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THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES

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* AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES *

ashinglon-

COMPILED AND WRITTEN BY WORKERS OF THE WRITERS ' PROGRAM OF THE WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA

Illustrated

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Sponsored by the Washington City Council

THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS

ATHENS

I 9 4 I FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY

JoHN M. CARMODY, Administrator

WORK. PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION

HowARD O. HuNTER, Commissioner

FLORENCE l(ERR, Assistant Commissioner

H. E. HARMON, State Adnzinistrator

COPYRIGHTED 1941 BY THE WASHINGTON CITY COUNCIL

PRINTED IN U.S.A. BY THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS

ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHTS TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM. CITY OF WASHINGTON WASHINGTON. GEORGIA

W. C. LINDSEY. MAYOR COUNCILMEN F. E. BOLINE.CL'l:RK J,G.ALLEN A. A. JOHNSON UO KRUHBtltt 105'1 NASH 11. P. POPE DR. A. W. SIMPSON

We, the Mayor and Council of Washington Georgia, feel that we are fortunate in having an opportunity to sponsor a History and Guide of our town and county through the Georgia Writers' Froject of the Work Projects Adminis• tration of the state. It is a pleasure for us to add a word of appreciation to this little book which will find its way to all parts of our nation, telling in a quaint and simple manner the story of th1s locality which is so rich in history, and carrying glimpses or the beauty of our homes and surroundinBs. We are happy to sponsor this worthwhile work and are grateful to the Georgia Writers' Project for giving Miss Minnie Stonestreet the task of compiling this important volume.

February- 1941

Preface

VERY TOWN is different from every other town. E This conclusion constantly comes home to us who are en­ gaged in compiling guidebooks, and its truth is more apparent with each new volume. Written records may supply accurate dates, but the true flavor of history is best brought out by conver­ sation with those who have participated. This flavor, or atmos­ phere, we have sought to put into this book. Other cities may have more industrial variety, more establishments, more contrast between past and present; few so truly embody, without self­ ::onsciousness, the gracious spirit of the Deep South. Some cities show their old houses every day in the year. Washington-Wilkes lives in them. In a community such as this one, where the past is rich but pub­ lished records are few, it was necessary to rely to a great extent on the aid of citizens. This aid was given abundant! y; we cannot speak too highly of the diligence and courtesy of those who gave so much time to furthering our research. A list of these consult­ ants will be found at the end of the book. We ask the indulgence of any who may have failed to receive credit for assistance. Even the greatest care cannot always insure the inclusion of all consult­ ants. When the Mayor and City Council signed the sponsorship papers for. "The Story of Washington-Wilkes," the Writers' Proj­ ect in Georgia had been doing this work for about four years and had published similar books of Savannah, Augusta, and Macon as well as the more comprehensive state guide. Therefore, we had vii Vlll PREFACE had the benefit of some experience. Partly for this reason and still more because of the co-operation we received in Washington and Wilkes County, events moved smoothly toward publication. And so it is to the citizens of Washington-Wilkes that we pre­ sent this book. We hope that those who are still living here will accept it as a token of appreciation and that those who have moved away will find in it something to remind them of home.

SAMUEL TUPPER, JuNioR, State Supervisor MINNIE STONESTREET, Research Assistant Contents

PAGE FOREWORD V .. PREFACE Vll . LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Xl

GENERAL INFORMATION

CONTEMPORARY SCENE I

HISTORY IO

SETTLEMENT IO

IN THE REVOLUTION

GROWTH UNDER THE STATE

WAR BETWEEN THE STATES AND RECONSTRUCTION ..

CLOSE OF THE CENTURY

THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

MODERN TIMES

POINTS OF INTEREST

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS 117

CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 121

CONSULTANTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY 127

INDEX 131

lX

List of Illustrations

FACING PAGE E. B. CADE HousE 16 INTERIOR E. B. CADE HousE SHOWING RosA BoNHEUR PAINTING 16 F1cKLEN-LYNDON-JoHNSON HousE 17 INTERIOR ALEXANDER HousE 17 PoRcH DETAIL OF SEMMES-PETEET-CLEVELAND-JORDAN-LINDSEY HousE 32

CHARLES E. IRVIN HousE 33 H1LLHousE-CALLAWAY-TooMBs-Woon HousE 33 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 48 RoBERT TooMBs HousE 49 PouLAIN-CoLLEY-Snv1s HousE 49 MARIA RANDOLPH HousE 64 TowN SQUARE 65 OLD SLAVE CABINS NEAR WASHINGTON 65 ELLINGTON HousE 80

McRAE-TUPPER-BARNETT HousE So

SEMMES-PETEET-CLEVELAND-JORDAN-LINDSEY HousE 8r

GILBERT-ALEXANDER HousE 81 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH INTERIOR 96 WASHINGTON WoMAN's CLUB BuILDING 96 PoRcH AND BALCONY DETAIL OF BERRY-HAY-POPE HousE 97

xi

General Information

Transportation: Railroad Station on Railroad Street for Washing­ ton branch line of Georgia Railroad. Bus Station at Green's Drug Store on south side of Public Square for Southeastern Stages and Bass Bus Lines. Emergency landing field for airplanes at the rear of the C. E. Irvin House on Lexington Avenue. Traffic Regulations: Right and left turns permitted at all inter­ sections except at the corner of Main and Spring Streets on the west side of the public square; right turns may be made on red lights. Stop and slow signs and parking limitations are plainly marked. Accommodations: Two hotels; several boarding houses; and one tourist home. Moderate rates. No hotel for Negroes but two private homes take roomers. Shopping: Shops around the Public Square and on Robert Toombs A venue for a block each side of the square. Information Service: No bureau of information, but clerks in shops, especially those in the drug stores, and the city clerk in the City Hall gladly give information and directions. Recreation: Golf: Washington Golf Club, 4 miles east on US highway 78, 9 holes with sand greens; visitors may obtain permis­ sion to play from some member. Tennis: Courts at Boline Home on South Spring Street; no charge. ... Xll1 . XlV GENERAL INFORMATION Swimming: Concrete pool at Boline Home on South Spring Street; 10 cents for children, 15 cents for adults. Theaters: One motion picture theater on west side of Public Square. Annual Events: Spring: Daffodil Garden Club Flo,ver Show; April 26, Confederate Memorial Day exercises. Fall: Washington High School Carnival. Contemporary Scene

