Thomasville GA | Ray City History Blog

Louisa Bird Peurifoy: Minister’s Wife

June 25, 2022 at 1:09 am (Faith and Begorrah, Uncategorized, Wiregrass Methodists)
Tags: Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves, Alachua Mission, Anderson Peeler, Behethland Brooks, Bethlehem Camp Ground, Bishop William Capers, Bunker Hill FL, Bunker Hill Plantation, Camp Carter FL, Captain Ayles B. Shehee, Captain Daniel Bird, Coffee Road, Cuthbert GA, Daniel Bascomb Peurifoy, Daniel McCranie, Ebenezer J. Perkins, Edgefield County SC, Edmund Penn, Edward Minchin, Eliza Peurifory, Elizabeth Peurifoy, Elizabeth Simkins, Emmala Simkins, Florida Territory, Fort Gaines Female Institute, Grooverville GA, Hamilton Sharpe, Hephzibah GA, House Committee on Indian Depredation Claims, Independent College for Young Men, James Osgood Andrew, Jefferson County FL, Jesse Simkins, John Bellamy, John Dean, Jones & Bailey Co., Lawrence Simkins, Lebanon Church, Leon County FL, Louisa Ann Bird, Lovic Pierce Peurifoy, Lowndes County GA, Lucinda Brooks, Lumpkin GA, Martha C. Peurifoy, Mary I. Peurifoy, Methodist circuit-riders, Milledgeville GA, Mitchell Brady Jones, Monticello FL, Mount Zion Campground, Nacoosa Plantation, New Hope Church, Old St. Augustine Road, Peurifoy Massacre, Robert Hudson Howren, Rock Spring Camp Ground, Samuel James Douglas, Sereno Taylor, Sharpe's Store Road, Shoulderbone Creek, Smith Simkins, Sparta GA, St. Mary's GA, Superior Court of the Middle District of Florida, Thomas Robinson, Thomasville & Madison Road, Thomasville GA, Tillman Dixon Peurifoy, Troupville Circuit, Troupville GA, Uriah Kemp, Waukeenah FL, Waynesboro GA, William McCauley, William Peurifoy, Zachariah S. Brooks

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Louisa Bird Peurifoy (1816-1878) was the wife of Reverend Tillman Dixon Peurifoy (1809-1872), a circuit-riding Methodist preacher who served on the Troupville Circuit in Lowndes County, GA in 1840. Old Lowndes County then also encompassed much of present day Berrien, Cook, Tift, Lanier and Echols counties and Troupville was the county seat for the pioneer settlers of Ray City, GA. In 1838, the Peurifoys lived in the Florida Territory, about 20 miles from Tallahassee. On the night of Saturday, March 31, 1838, while Reverend Peurifoy was away at a Methodist conference meeting, his family and African Americans he enslaved were massacred by Indians. The two PePrevious Nexturifoy children and three enslaved people were killed in the attack. Mrs. Peurifoy was horribly wounded.

Louisa Bird Peurifoy, wife of Reverend Tilman Dixon Peurifoy, survived an Indian attack in Jefferson County, Florida Territory on April 1, 1838.

Digital likeness of Louisa Bird Peurifoy reconstructed using AI technology.

Louisa Ann Bird Peurifoy was born September 10, 1816 in Edgefield County, SC. She was a daughter of Lucinda Brooks and Captain Daniel Bird. Her father, a native of Virginia, was a wealthy cotton planter and breeder of fine race horses. He owned hundreds of acres of land and twenty enslaved people. “In 1817 he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives where he served in the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth General Assemblies (1818-1822). In 1822 he was elected Clerk of Court for the Edgefield District in which office he served from 1822 until 1830.“

It appears in Louisa’s early childhood the family lived on one of her father’s plantations. When she was about nine, her father moved the family into Halcyon Grove, a magnificent mansion he had built near the Edgefield court house.

Halcyon Grove, Edgefield, SC. The mansion, built by Captain Daniel Bird, still serves as a residence today.

“The house was three stories, including the full attic. Two huge chimneys were at each end, providing fire places for the front rooms on the first and second floors. Two smaller chimneys were behind for the back rooms. The front porch was a narrow, two-story portico which was common in the early antebellum period. (This would later be changed to the porch we see today which extends across the entire front of the house.) Other architectural features included elaborately-carved mantelpieces, wainscoting, and an arch dividing the downstairs hallway. Additionally there were fanlights over the main hall doors upstairs and down, and a partially hidden staircase at the back hall leading to the second floor. The hardware for all of the doors was brass and of the best quality, for the hinges and locks have lasted for nearly two centuries. By any standards, this was, as a later commentator described it, ‘a handsome establishment, and a large and comfortable one.’”
The Story of Halcyon Grove

Louisa’s mother, Lucinda Brooks, died in 1826, and her father subsequently married Mrs. Behethland Brooks Simkins, sister of his deceased wife. The step-mother, Mrs. Simkins, was the widow of Jesse Simkins who had left her possessed of lands, money and enslaved people. Mrs. Simkins had four children of her own; Elizabeth Simkins, Emmala Simkins, Smith Simkins and Lawrence Simkins who became Louisa’s step-siblings.

In 1830, Captain Bird’s household was enumerated in Edgefield County, SC with his wife and their nine children, and 14 enslaved people. Around that time, Captain Bird purchased a tract of land in Jefferson County in the Florida Territory, just south of the line of Lowndes County, GA. In 1832, Captain Bird moved his family, enslaved people and household goods from South Carolina to settle in Jefferson County, Florida Territory. The Bird’s most likely route through Wiregrass Georgia would have been via the Coffee Road which was opened up in 1827, the same year Jefferson County was created, and which ran from Jacksonville, GA to Tallahassee, FL. Arriving in Florida, the Birds first alighted at Waukeenah, about 11 miles south of Monticello, FL. Waukeenah was a resting point for travelers on the Old St. Augustine road (also known as the Bellamy Road), which ran from St. Augustine to Tallahassee to Pensacola, Florida.

Section of the Old St. Augustine Road near Tallahassee, FL. Image source: Public Domain.

Within a very short while, Captain Bird relocated to “Bunker Hill”, about 10 miles northwest of Monticello, FL where he established a large plantation. Bunker Hill was a rise on the mail route from Thomasville, GA to Monticello, FL; A post office with mail delivery every two weeks had been established there in 1829. Later Captain Bird bought a second plantation named “Nacoosa” south of Monticello, which had been the home of Abram Bellamy (Jefferson County Library Digital History Project). By 1860, Bunker Hill Plantation and Nacoosa Plantation together comprised 1600 acres, where Bird worked 44 enslaved people.

Detail of A.J. Johnson's 1863 map of Florida with locations of Waukeena, Monticello, Bunker Hill and Tallahassee, and in Georgia the locations of Grooverville, Thomasville, and Troupville. — Detail of A.J. Johnson’s 1863 map of Florida with locations of Waukeena, Monticello, Bunker Hill and Tallahassee, and in Georgia the locations of Grooverville, Thomasville, and Troupville.

On June 13, 1833, Louisa Ann Bird married Tillman Dixon Peurifoy in Jefferson County, FL. The bride was 17 years old, the groom 25. Purifoy was a circuit riding Methodist minister who had been sent to Jefferson County to support the Methodist Episcopal Church’s mission in the Florida Territory, and a contemporary of Wiregrass circuit riders George W. Davis, Robert H. Howren, George Bishop, Capel Raiford, Robert Stripling, and John Slade. T.D. Peurifoy was a son of William Peurifoy born January 21, 1809 in Putnam County, GA. He had been baptized into the Methodist faith at the age of 15. The Southern Christian Advocate said, “He commenced in the old Methodist way, leading the class, holding prayer-meetings in the neighbor hood, etc., and soon became very popular among the people, and useful in the church.” At 19 he was admitted as a minister in the Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His father died the following year, and by age 21, he was appointed by the Georgia Conference to a station at Waynesboro, GA, riding on horseback to preach in communities in the area.

Announcement of Methodists Camp Meetings in the Milledgeville District, published July 1, 1833

After marriage, Louisa and Tillman D. Peurifoy did not immediately settle in the Florida Territory. In October, 1833, Reverend Peurifoy was in Sparta, GA. Great camp meetings attended by thousands of Methodists were held at Shoulderbone Creek near Sparta. In those days, Methodists held camp meetings all over Georgia. In Lowndes County an annual Methodist revival was held at the old Lowndes Camp Ground, later called the Mount Zion Camp Ground.

In Putnam County, the Methodist gathered at the Rock Spring Camp Meeting. On October 4, 1833, while attending the camp meeting at Rock Spring, Reverend Peurifoy’s brother was robbed of a fine pocket watch, of the lever type; The lever escarpment mechanism, popularized in the 1820s, made a significant advancement in the accuracy of pocket watches.

October 16, 1833, Milledgeville Southern Recorder.

For the year 1834 the church assigned Reverend Peurifoy to the Cedar Creek station near Milledgeville, Baldwin County, GA.

“It is located in perhaps the most beautiful valley in Georgia. Cedar Creek, a considerable stream, clear as
crystal, meanders through the valley, and along its banks are lands unsurpassed in fertility. The mountains are round about. Attracted by the beauty and fertility of the valley, many citizens of culture and wealth removed to it, and it became and has continued to this day a most delightful station.” (- A History of Methodism in Georgia & Florida) The Cedar Creek Circuit covered some 1,400 square miles and ran through Jasper, Jones and Baldwin County, and a part of Putnam County, which was the county of Rev. Peurifoy’s birth. “Clinton, the county-site of Jones, was an appointment in the old Cedar Creek Circuit. It was a place of considerable importance, being in the midst of a fine cotton-producing country. In it there was much wealth and style, and alas ! infidelity and dissipation.“

At the January 1835 meeting of the Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, young Reverend Peurifoy was serving in the St. Mary’s District. The conference was poorly attended “owing to the inclement weather.” It was reported that 27 ministers had not returned to appointments because of retirement or other reasons. Seventeen new ministers were appointed on trial. Peurifoy was one the few ministers in the conference without an appointment.

By 1838 Louisa had given her husband two children, Elizabeth Peurifoy and Lovic Pierce Peurifoy. Reverend Peurifoy was assigned to the Alachua Mission in the Florida Territory. The mission station was about two miles from the plantation home of Louisa’s father, Captain Daniel Bird and about twelve miles from Suwannee Springs, FL. The Peurifoys worked, and worked their enslaved people to carve a homestead for the Peurifoys out of the wilderness.

It was a perilous time to be on the southern frontier. There was a rising storm of conflict between the growing European-American population and Native Americans who violently resisted subjugation and removal to lands west of the Mississippi. Indians and whites spilled blood across Wiregrass Georgia and Florida. The Indian Wars had been underway since 1836. In Berrien County, GA skirmishes had been fought along the Alapaha River and a battle at Brushy Creek. In 1838, Captain Levi J. Knight had a militia company in the field in south Georgia.

But in the Florida Territory it was said the real fighting was a hundred miles distant from the area where the Peurifoys were homesteading, and part of Rev. Peurifoy’s Methodist mission was ministry to the Indians. He continued in his work and travels in the Alachua Mission, undoubtedly thinking his family was safe enough on their north Florida homestead.

That sense of security was shattered when the Peurifoy home place was destroyed. Louisa, her children and the Peurifoy’s enslaved people were at the homestead on the evening of March 31, 1838 when the Indians attacked. Her husband was away at a meeting of the church conference perhaps a two- or three-days ride distant. Within days, vivid accounts of the massacre were widely circulated in newspapers across the Wiregrass.

Reports of the Peurifoy massacre first appeared in the Tallahassee Floridian edition of Saturday, April 6, 1838. The report was reprinted in the Edgefield Advertiser on April 19, 1838. Mrs. Peurifoy was a native of Edgefield, SC.

– On Saturday evening last, about dark, a party of Indians, supposed to number 30 or 40, attacked the dwelling of Mr. Purifoy, residing in the vicinity of the previous depredations, murdered two children and three negroes, plundered and set fire to the buildings, and made their escape – the children were burned in the dwelling. Mrs. Purifoy, although severely wounded, miraculously made her escape from the savages. When the attack was made there were none but females about the premises, a fact supposed to have been known to the Indians. Mrs. P. was lying in bed with her two children, heard a noise in her room and on looking up found it filled with Indians, who commenced discharging their rifles, several of them aimed at herself and children. The children it is supposed were killed at once. Mrs. P. received a ball in her shoulder, which passed out at her breast. The savages next commenced hacking and stabbing her with their knives, and inflicted a number of severe wounds on her head and several parts of her body. Their attention was a moment directed from her to a noise made by the servants in an adjoining room, when Mrs. P. taking advantage of this circumstance escaped to the yard, where she was again shot down, but succeeded in gaining the woods, intending to reach her father’s residence, Capt. Daniel Bird, about two miles distant. Faint from the loss of blood and the severity of wounds, she was unable to proceed more than half a mile, where she was found next morning.   Mrs. P. received, we understand, ten distinct wounds, several very severe, but her physician entertains strong hopes of her recovery. – To heighten the catastrophe, Mr. Purifoy, whose children and slaves were slain, was absent from home, fulfilling his ministerial duties.
     As soon as the attack was discovered, the troops at Camp Carter, under Capt. Shehee, were sent for, but the Indians had dispersed in three parties and fled. Maj. Taylor with Capt. Newsam’s company joined Capt. S. on Monday morning, and have followed the several trails, but with what success we have not understood.
   The house attacked is several miles within the frontier settlements – the houses of most of which are picketed in. We trust the occurrence will awaken the United States authorities to do something more for the protection of our frontier. – Tallahassee Floridian

The wounded Louisa was carried on a makeshift stretcher to her father’s house. Most thought her wounds so grievous she could not live. When a letter carrying word of the attack reached Reverend Peurifoy at the conference he rushed home, but could not have arrived sooner than four or five days after the attack. Louisa, gravely wounded, was still clinging to life. In anguish, Rev. Peurifoy wrote a letter to his friend William Capers, a fellow Methodist minister and editor of the Southern Christian Advocate. Capers published the letter and news of the Peurifory Massacre was printed in newspapers around the world.

