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No state in the broad
limits of the American Union has had a more dramatic and eventful career
than Georgia, and the unquestionably controlling element of its
citizenship has been its Scotch-Irish.
Founded as an English
colony in 1733 by the illustrious Oglethorpe, the majority of its main
spirits from that day to this have been of Scotch-Irish stock. During the
century from 1700 to 1800, the Scotch-Irish tide of emigration to America
was enormous, scattering its strong manhood and chaste womanhood over the
whole country, and permeating it potentially with a distinct leaven of
integrity, courage, independence, religiousness, sensible intellectuality,
and devotion to freedom.
From Pennsylvania,
Virginia, and the two Carolinas, a host of the very best of these sturdy
spirits flocked to Georgia and located in Burke, Chatham, Wilkes,
Washington, and other counties, and the blood has kept on coming ever
since, gradually extending westward, invading the territory of the
Ocmulgee and Chattahoochee, with a current, a large flow through
Tennessee, west of the Appalachian ridge.
It would be a difficult
matter to estimate the proportion of Scotch-Irish blood in the personal
autonomy of Georgia. The exact genealogy of our early Georgians is
undefined and almost utterly undefinable. There are distinct strains of
Scotch blood, believed to be leavened with the Irish strain, yet the proof
is not clear. The personal and psychological characteristics of many were
distinctively Scotch-Irish, and yet though believed to be of that breed by
others and themselves, the cases were not susceptible of proof, and thus
desire and the vaguest sort of tradition have crystallized into a very
doubtful historical verity.
But one thing is
unquestionable, and that is that Scotch-Irish qualities have dominated the
civilization of the state from the earliest eras of its romantic history.
There seems little doubt that a majority of its chief magistrates have
been of this forceful strain, and its most dominant and best remembered
Governors, like Troup, Cobb, McDonald, and Joe Brown, sprang from
undeniable Scotch-Irish loins, and the galaxy finds a fitting and typical
continuation in the present excellent executive, Gov. William J. Northen,
who finely exemplifies all the best characteristics of his Scotch-Irish
stock.
In the limits of a paper
like this, with the immense mass of Georgia material, we can, with some
general references to the great whole, only treat a few of the absolutely
undoubted and more picturesque specimens of the splendid breed of
dominating citizenship.
We shall take at random
from the rich storehouse. It is not certain by any means, yet it is
claimed that the biggest Georgian that Georgia has ever had, and not a
native Georgian either, but an adopted Georgian in all of his tremendous
and towering public life, William Harris Crawford, United States Senator,
Foreign Minister, President United States Senate, Cabinet Minister, and
the most prominent man of his day for the Presidency, when paralysis
struck him down in the very zenith of his career, was anyhow a Scotchman,
and many believed that he was a Scotch-Irishman. He was a kingly man,
easily soaring, of little early culture, and yet an undisputed monarch
among men.
The two Cobbs, Howell and
Thomas Reede Rootes, the one an able United States Cabinet officer,
Georgia Governor, and President of the Confederate Provisional Congress;
and the other, as Alex. Stephens dubbed him, the Peter the Hermit of the
tragic secession that drove to a head the great civil revolution, were of
the brainful and dominant Scotch-Irish blood, and exemplified its traits
and powers.
John C. Calhoun, that
vastest of Southern statesmen, whose memory grows larger with time and
more imposing in intellectual stature, was an excellent representative of
the Scotch-Irish breed, and has given to Georgia one of the brainiest
youngsters that the South has seen in a long time, Pat Calhoun, who,
without money or influence, built up a great railway system at an age when
young men are just beginning to creep up the lower round of the ladder,
and sprang into an animated contest for a place in the Senate which his
renowned grandfather so graced and illustrated.
Associate Justices of the
Supreme Court of Georgia, Kent McKay, or Coy, spelled both ways, and
William W. Montgomery, and Chief Justice James Jackson—Judge Montgomery
only surviving—are all of the Scotch-Irish strain; Leonidas F. Livingston,
present Congressman from the Atlanta district, and President of the
Georgia State Alliance, is a Scotch-Irishman, and has shown himself a
typical member of the race in many ways, and particularly in boldly
antagonizing the intense Third Party views of his alliance constituency,
which is imperiling his reelection.
A fine type of the
Scotch-Irish gentleman, chivalric, simple, earnest, manly, and
unpretentious, but solid and brave, and true as steel, is Col. John
Mcintosh Kell, the present Adjutant General of Georgia, a naval captain of
the war, connected with some of the most historic events of the United
States Navy, and the sharer in heroic service in the dismal glory of the
ill-fated "Alabama," with the gallant Semmes. He is connected by blood
with that host of heroic McIntoshes of the early revolution for American
independence, who so illustriously illustrated Georgia in those heroic
days. Col. William A. Little, ex-Speaker of the House and present
Attorney-general of the state, is of this blood, and an excellent
specimen.