As A MARKET center for the farmers of the surrounding middle fi Georgia countryside, Washington is so important that the town and Wilkes County have become almost interdependent, and the municipality is distinguished from the many other cities of that name by the local appellation of Washington-Wilkes. In recent years this town, one of the oldest settle1nents in Georgia, has become widely known for the beauty and authenticity of its ante-bellum houses. Here may be seen not only numerous fine examples of the columned, porticoed "Southern Colonial" or Greek Revival houses, found frequently enough in other towns of this section, but many earlier, simpler clapboard structures that have more right to be called Colonial-houses that are only a few years younger than the American Revolution. To the visitor these homes have a particularly intimate charm because they are not arranged for tourists' inspection but look "lived in." Here is the Old South at its most natural best, sometimes slow-rnoving and remote but with plenty of assurance and alert strength be­ neath its old-fashioned graciousness. In these homes, old ways are kept up not as a memorial ceremony but _as an energetic habit of daily living. Washington does not live in the past but brings the leisurely and hospitable manners of its heyday into the present. The town has been touched but lightly by commerce and scarcely at all by industry. The center of activity is the square, dominated on the north by a grandiose late Victorian courthouse of cream brick and red tile. Shops enclose the other three sides of the square, which is bisected by a long grassy park overlooked by I 2 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES the figure of a Con£ ederate soldier standing on a granite shaft. All day from Monday through Friday this area is a scene of quiet activity, but early in the evening the square is deserted except for the movie crowd returning home, the traveling salesmen in their sidewalk rockers be£ ore the hotel, and a few grocery clerks dressing their windows for the next day's trade. On Saturdays, however, the square and business streets present a scene of bus­ tling movement when farmers come to town to buy their weekly supplies. At this time the area is filled with blue overalls and wide-brimmed "cornfield" hats; with gay Negro laughter; and with the deliberate drawl of farmers with peanuts, bottled drinks, and cartons of ice cream; with trucks, dilapidated automobiles, a few buggies, and many wagons, their wheels caked with the red clay of country roads. The Negroes are especially evident, for Saturday has been their holiday since the time of slavery. Many, in their Sunday best, have come from "Sat'day meetin'" at their rural churches. Standing on corners and gathering to visit with one another, they linger long after dark, for on Saturday the stores stay open until eleven. Across the southern end of the square, US High\vay 78 follows Robert Toombs A venue, which, with the parallel Liberty Street and the cross thoroughfares, Spring Street and Alexander Avenue, forms the main residential district of Washington. This section is filled with stately trees, green lawns, and a luxuriant growth of shrubs and flowers as a foreground for dwellings of diversified architecture. One of the most pleasing types is the compact, green-shuttered white clapboard cottage of the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, usually built on a high base­ ment with a broad flight of steps leading to a stoop with small round pillars. Larger and more impressive dwellings of the Greek Revival have dentiled cornices and Doric, Ionic, or Corin­ thian columns across the front. Of a still later period are the large brick or frame structures adorned with turrets, cupolas, bay win­ dows, and leaded glass. Many of the smaller houses built near CONTEMPORARY SCENE 3 the turn of the century show scrollsaw ornamentation and banis­ ters, which sometimes have been appended also to the earlier Colonial cottages. In the newer subdivisions of Grandview, Barnett Park, Springdale Circle, and Springdale Park, bungalows of the type that was popular about 1907 predominate, but there are many later houses that follow most of the more conservative modern patterns. Public buildings embody every trend from the fine Colonial simplicity of the white frame Presbyterian Church, with its angular spire, to the Richardsonian-Romanesque solidity of various red brick structures with broadly arched entrances. Despite this architectural diversity, the effect of the residential section is harmonious because of the blending softness of trees and shrubbery. The coniferous trees are the pine and the dark­ foliaged cedar, which in ante-bellum times was planted in avenues leading to the columned plantation house. Washington's narrow streets are shaded by the elm, ash, and maple, the tall tulip poplar with its streaked yellowish flowers, and oaks of many varieties­ the great white oak and red oak, the rugged post oak, and the more delicately fashioned water oak. The weeping willow droops gracefully on many lawns. In autumn the ground is covered with nuts from the walnut and the yellow-leaved hickory, while small boys ni1nbl y climb the pecan trees to shake down the oval, thin­ shelled nuts. Spring brings out the flowering trees: dogwood, plum, quince, cherry, and the pink-blossomed Japanese magnolia, which is very unlike the famous magnolia grandifiora whose sweet, waxen white flowers bloom in summer. Also in summer come the feathery fragrant blossoms of the mimosa and somewhat later the heavy pink plumes of the crepe myrtle tree. Garden flowers of almost every kind are abundant. Among the most popular are the wild Cherokee Roses that convert fences and trel­ lises into snowy banks, accentuated by occasional plantings of the cultivated pink variety. The Cherokee is a favorite, for it was through the efforts of Metta Andrews Green, a Washington citi­ zen, that the flower was adopted by the legislature to represent 4 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES the state. Horticulturists have stated that the red clay soil here is particularly favorable to the cultivation of roses. In the southwestern part of town a spurline railroad depot is in the center of the scattered buildings that make up Washington's industrial section. Here the air is thick with smoke and with the acrid smells of the cottonseed oil mills and fertilizer plant. Along the rutted unpaved roads are also cotton warehouses, an ice plant, a creamery, a flour and grist mill, and a woodworking plant and planing mills. Negroes, making up 65 per cent of the total population, are scattered in several segregated areas. After the War between the States many freed slaves continued to live for a time in tenant houses on the property of their former masters, but after a time many of them moved into rented dwellings in town. A typical settlement is Gulleytown, where a few rows of frame houses are crowded into a gulch behind the courthouse. A majority of Negroes, however, now live in the more spacious outlying sections of Freedmanville to the west and Baltimore to the southeast. Here some of the houses are well kept, with neat picket fences, masses of flowers, and vegetable gardens where collards and onions grow all the year. Others are ramshackle, with bare yards in which unpenned hogs, goats, and chickens scamper among the washtubs under the spreading crepe myrtle trees. Sometimes the names of streets, such as Peachtree and Whitehall, are borrowed from more populous cities; but such place names as Vinegar Hill have a strong native flavor. Washington Negroes have their own schools, churches, and lodges, and in the business district one block from the courthouse are restaurants, pressing and tailor shops, insurance offices, and undertaking establishments. Lodges and burial societies play a large part in the Negroes' social life; frequently processions are seen, the participants wearing white robes for baptism or black robes for funerals. The 288,000 acres of Wilkes County lie in the midst of a highly productive farming country of low red clay hills, dense woodlands, CONTEMPORARY SCENE 5 and valleys of green pasture lands. Abundant drainage is sup­ plied by the Broad and Little Rivers and by Pistol, Upton, Rocky, Cedar, Kettle, and Beaverdam Creeks. Cecil clay loam is the predominant soil, but there are also lighter sandy varieties. In the well-watered lowlands, ,vhere the soil is black and strong, little commercial fertilizer is required for good crop production. Since large areas have been injured by excessive one-crop planting, the more progressive farmers are making efforts to conserve the land by terracing, strip cropping, planting legumes, and covering the badly eroded hillsides with kudzu, which is locally called the "electric vine" because of its rapid growth. Cotton, the principal crop of the region, brings an annual yield of about $550,000. Corn, grain, peanuts, and sugar cane, though bountiful, are used principally for home consumption. Legumes, crimson clover, and truck garden produce, especially green peas for canning, are also important. Since many grassy meadows provide excellent pasturage, dairy products bring $100,000 an­ nually. The town has a co-operative creamery and two cream stations. Poultry and hogs are raised on almost every farm. Although the deer and black bear that once abounded in the region have long since given way before intensive settlement, the rolling wooded terrain affords good hunting for the smaller game. Quail and doves, squirrels and rabbits are plentiful, and often on a summer night the melancholy baying of hounds is heard as the farmers carry on the fox hunt. The Broad and Little Rivers are well stocked with jackfish and bass, bream, perch, channel catfish, and eels. Many fishermen, especially Negroes, prefer the more sluggish fish, such as carp and mud catfish. A number of privately owned lakes and ponds are open for swimming at a small charge. A concrete pool at the old Washington Country Club is also open to the public at minimum prices. The close relation between town and county is shown by such small but significant things as a cotton patch in the midst of a residential section. This closeness shows still more on a county 6 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES election day, when the courthouse grounds are filled with farmers. Municipal government is simple; a mayor and six councilmen are selected every two years. Often these places are filled with no opposition, for there are no local parties or factions. No woman has ever held office here, although the women of the community show an alert interest in politics, vote regularly, and have an advisory committee that meets at intervals with the city council and has charge of cemeteries, parks, and municipal improvements. Although Washington has never been a college town, some of its social and cultural groups resemble those commonly found at a Southern university of long traditions. The public schools have a student enrollment of four hundred and a faculty of sixteen; the system is administered in a way similar to that of other Georgia towns of like size. An eleven-grade accredited school has three brick buildings: the grammar school, high school, and auditorium­ armory. The county schools are maintained under a separate system which provides two accredited senior high schools, four junior high schools, and one grammar school. The modern plan of one-story school construction is shown in two of the newer build­ ings. Sixteen buses serve the children of Wilkes County. The Negroes, with an enrollment of 2,205, have 41 county schools, one of which is a Rosenwald institution. The church life of Washington is very vigorous. As in most Georgia towns, the Baptist and Methodist denominations have by far the largest numbers. The Presbyterian and Episcopal churches also have active congregations, and the Roman Catho­ lics, seldom numerous in the smaller cities of Georgia, are well represented here. Highly characteristic of a Southern farm com­ munity are the revival services held by the Methodist and Baptist churches of the section in August when crops are "laid by." Hearty singing, protracted preaching, warm hospitality, and abundant food are the order of the day. Another annual religious activity of the summer season is the Daily Vacation Bible School for children, conducted on an inter-denominational basis. CONTEMPORARY SCENE 7 Frequently coinciding and co-operating with religious enter­ prises are various civic and community projects, which are always in a state of activity. The Woman's Club occupies a particularly prominent position in political and civic affairs. One of its divi­ sions, the Daffodil Garden Club, is constantly busy in beautifica­ tion of parks and roadsides. The Kettle Creek Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution was strongly influential in arranging for the purchase of several acres of the Kettle Creek battle site in this vicinity and the erection of a monument to com­ memorate this famous Revolutionary battle. The Last Cabinet Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy is so named because President Je.fferson Davis held his last Confederate cabinet meeting in Washington. This group formerly expended con­ siderable effort toward the welfare of Confederate veterans, but since the number of these old soldiers has so greatly diminished, the chapter now devotes itself largely to the maintenance of a Confederate museum in the courthouse. Recently, through their influence, a chapter of the Children of the Confederacy has been organized. The Kiwanis Club is prominent among the men's organiza­ tions, meeting weekly for lunch and discussion of plans for com­ munity improvement. Other men's groups that are well repre­ sented are the Masons, Knights of Pythias, Odd Fellows, Lions, and Woodmen of the World. The American Legion and Na­ tional Guard also have a full membership. From its earliest days, Washington has had its share of artists. Perhaps the best-known painter to live in Washington was Albert Capers Guerry, who painted many portraits in the traditional academic manner. When he was called here in 1885 to portray the likenesses of several prominent citizens, he liked the town so well that he decided to remain. Although several of his paintings are hung in Washington houses, his better works, including por­ traits of Robert Toombs, Andrew Pickens, and Grover Cleveland, are found in the state capitols of Georgia and South Carolina, the 8 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES national capitol in Washington, D. C., and several Southern col­ leges. For many years Grace Dyson Smith painted here her deli­ cate water color sketches of landscapes and still-life objects. She was the teacher of Percy Tazewell Richards, who later studied under William Greason in Detroit and at the Graphic Sketch Club in Philadelphia. In these two cities he developed a tech­ nique more robust than that of his first teacher and became known for his detailed landscapes in oils. The town is the birthplace of one of the n1ost prominent South­ ern women of Confederate days, Eliza Frances Andrews, the first woman to be elected to membership in the International Academy of Literature and Science. Well known during her life as a botanist and educator, Miss Andrews is remembered also for her writings about this section during the War between the States. Eliza Bowen, who spent her life here, was an astronomer and historian who wrote The History of Wilkes County, one of the first county histories in Georgia. Maude Andrews Ohl, a novel­ ist and prominent newspaper woman, was born in this town and spent her early life here. A young poet of national reputation who was born and reared in Washington is Gilbert Maxwell, whose two volumes Look To the Lightning and Stranger's Gar­ ment contain several verses descriptive of this section. Maxwell is less notable for local color in his poetry, however, than for the warm feeling and musical idiom with which he celebrates the emotions common to all mankind. Socially, Washington has elements of both the Old South and the New. Its bridge parties, its small informal teas, its bridal "showers," and occasional dances, are similar to those of other communities. On the other hand, there are many pleasantly old­ fashioned gatherings, such as the barbecues held for civic and political rallies. The pork, mutton, veal, chicken, or kid are roasted over glowing hardwood coals and give out appetizing odors in the open air. Brunswick stew, a succulent hash made from these meats with additions of tomatoes and corn, simmers CONTEMPORARY SCENE 9 long in iron pots. The meats and stew are served with cole slaw, potato chips, pickles, bread, and coffee. Few social occasions are so greatly en joyed here as barbecues. To the average newcomer, the charm of Washington lies prin­ cipally in its more old-fashioned attributes, its handsome old homes and the agreeable decorum of its personal relationships. Here, certainly, is a community where good manners really count. But further acquaintance will show that modern life also has found its place. Washington has its aristocracy, but it is deter­ mined on the basis of individual merit, in the democratic \Vay of the alert twentieth century. History

