USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 40
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The Independent Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian Church in everything but its ecclesiastical government, and was the first of the name in the city. It has had a succes- sion of very gifted men in charge of its pulpit, and is a very strong and influential body.
The Baptists first built a church, as we have seen, on Franklin square, and the first negro Baptist church now occupies this spot. There was a congregation and a church as early as 1796, but there was not a continuous pastorate, and I am not able to say who was the first pastor. It was
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under Dr. Henry Holcomb, a man highly gifted, of great intelligence and purity, that the church was organized about 1800. Dr. Holcomb exerted great influence in the city and wonderfully built up the church. In 1823 the present church on the corner of Lee and Agnew streets was built, and in the last few years the Duffy street church was also built. There are now two churches for whites and a number for colored people, some of which are very fine buildings with very large congregations and an immense membership.
The first Lutheran church in Savannah was built where it now stands as early as 1766. It was intended for the German-speaking people of the city. There was, however, a suspension of church services during and after the Revo- lution until 1824, when a new house was built on the old lot. This gave way to the building which still stands.
Although Mr. Wesley and Mr. Whitefield, who were both Methodists, had each preached in the city of Savannah, it was not until 1806 that Samuel Dunwody, who taught a small school, secured a room from Mr. Millen, a Presby - terian, and organized a Methodist society of three white people and four negroes. In 1812 James Russell came to Savannah and succeeded, with the aid of his up-country friends, in building a small church. This church served the little congregation for many years, and the pulpit was filled by men of great ability. In 1850 it was decided to build nearer the residence part of the city, and the hand- some lot on St. James Square, where Trinity now stands, was secured and Trinity Church was built upon it. The elegant Sunday-school room attached to it was the gift of the benevolent W. R. McIntyre. A handsome church as monumental to John Wesley was projected by Rev. A. M. Wynn, and begun. Dr. J. O. A. Clarke did much to for- ward the work, and after years of effort the Wesley monu- mental church was completed. A neat and comfortable
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brick church was built on New Houston street and a good wooden building in a new part of the town, on Seventh street.
The Jews have three synagogues, and the one on Bull street is very handsome.
The Presbyterians have an organization connected with the presbytery known as the First Presbyterian Church, whose church is located on Bull street.
Before the Revolution there were no lawyers in any part of the colony except in Savannah, and the bar was noted for its ability. John Glen, John Stirk, Colonel Young, Colonel Farley, the Humes and Mr. Gibbons were among the leading counselors. After the city regained its pros- perity there was quite a coterie of distinguished men. Nathaniel Pendleton, Matthew Hall McCallister, James Gibbons, Joseph Clay, James Jackson, Abram Jackson and Geo. Jones were famous men in that day, and from that day to this the Savannah bar has been noted for its great ability.
There has been in the history of Savannah a number of very decided changes in the nature of its society. For twenty years after it was settled it was an insignificant vil- lage, peopled largely by families in very humble circum- stances. Mr. Whitefield said as late as 1770, in addressing the Legislature, that but for the employment given and the money paid for the Orphanage he established at Bethesda, many thought the colony would have been abandoned. There were a few Scotch shopkeepers, the officials, and in the city and neighborhood a few planters of moderate means, but the bulk of the people were very dependent. There was a broad line of distinction, however, even then between the classes. After Sir James Wright came, as we have seen, a tide of prosperity set in, and Savannah became a really elegant young city.
The classes were very distinct; they were the gentlemen
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and the people. Although there was a break into these circles during the Revolution, it was only a few years after- ward before the old English features of society were again apparent. For years Savannah society underwent little change. Near the bay and around the old squares there were the homes of the gentlemen. At the head of Bay street, what is now Yamacraw, was the home of James Habersham, when Sir. Patrick Houston's home was located on St. Julian square. General McIntosh lived on South Broad street, and General James Jackson near the present court-house. There was much refinement, much elegance and much dissipation.