A gentleman who has been
one of the medical lights of the whole country, a shining scientist in the
healing vocation, original, inventive, a discoverer, and a grand man
morally and socially, was Dr. Henry Fraser Campbell, of Augusta, who won
renown among the medical leaders of the world, and who was a genuine
Scotch-Irishman of the purest blood. The Revs. Dr. E. H. Barnett, and
Givens B. Strickler, Presbyterians of Atlanta, pure men, devout Christian
leaders, pious and able ministers, are of this remarkable stock.
John Carmichael, of
Augusta, Ga., was a typical Scotch-Irishman. He was born near Londonderry,
Ireland. He and his sister came over in a ship from Ireland to Charleston,
S. C, before 1800. They were very poor, but of excellent blood. She had
work, and sent him to Augusta to clerk with some good man in a store. He
was very ignorant, but his desire for education was so great that he
studied in the attic without fire in winter to read and write, rolling up
his feet under him to keep them warm. He was useful and honest, and soon
had a store of his own, and from a boy of fourteen, he was able at
forty-five years old to give up business with $100,000 worth of property.
He died in 1847.
Mr. Carmichael was a
director in the Old Augusta 'Bank, and a President of the old Whig Club of
1840. He left four stores and dwellings on Broad Street, and a fine
residence, now the Adkin House, on Ellis Street, and a small bag of silver
marked: "Picked up in my store; no owner found, but if he ever calls, give
it to him." This was kept in his office about forty years, and found after
his death. He was married twice, and had one child by one wife and twelve
by the other. Some of his boys were fine men, now gone, and his daughters
of the finest type, only two living. At his family burying ground are
buried, besides himself, J. Bones and Robert Campbell, all from North
Ireland.
Robert A. McDonald, of
Griffin, learned from his father, while alive, some very interesting facts
of his Scotch-Irish ancestry. His greatgrandfather, Andrew McDonald, in
the early part of the last century, ran away from a stepfather in
Scotland, he being the only child of his father, and landed at Savannah,
Ga., at fourteen years of age. He found his way to the Cherokee Indians,
in what is now Bartow, then Cass County. He took a squaw wife, with whom
he lived until he had four sons, when he attempted to return to the white
settlement with a pony and his youngest son. He was pushed so closely that
he had to abandon his son in what is now Morgan County.
Mr. McDonald says that in
the early settlement of Cass County he had a cousin, Alfred Day, at
Cassville, who had met some McDonald kinsmen who claimed relationship with
him, and they were very proud of their McDonald blood.
Andrew reached Savannah
safely, and, marrying an Irish woman, raised a large family. Andrew's son
James, the grandfather of Robert, was disposed to repudiate his Scotch
blood, and always claimed to be Irish. He was raised in Columbia County,
and married a Miss Mc-Nair, and died in 1840. Charles, the father of
Robert, was also raised in Columbia County. These McDonalds were all
mechanics and house carpenters. Charles liked the Scotch blood, and was a
good fiddler and dancer. He went to Louisville, Ga., and worked on a house
for Benjamin Whitaker, then Speaker of the Georgia House of
Representatives, when the Legislature met in Louisville, then the capital
of the state. After the death of Mr. Whitaker, Robert McDonald says his
father, Charles McDonald, married his daughter, Eliza Whitaker, and moved
in succession to Newton, Fayette, and Henry Counties, and was residing in
the last in 1857, when he died. Robert's mother was of Welsh stock, her
grandfather coming over with Penn, and her mother was a daughter of the
David Emanuel, who was an early Governor of Georgia. Mr. McDonald quotes
the verse:
By Mc or O true Irishmen
they say,
But without the Mc or O no Irishmen are they.
William C. Glenn, who has
conferred a great benefaction on Georgia as a member of the Legislature
from Whitfield County, as the author of the law taxing railroads in
counties, thus securing a tax revenue of several hundred thousand dollars,
is a genuine Scotch-Irish descendant. His great grandfather, Jeremiah
Glenn, came from the North of Ireland to the state of New York. His
grandfather, Thomas R. Glenn, was born in New York, County of New York, in
the year 1800. About the year 1824 Thomas R. Glenn came to the state of
Georgia, and took up his residence in Gwinnett County, where he married
Miss Annie Thompson, daughter of Joseph Thompson. He died in 1839 and his
wife in 1835, and their graves are in a cemetery in Gwinnett County, about
four miles south of Lawrenceville.
