attention. to the negroes, and have many adherents among them. The colored Methodists among the various bodies of negro Methodists are in close connection in the M. E. Church, South. The negro Methodists have handsome churches.
ROMAN CATHOLICS.
The Roman Catholics were excluded by law from Geor- gia at its first settlement and were not allowed a foothold until after the Revolution. The first church was established in 1796, in Wilkes county, at what is now Sharon or Locust Grove. The first church building was erected in Savannah in 1802.
A church was built in Augusta in 1811 on a beautiful lot given by the city. It is certain that, while a building was not erected until that time, there were services held for years before the house was built, and the same thing is doubtless true of Savannah.
In Macon and Columbus there were churches at an early day, and the Catholic church was one of the first erected in Atlanta. The Catholics have churches in nearly all the cities and larger towns of the State and a few in the rural districts. The first built in the country in Georgia was at Locust Grove, in Taliaferro county, and there is a mission church in Appling county. The Jesuits have an elegant. establishment near Macon, a novitiate in which those of this order are prepared for the priesthood. There are ele-
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gant orphanages for boys in Washington and one for girls in Savannah. They have schools in all the cities. There has been a Catholic bishop in Georgia for over forty years, and the church is compactly and completely organized.
THE DISCIPLES,
or Christian Church, was brought into Georgia soon after it was established in the West. It has some strong congrega- tions in the State. In Augusta and Atlanta it is a body of large influence and has an influential membership, and in Macon, Sandersville, Valdosta and in other places it has a following.
There are a number of other Christian bodies that are not found except in certain localities. There are a few Univer- salists, a congregation or two of Unitarians, and a small number of Congregationalists.
THE JEWS.
A small body of Portuguese Jews, about forty in number, came to the colony in 1733. The larger part of them re- moved to South Carolina, only a few families remaining in Savannah. These held firmly to their ancient faith and worshiped for many years in private houses. It was nearly a hundred years after the first Jews came before a syna- gogue was built. They then built a small synagogue and had regular services. They were Americans and people of position and wealth, and rigidly orthodox. The Germans, who were largely tinctured with the liberalism of the Re- formed Jews, were not attracted to the little synagogue; and being people of means, they built a very handsome synagogue on a fashionable street. The Jews have other fine synagogues in other cities in the State, and regular services are held by the rabbis in each of them every Sat- urday.
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TEMPERANCE REFORM.
In 1827 there sprang up almost simultaneously in differ- ent Atlantic States what were known as temperance socie- ties, which aimed to diminish, if not entirely banish, the drinking habits of society. Adiel Sherwood established a temperance society in Putnam county in 1827, and in a short time the sentiment of temperance in the use of liquors became quite popular with serious people.
The movement passed through various forms and resulted in the formation of divers temperance orders. These first temperance societies had a large following among promi- nent men. Judge Lumpkin, Judge Charlton, Judge Long- street, Judge Hillyer and many other prominent lawyers were leaders in the reform, but there was no attempt to suppress the sale by law. The antagonism to the sale of strong drink, however, reached so far that Josiah Flournoy, in 1839, canvassed the State to secure signatures to a peti- tion forbidding the licensing of dram-shops. He was very sanguine of success, and when the Legislature, influenced by Judge Cone, summarily disposed of his favorite scheme, it was too much for him, and his health gave way under the shock. There were, however, granted by the Legislature charters for the towns of Oxford, Penfield and Culloden, in each of which the sale of spirituous liquor was forbidden, but no further effort to suppress the sale of liquor by law was made by the temperance men for some years. A license law was enacted and an effort was made to regulate the traffic. When the prohibition wave swept the North, and, following the example of Maine, State after State pro- hibited the sale of strong drink, some enthusiastic Geor- gians formed a prohibition party and nominated B. H. Overby, a prominent lawyer in Atlanta, as prohibition can- didate for governor. He received only 6,200 votes, and the attempt to secure legal prohibition was given over for
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some years. It is hardly within the scope of this chapter to survey the field since the war, but the progress of the temperance cause has been constantly onward. The dis- tillery has, except in some few parts of the mountain coun- try, been put under the religious ban. County after county has secured special acts prohibiting the sale of strong drink in their boundaries, and by a general local option act in the whole State, with the exception of a few counties in which there are large cities or towns and a large negro vote, the whisky traffic has been positively prohibited and largely suppressed. Public sentiment is antagonistic to it, even in the cities, and while the retail trade is licensed, it is, in most of them, under careful regulation.