The days of Savannah supremacy, when she controlled the markets of Georgia, were between 1812 and 1830. The ruling people in the social circles were the large planters and the great bankers and governors and the law- yers and doctors; but there came another day when the railroad came, and by slow degrees the old features of English life gave way, and Savannah presented few fea- tures not found in any other city of its size in the State.
Savannah has always been famous for the beauty of its old squares and the handsome monuments erected on some of them. The monuments to Generals Greene and Pulaski were the first erected, and were, for the time, considered very elegant shafts. There is a sad history connected with them. The body of neither hero is buried here. No one knows where either sleeps. Pulaski was buried no one knows where. General Greene's body was brought to Sa- vannah and placed in a vault in 1785. When the vault was opened the body was gone, and though every inquiry was made it was never found. Mere conjecture has to be called to the aid of the inquirer, and there are decided differences of opinion as to where the old soldier was buried. It is at least certain that he was not buried on the square on which the monument stands. The monuments to Pulaski, to Gor-
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don and to Sergeant Jasper are attractive works of art, and the one on the parade ground to the Confederate dead is very handsome.
The park in Savannah is a small but exquisite breathing place, with a beautiful growth of native trees and a fine foun- tain in the center of the grove.
Near the park is the Library of the Georgia Historical Society, which is not only the library of Savannah, but whose resources have been at the service of all the students of Georgia history. It has a very handsome building, which was largely the benefaction of Miss Margaret Telfair. In addition to its large collection of books bearing on Georgia history, it is rich in books bearing on the history of all the States
The history of Savannah has been carefully told, and no- where so fully and accurately as in the History of Savannah by Colonel C. C. Jones.
AUGUSTA.
In the first chapter there is an account of the settlement of Augusta. For some years it was an important trading post. There was a fort and a considerable number of log houses occupied by the traders. The fort was located where the present St. Paul's Church is standing, and the houses built on the river bluff as far down the river as Elbert street. For twenty years after the settlement of the trading post the traders were dependent for supplies on South Carolina, where slavery was permitted.
Where the upper part of Augusta is now McCartan Camp- bell had a large river plantation, and on the south Wm. Glascock had his estate. The city was laid out and the lots granted in 1763. The streets were Reynolds, Market, Elias, and what are now Washington, Elbert and Center. The early settlers were largely Scotch traders, and when the Revolutionary troubles began some of them sympathized
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with the mother country, but the larger part of the people were with the colonies, and Mr. Brown, a Scotch trader, was tarred and feathered-an indignity he amply avenged in a later day. After the troubles with the British a second fort was built near where was for years the upper market.
The history of Augusta during the war has been most carefully written by Colonel Jones, and it is not possible in the space appropriated to this account to do more than glance at it. The Legislature, when the British menaced Savannah in 1779, fled to Augusta, and when matters be- came still more serious, fled from Augusta to the frontier. Augusta fell into the hands of the British, and was attacked by Colonel Clarke, who was repelled, and was attacked again by Colonel Lee, Colonel Clarke and Major Jackson, and fell into the hands of the Americans. The Legislature now resumed its sessions in Augusta, and then, in 1783, the courts began their sessions. The judges were Wm. Glas- cock, Chas. Crawford, Wm. Few and Andrew Burns.
The old records show that the government of the city was vested in the board. of trustees of the Richmond acad- emy. This board let out the contract for building the academy to Colonel Wm. Candler. He took the contract for building the academy, but died before the completion of the work. The house was turned over to the county at a later date as a court-house and as a place for the legisla- tive sessions. The school was, however, opened here in 1785, and Mr. Palmer was chosen as principal, and religious services were held at it until the church was built. The church was not made habitable until 1789, when it was so far completed by Colonel Wm. Mead, the contractor, that Parson Boyd was chosen by the vestry to hold services in it. Although Mr. Boyd was an Episcopalian and the ves- try were of the same denomination, all other Christian bodies were permitted to hold services in the church. The salary was not large and pew rents were low. The list pre-
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served shows that Mr. Edward Telfair paid as rent £6; Mr. Geo. Walton, £7 5s .; Colonel Seaborn Jones, £5 5s .; Colonel Abram Jones, £5; Major Forsyth, £5 12s .; Mr. Hunter, £5; Mr. Hills, £4; Mr. Longstreet, £4.