In time, Louisa got better, although some said she never fully recovered. Her little children, her home, her furnishings, all her possessions were lost. Of their Florida homestead, only the 11 surviving African-Americans enslaved by the Peurifoys remained.

Within months of the attack, Tillman Dixon Peurifoy submitted a claim to the federal government seeking compensation for “slaves killed by Indians.” Under an act of Congress, citizens were entitled to receive payment for their loss of “slave property.” But the House Committee on Indian Depredation Claims found adversely for Peurifoy’s claim, as the Government was “not liable for the loss of private property taken by the public enemy in time of war.“

Tilman Dixon Peurifoy claim for Indian Depredations, United States House of Representatives.

January 22, 1839
Read, and laid upon the table.

Mr. Giddings from the Committee of Claims, submitted the following REPORT:

The Committee of Claims, to whom was committed the petition of T. D. Peurify, report:

That the memorialist, in his petition, states that, on the first day of April, A. D. 1838, during the temporary absence of the petitioner, the Indians burnt his dwelling-house, situated in Jefferson county, in the Territory of Florida, destroyed his personal property, (including his household furniture,) and murdered three of his slaves, for which he asks indemnity.
The committee view the claim, as stated by the petitioner, to be one of those cases of loss by Indian depredations which have so often come before the committee and the House of Representatives, and on which indemnity has been uniformly refused. The Committee refer to the report of the Committee of Claims upon the memorial of the Legislature of the State of Alabama, made at the last session of the present Congress, (vide Reps. of Com. vol. 4, No. 932,) where the principles of that report, and recommend to the House the adoption of the following resolution:
Resolved, That the petition is not entitles to relief.
Thomas Allen, print.

After the massacre, Tillman Dixon Peurifoy took his wife and surviving enslaved people out of the Florida Territory and returned to Georgia. In the census of 1840 Tillman and Louisa, now with a young son, and 11 enslaved people were enumerated at Grooverville, GA. Grooverville was at the crossing of the Thomasville & Madison Road, and Sharpe’s Store Road, perhaps 15 miles east northeast of Bunker Hill. Lebanon Church, the Methodist house of worship at Grooverville, had been established about 1832.

Tillman D. Peurifoy was then appointed to the Troupville station in the Florida District, Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Troupville, GA about 30 miles east of Grooverville, was then the seat of government of Lowndes County, GA. Troupville was the center of commerce and social activity for the region. The town was situated immediately in the fork made by the confluence of the Withlacoochee and Little rivers. It was the site of the Lowndes County courthouse and jail, hotels, Methodist and Baptist churches, stores, shops, doctors and lawyers. Among residents of the town circa 1840 were William McAuley, Hiram Hall, John Studstill, William Lastinger, Joseph S. Burnett, William McDonald, William D. Branch, Jonathan Knight, William Smith, and James O. Goldwire. “Of the merchants who did business there in the old days, were Moses and Aaron Smith, E. B. Stafford, Uriah Kemp, and Alfred Newburn,” according to an 1899 Sketch of Old Lowndes County. The Knight family, who were the original pioneer settlers of present day Ray City, GA, were among the prominent citizens of Lowndes County who frequented the town.

In January, 1841 the Peurifoys likely suffered yet another setback when floodwaters of the Harrison Freshet inundated Troupville. The low-lying town was completely flooded. When the annual Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church convened in Macon, GA that month, Robert Howren was appointed to Troupville. No station appointment was reported for Tillman D. Peurifoy.

Between tragic losses in 1838 and possibly further difficulties in the flood of 1841, the Peurifoys were struggling financially. To get by Rev. Peurifoy was forced to borrow money from wealthier men in the area. He borrowed from John Bellamy, a planter in the Florida Territory; Thomas County, GA plantation owner Mitchell Brady Jones; Postmaster Daniel McCranie; Ebenezer J. Perkins; Thomas Robinson; and others. Given Wiregrass Georgia’s burgeoning slave economy, many of these loans were secured or settled through the mortgaging, selling or trading of enslaved peoples. Peurifoy himself was enumerated in the 1840 Census as the owner of 14 enslaved people. In the Grooverville district of Thomas County where the Peurifoys lived, more than half of the residents were enumerated as “owners” of enslaved African Americans. In Thomas County, the population in 1840 was 3,836 whites and 2,930 enslaved African-Americans; by 1860 the enslaved population of Thomas County outnumbered the white population 6,244 to 4,488.

In January, 1842, Tillman D. Peurifoy borrowed $3,500 dollars from John Bellamy (1777-1845), putting up seven enslaved people as collateral for the loan. Bellamy was one of the wealthiest planters and most prominent political figures in the Florida Territory. His 3000 acre plantation was in Jefferson County along the Aucilla River east of Monticello. In 1826, Bellamy had been the government contractor for the construction of the Bellamy Road which was built with the labor of enslaved African Americans, and followed the path of the Old St. Augustine Road from St. Augustine to Tallahassee. Like the Coffee Road in south Georgia, the Bellamy Road did much to open the north Florida Territory for settlement.

In January 1843, Reverend Peurifoy was appointed to the Methodist station for Cuthbert and Fort Gaines, GA on the Chattahoochee River. Fort Gaines was the site of the Fort Gaines Female Institute and the Independent College for Young Men, boarding schools (not colleges as that word is used today) founded by Sereno Taylor, a prominent Baptist minister and owner of four enslaved people.

The financial woes of the Peurifoys continued in 1843. Legal documents show authorities in Leon County, Florida ordered the sale of his goods to settle debts, including the sale of people he enslaved.

Reverend Peurifoy had apparently been unable to repay the loan from John Bellamy and on January 19, 1843 Bellamy petitioned Judge Samuel James Douglas of the Superior Court of the Middle District of Florida for satisfaction. An abstract of the petition states the following without noting the outcome.

John Bellamy seeks to foreclose on a mortgage for seven slaves, signed by Tilman D. Peurifoy on 8 January 1842 as security for a promissory note of $3,500. The plaintiff maintains that Peurifoy has “wholly neglected and refused and still doth refuse to pay the same or any part thereof to your petitioner.” Bellamy asks that the slaves be sold, and if the proceeds of the sale are not sufficient to pay the debt, that other property of Peurifoy be subject to sale.
UNC Race & Slavery Project

In Thomas County, GA the Peurifoys were forced to give up their household possessions to be auctioned off to satisfy debts owed to Thomas Robinson and Daniel McCranie.

Legal advertisement in the Milledgeville Southern Recorder announcing the auction of household goods and personal property belonging to Tilman D. Peurifoy to satisfy debts owed to Thomas Robinson and Daniel McCranie.

In order to satisfy a debt owed to the firm of Jones & Baily the Thomas County Sheriff seized “slave property” of the Peurifoys in the person of the enslaved man Shedrach. The 30-year-old African-American man had likely been born into slavery in the United States to live in bondage his entire life. (The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves went into effect January 1, 1808, although some smuggling of slaves continued in southern states all the way up to the Civil War. But the population of enslaved people continued to grow in the U.S. and the domestic slave trade flourished.)

Legal announcements in the April 25, 1843 edition of the Milledgeville Southern Recorder advertising the forced sale of an enslaved man named Shedrach and household property of Tilman Dixon Peurifoy.

Peurifoy also owed money to Ebenezer J. Perkins and others. Perkins was known as a money lender… and known for assiduously collecting the debts owed to him. Perkins had been indicted in May 1831 “for the offense of malicious mischief in breaking open the door of the boarding house of Isaac P. Brooks to the great annoyance of Mr. Brooks and his boarders.” At one time Perkins had partnered with Hamilton Sharpe, the well-know Methodist, merchant, and postmaster in Lowndes County, GA. In April 1843, Ebenezer J. Perkins, Mitchell B. Jones, and the firm of Jones & Bailey demanded the auction of a Thomasville city lot owned by Peurifoy in order to collect money Peurifoy owed them. A year later, Perkins was stabbed to death after attending the hanging of Samuel Mattox at Troupville, GA.

Thomas Sheriff’s Sales
Will be sold before the Court house door in the town of Thomasville, Thomas county, on the first Tuesday in April next, within the usual hours of sale, the following property, to wit…
one lot in the town of Thomasville, known as No 3, in square letter E, containing one half acre, with all the improvements thereon – levied on as the property of Tilman D. Purifoy to satisfy the following fi fas, two in favor of Mitchell B. Jones, one in favor of Ebenezer J. Perkins, and one in favor of Jones & Bailey, all vs said Tilman D. Purifoy
Milledgeville Southern Recorder, April 04, 1843

Even Reverend Peurifoy’s fellow Methodist ministers were among the debt collectors. Rev. Anderson Peeler, a circuit rider in the Florida District, acquired a lien against Peurify which had originally been filed by Mitchell B. Jones in the Thomas County, GA Inferior Court. At Rev. Peeler’s request the Thomas County Sheriff seized “property” owned Peurifoy to be auctioned off to settle the debt owed to him. The “property” was an enslaved African-American woman named Polly, who had likely suffered all the 50 years of her life in bondage. The “slave auction” was held on the steps of the Thomas County Courthouse, at Thomasville, GA.

Legal announcement advertising the forced sale of Polly, a woman enslaved by Methodist minister Tilman Dixon Peurifoy. The sale was ordered to satisfy debts debts owed to another Methodist minister. Milledgeville Southern Recorder, July 4, 1843.

In 1843, the Georgia Conference of the Methodist church assigned Rev. T.D. Peurifoy to the station at Cuthbert and Ft. Gaines, GA.

James O. Andrew, slave-owning Methodist Bishop, of Georgia. Image source: public domain.

By the 1840s, the ownership of enslaved people by ordained ministers generated substantial controversy within the Methodist Episcopal Church, as the national organization had long opposed slavery. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had been appalled by slavery. Bishop James O. Andrew, of Georgia, was criticized by the 1844 General Convention for his ownership of enslaved people and suspended from office until such time as he should end his “connection with slavery.” Southern members disputed the Convention’s authority to discipline the bishop or to require slave-owning clergy to emancipate the people whom they considered as property. The differences over enslavement of human beings that would divide the nation during the mid-19th century were also dividing the Methodist Episcopal Church. The 1844 dispute led Methodists in the South to break off and form a separate denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MEC,S), that accommodated slave ownership for its leaders as well as its members. By 1850 the U.S. Census of “Slave Inhabitants” of Georgia shows that Bishop James O. Andrew was the “slave owner” of 24 enslaved people.

Rev. T.D. Peurifoy was given the station at Lumpkin, GA for 1844. In January 1845, he was preaching in the Augusta District and assigned to the Waynesboro station. His circuit then included New Hope Church at Hephzibah, GA, one of the unheated, hewn log churches of the old pioneer days. “It was the rule or custom of this church to construe attendance upon its ‘love feasts’ for three consecutive occasions as prima facie evidence of a desire to enter its communion.” By about 1847, the membership had dwindle such that it ceased to serve as a house of worship.

In 1845, The Peurifoys were still deeply in debt. Louisa Peurifoy’s grandfather Zachariah S. Brooks gave her three enslaved people; a young African-American woman, her daughter, and her ten-year-old brother. These three enslaved people were deeded to Edmund Penn to hold in trust for Louisa, likely a move to protect this “slave property” from seizure by her husband’s creditors and to assure that they remained Louisa’s “property.” But in 1854, the Peurifoys would petition the State of South Carolina to break the trust and allow them to sell the enslaved young man, now 19 years-of-age.

Petition to the Chancellors of the State of South Carolina
Abstract:
Louisa and T. D. Peurifoy seek to sell a slave, whom she holds in trust. In 1845, Louisa’s grandfather, Zachariah S. Brooks, deeded to “Edmund Penn three negro slaves to wit Emily & her child Sarah & her brother Allen to be had & held in trust for” Louisa. Allen “is now about nineteen years old & is stout and able-bodied– but the said Allen is at the same time refractory, insubordinate & unruly.” The Peurifoys “have endeavored to control & govern him but in vain– that the said Allen will not submit to their authority or discipline & the result has been that the said slave contributes but little to their comfort or profit.” The Peurifoys pray that the court authorize Penn “to make sale” of Allen “and to invest the proceeds of such sale in the purchase of one or more negro slaves of more docile & submissive character.”
UNC Digital Library on American Slavery

The Peurifoys remained in the area of Augusta for the next couple of years. In 1846 they were living at The Rocks, about five miles from the city. They continued to sell off or rent out their enslaved people.

T.D. Peurifoy offers enslaved people for sale or rent in a September 27, 1846 advertisement in the Augusta Daily Chronicle

In 1846 Reverend T. D. Purifoy’s station was the Columbia Circuit. In 1847, he was sent to the Louisville Station.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, debt collectors were still after Peurifoy for the money he had borrowed from John Bellamy in 1842. Bellamy had died in 1845, but the Administrator of the Estate sought satisfaction in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, FL. Whether Peurifoy responded to the court order to return to Florida or ever made good on the debt is not known.

Reverend Tilman D. Peurifoy summoned to appear before the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Florida. Legal advertisement, Tallahassee Floridian, December 18, 1847.

Some time before 1850, the Peurifoys left Georgia and returned to Louisa’s roots in Edgefield County, SC, about 25 miles north of Augusta, GA. The 1850 enumeration of the Peurifoys in the Edgefield District lists Reverend and Mrs. Peurifoy, and their children, Daniel B. Peurifoy, Mary I. Peurifoy, Martha C. Peurifoy, and Eliza Peurifoy. Also in the Peurifoy household was a carpenter named John Dean.

1850 Census enumeration of Tilman D. Peurifoy and Louisa A. Peurifoy in Edgefield District, South Carolina.

Schedule 2 “Slave Inhabitants” in the 1850 Census shows that Rev. Peurifoy was the “Slave owner” of 14 enslaved people.