SETTLElYIENT

T WAS not until after the middle of the eighteenth century that I white men began to lay plans for permanent settlement in the part of Georgia that is now Wilkes County. At that time the Cherokee and Creek Indians claimed the land as a hunting ground, and only overgrown clearings indicated that they had once lived here the year round. The Cherokees had moved north into the mountains and the Creeks had gone west into the pied­ mont region and south into the coastal plain. In 1763 a small band of Englishmen who attempted to come into the Little River valley from their colonies along the Savannah River were vigor­ ously driven out by the Indians. In that year the Colonial gov­ ernors of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia met with seven hundred Indians in Augusta and signed a treaty fixing the Little River as the northern boundary for white settle­ ment in Georgia. 'fhe title of the Indians to their hunting lands was thus legally confirmed. Since the Indians wished to deal with the white men, the treaty provided that the governor could continue issuing licenses to au­ thorized traders. But the Indians proved to have little commercial acumen and were not able to pay for their purchases with the products of their hunting, fishing, and trapping. The claims of the white men were established at last, therefore, not by force but by trading. The history of land ownership in this period was made by such well-known merchants as James Jackson and George Galphin. Although some were men of integrity, others were IO HISTORY II ruthless and deliberately drew the Indians into debt. To appease the white men, who clamored for payment, the Indians offered a cession of land to settle these debts, and, in order that an amicable settlement might be made, Sir James Wright, Georgia's royal governor, called a congress to convene in Augusta on June 1, 1773. John Stuart, his majesty's agent and superintendent of Indian af­ fairs in the South, exerted his influence to control this conference of wily traders and suspicious Indians. For their indebtedness of from forty to fifty thousand pounds, the tribal representatives agreed to relinquish to Georgia two great tracts of more than two million acres. One tract, ceded by the Creeks alone, lay between the Ogeechee and Altamaha Rivers; the other, ceded by both the Creeks and the Cherokees, extended frotn the Little River up the Savannah River beyond the Broad River almost to the junction of the Keowee and Tugaloo Rivers and westward to embrace the expansive territory that later became Wilkes County. From the sale of this land the provincial government would liquidate the claims held against the Indians. The white men lost no time in taking possession of their newly acquired lands. Soon after the conference a party of surveyors, chain carriers, markers, artisans, guards, and astronomers, as well as a few adventurers and Indian braves, set out from Augusta. Crossing Little River, the company entered a country of magnifi­ cent fores ts abounding in deer, black bear, wolf, wildcat, and such small game as squirrel and rabbit. Quail rose whirring from the underbrush, and the clear, rapid streams were full of fish. Although the Indians did not always sanc_tion the processes em­ ployed-they deemed the compass a devil's instrument to cheat them of their lands-the surveying was continued. Governor Wright immediately spread news along the Atlantic seaboard that grants in this "New Purchase" area were available for settle­ ment. His proclamation of June r I stated that the territory would "be parceled out in tracts varying from one to a hundred acres the better to accommodate the buyers." The head of a family would 12 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES be allowed a hundred acres for himself, fifty for his wife and each child, the same number for each slave and white male servant, and twenty-five for each female servant between fifteen and forty years. In order to induce settlers to come into the area, he set forth attractive terms of sale, praised the condition of the land, and stated that the fertile soil would be "fit for the production of wheat, indigo, Indian corn, tobacco, hemp, flax, &." According to the plan of settlement, commissioners were ap­ pointed to place a value upon each tract and to negotiate sales, charging not more than five shillings an acre~ Five pounds sterl­ ing were to be paid as "entrance money for every hundred acres." In order to make settlement easier, land courts were opened in Savannah, Augusta, and also in the ceded lands at the confluence of the Broad and Savannah Rivers, where Captain Thomas Waters and his company were stationed to preserve peace between white men and the Indians. Three years later, William Bartram, the noted botanist, visited the fort built there and later gave the fol­ lowing description in his Travels: "Towards evening I ... ar­ rived at Fort James, which is a four square stockade, with salient bastions at each angle, mounted with a block-house, where are son1e swivel guns, one story higher than the curtains, which are pierced with loopholes, breast high, and defended by small arms. The fortification encloses about an acre of ground, where is the governor's or commandant's house, a good building, which is flanked on each side by buildings for the officers and barracks for the garrison, consisting of fifty ranges, including officer's, each having a good house well equipt, a rifle, two dragoon pistols, and a hangar, besides a powder horn, shot pouch, and tomahawk." The point between the two rivers, for a distance of two miles back of the fort, was laid out for a town called Dartmouth in honor of the Earl of Dartmouth, who influenced King George to favor the cession of the newly acquired area. This village was thus the first real settlement made upon the "ceded lands." The Broad River HISTORY was also named for the distinguished nobleman and for a short time was called the Dart. When the commissioners opened the land court at Dartmouth on September 27, 1773, a rush for possession began. Court records show that settlers seeking new land came from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. One application came from a distant country, for on November r6, 1773, James Gordon, of Scotland, was given permission to bring from his country within a year a sufficient number of emigrants to settle five thousand acres near the junction of the Broad and South Broad Rivers. Ac­ cording to tradition in Wilkes County, Gordon brought vvith him sixty or seventy families of Scotch Highlanders who had agreed to serve a five-year apprenticeship to pay for their passage. But this venture was not successful. Gordon, soon frightened by threats of the oncoming revolution, carried his people into South Carolina and sold their indentures. An upper portion of Wilkes County where some of the Scots lived has been called Scotchtown by succeeding generations. An unsubstantiated story has long at­ tributed the settlement to the efforts of Lord George Gordon, an eccentric English gentleman later involved in anti-Catholic riots in London. On the last day of December, 1773, a band of Westmoreland County Virginians reached the primeval forest that stood on the present site of Washington, and on New Year's Day they began the arduous work of conquering the wilderness. As a precaution against Indian forays, great trees were felled for a stockaded forti­ fication which was called Fort Heard in honor of one of the Vir­ ginia families. The Heards, reputedly descendants of William the Conqueror, had settled in Virgina in 1720 as neighbors of George Washington's family, from whom they had obtained Arabian horses. John Heard, Jr., with his wife and sons, Barnard, Jesse, and Stephen, was included in the group that migrated to Georgia. Jesse remained at Fort Heard, vvhich stood just north of what is THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES now the public square. Stephen, who had done military service under George Washington, soon left and settled on Fishing Creek, eight miles away, where he built another stockade, this one called Beard's Fort. Governor Wright had told the English Board of Trade and his Majesty's Council that he expected the new cession to add ten thousand families to the population of Georgia, to increase the militia roll by fifteen thousand men, and to bring more than £100,000 worth of produce into the market. Promise of speedy development, however, was thwarted early in 1774, when seven­ teen white persons were murdered by the Creeks at Sherrill's Fort. As other attacks and skirmishes fallowed, the new inhabitants left their holdings and settlement was delayed. Governor Wright and Captain Stuart consequently asked for a conference with the Creeks in Savannah. After a new treaty of peace and amity, signed there on October 18, 1774, by twenty Creek chieftains, white men once more were brave enough to go into the New Purchase territory. With the return of confidence many old settlers returned, and new applicants came in good numbers. Early migrants, restricted by the Appalachian Highland to the west, usually followed that mountain range southward in search of new land. The first Wilkes County settlers were there£ ore joined by others from South Carolina, North Carolina, and even from more remote colonies. Few were drawn from General James Edward Oglethorpe's coastal communities. Coming on horse­ back, the children riding with their mothers, these pioneers were able to bring only a very few household articles and domestic animals with them. They hastily felled oak and pine trees from the dense wilderness, constructed log cabins with clapboard cover­ ings, and made crude furniture from axe-hewn planks. Life was hard for these early settlers. After working all day cultivating the fields or hunting rabbits or opossums for food, the men fre­ quently sat around the open hearth at night to tell stories as they picked the lint from cotton seed. The women wove cloth while HISTORY IS caring for infants in cradles improvised from hollow logs. The children were often frightened by the cries of panthers when they took the cattle out to graze, and housewives had to be con­ stantly on the alert for snakes that sometimes crawled in through cracks in the walls and made their way across the bare dirt floors. For pleasure there was dancing, and the men and boys went to "musters, shooting-matches, and horse-races." Despite the crude­ ness of their manner of living, these early settlers were not mere traders and adventurers, for the old land court record ( 1773-75) reveals that applicants for grants had to show satisfactory char­ acter vouchers.