Col. Jesse A. Glenn,
William's father, was two years old when his mother died. He and his
brother, Capt. Joseph Glenn, were put in control of their grandfather,
Thomas, who resided in Chattooga County. Thomas R. Glenn, William's
grandfather, after the death of his wife, went into the Creek war in
Florida, and died from wounds received in that service. Col. Jesse A.
Glenn was a gallant Colonel of Infantry in the civil war, commanding a
Georgia regiment, and being desperately wounded. He has also been a
Representative in the Georgia Legislature. William C. Glenn has twice been
a member of the Legislature, and is now being pressed for the office of
Attorney-general of Georgia.
A powerful and conspicuous
Scotch-Irish family in the great commonwealth of Georgia has been that of
Speer, furnishing a Supreme Court Justice, a Congressman, a Federal Court
Judge, a State Treasurer, and accomplished divines and educators.
The Speers came originally
from the Orkney Islands. Col. John Speer, the ancestor of the Georgia
family, went from there to Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland, about the
middle of the fifteenth century, and married the rich Miss Maxwell, and
led the "Caledon," or Scotch horse regiment, under William III. William
Speer came from Strabane to South Carolina in 1775, and was a
revolutionary soldier and patriot the entire struggle, fighting at
Ninety-six and Cowpens, S. C, and at the siege of Augusta and the battle
of Kettles Creek, in Wilkes County, Ga., as a member of Gen. Pickens's
military family. After the war the state of South Carolina gave him a
valuable body of land near the Cherokee Ford, on the Savannah River, in
the Abbeville District, where he lived to a great and honored old age,
dying about the year 1833.
This old hero was a
Presbyterian, with a broad Scotch accent, and a strong mind and character.
At the old Presbyterian church on " Rocky River," he was leading the
singing, and the pastor, who was lining the hymn, followed with the text,
which he promptly sang, and then, seeing his mistake, he exclaimed:
"Gracious, I sung the text."
His war career was
romantic. Gen. Pickens was exceedingly fond of the young foreigner, and
made him his chief scout, and he had some thrilling escapes from the
Tories, at one time swimming the Savannah River in midwinter to avoid
capture and to save his dispatches. His farm was at the junction of Rocky
River and the Savannah. above Augusta. He married in that section, and in
addition to his farm he ran a store. His father seems to have been a
merchant, and the son took naturally to the calling. His grandson,
Alexander M. Speer, ex-Associate Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, now
living, remembers him well, and conversed with him often about the
revolution, and on one occasion was shown by the old soldier the scars on
his ankles, left by manacles worn while a prisoner in the British hulks in
Charleston harbor.
The children of William
Speer, the revolutionary patriot, were all of them men of remarkable
intellectual force. His brother, who came over with him from Strabane,
Ireland, and who landed with him at Breakwater, Del., remained in
Pennsylvania, and his descendants are now wealthy iron manufacturers in
Pittsburg.
One son of William Speer
was Alexander Speer, who was the father of Judge Alexander M. Speer, of
the Georgia Supreme Court; Rev. Eustace W. Speer, D.D., professor of
belles-lettres and English literature in the University of Georgia, and
one of the ablest public orators in the state; and Dr. Sidney Speer, one
of the first settlers of Florida.
Alexander Speer was the
Secretary of State, or Comptroller General of South Carolina in 1832, one
of the legislative committee that originated the South Carolina railroad,
and led the forces of the Union men of Upper Carolina in the nullification
contest, successfully meeting McDuffie on the stump, carrying the
Abbeville District, and being himself elected on the Union ticket. He was
a man of remarkable eloquence, which he has transmitted to his grandson,
Emory Speer, ex-Congressman from Georgia, and now Judge of the United
States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.
Alexander Speer removed
from South Carolina to Georgia about the year 1833, and settling at
Culloden, Monroe County, became a minister of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, and filled many important appointments of the Conference in
Georgia and South Carolina. He preached the first Commencement sermon at
Emory College in 1843; and when Justice L. Q. C. Lamar, of the U. S.
Supreme Court, in 1891, delivered the alumni oration at that college, his
address was largely composed of recitations from three orations, so
impressed on his memory that he could repeat them verbatim: one, the
Commencement oration of (afterward Bishop) George F. Pierce, a sermon of
Bishop Soule, and the Commencement sermon of Alexander Speer.
Alexander Speer married
Elizabeth Middleton, of an English family that gave Henry Middleton, first
colonial Governor of South Carolina, and Arthur Middleton, her father, one
of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Alexander and his wife
are both buried at Culloden, Monroe County, Ga. Eugene P. Speer, a son of
Judge A. M. Speer, is a leading journalist of Georgia, and has been Tally
Clerk of the House of Representatives in Washington.