The 1850s saw a great revival among the Methodists in Edgefield, SC and Reverend T.D. Peurifoy played a prominent role in organizing the camp meetings that drove the revival spirit. In 1851, Peurifoy served on the Building Committee for Bethlehem Camp Ground

A multitude of religious revivals within the Methodist faith in Edgefield were reported throughout the decade in the pages of the Advertiser. The majority of these occurred at spring and summer camp meetings at both Mount Vernon Camp Ground and Bethlehem Camp Ground, both prominent Methodist camp meeting locations in the county… All of these drew large, passionate crowds and produced large numbers of conversion experiences and increased church membership… These revivals were a very public outpouring of religious fervor, and were instrumental in placing the evangelical faith at the forefront of community life in Edgefield.
– Fighting For Revival

A notice in The Edgefield Advertiser, October 16, 1851 seeking a contractor for construction of an arbor at Bethlehem Camp Ground.

In South Carolina, Peurifoy’s preaching took him to New Chapel Church in Newberry County, about 40 miles north of Edgefield. An intimate friend…says in the Christian Neighbor, “I knew brother Peurifoy in the strength of his manhood, his sermons were pungent and powerful. He possessed the power of sharpening the arrows of truth, and hurling them with tremendous force into the ranks of the enemies of the cross. I first heard him in Newberry at New Chapel. Crowds flocked to hear him, and hung on his lips. Many were awakened and converted.“

In 1855, T.D. Peurifoy was in the Shelbyville District, SC. But in 1856, he was “located” at his own request.

By 1860, it seems the Peurifoys had recovered from their previous debt. In the Census of 1860, Reverend Peurifoy’s real estate and personal property were valued at $22,875, which probably placed him in the top 10 percent of the wealthiest people in the Saluda Regiment, Edgefield District, South Carolina. Tillman Peurifoy’s occupation was given as farming. Much of the Peurifoys wealth was represented in the 15 people they enslaved, who ranged from an 80-year-old woman to a four-year-old girl. The Peurifoy’s son, Daniel, worked as the Overseer.

1860 census enumeration of Louisa Bird and Tillman Dixon Peurifoy, Saluda Regiment, Edgefield District, South Carolina.

It appears Louisa & Tillman Peurifoy remained in Edgefield County throughout the Civil War. Their son, Daniel Bird Peurifoy, served in the Confederate Army.

About 1862, Rev. Peurifoy suffered a paralytic stroke, “his strength failed, but he continued to preach as often as he could.” He was a representative of the Butler Circuit at the July 30, 1868 Cokesbury District Meeting of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South at Edgefield Courthouse. Peurifoy was appointed to the Committee on Family and Religion. His old friend William T. Capers was the delegate from the Cokesbury station.

Children of Louisa Bird and Tillman Dixon Peurifoy (birth dates from census records):

Elizabeth Peurifoy (unknown–1838)
Lovic Pierce Peurifoy (unknown–1838)
Daniel Byrd Peurifoy (1839–1909), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
Mary Jane Peurifoy (1843–1910), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
Martha C. Peurifoy (1846–1900), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
Eliza A. Peurifoy (1849–1872), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
William Bascom Peurifoy (1854–1927), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
Julia Butler Peurifoy (1855–1931), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
Sallie Peurifoy (1858–1931), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery

The Census of 1870 shows that the Peurifoys remained in Edgefield County in the Saluda Division during Reconstruction. Their post office was at Oakland. The value of Peurifoy’s total estate had been reduced to $400 dollars.

1870 Census enumeration of the household of Tillman Dixon Peurifoy and Louisa Peurifoy.

In April, 1872 Reverend Peurifoy had a second stroke, “his work was done. He lingered for several weeks – never murmured, but was patient and resigned to the will of God from the beginning. And when he could no longer tell us, as he frequently had, of the peace and joye he realized through faith in Christ, (having lost the power of speech,) he would make signs with the hand he could move.” Rev. Peurifoy died June 4, 1872. He was buried in the cemetery at Butler Church, Saluda, SC.

The following tribute of respect was passed at Butler Church Conference, South Carolina.

Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God in his wise providence, to take out of this world the soul of our beloved brother, Rev. T. D. Peurifoy; therefore,

Resolved, That in the death of the Rev. T. D. Peurifoy, the Church has lost one of her most faithful ministers, the community one of its most honorable citizens.
2. That although we mourn the sad loss we have sustained in the death of brother Peurifoy, we bow in humble submission to the will of Him whose ways are true and righteous altogether.
3. That this Church Conference tender our hearty sympathies to the wife and children of the deceased, in this their sad bereavement, and commend them to the protection of Him, who has promised that His grace shall be sufficient at all times, for those who love, serve and obey Him.
Rev. G. W. McCreighton, Ch’n.
W. S. Crouch, Sec.
Southern Christian Advocate, October 23, 1872

Louisa Peurifoy died July 4, 1878. She was buried next to her husband in the Butler Church cemetery.

Grave of Louisa A. Peurifoy (1816-1878), wife of Reverend Tilman D. Peurifoy. Butler United Methodist Church Cemetery, Saluda, SC.

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1862 Train Schedule for Valdosta, GA

June 20, 2020 at 12:09 am (Atlantic & Gulf Railroad, Railroads, Savannah, Albany & Gulf Railroad)
Tags: Albany & Gulf Railroad, Atlantic & Gulf Railroad, Boston GA, Confederate States Railroad Time, Fletcher Institute, Gaspar J. Fulton, Hill & Swayze Confederate States Railroad & Steamboat Guide, John Screven, Main Trunk Railroad, Savannah, Savannah GA, Thomasville GA, Walthourville GA

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Joseph Hansell Merrill

May 11, 2019 at 12:08 am (Education In the Wiregrass, Georgia State Womans College)
Tags: Arthur Patten, Charles Paine Hansell, Charles Pinckney Grantham, Fletcher Institute, Joseph Hansell Merrill, Joseph Styles Merrill, National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Oglethorpe University, Southern Circuit of Georgia, Thomas County Bar Association, Thomas County GA, Thomasville GA, Thomasville Real Estate & Improvement Co., University of Georgia, Valdosta State University

Joseph Hansell Merrill (1862-1925)

In 1913, Joseph Hansell Merrill served as one of the founding Trustees of South Georgia State Normal College, at Valdosta, GA. In 1922, the school became Georgia State Woman’s College, Valdosta State College in 1950, and Valdosta State University in 1993. Joseph Hansell Merrill was a law partner of Charles Paine Hansell, son of Judge Augustin H. Hansell who spent 50 years on the bench of the of Southern Circuit of Georgia.

Joseph Hansell Merrill, attorney at Thomasville, GA, was a founding Trustee of South Georgia State Normal College (now Valdosta State University).

National Cyclopedia of American Biography
pg 14

MERRILL, Joseph Hansell, lawyer, was born at Thomasville, Ga., October 12, 1862, son of Joseph Styles and Anne (Hall) Merrill. His earliest paternal American ancestor was Nathaniel Merrill, who came from England in 1633 and settled at Ipswich, Mass. His wife was Joanna Kinney, and from them the line of descent is traced through their son Abel and his wife Priscilla Chase; their son Abel and his wife Abigail M. Stevens; their son Abel and his first wife Ruth Kellog; their son Stevens and his wife Mary Noyes; their son Joseph and his wife Sarah Capp, to their son Lemuel Merrill and his wife Eliza Barker, who were the grandparents of Joseph Hansell Merrill. Joseph Styles Merrill, father of our subject and a graduate of Oglethorpe University, was farmer, merchant, and ordinary of Thomas county, Ga. Joseph Hansell Merrill received his preliminary education at Fletcher Institute, Thomasville, where he won a scholarship to the State University. He was graduated at the University of Georgia with distinction in 1880. He studied law at Thomasville under Arthur Patten; was admitted to the bar of Georgia in 1884, and in that year began the practice of his profession at Thomasville as a partner of his preceptor under the firm style of Patten & Merrill, which relation continued three years. During 1887-99 he was the partner of Chas. P. Hansell, under the firm style of Hansell & Merrill. From 1899 to 1915 he practised alone. Since 1915 he has been of the firm of Merrill & Grantham, with Charles Pinckney Grantham. He represents various corporations including railroad companies, and other business interests, largely by yearly contracts, and is rated an authority on land titles, devoting much of his time to this work as a specialty. He was referee in bankruptcy during 1904-08, and judge of the superior courts of the Southern circuit of Georgia in 1910. Of thirteen cases tried by him taken to the Supreme court, eleven were affirmed; two reversed. He has never sought political office, and only accepted the offices above mentioned at the earnest request of the appointing power. His service on the bench elicited much favorable comment from the press. He was called an ideal presiding officer, whose rulings were characterized by sound legal knowledge and understanding, and excellent judgment. Aside from his professional activities he is president of the Thomasville Real Estate & Improvement Co.; vice-president and attorney Citizens Banking & Trust Co., and a director in various other commercial, industrial or financial institutions. He is one of the three Georgia members of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, 1912-19; member of its executive and legislative committees, and is frequently called on to preside over its deliberations in committee of the whole, and he is Georgia member of the general council American Bar Association; past president (1908-09) Georgia State Bar Association, and president of Thomas County Bar Association, past president Thomasville Public Library Association, and Thomasville Young Men’s Christian Association. Politically he is a Democrat, and he is a communicant of the Episcopal church, and has taught a Bible class for thirty years. He was a speaker in various drives for war work during 1917-18 in Georgia and Florida, and he was alumnus orator at the University of Georgia commencement in 1902. A paper by him for the Georgia Bar Association in 1901, “The Book in the Lawyer’s Library,” was widely published and attracted much favorable comment from members of the bar throughout the country. He finds his chief recreation in golf and horseback riding. He was married (1) at Thomasville, Ga., Dec. 30, 1885, to Mattie C., daughter of John G. Pittman, a real estate operator of Thomasville; She died in 1888, and he was married (2) at Thomasville, Nov. 12, 1890, to Blanche, daughter of Hiram R. Tarwater, a merchant of Louisville, Ky. He has one surviving child of the second marriage; Katherine, now Mrs. John Pasco, Monticello, Fla.

Frances Clements’ 1944 Rendezvous with Frogs, Formulas, and Figures

Jack Knight, Valdosta State Slugger

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Judge Richard Augustus Peeples

September 22, 2018 at 9:08 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: 1868 Democratic Convention of the First Congressional District of Georgia, Alapaha GA, Albert Converse, Amy Kirby, Ansel A. Parrish, Augustin H. Hansell, B. F. Breedlove, Baker, Benevolence Baptist Church, Benjamin Jones, Berrien County GA, C.C. Varnedoe, Cabin Creek Church, Camilla Massacre, Carrie Peeples, Cedartown GA, Charles B. Peeples, Charles R. Pendleton, Cincinnatus Peeples, Clyattville GA, Company G, Company G Symon's 1st Georgia Reserves, CSS Alabama, Dr. George Lang, Dr. W. F. Munroe, Duncan Lodge, Duncan O'Quin, Edward Maffitt Anderson, Elizabeth Lyle Camp, Etta Lee Peeples, Fannie Peeples, G. G. Hammond, Georgia Masonic Life Insurance Company, H. Thompson Peeples, Hall County GA, Henry Burroughs Holliday, Henry C. Peeples, Henry Peeples, Henry Thompson Peeples, HMS Deerhound, J. E. Williams, James Dasher, James Dent, James M. Clap, James McBride, James Oglethorpe Varnedoe, James Preston Dent, John Pendergrass, John Robert Slater, Lewis Strickland, Lowndes County Courthouse, Lowndes County GA, Lucius F. Zeigler, Mary Emma Peeples, McPherson Academy, Melissa Camp Peeples, Mercer Baptist Association, Napoleon Alexander Bailey, Nashville Baptist Church, Nashville GA, P. C. Pendleton, P. H. Murray, Peeples Building, Peeples' Store, Peter Early Love, Philip C. Pendleton, R.A. Peeples & Sons Insurance, Remer Y. Lane, Remerton Young Lane, Richard Alexander Peeples, Richard Augustus Peeples, S. B. Godwin, Sally Peeples, Sarah Jane Camp, Sarah Virginia Dent, Savannah GA, Statenville GA, Stegall Plantation, Stephen Bowen Godwin, Symon's 1st Georgia Reserves, Thomas Crawford, Thomasville GA, USS Kersarge, Valdosta Baptist Church, Valdosta GA, Valdosta Immigration Society, W. H. Briggs, W. Jasper Peeples, Walter Dent Peeples, William Cincinnatus Peeples, William H. Dasher, William Kirkland DeGraffenreid, Young Men's Democratic Clubs

Richard Augustus Peeples (1829-1891)

continued from Richard Augustus Peeples, Clerk of the Berrien Courts.

Richard Augustus Peeples (1829-1891)

Richard Augustus Peeples.
Upon the organization of Berrien County in 1856 Richard A. Peeples was elected to serve as the first Clerk of the courts and moved his residence to Nashville, GA. He was instrumental in the construction of the first schoolhouse and the first Baptist church in Nashville. While serving as Clerk of the Berrien courts, R. A. Peeples undertook the study of law.

In 1860, the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad reached Lowndes County, and the town of Valdosta was created at Station No. 15 on the newly laid tracks, the first train, arriving on July 25, 1860. R.A. Peeples moved his family to the new town which then had a population of approximately 120 whites and 46 blacks.

He purchased ten acres of land outside the downtown area from James W. Patterson for the sum of $300. Census records show he was the owner of four enslaved people. His real estate was valued at $2000.00 and personal estate was worth $5,500.00

On being admitted to the bar, he opened an office as one of the first lawyers resident at Valdosta. His law office, and that of William Dasher, were directly across the street from the Lowndes County courthouse. The dozen or so commercial and public buildings which had been constructed by 1863 were of rather unsophisticated wood frame construction, as most of the men were away in the service of the Confederate States Army. J. T. Shelton described the courthouse as “a rough frame building, with a door leading into the court room and another into the small office of the clerk. The interior of the building had plenty of light from its several windows, but not a single coat of paint.“

The children of Richard A Peeples and Sarah Jane Camp were:

Sally Peeples (1850-1938)
Henry C. Peeples (1852-1905)
Charles B. Peeples (1854-1912)
Mary Emma Peeples (1856-1928)

But Sarah J. K. Camp Peeples would not live to see her children grown. She died at the age of thirty-three on July 3, 1863.