IN THE REVOLUTION With Indian strife temporarily calmed and with settlers throng­ ing into the rich lands, the section see1ned to be ready for prosper­ ous development, but settlement was hardly under way before war broke out. The county came to life amid chaos. Perhaps because they had come from states where the issues of revolution had been much discussed, many of the early settlers were Whig in senti­ ment. That others were strongly Tory is due to the partiality shown by Governor James Wright in granting lands and paying the traders. This royal governor, upon his own responsibility, had initiated a policy of making grants to loyalists and refusing land to those who opposed the oppressive measures of Great Britain. The same method was used in disbursing the money realized from the sale of the New Purchase landso Men like George Galphin who sympathized with the colonists were refused pay­ ment of their legally just debts and were not paid until after Georgia had become a state. Wilkes County was therefore di­ vided in sentiment, and each group opposed the other whenever . occasion arose. In 1776, more than a year before the British soldiers came into Georgia, a constitutional convention met in Savannah and on February 5, 1777, approved a constitution whereby Georgia became THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES a state. The entire portion of the ceded lands north of the Ogee­ chee River was incorporated into one county and called Wilkes in honor of John Wilkes, who as a member of the British Parlia­ ment had opposed the severity meted out to the American Colo­ nies. Therefore, Wilkes County history from 1777 to 1790 also depicts that of Elbert and Lincoln Counties as well as parts of the present Hart, Madison, Oglethorpe, Taliaferro, and Warren Coun- . ties. The constitution authorized the establishment of a superior court in each county; on September 16, 1777, the legislature en­ acted a law empowering the Superior Court of Wilkes County to lay out and make roads "as may be thought convenient for the in­ habitants . . ." The court was also permitted to nominate com­ missioners and surveyors and to appoint inhabitants along the proposed roads to keep them in good repair. Absalom Bedell, Benjamin Catchings, and Robert Day were the commissioners ap­ pointed. Since this statute was in force only one year, no action was ever taken under its authority. Many of the early Wilkes County colonists rendered inestimable service in the American struggle for independence. The hand­ some and fearless Elijah Clarke, vvho came from North Carolina in 1774 and settled not far from Washington, became one of Georgia's greatest Revolutionary leaders. His first assignment ( 1776) was a captaincy in the quartermaster corps, with the re­ sponsibility of guarding the army's food supply. When Indians attacked the supply wagons in care of his company, he routed them in confusion. Although the British forces were son1etimes double that of his ovvn, it was the fiery charges of his soldiers that won for Wilkes County the name of Hornet's Nest. Fighting side by side with his men and showing no mercy to the enemy, he not only dealt out many a defeat to the British but kept up inces­ sant warfare with the Indians and Tories. Another of the early Wilkes County citizens whose military • . --.y ---~ '.

