USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 9
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* Gilmer's Georgians.
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AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
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a captain and rose to the post of major-general. He chas- tised the Cherokee Indians, and protected the frontier on the Ogeechee from the Creeks. He was nearly always in partizan service and proved himself a soldier of the highest merit. He became the founder of a distinguished family, who have been an honor to the State of his adoption.
Jno. Jones, who is generally found in connection with Twiggs, was the son of a wealthy and prominent man in Vir- ginia, and one of a number of brothers who came to Georgia just as the Revolution began. He and his brother James were members of the second Constitutional Conven- tion, and his brothers Abram and Seaborn were both famous for their mental ability and warm patriotism.
Wm. Few, Benj. Few and Ignatius Few were three brothers who had settled in Columbia county just before the Revolution. They were of Welsh origin and were people of intelligence and wealth, and Wm. Few was, as we shall see, one of the leading men in civil life in Georgia. His brothers Ignatius and Benjamin were with Twiggs in his forays and stood by the struggling State till the hour of victory. From this family sprang the dis- tinguished lawyer and preacher, Dr. Ignatius A. Few, who was the first president of Emory College, and connected with them was Wm. Candler, who was among the most dis- tinguished men of this period, and one of the best edu- cated men then in St. Paul's parish. He was a native Irish- man, who came from Belfast, Ireland, to North Carolina. He came to St. Paul's parish as soon as it was opened for settlement, and was an officer of the militia under Sir James Wright. In common with all the citizens in the Wrightsboro neighborhood he was opposed to the first movements of the Liberty Boys, but when the war was fairly on he took his place with the Whigs. He was forced to flee to South Carolina, and there formed the refugees into a regiment of which he was the commander.
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[CHAP. III.
He was one of the escorts for the fleeing Georgians who went with Colonel Clarke to the Holston country. He did good service in the upper Carolina army after that, and as soon as the Georgians could again reach their homes, he came to his Georgia home and was selected as probate judge and was a member of the first Assembly after the war. He died in 1784. He was the progenitor of a very dis- tinguished family of Candlers and Fews, for his daughter was the mother of Ignatius A. Few, the distinguished founder of Emory College, and his descendants of the Candlers have been noted for their ability in almost every walk of life- distinguished as teachers, jurists, soldiers, congressmen and divines, and one of them is now governor of the State of Georgia at this writing (1900).
But perhaps the most active and intrepid and untiring man of ELIJAH CLARKE. the partizan leaders, who was long the idol of the common people of Georgia, was the rugged Elijah Clarke. He was, if not a native born Scotch-Irishman, but once re- moved from it. He came to Georgia on the first opening of the upper country. It was a wild country then and demanded strong men to subdue it. He had no wealth and no education, and no concern for the refinements of life. Born a freeman, he revolted at the idea of any re- straint, and, devoid of fear, he went into the struggle for liberty with all ardor. He soon evinced the fact that he was a born soldier, and at the battle of Kettle creek he showed his qualities as a commander. When the war was over he settled on a large estate granted him by the Legislature and
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Wilkes county. He was an impetuous, intrepid patriot. The Indians were troublesome and he was always ready for a foray. They invaded Georgia, instigated by McGilveray. Clarke pursued and defeated them. They were the last formidable body of Creeks who raided eastern Georgia.
In 1792 the French Republic commissioned him a brig- adier, whose work was to invade Florida. He became in- volved in trouble with the State government in 1794 by making a settlement on the Indian lands, of which I speak more fully elsewhere. He died in 1799.
Colonel Wm. Glascock, whose name appears so often in the history of Georgia, was a gentleman of culture and wealth, who settled an estate near Augusta before De Brahm made his first map, probably before 1760. He was an old man when the Revolution began, and his son Thomas was a lieutenant in the army in Virginia and after- ward in Georgia. Judge Glascock, for he was one of the first lay judges in Richmond county, was a vestryman of St. Paul's church, a trustee of Richmond Academy and of the State University. He died in Richmond in 1795.
His son Thomas, who was afterward general of the militia, was not the General Glascock who was in active service in the Indian war of 1818, and was a member of Congress. General Glascock the first was as intense a Federalist as his son Thomas was a pronounced Democrat. He was a bold operator in finances and left a large estate.
Colonel Stephen Heard was one of a large family of seven, who came to Georgia and fixed their homes in the ceded lands. Here on the frontier a fort was built, known as Heard Fort. He was a gallant soldier, and being a man of more than usual education for those days, when the disasters of 1779 had driven the seat of government from Augusta, he was elected by those who fled to the West nominal governor. He was afterward prominent in public life in Georgia, being often in the legislative councils.