Obituary of Sarah Jane Peeples, from the Milledgeville Southern Recorder, July 21, 1863

Milledgeville Southern Recorder
July 21, 1863

DIED

Departed this life, at Valdosta, Lowndes county, on the 2d inst., after a short but painful attack, of a few days, Mrs. SARAH JANE PEEPLES, wife of Richard A. Peeples, Esq., in the thirty-third year of her age.
Beautiful, calm and trusting, passed the years of her earthly pilgrimage; and as quietly and beautifully has passed away, forever, one of the gentle and loved of the earth.
She embraced religion in her fourteenth year and connected herself with the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which she continued an ardent and devoted member up to the period of her departure from this world of trouble; and her death-bed scene was one of those a——— —-nces of the truth of Christian religion, which blesses the dying and reflects back upon the living the subdued, but steady light, which makes glad the heart of the Christian traveler. Husband, children, friends, servants, all were bid adieu, and forever with hopeful trust, and she quietly fell asleep in her Saviour’s arms and gladly exchanged this body of death for robes of light and immortality.
Farewell kindly gentle, and loving daughter, wife, sister, mother, friend. May the strong light of thy truthful, Christian life and womanly virtues long dwell around the vacant hearts and habitation of mourning husband and weeping children. And may the God of all goodness and grace suit this deep and sad bereavement to the increased religious conviction of the stricken ones left behind.

A BROTHER.

Did Sarah J. Peeples die in childbirth? The obituary makes no mention of a pregnancy. But an inscription on her grave marker indicates that she was buried with “little Carrie” – for whom no date of birth or death is given.

Grave of Sarah Jane Camp Peeples and her daughter Caroline “Carrie” Peeples, Sunset Hill Cemetery, Valdosta, GA. Image source: PhillW

In the fall and winter of 1863, when the Berrien Minute Men were with Confederate forces facing the Union Army’s encroachment in Georgia, Valdosta became one of the refugee towns of the South. “As the Union Army advanced in north Georgia and drove toward Atlanta, residents of those areas left their homes,” J. T. Shelton wrote in Pines and Pioneers,

Refugees clogged the railroads to the southward, for those areas were remote from the fighting. Riding in coaches if they could find seats, loading furniture, provisions and families in freight cars if they were fortunate in securing empties, a wave of new residents came into Lowndes county [via the new Atlantic & Gulf Railroad.]…Acting as a real estate agent, lawyer Richard A. Peeples helped many to locate on newly acquired properties. Some newcomers brought their slaves, and they had to find farms large enough to produce food for their laborers. When rations of corn and peas proved insufficient, the slaves ranged through the woods looking for hogs, cattle, even gophers to supplement their diet. Consequently the local people distrusted the imported black men with the strange “primitive” speech, for the south Georgians were not familiar with the coastal dialect. Ultimately, the rice laborers found no place in Lowndes and drifted back to their former homes.

Among those who “refugeed” to Valdosta was Miss Sarah Virginia Dent, of Savannah, whose deceased father Captain James Preston Dent, had been a ship’s pilot in the port of Savannah. Her father died of cholera on July 3, 1850. Her brother was serving in the Confederate States Navy aboard the Confederate raider CSS Alabama.

In the 1864 census for the re-organization of the Georgia Militia Richard A. Peeples claimed an exemption from military service on the grounds that he was a county tax collector. He was 34 years of age.

In early 1864, he was enlisted in the Georgia Militia and stationed at Savannah, GA. Apparently dissatisfied with service in the militia, he sought a commission in the Confederate States Army.

A letter dated May 20, 1864, addressed to Lieutenant R. A. Peeples granted him leave of absence pending a decision on his CSA commission.

Head Qrs Geo Militia
Atlanta May 20, 1864

Lt R A Peeples
Savannah Ga

Lieut,
In reply to your favor 21st inst the Maj Gen Comndg instructs me to reply that you are granted leave of absence from these Head Quarters until the point of elligibility is decided, & if against your right to hold a Commission in CSA, you will at once report to these Head Qrs. By order Maj Gen Wayne Commng
W K deGraffenreid A Ag

Richard Augustus Peeples, Civil War Letter

Peeples returned to Lowndes County where in June 1864 he was serving as the Enrolling Officer for the militia company in the 663rd Militia District. He supplied his own horse and shotgun.

About this time Richard A. Peeples married Miss Sarah Virginia Dent, of Savannah, who had refugeed to Valdosta. Her brother, James G. Dent, was serving in the Confederate Navy as Quartermaster on board the cruiser “Alabama.” Dent was a shipmate of Midshipman Edward Maffitt Anderson, son of Edward C. Anderson whose command at Fort Jackson and the Savannah River Batteries included the Berrien Minute Men. James Dent and Edward Maffitt Anderson were on board the CSS Alabama when she was sunk June 19, 1864, by the USS “Kearsarge”. Anderson was blown overboard, and although injured, managed to keep afloat until rescued. Dent jumped overboard and escaped capture by swimming to the British yacht, Deerhound.

By this second marriage there were born two daughters and three sons, all of whom lived in Valdosta.

The five children of Sarah Virginia Dent and Richad A. Peeples and were:

Walter Dent Peeples (1864-1926)
Etta Lee Peeples (1865-1921)
Richard Alexander Peeples (1867-1927)
Fannie Peeples (1870-1938)
William Cincinnatus Peeples (1872-1947)

Confederate service records show R. A. Peeples was made Captain, Company G, Symon’s 1st Georgia Reserves. He was with the unit for July and August 1864, as indicated on Company Muster Rolls, and was elected Captain on July 30, 1864. Captain Peeples and Company G remained stationed at Savannah until the approach of Sherman’s army. On December 20, 1864, Confederate forces evacuated the city, retreating across the river into South Carolina. The United States Army walked into Savannah without firing a shot, and on December 21, 1864, the Mayor of Savannah surrendered the city to General Sherman.

The Georgia Reserves then moved to Columbia, SC until the surrender of that city on February 17, 1865. After the fall of Columbia Captain Peeples was sent home sick and was unable to rejoin his command before the close of the war.

Captain Richard A. Peeples and the soldiers of Company G were surrendered with the 6th Regiment Georgia Reserves and were considered prisoners of war after May 10, 1865. Peeples was paroled at Thomasville, GA on May 18, 1865.

After the war, Richard Peeples made his life in Valdosta, GA.

[He] followed the profession of law in Valdosta with more than usual success, accumulating sufficient to place his large and growing family in easy circumstances. For twelve years he filled the office of city judge and was one of the influential Democrats and public-spirited citizens of this part of the state. Besides contributing largely, he canvassed the field and raised $2,500.00 to aid in building for the Baptists of Valdosta a house of worship, which was one of the finest in southern Georgia. [He also acted as agent for the church.] Later, he erected, almost unaided, a very neat church building at Clyattville, in Lowndes county. – History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia

This church was, “The Benevolence Baptist Church …organized about 1865 or 1866, by Judge Peeples, and the first building was located on the Henry Brown place. The church building was moved in 1884 to land given by Mr. Charlie Arnold, four miles north on the old Valdosta-Clyattville road. There were twelve charter members. The first pastor was Judge R. A. Peeples. Others were: Messrs. Dave Evans, Mart Knight, High, Pitt Head, Henry Bryant, W. J. Ballen, Davis, Thrasher, Gus Sellars, S.S. Mathis, E. L. Todd, Roy Powell, Harvey Wages, A.C. Pyle, W.C. Taylor, W. J. Harrell, and Pulian Mattox. -History of Lowndes County, Georgia

These four buildings [McPherson Academy, Nashville Baptist Church, Valdosta Baptist Church, Benevolence Baptist Church] are monuments of his Christian zeal and philanthropy.

In 1867, R.A. Peeples was among a group of white Lowndes citizens wrestling with the new realities of Emancipation. The slave economy of the South was wrecked. J. T. Shelton in Pines and Pioneers observed “In the unsettled conditions of 1865, 1866, and 1867, a grower found it difficult to make cotton; certainly the workers had a hard time finding enough to eat.” Resisting the conditions imposed upon them by Reconstruction the white planters sought alternatives to employing Freedmen. On September 12, 1867, Peeples along with Col W. H. Manning, Henry Burroughs Holliday, Captain John R. Stapler, William Roberts, John Washington Harrell, A. McLeod, Hugh McCauley Coachman, John Charles Wisenbaker, W. Zeigler, Major Philip C. Pendleton, Col. S. W. Baker, James A. Dasher, Sr., David Peter Gibson, James T. Bevill, D. J. Jones, Archibald Averett, Charles Henry Millhouse Howell, and J. H. Tillman convened to form the Valdosta Immigration Society. The purpose of this organization was to procure emigrant labor of “the kind wanted”, by sending an agent direct to Europe to obtain them. It was also the emphatic opinion of the meeting that no planter ought to employ a freedman who has been discharged by his employer for misconduct, but that the freedman should have a recommendation from his former employer. Major Pendleton was selected as the agent to make the trip.

In 1867, R. A. Peeples was elected as a director of the Georgia Masonic Life Insurance company.

He was a member of the Democratic Party of Lowndes County. In March 1868 he was a vice president of the Democratic Convention of the First Congressional District of Georgia, which convened to elect delegates to the national convention in New York.

Following the April 4, 1868 bombing of a political rally of Freedmen held by congressional candidate J. W. Clift at the Lowndes County courthouse, R.A. Peeples chaired a civic meeting condemning the actions of both the bombers and the candidate. This event followed just four days on the Camilla Massacre, where 12 freedmen were murdered in what is generally regarded as the first strike of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia.

In July 1868 Richard A. Peeples was a Lowndes County delegate to the Democratic state convention to nominate party candidates for the President of the United States. In late August 1868, Peeples, Remerton Y. Lane and Iverson Griffin, one of the men who had been implicated in the Clift Bombing at Valdosta in April, were among the organizers of a political rally at Valdosta to be held August 27. The announcement in the Valdosta South Georgia Times read, “there will be a free barbecue at Valdosta. Speakers from a distance may be expected. Let every man, white and colored, turn out.”

At the Democratic Convention of the First Congressional District, held September 16, 1868, at Blackshear, GA, Richard A. Peeples and P.C. Pendleton were delegates from Lowndes County, along with W.H. Dasher, James Dasher, James M. Clap and G.G. Hammond. Benjamin Jones, J. E. Williams and H. T. Peeples were the delegates from Berrien County. Delegates from Appling, Bryan, Chatham, Camden, Charlton, Clinch, Coffee, Liberty, Montgomery, Pierce, Telfair, Laurens, Ware, Wayne, Brooks, Colquitt, Echols, Thomas, and Screven, as well as “colored delegates appointed by Democratic Clubs” were also seated for the convention [The Young Men’s Democratic Clubs were the public political wing of the KKK]. Richard A. Peeples offered a resolution, unanimously adopted, that the purpose of the convention was the nomination of a candidate for Congress in the election to be held March 4, 1869. On the third ballot the convention nominated Augustin H. Hansell as the candidate. The following day, the state House of Representatives in Georgia passed a bill permitting “none but intelligent persons to sit on juries, and exclud[ing] negroes from the jury box.”

Three or four times he [Richard A. Peeples] was elected alderman of Valdosta, and, once, was elected to the mayoralty. At the organization of the County Court of Lowndes county in 1874, he was appointed Judge, and …held the position ever since, having been reappointed once; and his decisions were seldom reversed by higher courts.

He was ordained in 1876, at Statenville, in Echols county, the presbytery consisting of Elders N. A. Bailey, James McBride, E. B. Carroll and R, W. Phillips. He became pastor of the Statenville church, and, afterwards, of the neighboring churches of Macedonia and Bethlehem. He was for three years Chairman of the Sunday-school Committee of the Mercer Association, and through his instrumentality, mainly, the cause of Sunday-schools was greatly promoted in the eastern part of the Association. Indeed, all his time, which could be spared from his judicial duties, was given to this work, into which he entered most enthusiastically, organizing, by his own efforts, not less than eighteen Sunday-schools. Attended by the earnest-minded partner of his life, he would journey from neighborhood to neighborhood in a Jersey spring-wagon, carrying along an elegant parlor organ, advocating the Sunday-school cause, and furnishing such sweet music and singing such beautiful songs, that all hearts were enchanted. Such zeal and capacity could not but succeed.

Mr. Peeples is a man of liberal views, and … a broad and comprehensive mind. His reasoning powers are of a high order, superinduced by an inquiring disposition, and by a habit of analyzing, in detail, every thought and subject presented to him. The creatures of his own brain, as far as such can be the case considering that men are but divine instruments, his sermons are characterized by clearness and independence of thought, rather than by impassioned eloquence. In religion, as well as in the affairs of the world, he thinks and acts for himself, with comparative indifference to the opinions of others, being guided by his own judgment. In his speech and manner he is frank and candid, while deceit is utterly foreign to his nature. Five feet and nine inches high, and weighing one hundred and ninety-six pounds, he is a man of robust constitution, and bids fair for a much longer life of usefulness. – History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia

In addition to his legal, civic, and religious work, R. A. Peeples was an accomplished farmer and businessman.

Atlanta Constitution
December 19, 1882

Valdosta, December 18.
…Judge R. A. Peeples is one of our largest truck farmers. He is now making quite extensive preparations, and will plant next year 130 acres in melons, 10 acres in cucumbers, and about 12 acres in Irish potatoes, besides two acres in cabbages. The Judge has experience in this industry, and your correspondent will have some interesting facts to submit in a few months in regard to the result of his large operations.

His brother, Henry T. Peeples, farmed in Berrien County, GA where he was the largest producer of rice. His nephew, Henry B. Peeples, was one of the early teachers in Berrien County.

