USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 41
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
MACON.
In 1830, when the treaty was made by which the lands east of the Ocmulgee were surrendered to the whites, a
536
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. XIV.
fine section of land along that river, known then as the Ocmulgee old fields, and now included in and proximate to East Macon, was reserved by the general government, and in 1806 a trading post and a fort were built. This was called Fort Hawkins and was named in honor of Colonel Hawkins, the famous Indian agent. This reserve had long been occupied by the Indians and by the Mound-Builders who were before them, and was a favorite home of the mi- gratory Creeks. There soon sprang up around the fort quite a village, in which there were two taverns, several stores and a printing-press set up by Simri Rose, before Macon was laid out. This little village was on the western boundary of the white settlements.
In 1820, after the treaty was concluded by which all the land between the Ocmulgee and the Flint was ceded by the Indians, Monroe county was laid out on the western side of the Ocmulgee and included Fort Hawkins on the east, but before the county was organized it was decided to sub- divide it and make another county, which was called Bibb. The county was laid out in 1822, and immediately opposite the flourishing village of Fort Hawkins, on the west side of the river, a beautiful tract of land on a bluff was selected for the county site and as a place to found a city. The land was all owned by the State and four acres were granted for public buildings, and in 1823 forty lots were put on the market.
There had been for some years a ferry over the river near where the city bridge now stands, and before the town was laid off there were some log houses erected near the river on the western side. The town was laid out in 1823 by Oliver H. Prince, David S. Booth, Samuel Wood, Chas. J. McDonald and Seth Ward. The streets running north and south were numbered from one to eleven, and the cross streets were called by the names of the forest trees, with the exception of Ocmulgee or, as it was then called, Wharf
MERCFF UNIVERSITY MACON GA
537
THE CITIES. ]. AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
street. The little town, which began to be as soon as the first lots were sold, was encircled by high pine hills, which at that time were regarded as too remote for resident lots and too sterile for cultivation. It was evident to all that a great future awaited the new city, and the lots were eagerly bought and houses, mainly of logs, were built along Seventh, Sixth, Fifth and Fourth streets. At the log house of Mr. John Keener, on what is now Orange street, near the Mount DeSales Academy, in February, 1823, the county was organized by John Davis, Tarpley Holt, David Lawson and L. K. Carle. Mr. Butler says the first frame house was near the river about where the Southern railway station now is .*
There was quite a flourishing trade at Fort Hawkins, and Roger McCall and Harrison Smith had fixed their homes on Swift creek near by as early as 1818, where Mr. McCall had a sawmill.
A company built three flatboats and loaded them with cotton for Darien. There was no way of crossing the river except by canoes, and this led Messrs. Flanders & Willett to establish a ferry. A tavern on the west side of the river was a necessity, and the old Wayside Inn, at the foot of Mulberry street near the present jail, was built.
Near where is now the Lanier a temporary court-house of logs was built. The academy was opened by Oliver Danforth and a Masonic Lodge was chartered and began its work in 1823.
The settlers came in hordes into Houston, Crawford and Monroe, and Macon was the natural market of all who lived on the west side of the Ocmulgee. Cotton was brought in wagons and boated down the river to Darien, and in a short time after the town was laid out there were
* These facts are found in the History of Macon, by Mr. Jno. C. Butler, as are many others, for each of which I am not able to give him due credit but for which I am indebted to him.
538
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. XIV.
seven hundred people in it. Mr. Sherwood says in 1826 there were forty stores and two hundred houses. A bank was a necessity, and a branch of the Bank of Darien was established. The business houses were located near the river bank.