The tide of settlers came rapidly after the war ended, and Geo. Walton, the signer, removed from Savannah and settled near where the Augusta factory is now. The old building in which he resided is still standing-one of the few houses in the city that antedate the nineteenth century. There was a large influx of Virginians, and the immigration to the northern part of Richmond, now Columbia, and into the counties about was increasing the trade of the city largely, and its population grew rapidly.
Mrs. Fox had a tavern on the corner of Ellis and Center streets where the public sales were made, and the Tory Fox had a residence where the Virginia House is now. The court-house was on the corner of Elbert and Bay streets, and the jail opposite where the old market was.
There were two towns, the upper and lower; one which was largely fostered by the up-country tobacco-planter with his wagon trade, the other where the flatboats unloaded and where first the ferry and then the bridge crossed the Savannah river.
In 1798 Stith Mead, who had been educated in Augusta and whose father, Wm. Mead, lived in the city, had ser- vices in a private house on McIntosh street, the house of Ebenezer Doughty, and organized a Methodist society, and soon applied to the trustees for the grant of a church lot. They refused him, and he bought the two lots on which St. John's Church now stands, and succeeded, with the aid of the Methodists abroad as well as in the city, in building the Methodist church, which was occupied as early as 1802. ·
St. Paul's Church was too small for its congregation, and by private subscriptions and the aid of the trustees it was
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FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, AUGUSTA.
ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, AUGUSTA.
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enlarged after 1800. New pews were added and rented, and Dr. Hull was put in charge of the church. The Presby- terians were organized into a congregation in the early part of the century and occupied this church, and the Episco- palians seem to have worshiped with them after the de- parture of Dr. Hull until they built their own church, which was begun in 1809. The lot on Telfair street was granted to them by the city.
The Catholics had services in Augusta as early as the beginning of the century, and a lot covering the square between Jackson, McIntosh, Walker and Telfair was given to them by the Legislature. Upon this lot, which was the same one the Methodists refused to purchase, a church was built in 1820.
In 1816 the lot on which St. Paul's Church now stands was granted to the trustees of the Episcopal society of the city of Augusta.
The board of trustees of Richmond academy was author- ized to grant to the Baptists an acre of land for their build- ing. Whether the lot the church is now on was the lot granted I am not able to say, but the church was built on this lot near this time, and Dr. W. T. Brantley was the first pastor.
The Christian Church, largely fostered by Mrs. Tubman, erected a good brick building on Reynolds street. As the city grew the demand for increased church accommoda- tions was recognized.
The Episcopalians built the Church of the Atonement on the upper part of Greene street, and at a later period a handsome church on the hill.
The Presbyterians enlarged and beautified their hand- some church on Telfair, and built a second church on Greene street.
The Methodists built a comfortable and commodious 34
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church on lower Greene known as St. James's, and one near the cotton mill called Asbury, and one on upper Broad street; and when the factory was built in old Harris- burg they erected a handsome brick church called St. Luke's, and as the city extended westward one at Wood- lawn.
The Baptists built the Kollock street and one on Broad- way known as the Curtis Baptist and several other churches.
The Christian Church changed its location, and a very handsome church, with an attractive parsonage, was built. by the bounty of Mrs. Tubman.
The Roman Catholics built an elegant church on their handsome lot, and recently have finished a very handsome church on upper Greene.
The Baptist negroes have several large churches. The various denominations of colored Methodists have each good churches, and there is no part of the city in which comfortable houses of worship are not to be found.