About 1885, Judge R. A. Peeples built a brick commercial building at 200 N. Patterson St. to house R.A. Peeples & Sons, which he had established in 1872 as Valdosta’s first insurance company. Today, the main entrance of the Peeples Building faces Patterson Street, but originally the main entrance was on Central Avenue. This building in the 1890s was the home of Dr. W. F. Munroe’s drug store; The doctor had a popular soda fountain and was the first to serve fruit ices. This building now houses Kings Grill.

Judge Richard A. Peeples died on Sunday, July 19, 1891. The Valdosta Times reported his death.

Valdosta Times
Saturday, July 25, 1891

Judge Peeples Dead. He Passed Suddenly Away On Sunday Morning Last. Brief Sketch Of A Remarkable Career. Judge R.A. Peeples is dead!

He was called away suddenly at two o’clock Sunday morning last. Heart disease seems to have been the cause. On Sunday morning the 11th inst., he was suddenly attacked with a very severe pain in the region of the chest. He suffered intensely, and Dr. Lang was sent for, but before he came the trouble passed off, and the judge was riding about town apparently in usual health a few hours after. On the Thursday following, he had another but lighter attack which soon disappeared. On Saturday, in response to a petition from a colored Baptist Church in the lower part of the county, he got into his buggy and drove down to the Stegall Plantation to settle a disturbance in the Church. Mrs. Peeples was uneasy about him, and after failing to dissuade him from going, sent Jim Johnson, a colored employee, after him in a road cart. The Judge went to the colored Church, but began to feel so badly he was unable to assist the colored people, and started on the return home. He told Jim several times to drive faster, that he was feeling very badly. He got home about dark, and when the anxious wife met him at the gate he said he was quite sick. He refused all importunities to send for the doctor, or some of his grown children living in town, saying that he was not near so sick as he had been. He retired but did not seem to sleep well – his wife keeping a lonely vigil, while their two younger children slept unsuspecting, in other rooms.

About two o’clock Mrs. Peeples noticed that he was breathing badly, and at the same instant, she heard him slap his hands together, probably to attract attention, and when she got to his bedside he was speechless. His son Cincinnatus was immediately dispatched for a doctor, but the Judge breathed his last, without a struggle, before the young man reached the front gate. When he died, no one was in the house but Mrs. Peeples and their daughter, Miss Fannie. Kind neighbors and friends soon gathered in and performed such services as they could for the afflicted family.

During Sunday scores of friends and acquaintances called to see for the last time a face and form which had been a prominent figure in this community for thirty odd years. Among them were a large number of our colored people, with whom he was always popular. The funeral services were conducted at the house at 9 o’clock on Monday morning. Rev. P.H. Murray, the Pastor of the Baptist Church, was absent from the city, and couldn’t be reached by a telegram on Sunday; and the Judge’s warm friend, Rev. B.F. Breedlove, Pastor of the Methodist Church, officiated in his stead, assisted by Rev. Mr. Reaves. The earnest and eloquent words of the preacher were brief but impressive. The house and yard and street in front of the house of mourning were filled with sympathizing friends. The active pall bearers were Messrs. C.C. Varnedoe, S.B. Godwin, L.F. Zeigler, J.R. Slater, A.A. Parrish and C.R. Pendleton. The honorary pall bearers, Messrs. R.Y. Lane, W.H. Briggs, A. Converse, Thos. Crawford, J.O. Varnedoe and Louis Strickland. The funeral procession was perhaps the largest that ever moved through our streets to the cemetery. According to his frequently expressed desire his remains were laid away with the simplest ceremony, and without display.

Although some of his nine children lived many miles away all were present when this last service for his mortal remains were performed. Judge Peeples would have been 62 years old on the 14th of next September. He was one of the very first settlers in Valdosta, and has always been intimately associated with the growth and prosperity of the town. Once its Mayor, several times an Alderman, and always a public-spirited, hard working citizen, he has done perhaps more than any one man to make Valdosta the town she is to-day. For sixteen years he was Judge of our County Court, and during that long period he made a model Judge. His decisions were appealed to a higher court but seven times, and he was reversed but three. This record of able and eminent service stands without a parallel, perhaps.

Grave of Richard A Peeples, Sunset Cemetery, Valdosta, GA. Image source: Cat.

Richard Augustus Peeples, Clerk of the Berrien Courts

Rice Production in Wiregrass Georgia

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The Sulky Race

July 21, 2018 at 12:37 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Franklinville GA, Lowndes County GA, Southern Circuit Court of Georgia, Thomasville GA

From The Bench and Bar of Georgia published in 1858 comes a tale of woe on the old Southern Circuit Court of Georgia. The time frame given in the story would seem to place the event sometime in the 1830s. The judge on the bench of the Southern Circuit in that decade might have been Thaddeus G. Holt, Arthur A. Morgan, or Carleton B. Cole.

While sketching with a free hand, the author will venture to relate a very laughable scene which occurred on the road from Franklin [Franklinville. GA] (the old county site of Lowndes) to Thomasville, — the like of which is not on record. Travel on the circuit, in the days referred to, was altogether in sulkies or on horseback. There were no buggies in use then. On a bright Sunday morning, as half a dozen sulkies and two or three outriders, forming the main column of the Southern bar, were proceeding on the march, all the wayfarers fresh and cheerful, a large fox-squirrel was seen to cross the road and ascend an old pine stump ten or fifteen feet high. Here was an opportunity for sport; and with a simultaneous leap from their sulkies came the men of law to chunk the squirrel from his retreat, — the horses being left alone, without any fastening, in the road. From the discharge of pine-knots at the squirrel, and the hollering to boot, one of the horses got alarmed and set off briskly without his driver. All the other horses followed the example; and such a race of sulkies had never been, and never will be again. Away they sped in the open pine-woods. Occasionally a wheel would strike a stump or a large root, and then there would be a rattling, as if to stimulate the horses to their utmost diligence. The race drew gradually to a close, — or, at least, the sulkies were smashed and scattered about, some against saplings, some against large trees, and one was shivered into fragments on a log. Here the vehicles retired from the contest. Not so the horses. They kept on, seriously terrified, with harness flying in all directions.

While this movement was in full blast, the gentlemen of the law stood their ground. They saw it was a grand ruin, and that their only consolation was to be revenged on the squirrel, the innocent cause of their misfortune. The attack was renewed more fiercely than ever. Pine-knots and a prodigious expenditure of lungs on the part of his assailants brought down his squirrelship, bleeding and lifeless, at their feet. One of the party gathered up the trophy, and they all proceeded to view the race-track. Here one would pick up an overcoat, another an umbrella, one a whip; several identified their cushions; and at decent intervals spokes and segments of a wheel, portions of the seat, a loose dashboard, pieces of shaft, and other relics, were strewed along to show the battle-ground. Then sulky after sulky — some capsized, others resting with one wheel in the air, others so badly crushed that the owners could scarcely recognise them — would appear, until the whole number was answered. The trunks generally retained their strapping without material injury.

The law-travellers walked to a farm house, where they reported their difficulty, and asked for a wagon and team to take them and their baggage to Thomasville, some twenty miles. The request was readily granted, and in this conveyance the judge and his bar drove up to the hotel after nightfall. Their detention was explained amidst roars of laughter, in which our Florida brethren joined heartily. In the course of two or three days the horses were all brought in, and the remains of the sulkies taken to the carriage-shop, where there was a general fixing up, — the harness-maker also receiving his full share of patronage. Such was the squirrel-frolic of the Southern bar. Nothing of the kind has occurred since. At each subsequent riding, the ground has continued to be pointed out, with divers localities well remembered by the participants in the sport, though more than twenty years have intervened. The adventure will pass as a tradition sacred to more primitive times.

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A Plank Road for Troupville

March 31, 2018 at 12:36 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Bainbridge GA, Flint River, Little River, Monticello FL, Newport Florida, Okefenokee Swamp, Plank Road Boom, Satilla Plank Road Company, Satilla River, Savannah GA, St. Marks River, Tallahassee FL, Thomasville GA, Troupville GA, William M. Gillespie

In 1852, when all of Berrien County and the site of Ray City, GA, and other surrounding counties were still a part of old Lowndes County, the seat of county government was at Troupville, GA.

Troupville

The people of Troupville aspired to a transportation connection that would link them to the national economy. Troupville already had a stage road, and a mail route, but the area’s main thoroughfare, the Coffee Road, lay 12 miles to the northwest. Troupville, nestled in the fork of the Withlacoochee River and the Little River, unrealistically dreamed of a river way connection to float goods down to the Gulf of Mexico. The folks of this section worked to get a railroad line through the town, but when it did come in 1857 the railroad would miss the mark by four miles.

Before that, in 1852, Troupville awaited the construction of a Plank Road which had been authorized by the State legislature.

Plank Road construction

The Act to incorporate the Satilla Plank Road Company, approved January 22, 1850, was a part of the decade-long Plank Road Boom which began in 1844.

An Act to Incorporate the Satilla Plank Road Company

The proposed Satilla Plank Road was to run from the Satilla River, through the Okefenokee Swamp to Troupville, then on to Thomasville and on to the steamboat docks on the Flint River at Bainbridge, GA. At Thomasville, it could connect with the Florida and Georgia Plank Road, already under construction, which ran to Monticello, FL then on to Newport, FL on the St. Marks River.

Savannah Daily Morning News
January 20, 1852

A Plank Road through the Okefenokee Swamp

The Committee on Internal Improvements in the House, have reported in favor for a plank road through the Okefenokee Swamp to some point on the Flint River. According to the representations of the report, the enterprise is one of vast importance to Southern and South-western Georgia. The Bill reported proposes to grant the company one half of the unsurveyed portion of the swamp on condition that they build a good and sufficient road through the same. The following are the advantages as enumerated in the report:

Looking upon the map of Georgia, we see the St. Ilia [Satilla], a bold river stretching from the sea coast inland, in a western direction, and navigable for steamers for forty-five miles. Measuring from thence, we pass in almost a direct line through the Okefenokee swamp, through Clinch county to Troupville, in Lowndes county, from thens to Thomasville, in Thomas county, to Bainbridge on the Flint river. The distance from the St. Illa to Bainbridge is one hundred and sixty miles.
Diverging to the left from Troupville, we reach Monticello, thence to Tallahassee in Florida. The distance from the St. Illa to Tallahassee is one hundred and forty miles. From Monticello to Newport, (the sea port of the Gulf,) the distance is twenty-seven miles, between which places we are informed, a plank road is now being constructed, and some eighteen or twenty miles of which are already completed.
From the St. Illa to Monticello, the distance is one hundred and thirteen miles, over which, if a plank road were constructed, would give a plank road connection between the shipping port on the Gulf, with a shipping point on the Atlantic side, the entire distance being one hundred and forty miles.
We are informed the usual rate of freight on plank roads is one cent per bale of cotton, for each mile.
The freight, then, from Bainbridge to the St. Illa, would be one dollar and sixty cents per bale, and from Tallahassee to the St. Illa, would be one dollar and forty cents per bale, the respective distance being, as before stated, one hundred and sixty miles, and one hundred and forty miles from Bainbridge and Tallahassee to the St. Illa river.
From the St. Illa, the run can be made to Savannah by steamboats in ten hours, and a fair average rate of freight on cotton, would be forty cents per bale.
Thus it will be seen that cotton can be transported through this route from Bainbridge to Savannah, from two dollars to two dollars twenty-five cents per bale, and from Tallahassee (in Florida) to Savannah, at one dollar and eighty cents to two dollars per bale.
The Okefenokee Swamp, stretching as it does from North to South, forty-five to sixty miles, from Georgia into Florida, intercepts and cuts off the trade from a large and fertile portion of our State, and forces its products for shipment, through the Gulf ports in Florida, where the charges attendant on shipment are peculiarly extravagant.
There is not a planter in Southern or South Western part of our State, but can bear testimony of the heavy charges, high rates of freight and insurance, and vexatious delays attendant on shipments of their produce from the Gulf ports.
We have before us evidence from a planter of Thomas county, a member of this House, stating that the cost of sending his cotton to Thomasville, through the Gulf ports, to New York, and selling the same there, averages eight dollars per bale.
It is apparent, then, to your committee, that by opening a plank road communication through the proposed rout, would cause a saving to the planters of the Southern portion of this State of from four to five dollars per bale, and the result would be that the produce of this State, being shipped through the ports of Florida, would in turn draw the products of Florida to Savannah, our own shipping port.

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Plank Road Boom

The Plank Road Boom was an economic boom that happened in the United States. Largely in the Eastern United States and New York, the boom lasted from 1844 to the mid 1850s. In about 10 years, over 3,500 miles of plank road were built in New York alone- enough road to go from Manhattan to California, and more than 10,000 miles of plank road were built countrywide.

The Plank Road Boom swept across Georgia, as it did the rest of the nation. At least 16 Plank Road Companies were incorporated in Georgia. By 1847, plank streets were being constructed in Savannah, connecting warehouses and wharves with the railroad. Over the next several years plank roads were planned all over Georgia. In 1849, North Carolina undertook the construction of a plank road connecting Fayetteville, NC to Savannah, GA. In Georgia, a plank road was proposed to run from Griffin to West Point. Another plank road was proposed from Barnesville, GA to the Montgomery Road at Macon. A plank road was proposed from Washington to Elberton. In 1850, a bill was introduced “to incorporate the Dahlonega and Marietta Turnpike and Plank Road Company; and also to incorporate the Cumming and Atlanta Turnpike and Plank Road Company.” Also, “to incorporate the Cobb county and Alabama Turnpike or Plank Road Company; also, authorizing the construction of a Plank Road from Washington, in Wilkes county, to some point on the Georgia Rail Road.” A plank road was proposed from Albany to Oglethorpe. Among others planned were the Macon, Perry and Albany Plank Road, the Ogeechee Plank Road, the Columbus and Greenville Plank Road, the Atlanta and Sweetwater Plank Road, the Henderson and Marthasville Plank Road, and the Columbus and Lannahassee Plank Road.