The necessity for more speedy transportation for cotton led to the establishment of a line of steamers, and in 1826 there were seventeen thousand bales of cotton sent to Macon for shipment down the river .*
In 1825 the first bank in Macon was incorporated. It was known as the Bank of Macon. Harrison Smith, Timo- thy Mathews, Oliver H. Prince, Rice Durett, John T. Lamar, John Davis, M. T. Roseland, Luke Ross and James Flew- ellen were the corporators. The city now grew rapidly, and had become a place of almost two thousand inhabitants by 1827. There was at that time no church in the city. The Methodists had monthly meetings in the court-house, and had formed a small society. The first Methodist society was organized in 1826, and in 1827 the first protracted meeting ever held in Macon was held in a warehouse on Walnut street where Christ Church now stands. This meeting re- sulted in the building of the Methodist church, now known as Mulberry Street Church, on a lot granted by the Legisla- ture that year. During the same year lots were also granted by the Legislature to the Episcopal, the Baptist and the Presbyterian churches. The Methodist church was the first church building erected in the city. The Presbyterian was built in 1829. It was on Fourth street near the Brown House, and was afterwards bought by the Catholics. The Baptists built a small wooden church on Sixth street near the old cemetery in 1829, which was soon abandoned and a new one built on Second street. The Episcopal church was built on the site Christ Church now occupies on Walnut
* Butler's History.
539
THE CITIES. ] AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
street some time near 1829, and was, according to White, a small but neat brick building.
The court-house was a very respectable brick building in a large square of four acres at the foot of Mulberry street. It was completed in 1830, and cost over $12,000. The tide of settlement rolled rapidly from the plain toward the hill. Macon filled up very rapidly with the best class of people, and became the cotton market of all central and western Georgia. From Putnam on the east and from Sum- ter on the south, and northward to Morgan and Newton, and westward to Talbot and Coweta, wagons came to the Macon market to bring cotton and carry back groceries. Real estate values were continually advancing. Men of great enterprise and nerve came to take charge of the heavy business. The bank of Macon did a heavy discount busi- ness, but there was wild trading, and the Macon bank failed in 1833. Its charter was forfeited and it went into the hands of a receiver. New banks were established, money was easy, and all along the hill were erected those stately ante-bellum dwellings, with their large rooms, broad verandas and handsome columns-houses that stand to-day unri- valed in beauty and elegance. A railroad was chartered to Milledgeville but never built, and one was chartered to Savannah and one to Forsyth, and both were afterwards completed. The municipal government of Macon was first by commissioners and an intendant. The first intendant was Ed. D. Tracy, in 1826, and the first mayor was Robert Augustus Beall, in 1835.
There was a school in 1824, but trustees for the academy in the city were not appointed by legislative act until 1832. The city was growing westward and the plateau of pine hills, two miles away, began to attract the people. Judge Strong fixed his residence in the midst of the pine forest on what is now Forsyth street, Vineville, and built his cottage. He planted a vineyard, and because the vines
540
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. XIV.
flourished so well he called his new home Vineville. New settlers came in and fixed their homes near him, and a vil- lage sprang up; an academy became a necessity, and one was built and a famous school was conducted by M. M. Mason. The growth of the village led to the building of a neat litte church in it and the establishment of the Vineville station of the Methodists.
The college was projected and begun, and the future was promising when the depression of 1837 began. After seven fearful years, with not a single solvent bank remain- ing and but few houses of good standing, the stricken city came out of the storm. Then came an era of prosperity, and Macon began to steadily advance. The manufacture of engines, mills and gins and then cotton was begun. The bankrupt college was put on its feet again, and soon there was a rage for improvement. The old wooden church of the Methodists gave way to a very handsome one of brick. The Presbyterians sold their large brick church on Fourth street, which, strangely enough, fell into the hands of the Catholics, and removed to the place where they now are. The Baptists built a handsome church on Second street. The Episcopalians built the present Christ Church. The colored Methodists and Baptists each built plain wooden churches before the war and had services of their own.
The State granted to the commissioners two lots for cem- eteries, and the old cemetery was located in the valley be- yond Seventh street; but through the influence of Simri Rose a most picturesque part of the reserve was selected for a new cemetery, and it was laid out by his direction; and in recognition of his able services, gratuitously given, it was called Rose Hill. A part of it was set off for a negro burial ground, and about 1884 a large body of land adjoining was purchased and laid out as the Riverside cemetery.