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CHAPTER XIII.
EDUCATION IN GEORGIA.
First School at Ebenezer - Mr. DeLamotte in Savannah - Schools in Dor- chester Settlements-School in Augusta-Constitutional Provision for Public Education-Academies Established and Endorsed-Old Field Schools-Ap- propriation for Poor Scholars - Appropriation for Academies - General Cobb's Measures for Public Schools-Private Academies and High Schools in Georgia-Mr. Whitefield's Effort to Establish a College-The Proposition for a State University-The Charter Granted and the University Established at Athens-First Graduates-A Glance at the History of the Institution- First Methodist School-School at Salem-Manual Labor School-Emory College Established-Glance at its History-First Baptist School at Enon- Manual Labor School at Penfield-Mercer University Established-Its His- tory-Oglethorpe University-Sidney Lanier-First Female College in the World Established in Macon, Ga .- History of the Georgia afterward the Wesleyan Female College -Lagrange Female College - Georgia Female College-Monroe Female College-Andrew Female College-Young Harris College-North Georgia Agricultural and Military College-South Georgia College at McRae-Industrial College at Milledgeville - Technological College in Atlanta-Colleges for Negroes and Colored People-Cox Female College-Gainesville Female College-Shorter Female College - Dalton Female College-Lucy Cobb Institute-Gordon Institute-R. E. Lee Insti- tute, Thomaston.
As this history has progressed the story of the efforts of the State to educate its people has been told. It is only necessary here to make a summary. There were before the Revolution public schools in Savannah and Ebenezer, and perhaps a few schools in the newly opened country. A provision was made in the first constitution for a general common school education. After this for years little atten- tion was paid to general education; then the Cobb school law was made, and after the war a common school system was put into operation. Sundry private schools and acade- mies, male and female, were established, to which attention has been called.
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The first effort to found a college was made by Mr. White- field, who proposed to change his Orphanage into a col- lege. Before his plans were perfected, but after he had secured a grant of land, begun work and the building was erected, Mr. Whitefield died. The property descended by bequest to Lady Huntington, but the buildings were burned, and soon after the war came on and the college, never fairly established, disappeared entirely.
THE STATE UNIVERSITY.
After the Revolution some gentlemen of the State pro- cured a charter and an appropriation for the State University. The trustees selected were John Houston, James Haber- sham, Benjamin Taliaferro, Wm. Few, Joseph Clay, Abra- ham Baldwin, Wm. Houston, Nathan Brownson, John Habersham, Abel Holmes, Jenkins Davies, Hugh Lawson and Wm. Glascock. It was stipulated in the charter that all the officers selected for the institution should be of the Christian religion, and it was ordered that the board of trustees should be a senatus academicus, and should cor- relate all the academies with the University. While the Legislature granted the charter and 40,000 acres of land for endowment, it did not say where the University should be located, and made no provision for the erection of build- ings.
The times were not favorable to the scheme. The country had not recovered from the desolations of the war, there was no money, and there were no pupils prepared for a col- lege. The academies at Augusta, Sunbury and Mt. Carmel, in Wilkes, met all the needs of the times, and so the statute of 1785 lay dormant for nearly fifteen years. It was then decided to establish the University at Greensboro, but the people were not satisfied with the place, and in 1800 Mr. John Milledge proposed to give the State seven hundred acres of land in what was then Jackson, and is now Clarke
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county. The donation was accepted and he bought the land and gave it to the trustees, and the first college build- ing was erected. A president was chosen, Josiah Miegs, and the first commencement was held on the 31st day of May, 1804. The graduates were nine: Henry Jackson, Gibson Clark, Jephtha Harris, Augustin Clayton, Thomas Irwin, Jared Irwin, Jr., Robert Rutherford and Wm. Williamson. The college had no endowment except in wild lands, and they brought a very small return. During the war of 1812 the college became almost moribund. In 1816 the lands were sold and the State took the notes from the purchasers and gave the college $ 100,000 in bonds for them. The col- lege was slow in rallying, but was opened again under brighter auspices under Dr. Waddell.