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[CHAP. III.
The whole American cause in Georgia was in an almost hopeless condition, and the older colonies were seriously discussing some plan of settlement that would leave poor Georgia overrun and occupied by the British forces in the hands of the English Government. But brave George Walton and the members of the Continental Congress from Georgia united in an earnest remonstrance. It might have been of little avail, however, if France had not consented to interfere and if the tide of victory had not turned. This remonstrance of the Georgia delegation has been pre- served by Mr. Geo. W. Jones-De Renne, and is found in a pamphlet published by him and reproduced in White.
After Augusta was evacuated the wandering State gov- ernment returned to its old quarters there, and Dr. Nathan Brownson, a Liberty county man who had been a member of the Continental Congress, was elected in August, 1781, as governor for the unexpired term. He held the office less than six months, and was succeeded by John Martin, whom Governor Wright called "Black Jack from the Northward."
The legal capital was Savannah and the Legislature met at Ebenezer, the nearest point to it, and in July, 1782, after the city of Savannah was again in the hands of the Amer- icans, the Assembly adjourned to meet there. It was in so hilarious a mood when it reached its old quarters that it instructed Governor Martin to buy, for the use of the executive, the council and Assembly, twenty-three pounds of coffee, three hundred and seventy pounds of sugar, sixteen bushels of salt and forty-two gallons of rum. (White.)
While the Assembly was in Augusta, before the evacua- tion of Savannah, a sweeping act of attainder and amerce- ment was passed. It would seem from the published record that this act, which was enacted in May, 1782, was
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passed in Savannah. As Savannah was not evacuated till July, it must have been passed in Augusta. It was the act of five years before with the number of the denounced largely increased. Without giving the accused a hearing, merely on a suspicion of their disloyalty, or because of a rumor that they had not been true to the American cause, they were sentenced to the penalty of confiscation and banishment.
All debts due British subjects were sequestered. All bequests made to British subjects were taken by the State. The act was to go at once into effect. Many innocent persons were included in it, and for several years following there were numerous acts passed for the relief of those involved. There were, however, many cases of great hard- ship and injustice.
Poor Sir Patrick Houston was attainted by Sir James Wright because he was a rebel, and then by this act be- cause he was a Loyalist. The same was true of sundry others, and many who were found in this list aspersed as Tories are found afterward to be leading men in the coun- cils of the State.
Special acts were passed for the relief of some of those mentioned, and as will be seen elsewhere, Josiah Tattnall, whose large estate was confiscated and who was banished from the State, twenty-five years after this act was passed, when his son was governor, was relieved of the penalties it inflicted.
This act was passed in May, 1782. Those denounced in it were:
Sir James Wright, Geo. Houston, Sir John Grahame, P. Delegal, Alex Wright, P. Delegal, Jr., Lachlan McGilveray, Jno. Glen, Jno. Mullryne, John Boyd Randal, Josiah Tattnall, Sr., Jas. Mossman, Basil Cowper, J. C. Lucina, Wm Telfair, N Hall, Alex McGown, T. Gibbons, Thos. Talmash, Jno. Fox, Samuel Douglas, John
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THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. III