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HISTORY skill made history was Colonel John Dooly, ·who settled in what is now Lincoln County at the beginning of the Revolution. Dur­ ing the early months of the fighting in Georgia, he served with Clarke in many skirmishes in his own section and across the Savannah River in South Carolina. Having sworn vengeance upon the Indians for the murder of his brother Thomas, he con­ stant! y spread terror among the tribes. One of the most interesting characters of the Revolution was Austin Dabney, a free-born mulatto who fought with Elijah Clarke. Dabney had been enlisted as a substitute for his master, who was afraid to fight. After being seriously wounded at the Battle of Kettle Creek, he was cared for by one of the numerous Harris families of Wilkes County. In order to show his apprecia­ tion he lived frugally and saved enough money to send his bene­ factor's oldest son to the University of Georgia. Later acquiring money through a public land lottery and a Federal pension, he continued to serve his protege. Governor George Gilmer in his book Sketches tells that on one of Dabney's annual visits to Savan­ nah to collect his pension, the Negro accompanied Colonel Wiley Pope. Upon being warned of the prejudices that forbade a white man from associating with a Negro in urban society, Dabney fell behind at the city limits. In Savannah, however, Governor James Jackson watched Pope ride past his house without recognition but ran into the street to welcome Dabney with a warm handshake. Except for skirmishes with Indians incited by the British, Wilkes County was undisturbed by actual warfare until after the fall of Augusta in January, 1779, a year after royal forces had entered the state. As soon as the rebels of Wilkes learned that the British had captured Augusta, they began to move their families into South Carolina. A few remained to till their farms, and others sought refuge in pioneer forts. Since there was then no important post in Georgia held by Americans, the enemy considered themselves in possession of the state. Colonel Hamilton, appointed to ad- 18 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES minister the British oath of allegiance to the inhabitants remain­ ing in Wilkes County, burned many of the houses of those who had left. Many Georgia and Wilkes County patriots rallied around Colo­ nel John Dooly on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River and soon attempted to come back into Georgia. Trying to cross the river just below Dartmouth, they were so closely pressed by Colonel Hamilton that they fled back into the adjacent state. Having been joined by 250 men under Colonel Andrew Pickens, they again planned to attack Hamilton, who was encamped on Captain Thomas Water's plantation near the mouth of the Broad River. On February 10 the combined forces of Dooly and Pickens came into Wilkes prepared for an attack but found that Han1ilton had gone on an expedition to administer oaths of allegiance. Hamilton's goal was Carr's Fort, one of the numerous block­ houses of Wilkes County. Pickens, foreseeing Hamilton's line of march, sent a subordinate ahead to arrange for defense of this fort, a refuge of women and children. Finding it protected by a few old patriots, the officer deemed defense impracticable and al­ lowed the British to take possession; but the enemy were so closely pushed by the American forces under Dooiy and Pickens that they were forced to leave their horses and baggage outside the stockade. Although there was little shooting during this encounter because of the women and children inside the fort, nine British and five Americans were killed while three loyalists and seven patriots were wounded. Pickens hurriedly sent men to take possession of a log house, from which the patriots could command the only effective source of water, and planned to starve the British into surrender. Soon, however, he received news that Colonel John Boyd, a notorious Tory, with eight hundred loyalists was moving toward Georgia from South Carolina. The American patriots hastened across the Savannah to meet Boyd, and Colonel Hamil­ ton retreated to W rightsboro, in a neighboring county. Before leaving for South Carolina, Pickens and Dooly called for HISTORY reinforcements under Captain Anderson to patrol the Savannah in order to hold back the loyalist forces whenever they should at­ tempt a crossing. Boyd changed his course of march, failed to en­ counter Pickens, and attempted to cross into Wilkes at Cherokee Ford, which he found protected by a blockhouse. He conse­ quently went five miles up the river and effected a crossing by dividing his men into small groups and sending them across on rafts. Passage was hotly contested by a small force of a hundred Americans, and Boyd lost a hundred men, killed, wounded, and missing. Sixteen Americans were killed and wounded and an equal number were taken prisoners. Pickens and Dooly, hastening back into Georgia, were rein­ forced by Captain Anderson with his remaining troops and by Colonel Elijah Clarke with a hundred dragoons. After assem­ bling on the Broad River, the combined forces, informed by couri­ ers as to the movements of the enemy, hastened southward after Boyd, who was seeking to join Colonel Daniel McGirth and his five hundred men on the Little River about six miles from Kettle Creek. Although the skirmishes had cost him men and horses, Boyd still had seven hundred soldiers and was confident of su­ premacy. Near Kettle Creek at a spot twelve miles from Wash­ ington he halted his men for a breakfast of parched corn and fresh beef. But, unknown to him, Clarke, Dooly, and Pickens, were close on his trail. On the night before, the five hundred Ameri­ cans had encamped on a creek within four miles of the enemy. Among the soldiers was Clarke's son John, a lad of thirteen. Early in the morning of February 14 they began a march to overtake Boyd's forces. Soon they heard drums in the enemy's camp, halted, and sent a young officer to reconnoiter and ascertain the position of the British. Upon learning that the time was propitious, the Americans advanced, with Pickens commanding the center, Dooly the right wing, and Clarke the left. Boyd's pickets, catching sight of the advance guard, fired and thus gave alarm. Though taken by surprise, Boyd went into immediate 20 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES action. Deploying his men into battle formation, he advanced with a hundred soldiers, using fallen timber and an old fence to break the range of flying bullets. Soon the American charges drove them back from the valley and across the creek, causing them to abandon their horses and equipment. Boyd fell, mortally wounded. Clarke shrewdly sur­ mised that the retreat was a strategic maneuver to gain the vantage point of the hill beyond. To frustrate this plan, he decided to plunge ahead. As he gave the command to charge, his horse was shot from under him, but quickly mounting another he led his men forward. At the foot of the elevation, now known as War Hill, the noise of a sharp encounter soon drew the forces of Pick­ ens and Dooly to his aid. In less than two hours the patriots had won a great victory, losing only nine men to Boyd's seventy. Twenty American soldiers were wounded and ninety-five British. After the battle, Clarke pushed on after the retreating enemy, leaving two soldiers with the dying Boyd to attend his last needs. One of the decisive battles of the Revolution, the encounter of Kettle Creek was important not only to the citizens of Wilkes County but also to those of the state. From this engagement and the preliminary skirmishes the Americans gained a quantity of much-needed munitions and six hundred horses. Boyd's forces were scattered, some to the British in Augusta, where McGirth' s reinforcements had already retreated. These men never again assembled as a fighting unit, and except for pillaging by raiders Wilkes County was not again invaded. This victory broke the hold of the British in Georgia and led to Colonel Archibald Campbell's decision to abandon Augusta for a while. Although there was much fighting in the state throughout the following year, Georgia was no longer completely in the hands of the British. The citizens who had fled into South Carolina returned to their cabin homes and made preparations for their spring crops. It was not long, however, be£ ore they needed protection from the In­ dians, incited by the half-breed Alexander McGillivray and a HISTORY 21 British agent named Tate. In March, Clarke and Pickens called to arms all the remaining male citizens over sixteen, routed a band of eight hundred Creeks, and again restored peace to Wilkes County. Defeat of the enemy enheartened the stricken people to under­ take again the for1nation of their government. Obeying an order of the state executive council, they held their first session of court on August 25, 1779, in the house of Jacob McLendon about ten miles north of Fort Heard. Absalom Bedell, Benjamin Catchings, and William Downs were the justices, and Colonel John Dooly was attorney for the state. Henry Monadue was appointed clerk and Joseph Scott Riden sheriff. Embittered by the cruelty of the enemy and their sympathizers, this bar of justice showed little mercy to Wilkes County Tories. The grand jury, which assembled at the same time, made presentments against twenty-six Tories and recommended that they be arrested and tried for assisting "the British troops and the avowed enemies of the United States of America." No further records remain to show what happened to these, but it is known that the court tried nine others and found them guilty, recommending five to mercy. But clemency was not in the hearts of the jurors, for all nine were sentenced to be hanged. Joshua Rials, one of them, was tried for treason against the state and of acting "in conjunction with Tate and the Creek Indians." In order to insure evidence sufficient for conviction, the court tried another, James Mobley, not only for high treason but for "horse stealing, hogg stealing, and other misdemeanors." This first session of the court was called a "court of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery," but the following year the tribunal came to be known simply as the Superior Court. In the absence of a courthouse the first sessions were held in private residences, and the jury sat outside on a log for consultation. Since there was no jail, prisoners were confined in pens, frequently bound with hickory twigs, and often put into stocks that were merely two heavy rails of a wooden fence. 