He was succeeded by Dr. Alonzo Church, a Vermonter, who made a very efficient president for over thirty years, and after his resignation Dr. A. A. Lipscomb was made chancellor. He was a Marylander of national reputation as a man of fine culture, and he made a most efficient and pop- ular officer. Dr. H. H. Tucker was then chancellor for four years. After his resignation Dr. P. H. Mell, who had been connected with the University for many years, was chosen. He was very popular and useful, and was suc- ceeded by Dr. W. E. Boggs; and he by Hon. Walter B. Hill, the present chancellor.
The United States granted quite a generous quantity of the public domain to the various States for the establish- ment of colleges in which agriculture and the mechanical arts should be taught, and while Governor Smith was gov- ernor this donation was turned by him into the treasury of the University, which added an agricultural and techno- logical department to its existing course and secured the benefit of the large endowment thus provided. The citi- zens of Athens gave to the University a handsome building for scientific work. There have been sundry bequests and
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large gifts to the University, notably those of Dr. Terrell, Governor Gilmer and Governor Brown. The University has attached to it a law school, located in Athens, and a medical school at Augusta. Some years since it adopted the plan of giving free tuition to all male citizens of Geor- gia who attended its literary, agricultural or mechanical departments, and it has so adapted its curriculum to the demands of all classes that it has put college advantages within the reach of all.
EMORY COLLEGE.
The Methodist Conference of 1789 projected a high school, to be located at some point in middle Georgia, and went so far as to raise a subscription for its establishment; and Bishop Asbury rode up the forks of the Ogeechee to select a place where the school should be located, but it was no time for establishing schools and the plan was not carried out.
If we do not recognize Hope Hull's academy as the first Methodist school, the first in Georgia was at Salem, in what is now Oconee county, which was adopted as a Methodist school by the South Carolina Conference in 1820.
Dr. Olin, who had married a Georgia lady and whose property interests were in Georgia, had been chosen pres- ident of Randolph-Macon College, Virginia, and was anx- ious to secure the support of all the Southern conferences, and asked the Methodists of Georgia to endow a chair in that college with $10,000 and to patronize the institution, giving them some special privileges in return. The con- ference consented to accept this offer and decided, in ad- dition, to establish a high school in Georgia on the manual labor plan, so popular at that time. This manual labor school, as has been stated in the history of Newton county, was located near Covington. It was found to be imprac- ticable to conduct a farm and a high school at the same
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time, and the conference, under the influence of Dr. I. A. Few, in 1836, decided to establish a college. A charter was secured and the spot was selected about two miles from the manual labor school. One thousand four hundred acres of land were bought, a village laid out, and in 1837 the corner-stone of Emory College was laid. Dr. Few was selected as president, the college was opened in 1839, and in 1841 the first class was graduated. Judge Long- street succeeded Dr. Few as president. Bishop Pierce, then Dr. Pierce, followed him, and when he was elected bishop, Dr. Means, professor of Natural Science, was chosen as his successor. He resigned after a year and was succeeded by Dr. James R. Thomas, who was president when the war began. The college was necessarily suspended during the war and its buildings used as a Confederate hospital, and when the war was over they were fearfully dilapidated. The endowment was gone and the people impoverished, and there seemed little hope for its recovery from its prostrate condition; but Bishop Pierce made an earnest and success- ful effort to keep the college alive, and a faithful, self-sac- rificing faculty stood bravely by him.
The Legislature now made a proposition to the three colleges which were opened. It would give them $100 in State bonds to pay the tuition fees of such wounded sol- diers as desired an education, for each year they attended. The bonds were not salable, but Emory College consented to receive them, and filled up her vacant halls.