The Messenger was removed to Macon from Fort Hawkins . in 1825 and published by Robinson and Rose. It was a
541
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
THE CITIES.]
stanch Troup journal, was bitterly opposed to Jackson and had a warm side for the nullifiers; was opposed to Van Buren, and finally fell into the ranks of the Whig party and was for many years a leading Whig journal. Mr. Bartlett published an opposition paper, the Telegraph. Dr. Andrews published a Universalist paper and then an independent weekly journal. The Telegraph and Messenger were pub- lished as dailies from 1860. Young Philip C. Pendleton enterprized and established the Southern Ladies' Book in 1838, the first venture of the kind made south of Rich- mond, and Bishop Pierce, then a young man, was his as- sistant editor. There was a considerable spirit of south- ern independence, and Mr. Griffin, a job printer, decided to publish a series of school readers, which were edited by his accomplished wife in connection with Dr. Mason, and printed and published by himself in Macon. These were the first school-books ever published in Georgia.
When the Monroe railroad, of which we have given an account, was begun, the station and depot for freight were near each other at the head of Cotton avenue, and the old pas- senger depot, now transformed into a dwelling, is still stand- ing. The old depot for freight stood on the lot on which St. Paul's Church now stands, but after 1849 the belt around the city was built.
The population of Macon in 1825 was 700; in 1829, 2,635; in 1837, 4,000; in 1850, 5,720.
The first people of Macon were largely middle Georgians who came from the near-by counties, although from the beginning there was a considerable number of enterprising northern men who did much for the development of the young city. Judge Tracey, Governor McDonald, Robert Augustus Beall and Christopher B. Strong were among the members of the first bar, and Thomas Hardeman, Everard Hamilton, Thomas Napier, Robert Fort, Charles Campbell and Nathan C. Monroe were among the first business men.
542
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. XIV.
The opening of the rich lands of Houston and Pulaski, and later of Baker, Dougherty, Lee and Sumter, brought into Macon a group of planters who, having large estates in the low-country, were not willing to expose their families to the isolation of a large plantation and risk their health in so malarious a climate. They bought handsome sites and erected elegant homes. Their plantations were super- vised by overseers, and they gave them personal attention by making frequent visits. They were men of fine manners and broad views. They lived in affluence, entertained gen- erously, educated their daughters at Wesleyan and sent their sons to either Athens, Oxford, Midway or Penfield for an education. They were of the best type of southern gentlemen and the society of the city had the highest social and moral tone.
With the coming of the railways there came a class of working men who were employed on the railroads, on the steamboats and in the workshops, and, as is the case in all cities, the two classes of people drifted apart. There were for the first fifty years of Macon history but few foreigners and very few Jews, and the large number of Hebrews and of people of European birth who are now in Macon have come in since the war between the States.
In 1850 the railroad to southwestern Georgia opened up a rich territory to Macon which had hitherto found its. market on the Chattahoochee and the Flint, and large ship- ments of cotton were made to Macon that had hitherto. gone down the Flint to Apalachicola or Fort Gaines, and Macon bankers furnished the funds which were needed by the planters of southwestern Georgia. There was some dissatisfaction at what Macon said was the unfriendliness of the Central railway to the city, and the Macon and Bruns- wick was projected and built. It opened up an almost entirely new country and made it tributary to Macon. A
543
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
THE CITIES. ]
railroad to Augusta was projected in 1860 and completed after the war. It is not possible, in the limits we have been compelled to give to this account, to say much of the history of Macon since the war.
The citizens of Macon who have occupied official posi- tions of honor and responsibility have been so many that we can only refer to a few of those who antedated the war. The Hon. Oliver H. Prince, who did such admirable work in making a digest of Georgia laws, a man of great wit and genius, had his residence here and repeatedly represented the county in the Legislature. He was lost in the wreck of the ill-fated Home on the North Carolina coast. Judge Eugenius A. Nisbett, one of the first judges of the Supreme Court and long one of the most prominent men in the State, noted for the purity of his character and the clearness of his intellect, lived in Macon. Judge Strong, one of the first of Macon's citizens and one of the most noted of Geor- gia's judges ; Judge Tracey, famous for his genial spirit and legal learning; Colonel L. N. Whittle, noted for his public spirit and his philanthropy ; Judge Barna Hill, long a leading lawyer and twice judge, were among the public men who occupied prominent places in the city before 1860 ; but Macon has perhaps a wider fame from having been the birthplace of that sweet singer Sidney Lanier, whose fame is as wide as the continent. Here he was born and here he married his gifted wife and began his career as an attorney .