Alexander Speer's brother,
John Speer, has had among his sons Daniel N. Speer, Treasurer of Georgia
and now President of the Atlanta Exposition Cotton Mills, and John Speer,
a State Senator.
The Speers who have
remained in Abbeville, S. C, are men of high character and great success
in life. Dr. Sidney Speer planted the famous Speer Grove at Sanford, in
that state, and as a member of the Legislature originated the bill to
change the name of that beautiful county from "Mosquito" to "Orange."
James Speer is a leading politician, and was recently a Democratic
candidate for United States Senator.
An interesting incident
occurred during the election of Judge Alexander Middleton Speer as
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. His son, Eugene P.
Speer, was walking from the old Capitol to the hotel with a friend, and
Gen. Robert Toombs was just in front with a friend discussing the result
of the election. Gen. Toombs remarked: "It's hard to down the
Scotch-Irish," referring to Judge Speer's election. Young Speer had never
before inquired into the facts of his early history, but when he related
the remark to his father the newly elected Justice told the ancestral
facts to the son for the first time.
The Speers have filled a
conspicuous and influential place in Georgia events; and Judge Emory Speer
has illustrated the eloquence, the legal ability, public capacity, and
magnetism of the blood.
Henry C. Hamilton, of
Dalton, Ga., who has been Clerk of the United States Court for the
Northern District of Georgia, comes of an old and pure Scotch-Irish blood.
His grandfather came from the North of Ireland about the year 1800, and
settled in Westchester County, New York, where his son, John Hamilton, the
father of Henry, was born on August 17, 1803. John moved to East Tennessee
about 1828, when he was twenty-five years of age, and in that state
married Miss R. L. Wester in 1833. He moved to Dalton, Ga., in 1838, and
settled at the beautiful spring, on the edge of the town, which has borne
his name, and where the successful cotton factory has been built. He
became one of the leading citizens of North Georgia, and raised a large
family of children who are the very best citizens of the state.
John Hamilton died November
13, 1853, and his wife June 21, 1876, leaving six children, James H.,
Thomas, George W., Henry C, and two daughters, Mrs. R. H. Green and Mrs.
Elizabeth N. Hardage. James was a leader in mathematics at Oglethorpe
University, Midway, Ga., in 1852.
The Ray family has been a
valuable, active, and influential one in Georgia affairs for the last half
century, and it is of Scotch-Irish stock. David Ray and his wife, Lucy
Atcherson, strict Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, lived at Drim Stevlin, of
Donegal, province of Ulster, Ireland, and there was born on March 17 John
Ray, who emigrated to this country and was the founder of the American
family. Of studious habits and fond of books, John soon acquired a good
education, and from his historical investigations learned to admire
America, ica, and longed to make it his home.
John Ray, at the age of
twenty, came to this county with his parents' consent, and landed at
Philadelphia October 27, 1812, alone. He spent a few weeks with his uncle,
and then opened a school in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and taught
afterward on the eastern shore of Maryland. In 1822 he began to study law
at Staunton, Va., and was admitted to the bar in Richmond in 1823. Moving
to Augusta, Ga., he taught a grammar school, in which he had as scholars
children who became leading merchants. He also taught school a year in
Washington County, and had no less distinguished a pupil than the boy who
was afterward the Hon. Robert Toombs.
Having been admitted to
practice law in Georgia, he moved in 1828 to Coweta County, which was a
part of the territory recently purchased from the Creek Indians, and began
the law at the county site, Newnan. He immediately became a successful
practitioner of high reputation throughout, not only his judicial circuit,
but all over Western Georgia. He built up a large range of clients, who
became his fast friends. In addition to his important litigation, he did
nearly the entire collecting business for the merchants of Augusta and
Charleston, S. C., having made a host of friends in the former place while
teaching there.
John Ray was especially
skilled in the difficult pleading of those days, a much more difficult
matter then than now, under the old system which has been so much
simplified. Pleading was then the fine art of the law, and lawyers often
had their cases thrown out of court upon legal technicalities, something
that never happened to the thoroughly skilled Ray. His qualities for the
bar were marked and forceful. He was an orator, with full, rich voice and
graceful gestures, a remarkable mastery of vivid language, and a glowing
imagination. Add to these gifts his careful preparation of cases, a
thorough knowledge of the law, and strong and eloquent presentation of his
causes before juries, and his preeminence as a lawyer can be understood.