Simpson, L. Johnson, Sr., M. Stewart, L. Johnson, Jr., Jno. Sut- cliff, Wm. Johnson, B. Farley, Thos. Johnson, Thomas Rosse, Samuel Farley, J. J. Zubly, James Alexander, David Zubly, Jo- seph Spencer, Geo. Baillie, James Butler, Wm. Wylly, John Wood, Campbell Wylly, Robert Reid, John Starr, Levi Sheftall, Thomas Reid, James Harriot, Samuel Moore, R. Porteus, John Hubbard, Alex Creighton, Matthew Marshall, R. Moody, Joseph Marshall, Wm. Clark, Thomas Brown, James Chapman, Thomas Scott, Charles Watts, Wm. Frazer, Wm. Bosomworth, Timothy Hollingsworth, Sampson Williams, Val. Hollingsworth, G. Van- sant, Wm. McDonald, George Vansant, John McDonald, Daniel McGirth, John McDonald, James McGirth, Wm. Ross, George Proctor, Daniel McLeod, James Shivers, Alex Baillie, John Spear, Alex McDonald, John Marten, David Ross, John Frost, Daniel McDonald, Wm. Frost, Roderick McIntosh, Cornelius Dunn, Angus Bacon, John Dunn, Thomas Young, John Pettinger, Simon Munroe, Robert Abrams, Simon Patterson, Joseph Raines, Wm. Lyford, Basil Cowper, Robert Baillie, Thomas Stringer, James Kitching, John Hopkins, Robert Kelsall,) William Oldes, James Spalding, James Hume, Alex Inglis, Charles McDaniel, John Hume, James Brisbane, John McDonald, Thomas Goldsmith, William Miller, William McIntosh, Major James Wright, William Moss, Donald McDonald, James Robertson, Philip Moore, Dan'l McLeod, Henry Young, William Panton, Daniel McIntosh, Jos. Farley, Thomas Skinner, John Fowles, I. M. Tattnall, John Pol- son, Thomas Fleming, C. McKenney, Wm. Ross, Alex Thomp. son, Alex Ross, John Wesley, R. McCormick, Charles Wright, John Shave, Thomas Forbes, Robert Porteus, Richard Shave, Colonel Thomas Brown, Jermyn Wright, A. Carney, Jas. Thomp- son, Charles Wright, Wm. Davidson, William Irvine, John Mc- Gilveray, Charles Watts, George Kincaid, Tim Barnard, James Carson, William Knox, Isaac DeLeon, William Clark, John Murray, Peter Edwards, Sir Pat Houston, Geo. Cuthbert, Samuel Langley, John Martin, William McGilveray, Samuel Early, John Williams, Wm. Stephens, Roger Kelsal,/ R. Demere, Benjamin Wilson, Thomas Young, John Proctor, Peter Dean, Simon Mun- roe, George Fox, Henry Muirel, D. McGerth, Moses Kirkland, James Spalding, George Aarons, John Lightenstone, R. Baillie, Wm. Willis, Wm. Lyford, A. Creighton, Andrew Menery, An-
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drew Hewitt, Rory McIntosh, Henry Cooper, John Johnson, Thomas Waters, William Calker, Henry Williams, Ed Corker, John Douglas, William Mangum, William White, James Douglas, Samuel Williams, Wm. Durgin, John O'Neal, James Hunt, Aving- ton Perkins, John Young, Daniel Philips, Robert Tilman, James Gordon, Wm. Young, Abram Wilkins, Math Moon, Samuel Wil- kins, Henry Sharp, Jonathan Wilkins, Jacob Sharp, Luke Binow, Cordy Sharp, Wm. Tidwell, Wm. McNott, Reuben Sherral, Saul Montgomery, James Gordon, Ed Pitcher, Benjamin Brantley, Colonel James Grierson, Henry Overstreet, Andrew Moore, Elias Bonnell, John Howard, Wm. Brown, Benj. Howard, Aug. Auden- tood, Thomas Howard, Absalom Wells, And. Robertson, John Ferguson, David Cameron, Wm. Reid, John Jameson, Thomas Beaty, Wm. Oates, Benj. Lanier, Robert Walsington, John Boykin, W. Tucker, Joshua Pearce, John McCormick, William Pierce, Paul McCormick, Philip Dill, R. Henderson, James Dill, Lew Mobley, John Goldwire, James Herbert, James Pace, James Moore, Rev. C. F. Triebner, Samuel Moore, S. Dampier, Joseph Cornells, P. Blythe, R. French, John Blythe, William Balfour, Samuel Cooper, Isaac Daronny, George Weekly, Isaac Eaton, W. Gruber, Andrew McNiely, Joseph Johnston, Jas. Robertson, John Johnson, James Lyle, Wm. Powell, Jos. Marshall, William Love, John Peg, John Love, John Brown, John Thomas, Thomas Rutherford, Daniel Russell, Cader Price, Matthew Lyle, John Hammett, Robert Miller, David Grimes, John Robertson, Philip Helverton, Daniel Howell, Wm. Hammond, Alex Carter, George Johnson, Thomas Scott, Richard Baillie, John Coppinger, Thos. Manson, Jacob Watson, Andrew Johnson, Charles Weatherford, John Furlow, James Jackson of Augusta, Wm. Johnson, Francis Folliot, Dr. Taylor, Simon Paterson, Thos. Polhill, Nath'l Pol- hill, John Maxwell, Samuel Kemp.
It will be seen that this act was but the act of five years before repeated, with the addition of many other names. Many of those attainted were not Tories or Loyalists and escaped the penalties of the act, and many were pardoned by special statute, and in many cases while the father was a Loyalist the son was a Whig, and so the property involved did not really pass from the family.
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[CHAP. III.