With the aid of Bishop Pierce's Endowment Society and with the devotion of the faculty, the college began a new career. New buildings were erected and new students be- gan to pour in. Dr. Thomas had been elected to a college in California and Dr. Luther M. Smith made president. He was very successful in conducting the college, and when it had become firmly established he resigned, and Dr. O. L.
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Smith was made president. He retired from the presidency and took a professorship, and Dr. A. G. Haygood succeeded him. While he was in office Mr. Geo. I Seney, a New York banker, was attracted by some broad views of the new president, and decided to give the college $150,000 for building and endowment. This gift of Mr. Seney and the buildings erected by Bishop Pierce gave the college a full equipment for its school work. Dr. Haygood succeeded in purchasing some large houses in which to provide helping halls where young men could board themselves at a low price; and as tuition prices were low and often remitted, many poor men had an opportunity to secure a first-class education. Bishop Haygood resigned, however, to take the important office of agent of the Slater fund, and Dr. Hopkins was chosen president; and when he was elected to the presidency of the Technological School, Dr. Candler was elected to the presidency of Emory. During his in- cumbency the college was much more largely endowed and more thoroughly equipped, a handsome library build- ing was erected, and its patronage was largely increased. After Dr. Candler was elected bishop Dr. Dowman was elected president, and is still in charge.
MERCER UNIVERSITY.
The Baptists early in the century made an effort to estab- lish a college on a healthy plateau near Augusta, to be called Mt. Enon College. Dr. Holcomb was the agent to collect funds and to secure the charter, but the Legislature refused to grant a charter for a college, and only a high school was established. The question of a college for Bap- tists then slumbered until 1829, when Mr. Josiah Penfield, of Savannah, bequeathed $2,500 to aid in educating poor young men for the ministry. With this sum increased by private gifts to twice the amount a manual labor school was established at a place in Greene county, which was
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called, in honor of the generous donor of the first large gift, Penfield. Dr. B. M. Sanders was made president. A manual labor school did not meet the demands of the Bap- tists, and a university was projected and was established in 1838. Dr. Jesse Mercer, who had been the liberal friend of the manual labor school, left the whole of a very consid- erable fortune to endow the university, and it had from the start a considerable fund for its support. In 1851 the en- dowment amounted to nearly $151,000.
It was a successful institution from the start. The first president was Rev. Otis Smith, who did not long remain at the head of the college. He was succeeded by Dr. J. L. Dagg, who was for a long time the able president. Dr. N. M. Crawford (the son of W. H. Crawford), Dr. Henry Holcombe Tucker, Dr. A. J. Battle, Dr. Nunnally and Dr. Pollock have all presided in turn over the college. The university, being in a secluded village, kept up its exercises during the war, and was the only college in Georgia which did so. After the war it suffered, as did all the other pub- lic institutions, and some of its friends urged a change of location. Macon was anxious to secure a male institution of high grade, and offered to furnish handsome grounds and a fine building to the university if it would change its location from Penfield to Macon. The trustees would not accept a donation, but agreed to give free tuition to twelve Macon youths in perpetuo in consideration of the buildings furnished, and the college was moved. The buildings are very handsome, and the patronage was considerable from its reopening. Colonel Gray, a wealthy man in Jones, left his whole estate to provide for the education of Jones county young men.
Mr. Rockefeller, the wealthy capitalist, gave the college a very handsome donation for a new chapel, and the Bap- tists of Georgia have made to the university many gifts. It has an excellent law school attached to it and a prosper-
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ous theological school, and was never more prosperous than it is at the present writing.
The Oglethorpe University, which was established by the Presbyterians on a beautiful hill near Milledgeville at the same time that Mercer and Emory began their careers, had a comparatively brief but highly honorable history. The college up to the war was under the care of Dr. S. K. Talmage. It is famous as the Alma Mater of Sidney Lanier. It never recovered from the effects of the war and was never reestablished after its close.
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