22 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES Throughout the period of British occupation of Georgia the state capital had been shifted between Savannah and Augusta. When Savannah was occupied by the British and Augusta was considered unsafe, the members of the General Assembly who met in Augusta on January 4, 1780, designated Heard's Fort as a meeting place in the event of attacks. On February 5 the assembly adjourned in order to reconvene at Heard's Fort, which thus be­ came the temporary capital of Georgia. Governor Richard I-Iowley, who was attending the Continental Congress in Phila­ delphia, had left the affairs of the state in the hands of George Wells, president of the council. Upon the death of Wells on February 18, Stephen Heard was elected president of the council and thereby became the acting governor of Georgia. Heard re­ ceived this recognition while occupying the fort that bore his name, and this post remained the seat of government for the greater part of the year. On January 23, 1780, seven years after the coming of the first settlers, the legislature appointed William Downs, Barnard Heard, John Graham, David Coleman, and John Dooly, or any three, to form a board of commissioners. These men were empowered to lay out a hundred acres into a common and town, "which shall be called Washington," the site to be that appointed for holding court. The money derived from the sale of acre lots was to be used for building a jail, a school, and a cemetery. Although the latter conditions were not carried into effect, a town was soon be­ gun at Fort Heard. Evidence of this is found in a legislative act of 1783 which states that a town had been ordered and "actually laid out in the County of Wilkes at a place called Washington . . . ." Thus Washington was the first of many towns to be named in honor of the great American general. The site probably bore the name before it was officially recognized, for certain unau­ thentic sources indicate that Fort Heard previously was called Fort Washington. The new legislature, wishing to invite immigration, continued HISTORY the policy of granting unapportioned Wilkes County lands. It established a headright system whereby every free white person was entitled to two hundred acres of land, fifty £or each member of his fatnily, and fifty for each slave up to ten. He was required to settle on his grant within six months, to pay a quit rent of two shillings, and to take care of the expense of surveying. But men were too busy with Revolutionary matters to take advantage of the moderate terms. Another effort to bring in colonists was made in 1780, when the requirements were made still more lenient. By this provision any citizen of Georgia or any other state was en­ titled to a grant of land, two hundred acres for the head of the household and fifty acres for each additional member, white or black, provided the total was not more than a thousand acres. In return the applicant was required to move his entire family onto the land and take an oath of allegiance to the state govern­ ment. He also was required to give assurance that the land would be settled within nine months, a period later extended to twelve. The fee charged for this land was only one shilling (about 24 cents) an acre for the first hundred acres and 6 pence ( about 12 cents) an acre for the rest. In order that immigration might be hastened, men coming from other states were exempted from military duty for two years. But even the military duty of the older citizens was likely to be fitful and uncertain. With battles occurring intermittently, a man had to keep his farm or store going and at the same time be ready to fight. Since many of the Indian traders or their heirs had not been paid by the province of Georgia, the state in 1780 also assumed the old claims against the Indian debts. Claimants were asked to submit proof of their rights of compensation to the legislature, which subsequently authorized payment in treasury certificates bearing 6 per cent interest. After the British recaptured Augusta in the spring of 1780, they made no attempt to occupy Wilkes County. They were satisfied THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES by sending raiders to subdue the rebel Whigs and to warn them that submission was expected. One of these bands forced itself into the house of the patriot John Dooly and brutally killed him in the presence of his family. Part of this same band, pillaging and stealing, made their way to the log cabin of Nancy Hart and accused her of hiding a rebel from the King's men. This red­ headed giantess boasted that she had aided an American soldier to escape into the swamp behind her house by directing his pur­ suers in the opposite direction. The angry Tories thereupon shot her one remaining gobbler and ordered her to cook it for them. While preparing the meal, she bustled about the house, uttering an occasional oath, and managed to slip a pinewood chink from be­ tween two logs. As she passed back and forth between the men and their muskets, she began to slip their guns through the hole she had made. When the soldiers detected her in putting out the third, they quickly rose to their feet, but Nancy brought the piece to her shoulder and declared she would kill the first man who ap­ proached. When one started toward her, Nancy shot him and hastily seized another musket. Meanwhile Nancy's daughter Sukey, who had been sent to the spring for water, had summoned her father by blowing a conch shell. When Sukey returned to the cabin, saying "Daddy and them will soon be here," the soldiers made a rush toward Nancy, who fired and killed another. At the point of a gun Nancy held the others until her husband and some neighbors came from the fields. When they were about to shoot, Nancy protested that shooting was too good for Tories, where­ upon the survivors were bound and hanged to a tree. Living in that part of Wilkes County that has since become Hart, Nancy Hart is said to have acted as a spy for Clarke and to have taken part in several pitched battles, including the Battle of Kettle Creek. During the British occupation of Augusta, she volunteered to obtain some much desired information for Clarke. Entering the British lines disguised as a backwoodsman with HISTORY eggs to sell, she spent several days there unmolested and dis­ covered all their secret plans. Colonel Clarke, who meanwhile was fighting in South Caro­ lina, returned to Georgia to help in an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Augusta. Planning to return to the neighboring state, he ordered his Wilkes County volunteers to assemble at Dennis Mills on the Little River. There in September, 1780, he found four hundred women and children, who, unable to cultivate their fields and persecuted by the enemy, asked to be allowed to follow the army to safety. Escorted by Clarke and his three hundred men, this group bravely tramped for eleven days to the security of the Watauga Valley in North Carolina. While in that state the Wilkes County men fought in the Battle of King's Mountain. Although there was little fighting at home during the follow­ ing year, Wilkes County men distinguished themselves in battles in other states. They fought not only at King's Mountain but at several sites in South Carolina, including Blackstock's Plantation, Cowpens, and Long Cane Creek, where Clarke was critically wounded. Clarke's intrepid wife Hannah followed him to the army camp and nursed him, as she did whenever he was sick or wounded. In 178 I Clarke, now a brigadier general, felt that a return to Georgia was necessary. With permission from his commander, General Nathanael Greene, he divided his men into small groups and dispersed them throughout Wilkes County to care for the women and children and to ascertain the situation in the Hornet's Nest. In no other Georgia section had the pioneer families suf­ fered more brutalities at the hands of the Tories than in Wilkes County. Many older men had been killed or put into foul prisons to die of disease. Many women and children had been robbed and so insulted that they had sought refuge in temporary huts more resembling a savage camp than a civilized abode. Among those who had been tortured by the loyalists during the THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES Revolution was Stephen Heard' s wife and child, who were driven out into a snowstorm. Their cabin was burned, and both died of exposure. Hannah Clarke, with her children, was also driven from her home, and while she was making her way to relatives in North Carolina, her horse was stolen and she was forced to walk through the mud and rain, carrying one child and leading another. Sarah Gilliam Williamson, wife of the gallant soldier Micaijah Williamson, was forced to look on at the hanging of her eldest son. Little aid could be given to this ravaged land, for it was soon necessary for Clarke to aid in a second siege of Augusta. When his men again assembled at Dennis Mill, in April, 1781, he had smallpox. Lieutenant Micaijah Williamson led the soldiers to Augusta, and Clarke, as soon as he was well, joined him with a hundred more Wilkes County men. After a hard fight in July Augusta was again in possession of the Americans. Captain Samuel Alexander and Stephen Heard found their old fathers in Augusta prisons where they had been held for ransom by the Tory Colonels Brovvne and Grierson. Except for Indian raids which were quickly quelled under Pickens and Clarke, this was the last time that Wilkes County troops assembled for action. On July II, 1782, the British evacuated Savannah and in Novem­ ber of that year peace was declared.