The account of establishing the first bank in Augusta has been given elsewhere. It was the Bank of Augusta. The Bank of the State of Georgia was at a little later date. The trade of Augusta reached as far as the extreme west of Georgia and took in much of South Carolina and west- ern North Carolina, and the wagon trade was very large. The flatboats came down the river loaded with cotton and. tobacco, and returned laden with rum, molasses, sugar, hardware and other merchandise. Petersburg, Vienna and Goshen, in the early days of the century, were flourishing towns tributary to Augusta. After the tobacco trade began to decline and cotton was largely cultivated, Augusta be- came a very important market for all middle and upper Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. After the building of the railways the trade of the city largely in- creased. There was steamboat connection with Savannah.
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and railway connection with Charleston. The banks were strong and furnished the money to move the crops, and the city from 1812 to 1840 had a constant and steady growth.
In the early part of the century the old wooden stores gave place to brick blocks on the lower part of Broad street, and the old log houses with wooden chimneys gave way and long lines of elegant wooden houses were on lower Broad and Greene streets before the first fourth of the century was gone.
The jail had been removed from the corner of Washing- ton and Broad streets to its present location. The first cemetery, which was on lower Broad street near the jail, was removed to the beautiful spot on which it is now, and no one, after 1816, was allowed burial in St. Paul's church- yard. The new academy was built on Telfair street, and in 1829 the elegant lot on which the court-house now stands was purchased from George Walton, Jr., for $11,000, and a handsome building costing $100,000 was erected as a court- house and city hall.
The question of transportation became a vital one. The roads in winter, when they were needed most, were execra- ble, and the river above the falls could only be navigated by flatboats at certain seasons.
The interest excited by the question of railroad building was growing, and it was decided in 1833 to apply to the Legislature for a charter for a railroad and turnpike com- pany from Augusta to some point in the interior, either Eatonton or Athens, and in 1836 the act was amended, a bank was chartered and the Georgia Railroad was begun.
Of the building of this road we have spoken elsewhere. The great financial disturbance which began in 1837 affected Augusta in common with all the southern cities. The banks all suspended, but resumed and paid their obligations. In 1841 the first directory of Augusta was issued, and in it there are 1,236 names.
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The city before 1860 had reached its lower boundary on Boundary street, and did not go further southward, but con- tinued to grow toward the east and north, and Kollock, Campbell and Marbury were opened, and Springfield was joined to the city. The fearful slough on Campbell street was filled up, the Beaver dam was made a sewer and Hawk's gully in the north was bridged. Freshets came now and then, and the upper part of the city was swept by angry waves.
The city grew as the railroads went west, and while the wagon trade was no longer a factor, the railroads more than compensated for it, extensive as it had been.
The need of pure water led to the establishment of a system of water-works. The waters of Turnkett's Spring were brought in pine logs and distributed over the city, and when it was no longer possible to supply the demand from this source the river was utilized.
In 1839 Augusta was visited by a most serious yellow fever epidemic, and a second time in 1854; since that time there has been no return of the pestilence. The great wealth and solid character of the capitalists of Au- gusta led to the inauguration of a daring enterprise for those times. It was decided to begin a canal at the rocks on the river seven miles above the city and conduct the water of the river through the city, returning it to the river through Hawk's gully, so as to provide water-power suffi- cient for cotton and other mills. Who conceived this scheme I have not been able to discover, but a number of leading men in the city were its active promoters. The work was very expensive, much more so than was expected; some of the first ventures were unsuccessful, but it was soon evident no mistake had been made, and the canal was enlarged and new enterprises projected.
As we have seen, much of the land of the city of Augusta was granted by the first State government to trustees of the
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Augusta academy; and although the trustees parted with a great deal of this land for a small price and used the pro- ceeds of the sale for current expenses, they still held to enough of the corpus accruing from the sale of lands to give them a good income. The city has always had, since the academy was opened, a good classical teacher, and often more than one. Mr. George Walton, Mr. Edward Telfair, Mr. Wm. Glascock and many of the early citizens took great interest in education and in the Augusta academy. Many of the most distinguished men of the State received their early education here, and many of the most distinguished men in the land were teachers in this the leading academy in the State. When George Washington was making his tour through Georgia, he came by Augusta and stopped, as was his rule, at an inn. He was, of course, shown every atten- tion by the citizens, and had the usual dinner and ball given to him; and while he was here the Augusta academy had an exhibition and prizes were given out by him. General Washington was kind enough to write the names of the prize-winners and his own in the books. There were a number given out, one of which was given to Judge Clay- ton and one to Dr. Tilman Dixon of Louisville, and to sun- dry others.