Proponents of plank roads stated that plank roads would make it much easier to carry goods and travel in general. They were stated to be 1/3 the cost of gravel roads. Plank roads were said to give a return on investment of 20% They also claimed that the roads will last for at least eight years, and if they don’t, that will be because of more people travelling on the road, which would thus result in more tolls collected. Much of the plank road building occurred in places where lumber was comparatively affordable due to thriving timber industries, as wood was usually over sixty percent of a plank road’s cost.

National newspapers helped spread the plank road craze. In 1847, Hunts Merchants Magazine published an article titled “Plank Roads-New Improvement.” In 1849, Niles’ Weekly Register said plank roads were “growing into universal favor.” in the 1850s, the New York Tribune praised their ease of construction and said that the roads added a great amount to the transportation abilities of the New York. In March 1850, Scientific American said they viewed plank roads as a means of “completely reforming the interior or rural transit trade of our country.” In 1852, Hunts Merchants Magazine published an article titled “The First Plank Road Movement,” it extolled plank roads.

In the list of great improvements which have given to this age the character which it will bear in history above all others-the age of happiness to the people-the plank road will have a prominent place, and it deserves it…the plank road is of the class of canals and railways. They are the three great inscriptions graven on the earth by the hand of modern science…

— Hunts Merchants’ Magazine

They also published an editorial saying “every section of the country should be lined with these roads.” Other written items include “Observations on Plank Roads” by George Geddes, “History, Structure and Statistics of Plank Roads in the United States and Canada,” by William Kingsford, and “A Manual of the Principles and Practice of Road-Making” by William M. Gillespie.

It does not appear that the Satilla Plank Road was ever constructed.

Isham Jordan Fought Indians, Opened Early Wiregrass Roads

Reuben Marsh, Coffee Road Ferryman

The Valdosta Special opened Georgia & Florida Railroad, October 1, 1908

Coffee Road Led to Creation of Lowndes County

Coffee’s Road Passed Seven Miles West of Ray City

Clabberville Road ~ Ray City, GA

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Berrien Minute Men at Brunswick ~ July, 1861

July 8, 2017 at 1:13 am (Berrien Minute Men, Civil War, Knight Family)
Tags: 13th Regiment Georgia Infantry, 26th Regiment Georgia Volunteer Infantry, 29th Georgia Regiment, Atlantic & Gulf Railroad, Berrien Minute Men, Branchville VA, Brig John Welsh, Brooks County GA, Brunswick & Florida Railroad, Brunswick GA, Brunswick Rifles, C.S.S. Jeff Davis, Camden Rifles, Camp Semmes GA, Cary W. Styles, College Park GA, Company A 29th Georgia Regiment, Cox Seminary, Echol, Edwin A. Jelks, General Lafayette McLaws, Glynn Guards, John Bernard, John Welsh, Levi J. Knight, Lowndes Volunteers, Martha Love, Milltown GA, Ocklocknee Light Infantry, Paul J. Semmes, Peter Early Love, Petersburg VA, Piscola Volunteers, Reverend Robert Flemming, Robert Hamilton Harris, Savannah GA, Schooner S. J. Waring, Seaboard Guards, Thomasville GA, Thomasville Guards, Weldon NC, William Tillman, Wiregrass Minute Men

Berrien County in the Civil War
Berrien Minute Men at Brunswick, July, 1861

Civil War letter of Robert Harris, 29th Georgia Regiment, while encamped at Brunswick, GA.

Civil War letter of Robert Hamilton Harris, 29th Georgia Regiment, while encamped at Brunswick, GA.

Even before the secession of Georgia, Levi J. Knight, pioneer settler of Ray City, GA, had gathered a company of men, styled the Berrien Minute Men, to serve as volunteer infantry. Knight, an old Indian fighter, politician, railroad investor, developer and social leader of south Georgia, anticipated of the formation of the Confederate States Army. In the winter of 1860, he convened a meeting at Nashville, GA, seat of Berrien County which then included present day Lanier, Atkinson, Cook and Tift counties, as well as present day Berrien, where the company endorsed the Resolutions of the Berrien Minute Men. In the spring of 1861, the Berrien Minute Men encamped and drilled at Nashville, GA. On May 17, a Grand Military Rally was held at Milltown (now Lakeland), GA on behalf of the Berrien Minute Men.

The following month, Knight’s company of Berrien Minute Men was ordered to report for muster into the Thirteenth Regiment of Georgia Volunteers.

<em>Savannah Daily Morning News</em>, July 24, 1861 reports Berrien Minute Men have received orders to join the formation of the 13th Georgia Regiment, in replacement of Colonel Paul J. Semmes regiment. Semmes regiment, the 2nd GA Regiment, which had been on station at Brunswick, GA had been ordered to Virginia.

Savannah Daily Morning News, July 24, 1861 reports Berrien Minute Men have received orders to join the formation of the 13th Georgia Regiment, in replacement of Colonel Paul J. Semmes regiment. Semmes regiment, the 2nd GA Regiment, which had been on station at Brunswick, GA had been ordered to Virginia.

Savannah Daily Morning News
July 24, 1861

        The following named companies will compose the Thirteenth Regiment Georgia Volunteers, which will take the place of Colonel Semmes’ regiment, now under orders for Virginia, viz:

        Wiregrass Minute Men, Capt. C. W. Styles,
        Brunswick Riflemen, Captain B. F. Harris, Brunswick.
        Lowndes Volunteers, Capt. G. T. Hammond, Valdosta.
        Ochlocknee Light Infantry, Captain W. J. Young, Thomasville.
        St. Mary’s Volunteers, Capt. A. B. Dufour, Darien.
        Seaboard Guards, Captain John C. Nichols, Waynesville.
        Berrien Minute Men, Captain Levi J. Knight, Nashville.
        Piscola Volunteers, Captain William A. Lane, Quitman. –Atlanta Intelligencer, July 21st.

Per orders, Captain L. J. Knight took his company of Berrien Minute Men to the Georgia coast where they and other volunteer companies from south Georgia counties were garrisoned at Camp Semmes for the defense of the port at Brunswick, GA. Camp Semmes, south of the city, had been established by Colonel Paul J. Semmes, commanding officer of the 2nd Regiment Georgia Volunteer Infantry. The defense of Brunswick had been the responsibility of the 2nd Regiment until that unit was ordered to Virginia.

Around mid-June, General Lafayette McLaws, Brigadier General A. R. Lawton, and Captain William W. Echols had visited Brunswick to inspect the troops at Camp Semmes. Colonel Semmes and the 2nd Regiment had established security checkpoints for all vessels entering the port of Brunswick.

July 4, 1861 Colonel Semmes publishes a circular with requirements for all ships making port at Brunswick, GA. The Berrien Minute Men were among the companies detailed for defense of Brunswick.

Savannah Republican
July 8, 1861

CAMP SEMMES.
Brunswick, GA., 4th July, 1861.

Public attention is respectfully directed to the annexed circular, and notice given that all boats are expected to conform to its requirements. Passengers are ordered not to take passage in any boat until assured by its master of his intention not to disregard the same; and in order to avoid accidents or detention to themselves, to compel, if need be, his compliance therewith.

PAUL J. SEMMES,
Col. 2d Reg’t G.V., comd’g Camp Semmes
and the adjacent coast.

Circular.

HEAD-QUARTERS 2D REG’T G.V.,
CAMP SEMMES, BRUNSWICK, GA., June 25, 1861.

         I. On and after this day, all boats or vessels of any description, passing up or down the river, will be required to set their colors, or, if they have none, to heave to and report themselves to the officer of the day, at Camp Semmes, during the day.
        After sun-down every vessel will heave to and reply to the questions of the sentinel or officer of the day. One shot will be fired across the bow of any vessel attempting to pass without heaving to, when ordered, and if, after one shot, she attempts to proceed, she will be fired into.
         II. The sentinels on the posts facing the river will be instructed to hail all vessels passing up or down the river which do not set their colors, during the day, and to hail all vessels or boats after sun-down as follows: Steamer, or schooner, or boat, ahoy! (as the case may be,) heave to! The sentinel will then call for the corporal of the guard, who will in turn call for the officer of the day or officer of the guard. The officer of the day will inquire, “What boat (or other craft) is that? – where are you from? – Where are you bound? -have you anything to communicate?” &c. If the replies be satisfactory, the officer of the day will permit the vessel to pass on. If any vessel, after a fair challenge attempt to pass, the sentinel will fire across her bow, and call – “The Guard:”

By order of
Col. Paul J. Semmes

W. G. Clemons, 2d Lieut. Co. G.,
Acting Adjutant.

Among the companies replacing the 2nd Regiment at Brunswick were the Berrien Minute Men with the Thomasville Guards, Piscola Volunteers, Seaboard Guards, Brunswick Rifles, Glynn Guards, and Wiregrass Minute Men.

It is a noble thing to fight for our country, and glorious to die in her cause…O, who wants not be a soldier! ~ Robert Hamilton Harris, Thomasville Guards, July, 1861

While encamped there, Robert Hamilton Harris, of the Thomasville Guards, described the camp and his experiences in a letter to Martha (Mattie) Love, his girl back home in Thomas County, GA. She was a daughter of Peter Early Love, U. S. Congressman and former Solicitor General serving old Lowndes County, GA.

A portion of this correspondence has been preserved and scanned in the collection of Civil War letters of Robert Hamilton Harris, housed in the Digital Library of Georgia. Unfortunately, the extant portion of this letter is not dated. However, we can surmise from contemporaneous events described by Harris that it was written about mid-July 1861.

The partial letter begins in mid-sentence with the description of a ship:

the prize (a boat) before she reaches Savannah. Our men will probably blow her up should any U. S. vessel attack them. She is laden with near $40000 worth of sugar, and was captured by the Jeff Davis on the coast of Newfoundland.

This “prize” was the Yankee brig John Welsh which was captured by the Confederate privateer C.S.S. Jeff Davis at about 6:00 A. M. on Saturday, July 6, 1861. This event was widely reported in Confederate and Union newspapers. According the Civil War Naval Encyclopedia, privateers were privately owned vessels sailing under special commissions from their governments in time of war that authorized them to capture ships of an enemy power, be they warships or merchant vessels. The privateer Jeff Davis was reconnoitering off Delaware when she discovered the merchantman John Welsh. The John Welsh had departed Trinidad, Cuba, on the 22nd of June for Falmouth, England, having on board a cargo of 300 hogsheads and 475 boxes of sugar. She was owned by John Welsh, esq., of Philadelphia. The value of the ship and cargo was estimated at $75,000. The officers and crew of the John Welsh were taken aboard the Jeff Davis as prisoners and a prize crew was installed. They sailed the John Welsh to Savannah where she was to be condemned as a prize and sold at auction. Although Robert Harris’s letter made no mention of it, the following day, July 7, the privateer Jeff Davis captured the schooner S. J. Waring and detailed a prize master and crew to take her to Beaufort, SC. Three of the original crew, two seamen and the African-American cook, William Tillman, were left on board. Tillman, however, managed to retake command of the ship, killing the Confederate prize master, first mate and second mate. For his successful action in retaking the ship and sailing her back to New York, William Tillman became the first African-American hero of the Civil War, and received a reward of $6000.00

Harris’ letter goes on to describe the volunteer infantry companies at the Brunswick rendezvous, and the camp life of the men. This gathering of the companies was prior to their official mustering in to the Confederate States Army:

There are seven companies now encamped in Brunswick, viz. the Thomasville companies, the Berrien Minute Men, Piscola Volunteers, Brunswick Riflemen, Seaboard Guards, and the Wiregrass Minute Men, all of them very fine companies. We will soon be ready for double our number of Federals, and then we will feel easier.
Our boys seem to enjoy themselves, and I know I do. We have very hard fare, and have to endure a great many hardships, but we are healthy and have fine bathing facilities. Some of us are in the water nearly all the time. I plunge in regularly every morning at daylight, and spend half an hour or so in the delightful exercise of swimming, after which I don’t go in again during the day. I think this is the best plan. A very large shark showed himself in our bathing place this morning, but we all went in as soon as he left, for we can’t forego this healthful pleasure because we happen to see a shark in the neighborhood.

Four of these companies, the Piscola Volunteers, Brunswick Rifles, Seaboard Guards, and Wiregrass Minute Men, would later be reorganized into the 26th Georgia Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, along with companies from Lowndes, Ware, Clinch, McIntosh, Pierce and Twiggs counties.

Harris’ letter mentions that one man of his company, John Bernard, had attempted suicide by cutting his throat. But Dr. [Edwin A.] Jelks of the Piscola Volunteers [Brooks County, GA] was able to suture the wound and keep the man alive, at least temporarily. Jelks, who was a relative of Harris’ intended, went on to become Surgeon of the 26th GA Regiment. The 26th Georgia was also the regiment Albert Douglass would join after deserting the Berrien Minute Men in 1862.

Harris also included with his letter a sketch of Brunswick, showing the position of the regimental camp south of the city.

1861 map of Brunswick, GA showing location of the encampment of Captain Levi J. Knight's company of volunteer infantry, the Berrien Minute Men.

Robert Hamilton Harris’ 1861 sketch of Brunswick, GA showing location of the encampment of Captain Levi J. Knight’s company of volunteer infantry, the Berrien Minute Men.

The camp was situated south of the city on the bank of the Turtle River, with the river front on the west, cedar groves to the north and south, and woods to the east. The Berrien Minute Men (marked B.M.M.) were positioned on the northeast corner of the regimental grounds with the rest of the companies on the north side and on the riverfront. The regiment kept a picket guard on the southernmost tip of the peninsula. The marsh on the east side of the peninsula Harris incorrectly labeled “Bloody Marsh” -the actual Bloody Marsh is on the east side of St. Simons Island. Brunswick’s wharves on the Turtle River are shown, as well as Oak Grove Cemetery, the Darien Road, the Waynesville Road.