It has not been the object of this book to give an ex- haustive history of any part of the State or of any city. This work must be left largely to local historians. Macon has been fortunate in having Mr. Butler,* to whom I am much indebted, to preserve the story of the early years of the city of his birth.
* History of Macon, by J. C. Butler, 1879.
544
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. XIV.
COLUMBUS.
The Creek Indians were originally known as Muscogees, and Coweta town, two miles below the present city of Co- lumbus, was one of their chief Georgia towns. Here Mr. Oglethorpe came in 1735, when he desired to make a treaty with the Indians. After the withdrawal of the Indians from Georgia and the laying off of the western territory into counties, a very large county was laid out known as Mus- cogee, and Columbus was made its county site. It was to be on a plain two miles from Coweta town, at the head of navigation on the Chattahoochee river. It was laid off in 1827 and incorporated in 1828. The projected city was handsomely laid out into blocks of four acres each and ex- tended one mile and a fourth along the river. In order that the young city might build a bridge over the river the State loaned it $16,000 and gave it half the public square for county buildings.
The unrivaled advantages of the young city at once drew to it a number of enterprising people, and, as was said of Macon, Columbus never had an infancy. The Muscogee academy was incorporated as early as 1828, and lots were granted to the Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches. Steamboats were put upon the river. The Bank of Columbus was chartered in 1828, and this was followed by other charters and bold projects on' every hand. The rich lands on the Chattahoochee, below Columbus, had been the first land in the western part of the State to be settled, and large cotton plantations had been opened along the river above and below Columbus. The city had a large trade from its first settlement. The Indians were just across the river, and some of them were men of wealth who had large plantations, and Columbus was their market.
The times from 1826 to 1836 were flush times and Colum-
CHRIST CHURCH, MACON, GA.
MULBERRY ST. CHURCH, MACON, GA,
545
THE CITIES. ] AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
bus was the financial center of all the country near it, and so business was brisk and large risks were taken in trade. Then came the Creek war and the next year the great crash. Every bank in Columbus suspended specie payments and then went into hopeless bankruptcy. There was, however, no possibility of crushing a city with the advantageous position which Columbus had, and it rallied and held its commercial superiority until the railroads diverted the cot- ton trade from Apalachicola to Savannah.
Columbus was surrounded with a tier of lofty hills. They were high, dry and healthy, and were naturally fitted for suburban homes. The rich lands on the western side of the river stretching toward Montgomery had been taken from the Indians and sold to settlers, and planters from eastern Georgia had bought plantations in Alabama, and many of them fixed their homes on the hills near Colum- bus; and besides these many planters who had plantations in the near-by counties in Georgia had homes also in the same vicinity.
These homes were very attractive and elegant, and as the planters had large incomes their style of living was luxurious. They were enterprising and prosperous and made a fine class of citizens, and the society of the city and villages about was noted for its wealth and culture. There had been granted to each of the churches-Baptist, Pres- byterian, Methodist and Episcopal-an acre lot, on each of which was built a neat wooden church before 1830. The first church built in the city was the Methodist. Many Methodists from Greene and other eastern counties had made their homes in Columbus, and the Methodist preacher came with the first settlers. The first Methodist society was or- ganized by James Stockdale in 1826. The other churches were organized soon after, and in 1833, when there were 1,600 people in the young city, there were three churches.
35
546
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. XIV.
As it grew in wealth and in population new churches took the place of the old wooden buildings, and Columbus was provided with handsome and commodious brick churches for each of the leading denominations. Before 1860 St. Paul's, on Broad street, was built by the Methodists, and the Baptists also had a second church.