John Ray married in 1833
Miss Bethenia G. Lavender, of the best Virginia stock, by whom he had six
children. The need of that day was schools, and Mr. Ray, in spite of the
demands of his great practice, became a moving spirit in the vital cause
of education. He organized a scheme for building a new schoolhouse,
subscribing five hundred dollars, and was made President of the Board of
Trustees, which place he effectively held for thirty uninterrupted years
to his death. He obtained the best teachers from the North, and sent his
carriage to Augusta for them, in that era without railroads; and his home
and library were ever open to these strangers, whose esteem and affection
he won.
He was the soul of
hospitality, and his home was the cherished resort of guests. His charity
was unfailing, and his courtesy to the poor and humble was as marked and
genuine as to the rich. He had a warm feeling for his Irish
fellow-countrymen, whether Protestants or Catholics, and he sought for
them employment, loaned money to the needy, and cared kindly for the sick.
He was a firm advocate of home rule for Ireland, and earnestly championed
Catholic emancipation.
John Ray invested his large
means in plantations and negro slaves, and was a humane master. He cared
for his slaves as if they were of his family, protecting them from the
cruelty of overseers, feeding them abundantly and well, and giving them
good houses, garden patches, and orchard, each family to itself. He gave
special attention to their morals, required their attendance at church,
and supplied them with colored preachers. He won their affection, and
after emancipation nearly all of them remained in his employ on his
plantation up to his death.
He had a host of attached
friends among the public men of the day who esteemed his high qualities,
among them United States Senator Walter T. Colquitt, Supreme Court Justice
Hiram Warner, Congressman Hugh A. Haralson, the brilliant Charles
Dougherty, Judge Kin-yon, and others. An active Democrat, he invariably
declined office, though often urged to accept it, until 1862 his friends
elected him anyhow Presidential Elector, and he cast the vote of Georgia
for Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens for President and Vice
President of the Confederacy. He was an ardent champion of the South in
the war, and his warm Scotch-Irish blood resented the crusade against
Southern rights and institutions.
He was calm and
conservative through it all, and an incident will illustrate this. The
people of Newnan met to ratify the passage of secession, upon receiving
the news, and it was an occasion of excitement and speech making, in which
some of the enthusiasts were confident that one Southerner could whip ten
Northerners. Judge Ray responded to the urgent calls, and while approving
the action of the Secession Convention, he deplored the idea of war, and
said it was a very sad hour to him. He went on to say that while having
faith in Southern valor, and not questioning under certain circumstances
one Southern man might vanquish two, five, or even ten Northerners, as for
himself he preferred to fight them man to man. This moderation carried the
crowd with its quiet sense and sarcasm, and the speech made the wise judge
the hero of the meeting.
Judge Ray died July 21,
1868, and was buried in the cemetery at Newnan, Ga.
Among the citizens of
Atlanta, Ga., who can claim a sure and ancient as well as honorable
Scotch-Irish descent is Dr. James McFad-den Gaston. Back through seven
lineal generations, he traces his family to John Gaston, who sought refuge
in Scotland from France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The
family afterward migrated to Ireland, where John Gaston, great-grandfather
of Dr. Gaston, was born, and emigrated to the United States about 1730,
marrying Esther Waugh in Pennsylvania, and about 1750, he, with other
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, settled on the Catawba River in South
Carolina. He and his nine gallant and patriotic sons took active part in
the Revolutionary War, of whom three were killed at the battle of Hanging
Rock.
Dr. Gaston's father was Dr.
J. B. Gaston, an eminent physician. Dr. Gaston was born in Chester
District, S. C, December 27, 1824, and married Miss Sue G. Brumby; was a
distinguished surgeon in the Confederate army, and practiced his
profession in Brazil from 1865 to 1883, when he removed to Atlanta, Ga.,
where he now resides. Dr. Gaston has taken rank among the scientific men
in his profession, and has held high medical honors, being now President
of the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association.
The Scotch-Irish family of
Hay has been conspicuous in state and nation in medicine, furnishing
several generations of scientific physicians. Dr. Gilbert Hay, a
full-blooded Scotchman, whose wife was Miss Moore, of Irish descent, came
to Georgia, in Wilkes County. His sons were Dr. J. T. Hay, Dr. Gilbert
Hay, and Dr. William Hay. Dr. Gilbert Hay was a surgeon in the United
States Navy, and was on board the United States ship "Niagara," in laying
down the first Atlantic cable in 1859, and received a gold medal from the
New York Chamber of Commerce for services in that great work. He was
Surgeon General of the Imperial Army in 1862, during the Pekin Rebellion
in China, and was Commissioner of Lunacy for the state of California,
dying there in 1875. He contributed largely to the education of Alexander
H. Stephens, and his brother was private secretary to Mr. Stephens. Robert
H., a son of old Gilbert, was a friend of Andrew Jackson, and fought at
New Orleans. One of the Hays married a cousin of President Harrison. Dr.