John Forsyth, the gifted statesman, was a youth when he came to Augusta, where his father, Robert Forsyth, was first a merchant and then marshal of the United States, succeeding Wm. Glascock, and, as we have seen, was killed by Beverly Allen. Mr. Forsyth graduated at Princeton. Judge Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, named for one of the first rectors of the academy, was born in Augusta and was one of the early students in the academy. There was quite a literary circle in the then small city, and a coterie of young men of real culture was to be found. Among these was Richard Henry Wilde, of whom we have spoken else-
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where, who afterwards became so famous as a man of ele- gant taste and extensive scholarship.
The sons of the people of means were sent to Princeton as a general thing to receive their degrees, until the State University was founded. The Augusta library was estab- lished on the corner of Ellis and McIntosh streets, and was the famous assembling place of the gentlemen of the old school who used to meet there and read the National Intel- ligencer, the Richmond Whig and Mr. Richie's States' rights paper. There was much stateliness and elegance in the society of those days between 1800 and 1850. Augusta was never in that first half of the century off its dig- nity. The old Virginians of the first decade-Glascock, Walton, Forsyth, the Watkinses, the old Scotchmen, Telfair, Cummings, Murray, Innes, Campbell and men like them, who wore their queues and drank their Madeira; who had their pews in St. Paul's and their summer homes on the hills about-were great sticklers for the proprieties of life ; and while their sons were a little more democratic in theory, they were not less regardful of the old traditions and were as careful of decorum. The men of those early days were strict observers of old English manners. His black butler served the dinner on the return of the master from the counting-room, or the bank, or the law office, and un- corked the bottle of old Madeira or port, and the Episco- pal vestryman or Presbyterian elder took his several glasses with great dignity and thankfulness. The press of the city of Augusta was the power in the State, and in those stir- ring days of Troup and the treaty of Crawford and Clarke, and especially of nullification, there were lively issues of the semi-weekly press, and when the fierce fight between the nullifiers and Jackson men was on, and the witty and satirical Longstreet edited the Sentinal, it was a lively jour- nal, and there was more than one duel resulting from politics.
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The sentiment against dueling had grown, but still it was regarded as a proper way to settle difficulties, and its true barbarity was as yet unrecognized.
For years, with the exception of the Richmond academy, all the paid schools were private enterprises except the Au- gusta free school, which was the result of a private bequest.
Mr. Houghton, a wealthy old merchant, established a free school in the lower part of the city and endowed it. When the city determined on adopting the common school system, these free schools were absorbed by the system, and one of the most complete systems in the State was estab- lished. The school buildings are of the best construction and the teaching force the most competent.
Mr. Tuttle, a childless old man, left a handsome sum to endow an orphans' home, and the endowment was largely in- creased by a bequest from Dr. Geo. M. Newton. A well- built and well-equipped hospital has been provided.
In 1830 a medical college, the first in Georgia, was established in Augusta and located on Telfair street. For many years it was the most famous medical school in the South. The fame of the school was largely due to the distinguished ability of its faculty.
It was in Augusta that the first book of Georgia laws was published. The Life of James Jackson, the first Geor- gia biography, was published from an Augusta press. Judge Longstreet wrote his "Georgia Scenes" in Augusta, and there Judge Starnes wrote a strong book in reply to "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The newspaper press in the city has been famous for its ability, and in the days of the Consti- tutionalist and Chronicle there was much vigor in the col- umns of the papers.
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