Columbus for the first twenty years after its founding was almost entirely dependent for prosperity on its com- merce. Cotton, which constituted its main staple, was sent. down the river to Apalachicola and shipped thence to New York and Europe. There was a fleet of steamboats constantly carrying cotton down and bringing goods back. There was no communication with the east other than by a stage line. Railroads had been projected but were not constructed ; but at length, in 1851, the railroad from Macon reached the city and brought Columbus into connection with the Atlantic seaboard at Savannah, and not long after a road from the city reached Opelika, Ala., there was close connection with Montgomery and New Orleans. Before this time the great natural advantages of the city as a place for manufacturing were seen, and an attempt was made to utilize the water-power of the Chattahoochee. It was no easy task to bring the angry waters of the river to subjec- tion, but it was at last accomplished. A dam was thrown across the river and great factories were erected on its banks. These factories have grown to large proportions, and Columbus has become next to Augusta-the chief manufacturing city of the State. In 1851, when Mr. White published his Statistics, there were the Columbus, the Cow- eta Falls and the Howard factories. These have, each of them, long since been merged into larger plants. In 1851 the famous Eagle and Phoenix factory was established. This factory is one of the most famous in the South for the extent of its plant and the variety of its work. Manu- facturing in the city become its chief interest, as the rail-
547
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
THE CITIES. ]
roads reached out in every direction from it and diverted its trade. The wholesale business after the war largely compensated for the lost trade of the planters. The society of Columbus before the establishment of the factories was a very homogeneous one. The ruling spirits were Geor- gians and the tone of society was that of the middle Geor- gia people. There was morality, refinement, hospitality, and, as in all river towns, there was a fair share of wild rowdyism, of gaming and drinking. With the building of the mills the city became largely populated by the mill people, who present the same features, to a large degree, wherever they are found. They were drawn from the pine woods and had the characteristics of the humbler class of rural people we have so often seen, but steady work and good wages, and especially religious teaching, have had their influence in elevating them, and there is perhaps not a better or more contented people than these.
The first newspaper in Columbus was the Enquirer, which was established by Mirabeau B. Lamar, afterward presi- dent of the Texas Republic. It was established in 1824, and Sherwood says had a circulation of six hundred copies.
The prominent men of old Columbus were many, and it would be impossible in a short sketch like this to do any- thing like justice to those who deserve notice.
Rev. John Slade, a graduate of the University of North Carolina and a Baptist preacher, a teacher of great repute, and at one time a professor in the Georgia Female College, removed to Columbus at an early day and opened his famous female seminary in the city, in which a great many of the young women of western Georgia were edu- cated.
The Rev. Jno. E. Dawson, one of the most gifted of Baptist preachers, was pastor of the Baptist Church at two different periods. He was recognized as the leading preacher of his denomination in the State. The Baptist
548
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. XIV.
Church has had in Columbus many very distinguished min- isters, and the church being one of the leading Baptist churches of the State has commanded its best talent, but it never had in it a more devoted, persistent and untiring laborer than Jno. H. Campbell, to whose researches we have been so much indebted in preparing these pages. In his old age he gave himself to patient, untiring work among the poor people of the city and was looked upon as the benefactor of all.
The Methodist Church had its share of gifted men, but they were hardly to be called citizens of Columbus, as they spent so brief a time in the city, and there was not a man of distinction in the Methodist pulpit who did not have a pastorate in Columbus. Dr. Lovick Pierce had his home here and was recognized by the Columbus people as their special property, and he held his place in their esteem as one of the leading preachers of the land. He is buried in the city and his monument is there.
The bar of Columbus has been especially able. Walter T. Colquitt lived here in his brightest days, when he was matchless as an advocate and a stump-speaker, and he was living here when he received his death-stroke. His gifted son, Peyton H. Colquitt, was also living here when he went into the army and came back no more.
Colonel James M. Chambers, long recognized as a man of soundest judgment, resided in Wynnton.
Judge A. H. Chappell, to whom we as Georgians are so much indebted for sketches of early history, lived and died in Columbus.
Colonel Nicolas Howard the elder, who came to Colum- bus in its infancy and had much to do with its early his- tory, died in the city; and Colonel John Howard had much to do with making the city. He commanded the Georgia troops in the Indian troubles of 1836, and after the war was over was one of the most energetic developers of the
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.