William G. Hay visited Europe before the war, and wrote a series of
valuable historic letters to the Savannah Republican, copied by the
Harpers. Charles C. Hay, a son of Dr. J. T. Hay, was, at the age of
fourteen, a gallant Confederate soldier in Cleburne's Division in the
Confederate army.
A strong and distinguished
family in Georgia, eminent for solid sense and moral excellence, and among
the purest of our Scotch-Irish blood, is that notable one of the Reids.
The founder in America of this rare breed of brave, sterling men and
noble, brilliant women was Samuel Reid, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, who
married Margaret Mc-Cay and first settled on the Schuylkill River in
Pennsylvania, and before the Revolution moved to Rowan, afterward a
portion of Iredell County, North Carolina. He was a member of the
Committee of Safety from August 20, 1775, and an ardent revolutionary
patriot during the Revolution. After peace had been declared between the
United States and the mother country, Samuel Reid located with his son,
Alexander, in Greene (afterward a portion of Hancock) County, Ga., and
there lived until 1806, when he settled in the adjoining county of Putnam,
three miles north of Eaton, where he died, and his son Alexander and
Elizabeth, his wife, are buried by his side. The old homestead is still
owned by his descendants.
This son, Alexander Reid,
married Elizabeth Brewer, of Virginia, who survived her husband twenty
years, and was a most remarkable woman, having reared eight sons and two
daughters, who were an honor and comfort in her old age. Her descendants
numbered one hundred and twenty at the last family reunion, which was held
at the old homestead during the autumn of 1858. Although she was
eighty-five years of age, she was the dignified, hospitable, and generous
hostess, and at the conclusion of the dinner presented each one of her
eight sons with one thousand dollars. Her strong intellectuality was
evidenced by the fact that she had held together in unity and love this
immense family until her death, which occurred about eighteen months
later, at the age of eighty-six years and six months.
The sixth son of Alexander
Reid and Elizabeth Brewer, William Reid, of Troupe County, Ga., married
Martha Wingfield, of Wilkes County, whose ancestors moved there in 1784,
their only child now living being Mrs. William Daniel Grant, of Atlanta,
Ga. This lady still owns the large plantation and once hospitable mansion
of her father, one mile from West Point, where she was born, and where, as
Miss Sallie Fannie Reid, she is well remembered by the writer and her
cotemporaries in Georgia as one of the most beautiful, brilliant, and
queenly women of her time. Many sick and wounded soldiers and officers of
the Confederate army, now living, will remember her loving-kindness,
tender sympathy, and substantial aid. She has two typical children, worthy
inheritors of their parent's excellencies: John William Grant, and Mrs.
Sarah Grant Jackson, wife of Thomas Cobb Jackson, all of Atlanta, Ga.
Besides William, Alexander
Reid reared and educated seven sons and two daughters, all of whom married
and raised, with the best educational advantages the state afforded, large
families. A wise, frugal, and industrious man, he left both to his wife
and each of his children, a handsome estate, and at the commencement of
the war between the states his eight stalwart sons were all prosperous and
wealthy planters.
Alexander Reid and several
of his sons and grandsons for three generations have represented Putnam
and other counties in both the Senate and House of the Legislature of
Georgia. The grandsons were gallant soldiers and efficient officers in the
Confederate army, and did their whole duty, exemplifying the manly fiber
of the Scotch-Irish stock. Two of these boys were killed on fields of
battle; others were desperately wounded. Four of them went out as officers
with the first volunteers, one as Lieutenant Colonel from Morgan County
and three as Captains from Putnam County.
Capt. John Samuel Reid,
Senator from Putnam, Jasper, and Morgan Counties during the administration
of Gov. Colquitt, was shot through the foot at the battle of Gettysburg
and left on the field. He was afterward a prisoner and messmate with Maj.
H. D. McDaniel, since Governor of Georgia. His sister, Francis Reid,
married Judge Thomas G. Lawson, now a member of the United States
Congress. Mrs. B. W. Hunt, of Eatonton, daughter of Mrs. Isabella Prudden,
who is now living, is also a lineal descendant of the Scotch-Irishman
Samuel Reid.
In every honorable phase of
Christian citizenship, this thoroughly representative family of the
highest Scotch-Irish type, has left its spotless and enduring impress upon
the best history of the great state with which it has been illustriously
identified from the beginning. In private and public life, in peace and
war, the name has been the synonym of our highest civilization.