GROWTH UNDER THE STATE Wilkes County began to prosper almost as soon as the Revolu­ tion was over. The peaceful era that followed was important not only because of the rapid acquisition of wealth through the de­ velopn1ent of the land's resources but also because of the promo­ tion of social, political, educational, and religious enterprises. When soldiers returned to their farms and stores, commerce began to stir. The population grew rapidly with the coming of wealthy planters who, encouraged by the reports of their predecessors on the fertility of the soil, came south seeking new lands. Many, HISTORY like those be£ ore the war, were from Virginia and the Carolinas, while others were from more distant states, such as Maryland, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. The great body of immigrants was of Scotch-Irish extraction, but a few were of English cavalier and French Huguenot stock. Often the men brought their families in great wagons loaded with fine possessions-mahogany, pewter, brass, and silver, of which many pieces are still used by Washington and Wilkes housewives. During the Revolution Dartmouth had struggled hard for exist­ ence, but afterward it took on new life as settlers, seeking new land, crossed the Savannah River by means of Thomas Carter's ferry into Wilkes County. By 1786 the citizens were prosperous, but they still remembered the devastation wrought by the English during the Revolution. Like other Georgians, they felt an aver­ sion to English names and voted to call their town Petersburg after the Russian capital. A town across the Broad River was called Lisbon, and one across the Savannah in South Carolina was named Vienna. In that year Dionysius Oliver erected in Petersburg a warehouse for the storage of tobacco. This act seems to have given an incentive to tobacco culture, for it was not long before other warehouses were built and tobacco inspectors, appointed by the inferior court, were coming from Washington­ Wilkes. In 1790 Petersburg was cut off from Wilkes and made a part of Elbert County. It continued to prosper until well within the nineteenth century, when cotton, which needed no inspec­ tion, became the leading crop. The town then began to dwindle, and this decline was hastened by a yellow _£ ever epidemic and the call of new land to the west. In this same prosperous era there was a thriving settlement on the Goosepond Tract about ten miles up the Broad River from Petersburg. When Colonel George Mathews was serving as colonel of the Virginia troops in South Carolina with Elijah Clarke, he came into Wilkes County, saw the productive land, and took an option on a vast area. Back in Virginia, he induced THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES many of his friends, restless and impoverished because the English tobacco markets were closed to them, to come with him to Geor­ gia. These men, including Francis Meriwether, Benjamin Talia­ ferro, and Thomas Gilmer, lived on widely separated plantations but formed an intimate society based on personal co-operation. Energetic, high-tempered, and amusingly conceited, George Mathews perpetually sang his own praises in a high-pitched voice and acknowledged no superior but General Washington, with whom he had served. His political activities in Georgia at once brought him into prominence. Although he did not move to Georgia until 1784, he was elected governor in 1787 and again served in this capacity from 1793 until 1796. Barely literate, he wrote the word coffee as kaughphy; but, conscious of his failing, he sent important messages during his terms as governor to a schoolmaster to be "turned into good grammar." Mathews was also prominent in the early educational life of the county. A clerk's record states that as a commissioner of Wilkes County he bought "forty Latten books and eight copperplates" for the academy. Like the county, Washington was slow in getting a start dur­ ing the Revolution but began to grow rapidly now that fighting had ceased. Because the first commissioners had failed to comply with certain restrictions, the legislature in 1783 declared that the town grant should revert to the state. Consequently the legisla­ ture appointed Stephen Heard, Micaijah Williamson, Robert Harper, Daniel Coleman, and Zachariah Lamar as commissioners to see that the acre lots be sold, that a building be erected in town to serve as a free school for the county, and that the surplus money be used to erect a church. During the same year the sec­ tion of Washington known as Old Town was divided into forty­ eight lots forming a rectangle, but the surrounding common brought the shape of the town into a square. As the town grew, there was need of additional lots and also of additional funds for the maintenance of Wilkes County Academy; so in 1793 the com- HISTORY missioners received authorization from the state legislature to di­ vide the common into lots and sixty-eight new sites for homes were thereby created. The legislative act of 1783, which authorized the organization of a school, also permitted the governor to grant a thousand acres to Wilkes County, the income from this area to be l\Sed for the maintenance of the institution. Thus the Wilkes County, or Washington Academy was one of the first three public schools to be chartered by the state and one of the first to receive such a grant. The board of commissioners met in 1784 to consider their problems, but it was not until January 1, 1786, that the school was opened. Both boys and girls of all ages were offered a traditional academic education, with strong emphasis on Latin and Greek for the older students. This school, like the other state academies, was never able to function as a "free school" but was forced to charge tuition, small at first and later raised. The pupils during the first few years paid the equivalent of $2 a quarter for spelling, reading, and writing; $4 for English grammar and arithmetic; and $6 for "Latin grammar and forwards." The first teacher was Samuel Blackburn, an Irishman, who was furnished with a rented room and paid £ 150 a year. His keen wit, fine voice, and forcible language made a strong impression on his pupils. After teaching three years, Blackburn married Anne, the daughter of George Mathews, and undertook the practice of law in Elbert County. Classes were held in rented houses until 1797, when a dignified red brick building of two stories was erected. on Mercer Hill out­ side the city limits. The ten-acre campus was given by Elijah Clarke's son-in-law, Benaijah Smith, and funds for construction were raised by popular subscription, the largest donation being $532. For a few years the academy flourished, but in r805 the trustees were in need of financial assistance and appealed to the state legislature. Since the state had made no provision for the support of its academies except for the initial endowment, the THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILK.ES assembly was helpless and decided to let the Wilkes County peo­ ple help themselves. A Washington Academy Lottery was au­ thorized during the year, but the drawing did not occur until 1807. Four thousand tickets were sold at $4 each, of which r,354 called for prizes, the highest $1,000 and the lowest $5. The acad­ emy continued to increase its attendance, but the town grew in the opposite direction; so in 1824 the trustees sold the property and moved the school nearer the center of community activity. Increased educational opportunities were afforded by the open­ ing of private and denominational schools in rural Wilkes County. Hope Hull, a Methodist divine, and Bishop Asbury induced the Georgia Methodist Conference in 1789 to agree to open the state's first denominational school in Wilkes County. The plan to pur­ chase 500 acres of land and erect large buildings for an institution to be known as the Wesley and Whitfield School proved to be too great an undertaking for Hull and his friends; so I-lull later settled in Wilkes and built a modest brick building on land do­ nated by General David Meriwether about three miles from Washington. This school, known as Succoth Academy, educated many pupils vvho later became distinguished men until Hull moved to Athens in 1803. The Reverend John Springer, the first Presbyterian minister to be ordained in Georgia, opened a school at his home Walnut Hill soon after he came to Georgia in 1788. His academy, offering a sound classical education, was successful until the death of Springer eight years later. John Forsyth and Nicholas Ware, later United States Senators, and Jesse Mercer, benefactor of Mercer University, were educated at this school. Silas Iviercer, a well-known Baptist preacher, secured the services of James Armor as teacher in 1793 and opened a ~chool at Salem, his residence nine miles south of Washington. After Mercer's death in 1796 the school was continued for a while by his son Jesse but was soon closed for lack of support. While plans for the first schools were being discussed, settlers throughout the county were rapidly putting up log meeting HISTORY houses, where they listened to long sermons seated on uncom­ fortable backless pews. Washington, except for well-attended services conducted by visiting ministers in the courthouse and later the academy, was dependent on rural churches for religious worship. 1~:1.lthough the law of 1783 authorized the building of a religious edifice from the surplus money after the academy was constructed, no church was built from the fund, for the com­ missioners became involved in financial difficulties. The problem was at last solved by so constructing the academy building that it could be used both as a school and a church. Meanwhile the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians were rapidly spreading their doctrines throughout the area and forming the first organiza­ tions of these religious bodies in the state. To a less degree the Roman Catholics were also busy. In 1783 the Baptist denomination, led by the Reverend Sanders Walker from Kiokee Church in Columbia County, organized Fishing Creek Church, the oldest congregation in Wilkes County. The Upton Creek Church, later called Greenwood, followed in 1784 and Phillips Mill in 1785. The founder of this latter church was Silas Mercer, who during the previous year had been most influential in organizing the Georgia Baptist Association, the first of the religious groups that later formed the Georgia Baptist Con­ vention. After serving as pastor for a few years, Mercer was suc­ ceeded by his son Jesse, who preached there for thirty-seven years. Another church was organized in 1786, when Elijah Clarke deeded "out of good will and with desire that religion may be promoted in the settlement" one acre of land "including spring and spring house" to the Georgia Baptist Association for a meet­ ing house. This church, built two years later, is still prominent in community affairs and is now known as Clarke's Station. Other churches of this denomination created in the county during this period were Ebenezer (1788), Sardis (1788), and Danburg ( 1795). Records and stories of the time show that the vvar had left 32 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES memories that could not be softened even by religion. One such story tells how Joel Phillips, donor of Phillip's Mill Church, saw a Tory who had come in for his Sunday devotions, ousted him with a mighty kick, and returned to join heartily in the services. Another anecdote relates how a Tory, falling under the conviction of his sins, begged a good Whig brother to pray for him. The honest old Whig, who had suffered outrages at Tory hands, could not bring himself to pray but offered to ask a devout friend to perform this unpleasant duty. The Methodists followed closely behind the Baptists in preach­ ing the gospel and establishing churches in the new territory. In 1785 the Reverend Beverly Allen was sent as a missionary into Wilkes County by the General Conference. After remaining about a year he was followed by two other evangelists who were successful not only in organizing the Methodists within the county but in converting many other men to their faith. Two of these new members, Daniel Grant and his son Thomas, permitted services to be held in their home, which became known as Grant's Meeting House. A permanent congregation, organized there in 1787, grew so rapidly that about three years later the Grants erected a church for the members near their house and store, about five miles from Washington. This was the first Methodist Church to be built in Georgia. Another early congregation con­ vened at Scott's Meeting House on the Augusta Road, where a chapel was constructed soon afterward. The stirring sermons of the early Methodist preachers gained so many new members for Methodism that in 1788 Wilkes County contained more than two-thirds of the sixteen hundred Methodists in the state. Consequently, the first annual convention of the Methodist Church held in Georgia met during that year at Gen­ eral David Meriwether's home on the Broad River; the following two assembled at Grant's Meeting House, the fourth at Scott's Meeting House, and the fifth in the courthouse at Washington. Much of the early success of Methodism in Wilkes County was \