So much attention has been given to the Revolution by McCall, Stevens, and especially Jones, that there is nothing more to be said, and as their narratives are too extended to be repeated here I have contented myself with merely giving a short history. It will be seen the number engaged was not large. In all there were but about three thousand five hundred, and the battles fought, except that of Sa- vannah and Briar creek, of but little importance. There was much courage displayed and much self-sacrifice made, and no men could have been truer than the Georgians were to the cause of the Continental Congress. There were comparatively few arms-bearing men in Georgia when the Revolutionary war began, but of those few much the largest number were in the war.
Up to 1779 everything in upper Georgia had been so peaceful that there was a steady flow of newcomers from North Carolina and Virginia. These years of war had, however, desolated all the new settlements, and when the war was over there was much to do to repair its ravages. There were cabins to rebuild and deserted fields to be once more brought into cultivation. The stock had been driven off, and the negroes had many of them escaped, but by 1782 things began to settle down.
The social condition of the Georgia people just after the Revolution was just such as might have been expected when everything had been overturned. The people had all suffered; none had escaped. From the Florida line to the limits of the Cherokee nation, and back to the last line of western settlements, the country had been ravaged. The hardships of the first frontier were reproduced in all the rural districts, and the villages, for there were no cities, were devastated. The first section to rally was the south- ern, and that too little known but remarkale man, John Wereat, who had a plantation on the neck in what is now Bryan county, loaded his flat-boats with rice and other
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supplies and had them poled up the Savannah river as far as he could go to relieve the destitution of the people of Wilkes and Richmond. The country, however, was so fer- tile that the pinching poverty of the people was soon at an end, but it was several years before there was comfort, much less luxury. The coast country had been devastated, and for several years there was almost the same condition which was found on the frontier. Our chapter of the cities will show the two villages, Savannah and Augusta, came out of the war almost in ruins.
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There was no money. Georgia scrip was worthless, and Continental money was about as bad. There was nothing for market when the ports were again open, except some peltry, and for some years there was but little commerce.
Society was in a fearful state. When human life was held at so cheap a rate and when brutal courage was at such a premium; when men had no compunction about getting drunk, if rum could be had; when it was no rob- bery to take all a Tory had, and no murder to hang him; when children grew to manhood who had never spent a month in the schoolroom, and who had never heard a ser- mon, it was not to be expected that the morals of the people would be high, or their manners refined, or their in- telligence considerable.
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OL TONE
URCIT.
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THE STORY OF GEORGIA [CHAP. III.
There was much lawlessness; there were neither judges nor courts; but there was no lapse into real savagery. There was still much among the rudest of the people which was praiseworthy. There was a scorn for lying, duplicity, and above all, for cowardice. There was a boundless hospitality, a kindness to all comers except Tories, a chivalric treatment of women, a genuine sympathy for the weak, and an unquestioning faith in the truths of religion.
ยท The up-country people, mainly newcomers from Vir- ginia and North Carolina, soon after the Revolution ended, took into their hands the government of the State. Many of the best people on the coast had been true to the crown and were now in exile, and those who stood for the cause of Independence were not numerous enough to overbalance the vote of the up-country ..
In the first census, in 1790, of the eighty-two thousand people, black and white in Georgia, thirty-two thousand were in Wilkes county alone, and perhaps not an adult among them had been born in Georgia. There was an ele- gance and high culture in the few gentlemen planters, law- yers, and counselors of the coast who had been members in the old Assembly, that was not to be found in the sturdy men who had come into the wilds of upper Georgia-men who could barely write their names, who had always lived in log cabins, and worked with their own hands, but who had fought the Tories at Kettle creek and rode with Clarke and Twiggs, and Candler and Dooly on many a foray, as well as men like Few and Candler, and Walton and Glascock, father and son, who were equals in all respects to any in Georgia. These were prominent in the up-country at the end of the war, but the ruling element was still on the tide-water.
There had been no possibility of carrying on any schools, and those children who grew up during the war never en-
1775-1782.]
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
109
tered a schoolroom. The larger number of persons from the better classes who could not write, who were found in Georgia in the early years of the nineteenth century, both men and women, grew up at this time, when there were neither primary schools nor academies.
OF
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ATION
1779
SEAL OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA.
The war was virtually at an end in the early part of 1782, and with a devastated territory, an empty treasury, and a heavy debt, with an imperfect constitution and a dis- cordant people, Georgia began her career as a free and in- dependent State. There had been seventeen thousand white people when the war began,* and probably, despite the ravages of the war, there were as many at its close.