Capt. George Bruce Forbes
was born at La Grange, Ga. His father, Gilbert Forbes, was of Scotch and
Scotch-Irish parentage, tracing back to the days of Bruce and Wallace, as
far as 1747, and among his immediate ancestors was Gilbert Forbes, who was
made a freeman that year in New York state. His mother was of the Huguenot
and Scotch-Irish blood, whose family history has been well preserved.
About 1685 her progenitors left France, going to Holland and then to
America. She was a Tillon, the family settling at New Rochelle, twenty
miles from New York City. In 1704 a little French church was established
on Pine Street, near Nassau Street, New York City, which was attended by
the Tillon family, who left home on Saturday, walking twenty-two miles,
and walking back on Monday. There are twenty-two Tillons buried in Trinity
churchyard in New York, among them Peter V. Tillon, one of the bodyguards
of George Washington, and who is said, when the American army entered New
York at the end of the Revolution, to have taken down the British colors
and raised the American colors at the spot that is now the corner of Grand
Street and the Bowery. Among the Tillons buried in Trinity churchyard are
a number who lost their lives in the revolutionary war.
The grandmother of Capt.
Forbes was Charity Macomb, a sister of Gen. Alexander Macomb, who won
repute in the war of 1812, and special distinction at the battle of Fort
George, Niagara, and Plattsburg as Colonel and Major General, and
afterward was commander of the United States army, up to his death in
1841. A Tillon family Bible, brought over by them from France, and a plate
mirror, in good preservation, are in the possession of a member of the
family in Newark, N. J. In 1853 Francis R. Tillon, then Recorder of New
York, prevented the opening of Wall Street through Trinity churchyard,
claiming that the bones of the dead Tillons who lost their lives in the
Revolution should not be disturbed.
Capt. Forbes left the La
Grange High School early to enter the Con. federate army as Orderly
Sergeant of the Columbus (Ga.) Light Artillery, and rose to be Lieutenant
in his battery, serving gallantly through the entire war from his
enlistment to his surrender with Gen. Dick Taylor in May, 1865, among the
last of an organized body to surrender. He served under Gen. Joseph E.
Johnston, whom he greatly admired, in his noted campaigns in Mississippi
and Georgia, and counts among his hardest experiences Hood's campaign in
Tennessee in the winter of 1864. His command in which he served all the
time, was a mounted battery in the division of cavalry of Gen. William
Henry Jackson, of Tennessee, being attached to Gen. Ross's brigade.
Since the war Capt. Forbes
was a member of the La Grange Light Guards, and its Lieutenant during
reconstruction. He moved to Atlanta in 1881, and in 1883 he became and has
been since the Deputy Clerk of the Superior Court of Fulton County. He was
active in the organization of the Atlanta Artillery, and was elected First
Lieutenant August 16, 1886, and Captain in December, 1888, and building up
the corps, he gave it national repute for courteous attention to
distinguished men visiting the city.
Capt. Forbes married in
1871 the daughter of Rev. Dr. William M. Cunningham, for years an honored
Presbyterian pastor in La Grange, Ga. Three of their five children are
living: George Bruce, Mattie Tillon, and Evan Howell.
A thoroughly representative
man of the substantial Scotch-Irish character is that leading jurist and
lawyer of North Georgia, Judge Cicero D. McCutchen, of Dalton, a gallant
soldier in the late war, a legislator of repute and ability, and a
gentleman of broad influence. A gentleman who has, in a quiet, solid way,
impressed his personality upon the prominent and important matters of
Georgia is Col. Clifford Anderson, so long the Attorney-general of the
state, another Scotch-Irishman, typical in his personal and intellectual
characteristics of the cool, self-poised, brainy, positive, and thoroughly
reliable breed to which he belongs, and from whose sturdy manhood he came.
Another splendid sample of the true-hearted and clear-brained stock is
that fine old character, retired to the gentle quiet of an honored old
age, Judge John Erskine, the Judge of the United District Court for
Georgia through the stormy reconstruction days, when he held an odious
place of despotic power which he administered with rare humanity and kind
justice, doing his duty by his government, and yet sparing an oppressed
people and mitigating legal war severities. His portrait hangs in the
court room at Savannah, placed there by those whose affections and esteem
he won by his humane discharge of a trying duty. Another picturesque
descendant of the illustrious blood is that accomplished diplomat and
delightful gentleman, Hon. Henry W. Willard, Congressman and United States
Ambassador to Belgium and Brazil, who met the great Yancey on the colossal
question of secession, and whose strongest claim to remembrance is his
agency in the emancipation of slavery in Brazil while he was foreign
minister there, when he wrote a letter, now enthroned in the British Blue
Book, that drove the movement to success.