Harris’ map also depicts a “prize” ship anchored off the Brunswick wharf. This may have been a U.S. vessel captured by the privateer schooner Triton, of Brunswick, GA. The Triton was the very first privateer to be commissioned by the Confederate government. Confederate president Jefferson Davis had authorized privateers on April 17, 1861 and the Triton was commissioned on May 10, 1861, the day the orders were published. The Triton was a small, 30-ton schooner, armed with a single six-pounder gun.

The railroad shown on Harris’ map would have been the shortline Brunswick & Florida Railroad, which connected at Glenmore, GA with the Savannah, Albany & Gulf Railroad and the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad. The Atlantic & Gulf was intended to serve as a “Main Trunk” for the two coastal railroads, and it was planned to stretch across south Georgia to steamboat docks on the Flint River at Bainbridge , creating a passenger and freight connection to the Gulf of Mexico. By 1860, the Atlantic and Gulf had reached the site of Valdosta, GA, bypassing the Lowndes County seat at Troupville, GA.

Civil War era map of the Brunswick & Florida Railroad, running from Yankee Town (now Waycross), GA to Brunswick, GA - Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.

Civil War era map of the Brunswick & Florida Railroad, running to Brunswick, GA – Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.

The captain of the Berrien Minute Men, Levi J. Knight, was an investor in both the Brunswick & Florida Railroad, and the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad. The state of Georgia had also invested half a million dollars in Brunswick & Florida stock because of the railroad’s perceived strategic value. An advantage of these connections, it was said, was that the railroad could move men and materials from ports on the Gulf of Mexico to the Brunswick port on the Atlantic in 24 hours “in case of war between this country and a foreign nation.” The B&F connection to the Savannah, Albany & Gulf also provided convenient transportation between Brunswick and Savannah, GA.

The Savannah newspapers noted that the Berrien Minute Men and the rest of the 13th Regiment arrived in Savannah on July 30, 1861 via railroad. At that time, they received equipment issued by the Confederate army.

Savannah Daily Morning News
July 31, 1861

Arrival of Troops
The Berrien Minute Men and Piscola Volunteers (Brooks county) arrived yesterday afternoon by the Albany and Gulf Railroad, and are encamped, together with the other companies belonging to the 13th Georgia regiment, on the parade ground. The following is a list of the officers of the former:
Captain – Levy J. Knight
1st Lieutenant – Thomas S. Wylly
2nd Lieutenant – Wm. Giddens
3rd Lieutenant – John C. Lamb
Ensign – Wm. Y. Hill
They number some eighty-five men, rank and file.
Those of the latter are:
Captain – Wm. A. Lane
1st Lieutenant – J. D. Morton
2nd Lieutenant – M. J. Culpepper
3rd Lieutenant – J. M. Rushin
This corps numbers some seventy men.

In August, the seven companies Harris noted at Camp Semmes were joined by the Camden Rifles and the Glynn Guards. On Saturday, August 19, 1861 these nine companies were formally mustered into the 13th Georgia Regiment, under the command of Colonel Cary W. Styles, of Ware county.

It appears that the Lowndes Volunteers and St. Mary’s Volunteers were late for reporting at Camp Semmes, and were not mustered into the 13th GA Regiment. The Lowndes Volunteers later mustered into the 26th GA Regiment. Another Lowndes company (Company I, 12th Georgia Regiment) under the command of Captain James W. Patterson was already in Virginia. General McLaws encountered them June 21, 1861 at Branchville, VA.

In a letter written from Petersburg, VA McLaws described traveling with the Captain Patterson’s company of Lowndes company over the period from about June 21 to June 24.

We succeeded in starting [from Weldon, NC] about 8 P.M. in an extra train consisting of twenty freight cars and one passenger car. I have said we, because on arriving at Branchville, from Augusta a company of 116 Volunteers from Lowndes County Ga got into the train, and from that time, there was an end to all individuality. I managed to preserve my seat entire, by piling my overcoat, pillow & carpet bag beside me. But they were all around me, in all various attitudes conceivable, and dressed and undressed as suited their humor or degree of heat, artificial or natural, they had steamed up to at the time – one person, the wit of the party, said that if any body would give him a dollar he would sit in his shirt tail, and for an additional half would then pull off his shirt. Most of them pulled off their shoes, some had socks and others none and many were only partially provided. As the heat increased the fetid odor was tremendous – which added to the insane idea peculiar to volunteers that it was the patriotic duty of each and every one to hurrah and yell on passing through any settlement,made the time pass remarkably slow. And whenever we stopped a moment there was a general rush out in search of water, and then when the conductor shouted “get aboard” various fellows would say “I cant find a board but can get a shingle if you want one!” – all of which added to the general hilarity and made the night rather a sleepless one. When the crowd was put into the baggage cars, the noise was none the less but it was further off, so that second night passed more quiet. But today the passenger car was crowded with them again, and the odors and the singing and the patriotic yelling was truly remarkable. The Lowndes company, however, are a very fine looking body of men and in fact are remarkably well behaved, and have a Captain who has them under complete control by the mere force of his personal influence, his name is Patterson and I have no doubt he will do credit to his state.

Unfortunately, through a lack of coordination there was some duplication in the numbering of the Georgia regiments, and as it happened, there was already a 13th GA Regiment in service in Virginia. In a short time Col. Styles regiment was reorganized, with the majority of the companies remaining at Brunswick to form the nucleus of the 26th GA Regiment while the Berrien Minute Men, Thomasville Guards, and Ocklocknee Light Infantry were ordered on to Savannah, GA to be mustered into the 29th Georgia Regiment.

About Robert Hamilton Harris:

Robert Hamilton Harris (April 19, 1842-April 29, 1929) of Thomasville, Georgia, was the stepson of Rev. Robert Fleming. During the United States Civil War Harris served in Company A, 29th Regiment of the Georgia Infantry, reaching the rank of captain. For nearly twelve years after the Civil War, he studied and practiced law. During this period he served as Solicitor of the County Court in Thomas county, railroad attorney, and Mayor of Thomasville. Harris became an ordained minister in 1878. He served as a circuit preacher in rural southern Georgia and as a pastor of Baptist churches in Columbus and Cairo, Georgia, as well as Troy, Alabama. In 1900, he accepted a professorship at Cox Seminary in College Park, Georgia, where he remained until his retirement in the 1920s. On October 13, 1863, Robert Harris married Martha (Mattie) Love (March 5, 1845-December 28, 1900). Martha Love was the daughter of Peter Early Love (1818-1866) of Thomasville (Love served in the U.S. Congress, 1859-1861) [In the 1840s, Love was Solicitor General of the Southern Circuit of Georgia, and served at the Lowndes Superior Court of 1845 which convened in Troupville, GA.]

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Dr. Motte Arrives at Franklinville, GA, 1836

October 8, 2016 at 1:44 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Camp Townsend, Chattahoochee River, Chehaw Massacre, Coffee Road, Dr. Thomas Lawson, Flint River, Fort Mitchell AL, Franklinville GA, General Thomas Jesup, Greenleaf Dearborn, Hamilton W. Sharpe, Irwinton AL, Jacksonville, Jacob Rhett Motte, James Mathis, John Mathis, Kinchafoonee Creek, Lowndes County GA, Martin Shaw, Pindartown, Pindertown GA, Thomas O. Townsend, Thomasville GA, Typhoid Fever, William Smith, Withlacoochee River

In the midst of the Second Seminole War young Dr. Motte, a Harvard educated Army surgeon, found himself detailed for duty at Franklinville, GA to provide medical care for soldiers under the command of Major Greenleaf Dearborn. The arrival of federal troops in Lowndes County in late September of 1836 followed a series of engagements between local militia and Native Americans who were fleeing to Florida to avoid forced removal to western lands. Levi J. Knight, pioneer settler of Ray City, GA, had led a company of men in a skirmish at William Parker’s place on July 12, 1836, and from July through August, engagements were fought at Brushy Creek, Little River, Grand Bay, Troublesome Ford, Warrior Creek and Cow Creek.

Dr. Motte recorded his experiences in Lowndes County in a journal he kept of his military service. This part of his story picks up in the first days of Autumn, 1836…

In consequence of the great alarm excited in the southern counties of Georgia by murders and depredations committed by the Creek Indians who were endeavoring to escape into Florida from Alabama, Governor Schley had petitioned Gen. Jesup to station some troops in Ware or Lowndes County, that being the least populous and most defenceless portion of the country through which the Indians were passing. It was also liable to invasions from the Seminoles, as it bordered upon Florida. In compliance with this request, Major [Greenleaf] Dearborn with two companies of Infantry was ordered to proceed immediately to the above counties in Georgia, and there establish himself. These counties being so far south and in a low swampy part of the country had the worst possible reputation for health, and going there at this season of the year was almost considered certain death to a white man and stranger unacclimated. It was necessary then to send some surgeon with the troops, that it may not be said they died without proper medical attendance; and also that they might have a chance of a surgeon in the other world to physic them. Dr. Lawson, the Medical Director, was therefore instructed by Gen. Jesup to select some on of the surgeons for this duty; and the Doctor with his usual friendly discrimination, whenever there was any particularly disagreeable duty to be done, picked upon me. [Dr. Thomas Lawson, Medical Director at Fort Mitchell, was appointed Surgeon General of the United States on November 30, 1836.] So away I was ordered, to die of fever as I thought amidst the swamps of Lowndes County. Major Dearborn to whom I was ordered to report myself was at Irwinton [Eufala, AL], sixty miles below Fort Mitchell, on the Alabama side of the Chatahooche. It was therefore necessary for me to proceed there forthwith alone….

I found Major Dearborn encamped two miles from Irwinton, and after reporting myself to him rode over to visit Major Lomax, who was also stationed in the neighbourhood with his battalion of Artillery.

On the 29th Sept we took up the line of march for Lowndes County, Georgia, and after crossing the Chattahooche advanced fifteen miles the first day over the most wretched roads that ever disfigured the face of the earth. We proceeded by easy marches, generally resting in the middle of the day when we took our food, which was prepared before we started in the early morn and again when we encamped for the the night. The second night I slept in a church by the roadside…The third night we slept in the midst of a pine barren. The fourth near the banks of the Kinchafoonee River upon the site of an old Indian town [Chehaw village, where Georgia militia massacred Creek Indians in 1818]. (Lott Warren, who later served as Judge of the Superior Court of Lowndes County was present at the Chehaw massacre.)

Dr. Jacob Motte’s 1836 route to Franklinville, GA

The fifth night, the surgeon was coming down with fever. Of the sixth day, he wrote that the column had passed through Pindartown, in present day Worth County, GA. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, Pindartown was of considerable importance in the early days. When the Creek lands changed hands in 1821, the village was bought from the Indians. Pindartown served as the only post office between the Ocmulgee and Flint rivers in the early days. The town was located at the head of navigation on the Flint River, and the stagecoach road between Milledgeville and Tallahassee, Florida, went through Pindartown.

Continuing his narrative of the travel on October 4, 1836, Motte wrote of his worsening condition.

We crossed the Flint river, and had got beyond Pinderton in Baker county, when the exertion proved too great for me, for fever with its dreadful hold had seized on my very life-springs; and finding myself unable to keep my saddle, I was forced to dismount and lie down upon the road until one of the baggage wagons came up, when I was helped into it. The torture I endured for four days during which I was conveyed in this vehicle of torment cannot be expressed in language. My anxiety, however, to continue with the troops, enabled me to support the greatest agony for some time.

Motte’s description of the rude and uncomfortable travel by wagon over the stage roads matches the perceptions of Charles Joseph La Trobe, an English traveler and writer, who in 1833 rode from Tallahassee, FL to Milledgeville, GA via the weekly stagecoach. La Trobe observed “The roads through the south of Georgia are in the roughest state. ”

The rough roads in the heat of an Indian summer in south Georgia were too much for the feverish Dr. Motte.

The thin covering to the wagon afforded my burning brain no protection against the heat of a vertical sun in this latitude, and the constant jolting over the rugged roads and roots of trees was fast driving me into a dreadful tempest of delirium. Human nature could endure such suffering no longer, and with reluctance I was compelled to be left in a log-house which stood beside the road in Thomas county, ten miles from Florida. The occupant, whose name was Adams, seemed a kind hearted man, and he promised to bestow [upon me] all the care in his power. Fortunately I retained my reasoning faculties, and I was enabled to prescribe for myself the proper medicines…

… By aid of a good constitution I was at last enabled to master the disease, and after ten days confinement to bed, again stood upon my legs. …On the 21st Oct I had regained sufficient strength to ride my horse; so on that day I bid farewell to my kind and hospitable host…and following upon the trail of the troops, proceeded to rejoin them.

The route of the troops from Thomasville toward Franklinville would have undoubtedly been along the Coffee Road. Coffee Road, the military road constructed by John Coffee and Thomas Swain in 1823 became the first route opening up the south central Georgia region to pioneer settlers. In this section the road passed through Thomas county, Lowndes county, and present day Berrien county, continuing on to its terminus at Jacksonville, GA on the Ocmulgee River. From Thomasville heading east via the Coffee Road, Dearborn’s company could reach Sharpe’s Store which was just fifteen miles west of Franklinville, GA

Now traveling alone and by horseback, Motte’s perception of conditions along the rough-cut roads are in marked contrast to his torturous wagon ride.

Autumn with its refreshing sunshine had now superseded the heat of summer, and its hollow winds, with mournful sound announcing the approach of dreary winter, were driving the leaves about in eddying course; their rustling alone broke the stillness of the scene as I journeyed slowly through the wide forests, which were now throwing off their garb of sturdy vigour and assuming the ostentatious and gaudy livery of the season. The beauty of woodland scenery is always heightened just before the chilly winter throws its icy influence over their bloom. and envelopes them in a robe of dusky brown. Then it is that the gorgeous and fantastic blending of green, yellow, crimson, purple and scarlet, which tinge the distant prospect, defies the art of the painter, who endeavours in vain to imitate successfully the varied hues of nature.