There was from 1777 to 1783 almost a complete suspen- sion of all the religious work in the new State. The Rector of the Episcopal church in Savannah was a Loyalist. Mr. Triebner, the Lutheran, was a Loyalist and a fugitive, and the church in Ebenezer had been used as a stable. The Reformed Presbyterian minister in Burke, now Jeffer-
* Jones.
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THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. III.
son county, was a Loyalist, and had fled the country. St. Paul's church in Augusta and the church at Midway had been burned. The Baptist preachers, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Bottsford, and Mr. Mercer, had been driven from the State, and there was no resumption of regular religious work until after the war had nearly ended.
The Quakers had been so persecuted in Georgia by the Whigs that they left the State and never returned to it.
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AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1782-1789.]
CHAPTER IV.
1782 TO 1789.
Georgia a Free and Independent State-Governors Houston, Elbert, Hand- ley, Telfair, and Mathews-Gloomy State of Affairs-College Projected- The Decision to Remove Capitol to Louisville-The State Government Temporarily in Augusta-Military Land Grants Issued-Rapid Settlement of the State-Indian Troubles-Oconee War-Paper Money Issued - Call for a Convention to Form a more Perfect Union-Delegates Appointed- Ratification of the Constitution of the United States-State Conventions- History of the Counties of Chatham, Effingham, Burke, Richmond, Liberty, Camden, Wilkes, Franklin, Washington, and Greene.
Authorities : Stevens, Jones, Sherwood, White's Statistics and Historical Col- lections, Chappell's Pamphlets, Watkins's Digest Georgia Laws, Marbury & Crawford's Digest, Madison Papers, Gilmer's Georgians, Files of the Geor- gia Gazette, and Personal Researches into County Records.
The war was virtually at an end when Cornwallis surren- dered at Yorktown, and the last British soldier had been re- moved from Georgia and the State government fully rees- tablished for a year before the news reached Savannah that. Georgia was recognized as a free and independent State. When this news reached Savannah, John Houston, who had been one of the four who called the first Revolutionary meeting, was governor, and the city in which that meeting was held was the recognized capital of the new State.
After Governor Houston's term expired, General Samuel Elbert, whom we have seen was the lieutenant-colonel of the first battalion of Georgia troops, and who was so true. a soldier to the end of the war, was elected by an almost unanimous vote of the Legislature as governor. In 1786 Edward Telfair, the wise and wealthy Scotchman who had been so faithful to the cause of independence, succeeded. him. Governor Telfair was followed by General George.
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THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. IV.
Mathews. General George Mathews, while not born in Ireland, was a full-blooded Scotch-Irishman. He was born in Augusta county, Va., in the days when Indian forays were fearfully common. He became an Indian fighter in his boyhood, and distinguished himself at the battle of Point Pleasant. When the Revolutionary war began he threw himself ardently into it. He was made colonel of a regi- ment, and was at Germantown and Brandywine. He was wounded, captured, and then exchanged. He came to Georgia with some Virginia troops toward the close of the
war. He was a shrewd speculator, and he bought at a bar- gain a claim to a large body of land known as the Goose Pond tract on Broad river and decided to move to it .* He brought in the famous Broad river settlers, of whom we shall hear more. He was a rough, quick-tempered, unedu- cated Irishman, thoroughly fearless and impetuous, and sundry stories are told of his want of culture, of his impet- uous temper, which are not sufficiently authentic for these pages. He was a man of strong common sense and ster- ling honesty of purpose.
General Jackson was elected to succeed Governor Math- ews, but declined the office, and Governor Handley, an Englishman likewise, was chosen and served the term. The condition of things was far from cheerful. The sup- plies of food were insufficient, there was no money in the State treasury, and there were heavy debts to be provided for. Many of the best citizens of the State were proscribed and were in exile, and their property ordered to the block. There was discord in the public councils. The Legislature was unwilling to comply with Governor Houston's urgent request that it should levy a tax for what he said were im- perative demands, but gloomy as matters were a body of intelligent men secured from the Legislature a grant of ten
* Gilmer.
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AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
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9
thousand acres of land for a college, to be located at some place to be afterward selected.
The Legislature had its sessions in Savannah from July, 1783, to the spring of 1786, when an act was passed pro- viding for the selection of a place for the capital, which should be in twenty miles of Galphin's old town, which place should be called Louisville, but in the meantime the Legislature would meet in Augusta. The times even then were so disturbed that a guard was called for from each county along the route to see the body to its destination.
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