The Purse family of
Savannah Scotch-Irish has been notable in material matters for Georgia's
development. Thomas Purse, the father, was the founder of the great
Central railroad, now the largest system of the South. He was its
superintendent, and originated the first time table, that has become the
law of all railways. His son, Daniel G. Purse, built the Tybee railway,
has been a public benefactor, and his latest and largest achievement is
the colossal one of devising and conducting the campaign which has just
resulted in securing an appropriation of $3,000,000 to give deep water to
the Savannah harbor, a benefaction whose good to Georgia cannot be
measured or imagined.
The rare Scotch-Irish
contributions to Georgia civilization cannot be enumerated. The Nesbit
family, of the Scotch-Irish race, has been a valuable one. It gave
Eugenius A. Nesbit to the Supreme Court of the state, and a host of noble
men and women in every calling. That classical litterateur and scholarly
divine, founder of Scott's Monthly Magazine, Rev. W. J. Scott, and that
inimitable humorist, C. H. Smith, better known as "Bill Arp," the raciest
of all our writers, are Scotch-Irishmen. Gen. J. R. Lewis, the one-armed
and efficient postmaster of Atlanta, comes from this stock. The most
remarkable stock farmer and real estate investor we have ever had in the
state, Richard Peters, was a Scotch-Irishman. He was a rare man, wise,
liberal, progressive, farsighted broad-planned, and energetic. The fairest
part of Atlanta, the imperial north portion, owes its preservation, from
any possible deterioration of its high status by any injurious features,
to his wisdom and long-headedness. He was a founder of its extensive
street car system. George W. Adair, the best real estate man the city of
Atlanta has had, and who has all the qualities to have been a public
orator, is a Scotch-Irishman. So is that brainy and diplomatic railroader,
and head of the Georgia Railroad Commission, Maj. Campbell Wallace.
But the list of thought
molders and event makers from this potential breed of folks is simply
innumerable. I cannot better close than with a brief mention of two men
who have, beyond all others, fixed their stamp upon the public automomy of
Georgia. Before these, however, it may not be improper to allude to a few
others.
We have in Georgia, Samuel
Barnett, ex-Railroad Commissioner, probably the ablest statistician and
economic writer in the South; Dr. W. A. Calhoun, the most scientific eye
and ear specialist in the South, and the equal of any in this country or
Europe; Walter G. Cooper, grandson of that practical Georgian, Hon. Mark
A. Cooper, the iron king of the period before the war, and once candidate
for Governor in one of the most memorable races ever known in the state's
political annals ; Judge John D. Cunningham, the largest fruit raiser in
the South, and a strong lawyer and judge also; Dr. W. S. Kendrick, a
leader among the medical scientists of the state; Col. A. J. McBride, a
gallant officer of the war, and a successful and progressive developer;
Andy P. Stewart, the pleasant, efficient tax collector of the great county
of Fulton; Col. A. J. West, the Quartermaster of the state, and an
effective real estate agent; and a host of Wilsons, strong, valuable men.
The two men to whom I have
alluded as perhaps beyond all others the most potent powers of Georgia
annals are Govs. George Mcintosh Troup and Joseph Emerson Brown. On his
mother's side Gov. Troup came from the John Moore Mcintosh that was a
commander under Oglethorpe. The McIntoshes were memorable people in that
day, famous Indian fighters, and one, the fruit of a marriage with an
Indian, became an Indian general. Gov. Troup has come down to us as the
best known apostle of state rights, making historic stands for his views
in successful contests of authority and argument with the United States
Government. Gov. Brown exhibited the same sturdy adherence to the
Scotch-Irish spirit of devotion to liberty and state and individual right
as Gov. Troup in his stern controversies with the Confederate Government
against the policies of conscription and the other anti-republican
measures of the Confederacy, which he believed to be in conflict with the
principles for which the South was fighting. Gov. Brown has been
Executive, Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, United States
Senator, lawyer, railroader, manufacturer, miner, real estate investor,
town builder, farmer, philanthropist, and all on a large scale, and with
unvarying success. Probably no man in the country has had his versatility.
Certainly none have combined in themselves in strong degree the masterful
qualities that go to make up the Scotch-Irish character.
Georgia has been a dominant
state from the first, and unquestionably the fact is largely due to the
Scotch-Irish spirit in her inhabitancy. That she will continue the career
of leadership no one can doubt. Her future must be great, impelled by this
powerful citizenship. |