On the evening of the 22nd Oct [1836] I arrived at Franklinville, which is the only town in the whole of Lowndes county, and contains only three log-houses one of which is a court-house, and another the Post-office; the third is a store. This great place is situated on the upper Withlacooché, and here I found the troops encamped. They were preparing to move farther south, and nearer to Florida; and the day after I joined, the tents were struck, the Withlachooché crossed, and after marching ten miles in a southerly direction, a new place of encampment was selected near the plantation of a Mr. Townsend.

[Thomas O. Townsend was one of the first settlers of Lowndes County, and later owned several lots in the town of Troupville.]

Major Dearborn apparently found the environs of Franklinville unsuitable to military discipline, this despite the fact that the only buildings were the courthouse, post office, an inn operated by William Smith, who was also clerk of the court and postmaster, and the residences of Sheriff Martin Shaw, and of John Mathis and James Mathis. Still, Franklinville was the only “town” in all of Lowndes County and was on the stage road from Jacksonville. In reflecting on the early history of Lowndes County, Hamilton Sharpe, who operated Sharpe’s Store on Coffee Road, intimated that Franklinville was a rowdy place of drunkenness, at least on days when citizens gathered from the countryside of meetings of the circuit court.

In any event, Major Dearborn soon relocated his U.S. Army troops to Camp Townsend, south of Franklinville, GA

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Hamilton Sharpe and Lafayette

March 19, 2016 at 12:32 am (Sharpes of Old Lowndes, Society and Leisure)
Tags: Charles Gildon, Chatham Artillery, Coffee Road, Edward Coppee, Fletcher Institute, General Lafayette, Hamilton Sharpe, Hamilton W. Sharpe, Lowndes County GA, Marquis de Lafayette, Marshall House, Memoirs of General La Fayette, Pulaski House, Quitman GA, Savannah GA, Screven House, Sharpe's House, Sion Hall, Tatnall County GA, The Planters' Hotel, The Sharpe House, Thomas Holcombe, Thomasville GA, Tranquil Hall

When General Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, returned to Georgia in 1825 great crowds thronged to Savannah for his arrival. Among those who gathered to greet the great man was Hamilton Sharpe, pioneer settler of Lowndes County, GA.

Marquis de Lafayette, from Memoirs of General La Fayette, published 1825.

“Arriving in Savannah on March 19, 1825, the sixty-seven-year-old Lafayette disembarked from his steamboat to a salute from the Chatham Artillery and the cheers of the crowd. The most poignant moments of his stay in Savannah came when he laid the cornerstones for monuments honoring two other Revolutionary War heroes, Count Casimir Pulaski and General Nathanael Greene.” – New Georgia Encyclopedia

Hamilton W. Sharpe was just a boy when Lafayette visited Savannah, but his memory of the occasion lasted a lifetime. Sharpe grew up in Tatnall County, but when “a young man hardly in his twenties, had come down from Tatnall County over the Coffee Road, and decided to locate near the home of Hon. Sion Hall at whose home the first court in Lowndes [county] was held a few months afterwards. So young Sharpe built a small store building out of logs near the Sharpe home; that was in 1826.

Sharpe’s Store, on the Coffee Road, was the first commercial establishment in Lowndes County, and became an early post office for the area. Sharpe was active in politics, and served as a captain of local militia in the Indian Wars. In religion, Hamilton W. Sharpe was a Methodist. He conducted a large bible class at old Bethlehem Church in Lowndes County, and was a friend and neighbor of Reverend Robert H. Howren. He was a trustee of the Fletcher Institute, of Thomasville, GA. In his later years he was an innkeeper at Quitman, GA.

Hamilton Wynn Sharpe

In 1886, Hamilton W. Sharpe wrote of his memories of Lafayette in a letter to the editor of the Savannah Morning News (reprinted in the Oct 6, 1886 edition of the Waycross Headlight.) Sharpe refers to his guests at the Sharpe House as “inmates” and goes on to reminisce about the weather, his father’s business in Savannah, the Planters Hotel, and the people and places he knew in Savannah:

Editor Morning News: It has just been remarked by one of our inmates: “How awfully warm it is!” This remark induced a peep at the themometer-not quite 90 deg. This does not indicate very warm weather for the middle of September, but I notice that there is no rustling among the leaves on the trees. Every thing is as “still as the breeze;” not even a shaking, and therefore I conclude that it is owning not so much to the intensity of the heat as the lack of wind, for I do not remember to have seen so little wind in the month of September so far.
While I confess a deep sympathy for the citizens of our neighboring city of Charleston in all her unparalleled sufferings I am grateful, too, that your city, the emporium of the State of Georgia, has suffered less.
The writer, though now 80 years of age, has a very distinct recollection of Savannah when but a little boy. Along with his father, time and again, he visited the city to obtain many of the necessaries and luxuries of life. These were the days of small things to Savannah, compared to her present grand improvements. Then the principal business of the city was done around the market square and north to the river. The wholesale houses were principally from Nos. 1 to 8 Gibbons’ buildings, and there was no such thing as the Pulaski House, or the Marshall or Screven House. The Planters’ Hotel was at that time the hotel of the city.
Sometimes I have a very distinct recollection of the men with whom my father traded at the time – such men as Gildon, Edward Coppee and others – and the late Thomas Holcombe was a boy about my own age and size.
Your stately printing and publishing hous was not there to adorn the cornner of Bay and Whitaker streets, nor was there any other important public buildings save the old Exchange.
It was there the writer happening to be in the city, pressed himself along with the crowd, when the procession was formed in the long room of the Exchange to look upon the venerable features of Gen. Lafayette and shake his hand. I have always been proud of the occasion and the act. The next day the corner stone of the Greene and Pulaski monument in Johnson Square was laid. Gen. Lafayette was the Grand Master of the occasion, and the following words were sung, to wit:

“And around thy brow will twine
The tender leaf of green which grew
In days of Auld Lange Syne.”

And the wreath in the hands of one of Savannah’s beautiful daughters was fittingly and gracefully twined around the head of the venerable man whose name will ever be dear to Americans.
The words were sung to the tune, “Auld Lang Syne.”
Should you ever wander as far as Quitman inquire for Tranquil Hall or the Sharpe House, and you will find the house persided over by two old people who will be glad to see the editor of the Morning News, and will treat him kindly. Our prayer is that both your city and your sister City by the Sea will be relieved for the future of any further shaking up.

H. W. S.

Additional notes:

Charles Gildon was a Savannah, Georgia storekeeper. He is referenced in early Savannah newspapers between 1805 and 1855. Gildon’s shop was located on Lot 6, Digby Tything, Decker Ward which faced Ellis Square from 1815-1823.
Edward Coppee was a physician and merchant of Savannah, operating businesses at a number of locations in the city.
Thomas Holcombe (1815-1885) was a wholesale grocer of Savannah, and served as Mayor of the city during the civil war.

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Grand Jury Presentments of 1845, Old Lowndes County, GA

June 12, 2015 at 12:02 am (Troupville of Old Lowndes County, Wiregrass Justice)
Tags: Augustin H. Hansell, Carlton B. Cole, Convention of Judges of the Superior Courts of Georgia, Democratic Republican Party, Democratic Republican Party of Twiggs County GA, Dublin GA, Duncan Smith, Emmeline Carlton, Franklin College, George Abbott Cole, Georgia State Constitutional Convention of 1865, Jonathan Studstill, Lowndes County Inferior Court, Lowndes Grand Jury of 1845, Macon GA, Mercer University, Middlebury College, Oglethorpe University, Old Cemetery in Thomasville GA, Peter Early Love, Philadelphia College of Medicine, Pro-Union Democrats, Southern Circuit Court of Georgia, Supreme Court of Georgia, Susan Taylor, The Commercial Bank at Macon, Thomas B. Griffin, Thomasville GA, Troupville GA, Union Democrats, William Slaughter

In June of 1845, The Grand Jury of Lowndes County, Georgia convened for its 20th year.

Judge Carlton B. Cole presided, with Peter E. Love as Solicitor General, and Duncan Smith served as clerk of the Court.

1845 Grand Jury Presentments, Lowndes County, GA

Milledgeville Federal Union
June 24, 1845

Presentments

Of the Grand Jury of Lowndes county, June Term, 1845.
We the Grand Jurors, sworn, chosen and selected for the county of Lowndes, make the following presentments:

We have examined the conditions of our Court-house, and find it to be rather in bad condition, and would recommend some action to have it kept in a more cleanly situation.

We have also examined the condition of our Jail, and find it to be in a very unsafe condition, and would recommend good and sufficient repairs.

We have examined the Clerk’s books of our Superior and Inferior Courts, and find them kept in good order.

We have had under our consideration, the situation of the Public roads of our county, and would especially recommend the Inferior Court, to have them placed in a good condition as early as possible.

We have had under consideration, and have thoroughly examined the books and papers of the Treasurer of the Poor School Fund of said county, and find that the Notes are not taken in accordance with the rules and regulations, and furthermore, would recommend a speedy renewal or collection of said Notes; and we specially recommend further, a collection of sufficient amount to settle all the accounts that are yet unpaid.

We further recommend our Inferior Court, to levy a tax for county purposes.

In taking leave of his Honor Judge Cole, the Grand Jury render to him their thanks, for the prompt discharge of the duties of his office, and the courtesy he has extended to this body, during the present term of the Court – also to the Solicitor General, for his courtesy and prompt attention to business, during this term.

And before closing our duties, we would earnestly recommend to our citizens generally, and more especially to the persons who may represent this county in the general assembly of the State, to use their endeavors at the approaching election, for a Judge of this Circuit, to continue in office, the individual who now fills and has for some time filled the office. During the whole period of his services, his administration has been distinguished by the most eminent legal abilities, and a stern and impartial desire to execute the laws without fear of favor. We therefore deem it not only expedient, but necessary that one who has proved himself a good, faithful and able servant, should be continued in an office to which he adds so much dignity.

We the Grand Jury, request that our presentments be published in the Southern Recorder and Federal Union.

Robert Micklejohn, Foreman.

Judge Carleton Bicknell Cole (1803-1876)
Carlton B. Cole twice served as judge of the Southern Circuit and later presided over the courts of the Macon Circuit. In 1848, he was defense attorney for Manuel and Jonathan Studstill, in the September 7, 1843 murder of William Slaughter, facing Augustin H. Hansell, solicitor general, for the prosecution. About Carlton Bicknell Cole: son of George Abbott Cole and Emmeline (Carleton) Cole. Born in Amherst, MA, August 3, 1803. Graduated Middlebury College, VT, in 1822. Taught and studied law in North Carolina. Admitted to the bar, 1826, and in 1827 removed to Macon, GA. Married Susan Taylor, September 6, 1827. (Children: Ann Eliza; Emmeline Carleton; John Taylor; George Abbott; Carleton Bicknell.) Incorporator and stockholder of The Commercial Bank at Macon, 1831. Judge of the Southern Circuit Court of Georgia, 1833-1847. Chairman of the Convention of Judges of the Superior Courts of Georgia, 1840. Operated a private law school at Midway, GA, 1844-1845. Opened a law practice in Milledgeville, GA, 1846. Admitted to practice before the Georgia Supreme Court, 1846. Chair of the Democratic Republican party of Twiggs County, 1847; A pro-Union Democrat in politics. Professor of Law, Oglethorpe University, 1847-1854. Resumed his law practice in Macon, 1854. Delegate to the State Constitutional Convention, 1865. Judge of the Macon Circuit Court, 1865-1873. Professor of Law, Mercer University, 1875-1876. Died in Macon, GA, January 23, 1876.

Peter E. Love (1818 – 1866)
Peter Early Love, Solicitor General of the Southern Circuit of Georgia, served at the Lowndes Superior Court of 1845. He was born near Dublin, Laurens County, Ga., July 7, 1818; graduated from Franklin College (now a part of the University of Georgia), Athens, Ga., in 1829 and from the Philadelphia College of Medicine in 1838; practiced medicine while studying law; admitted to the bar in 1839 and commenced practice in Thomasville, Thomas County, GA; solicitor general of the southern district of Georgia in 1843; member of the State senate in 1849; elected judge of the State Superior Court for the Southern Circuit in 1853; editor and proprietor of the Wiregrass Reporter, 1857-“In politics, the paper was Democratic and violently opposed to its No-Nothing neighbor, the Southern Enterprise.“; elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-sixth U.S. Congress and served from March 4, 1859, until his retirement on January 23, 1861; resumed the practice of law in Thomasville, Ga.; member of the State house of representatives in 1861; died in Thomasville, Ga., November 8, 1866; interment in the Old Cemetery. His daughter, Martha “Mattie” Love, married Robert Harris Hamilton, who was Captain of the Thomasville Guards; this company served in the 29th Georgia Regiment, along with the Berrien Minute Men.

Duncan Smith (1816-1852)

Duncan Smith was born 1816 in Scotland. He moved to Lowndes County, GA some time before 1838, and by 1844 he had acquired 245 acres in the 10th Land District. Some time prior to 1846 Duncan Smith acquired Lot No. 72 in the town of Troupville. He was a member of the Democratic Republican party of Georgia. Justice of the Lowndes Inferior Court, 1840-44. From January 16, 1844 to his death in 1852 Duncan Smith served as Clerk of Lowndes County Superior Court.

Grand Jurors
The jurors were Samuel E. Swilley, John W. Spain, John Carter, Sr., Enoch Hall, Matthew M. Deas, James Wade, Jesse Hunter, Mathew Young, James McMullen, John McMullen, James Sowell, A. S. Smith, William H. Devane, Sampson G. Williams, William Folsom, Thomas B. Griffin, David Matthis, Ezekiel W. Parrish, Dennis Wetherington, Joshua Limeberger, and Henry Strickland, with Robert Micklejohn serving as foreman of the Jury.

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Berrien Minute Men at Brunswick ~ July, 1861

It is a noble thing to fight for our country, and glorious to die in her cause…O, who wants not be a soldier! ~ Robert Hamilton Harris, Thomasville Guards, July, 1861

Dr. Motte Arrives at Franklinville, GA, 1836

Hamilton Sharpe and Lafayette

Grand Jury Presentments of 1845, Old Lowndes County, GA

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