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HISTORY 33 no doubt due to the religious strategy of Bishop Francis Asbury, who visited Wilkes County on almost every one of his seventeen trips to Georgia. The early Presbyterian congregations in Wilkes County were under the supervision of the Presbytery of South Carolina. There is doubt as to whether they had church buildings at the time, but in 1788 several congregations petitioned the officials of their pres­ bytery for supplies, atnong the1n the congregations of Falling Creek and Bethlehem. Another early group was that of Liberty Church, organized soon after the Revolution by a few devout Presbyterians under the guidance of the Reverend Daniel Thatcher. The members later erected a chapel near the Kettle Creek battleground and in the fallowing century changed the name of their church to Salem. In 1790 the Reverend John Springer was called to Smyrna Church, which served the Presby­ terians of :Providence and Washington as well as its own congre­ gation. As the number of churches in the county increased, it became necessary for them to be set off into the Presbytery of Hopewell. On March r6, 1797, this organization held its first meeting at Liberty Church. In the 179o's a group of Roman Catholics from Maryland founded a church at Locust Grove, now Sharon, in a part of Wilkes that later became Taliaferro County. The earnest priests also established a good school, where Alexander H. Stephens re­ ceived a part of his early education. After flourishing for more than half a century, the church was abandoned because the Catholics were attracted to newer lands farther west. The life of the region was sustained by extensive agricultural development. The men who returned from fighting to farming again planted corn, Bax, and indigo as well as large crops of to­ bacco, of which the county exported three thousand hogsheads in 1790. During the first decade after the Revolution, cotton was cultivated in quantities sufficient only to supply clothing for the families and their slaves, but after 1795, when Eli Whitney per- 34 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES fected his cotton gin invention in Wilkes County, thousands of acres were cleared for this crop. During every autumn of the years that followed, heavily loaded flatboats floated down the Broad and Little Rivers into the Savannah River, while wagons drawn by four or six horses traveled the post roads to Augusta, the nearest cotton market. Planters on horseback accompanied these caravans and returned later with household purchases for the winter. The trip to Augusta was the greatest pleasure of the year, for the men stopped at wayside inns to meet old friends and ex­ change the news. The growth in population and prosperity engendered a parallel need for a more complex structure of government. On December 4, 1784, a plea for prompt payment of taxes to the Superior Court of Wilkes County was made by Chief Justice George Walton. This able jurist, one of Georgia's three signers of the Declaration of Independence, pointed out that a county so rich in men and resources must produce its share of the public revenues. In the following year a courthouse was built in Washington. William Stith, chief justice of the first court held in the structure, pro­ claimed that all barristers should wear robes and that the sheriff, also robed, should carry his badge of office, perhaps a drawn sword. After a few years this English custom was abandoned as traditions of Colonial days were forgotten. Soon the county gov­ ernment had been welded into a strong unit and assumed its place in state affairs. In 1785 the grand jury presented a protest to the state legislature for negligence in collecting taxes on state imports; in 1788 Wilkes County sent George Mathews, Florence Sullivan, and John King as delegates to the convention in Augusta for the ratification of the new Federal Constitution. One of the state's shrewdest lawyers was the younger John Dooly, admitted to the bar in Washington in 1789. "A sallow, piney-woods-looking lad" who seldom went out in the daytime because his clothes were shabby, he rose so rapidly by sharp na­ tural wit that he soon occupied the superior court bench. A story HISTORY 35 relates that one evening Dooly, having dealt severely with some professional gan1blers on trial, returned to his hotel room only to have his rest disturbed by the same men in a noisy faro game in the next room. Joining the group, he remarked that since he had failed to break their bad habits by one method he would try another. He thereupon entered the game and "broke the bank," gravely warning them on his departure against disturbing the dignity of the court. Some early records of the court show the energetic hopefulness of the people in building roads and bridges for the new county; but other documents show the grim side of this period when debtors were imprisoned and criminals were flogged, fastened in stocks, branded, and publicly hanged. When the courthouse was accepted from the contractor in 1785, directions were given that the northeast corner of the lot should be reserved for the stocks, then seemingly indispensable instruments of punishment. There, too, after receiving a stated number of lashes, criminals were stood in a pillory as subjects of public scorn. Those convicted of man­ slaughter were branded on the right thumb with the letter M in the presence of the court, and thieves received the letter R on their shoulders. It was not until 1796 that the Inferior Court received bids for a permanent jail. When completed two years later, this structure had two rooms, one reserved for convicts and the other for debtors. Among other curious early documents found in the ordinary's office are orders and bonds relating to marriage, which apparently was accompanied by involved legal procedure. at that time. Ap­ parently many young ladies of the eighteenth century were wed before they had reached the age when permission was no longer necessary. The order was always from the father of a young lady, stating that he permitted a specified young man to have a license to wed his daughter. In lieu of written permission a prospective bridegroom was required to post bond, usually for £ 500, "to in­ demnify the . . . register" if he should be prosecuted for issuing THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES the license. Thus the officer protected himself. Perhaps many young men gave bond rather than ask for written permission to obtain the license and admit lack of cash or credit. The census of 1790 showed that of the 82,548 people then living in Georgia, more than one-third lived in Wilkes County. Stage­ coach lines were operating from Augusta by way of Washington into the North, and the town was a thriving village of thirty-four dwellings, a courthouse, a temporary jail, and an academy, 1nain­ tained in a rented house. Four years previously Joseph Wilson and Micaijah Williamson had opened taverns to be operated "according to the law," which rigorously specified rates. Charges for meals ranged from one shilling sixpence for a hot dinner down to eightpence for a cold breakfast or supper. A night's lodging was fourpence, horses were stabled and fed for one shilling, and good pasturage cost eightpence for twenty-four hours. The prices for liquors were also unmistakably set forth. Williamson's hostelry was opened by the ageing Revolutionary soldier on the present site of the Wilkes County Courthouse. Two log cabins were joined by an open hallway, and a large picture of George Washington was hung in front. Politicians foregathered here, and before the courthouse was built one of the rooms was used for holding court. In fair weather the jury pondered its verdicts seated outside on logs; on one occasion a Tory passed and all the jurors sprang up to give chase. Intermittent Indian outbreaks called for constant military vig­ ilance. In 1791 two militia battalions were organized, and ap­ parently they were needed, for in 1794 the grand jury complained that at the time when tax returns should have been made "a number of the respectable inhabitants" had been called out to defend the frontiers. Contests in marksmanship, rough games, and fist fights frequently fallowed the periodic drills of the militia bodies. Business and even industry began to appear. William Hay opened an office in the town for the purpose of selling land and HISTORY 37 also offered his services as surveyor at a dollar a day. A commis­ sion of 2 ½ per cent was charged on all sales of land made through his office. Records also show that there was a small ironworks in the county. Social life was hearty and hospitable, with plenty of visiting and much outdoor play, especially among the younger men. The pleasures of hunting and fishing were equalled only by those of horse racing. The Washington Jockey Club was organized in 1798; two years later it was announced that races would be held for the third time. Eligibles included horses, mares, and geldings. The first day's purse for three-mile heats was $250, the second day's purse for two-mile heats was at least $250, and the entrance money was the prize for the third day. Picnicking was enjoyed at the Mineral Springs on what is now South Spring Street. The curative power of the water is de­ scribed in The American Geography (published in 1789) written by Jedidiah Morse, who had served for five months as pastor of the Midway Church in South Georgia. The springs were given to the town in 1787 by Nathaniel Coats with the proviso that he be made one of the town commissioners and that the waters should never be sold. Chantilly, a fine hotel, was built near-by in the early r8oo's by Samuel Goode to accommodate those seek­ ing health and entertainment. The site of the Mineral Springs, which has now for many years been neglected, is still owned by the city. In January, 1797, the crowded, eventful life of Elijah Clarke came to an end. General James Jackson said: "When Georgia and South Carolina were evacuated by their governments and the forces of the United States were withdrawn from them, Clarke alone kept the field, and his name spread terror through the whole line of British posts, from the Catawba to the Creek nation. . . . The United States by the death of Clarke has lost a brave and meritorious officer, and the State of Georgia in gratitude to her departed hero ought to perpetuate his name by some public art." THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES

THE ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD A.t the beginning of the nineteenth century the census of Wilkes County showed a population of 13,103. Wilkes, known as the mother county of upper Georgia, covered a great tract that ten years previously had held more than a third of the state's in­ habitants. From this land was made the entire areas of the present Elbert ( 1790) and Lincoln ( 1796) Counties as well as parts of Oglethorpe ( 1793), Warren ( 1793), Taliaferro ( 1825-28), Madison (1811), and Hart (1853). In 1802 Greene received a part of Wilkes that was later transferred to Taliaferro. Wilkes County thus lost many fine lands and settlers but finally retained 293,120 acres and an energetic people from whose numbers there frequently arose citizens of distinction. Although Washington had been founded hardly a quarter of a century earlier, it had its charter amended in 1804. In clearing lots the citizens, whenever possible, left intact the fine old native trees for shade. Later the newly imported chinaberry trees were brought up from Savannah, but soon it was found that views and sunlight were cut off by the thickly massed branches. The next ornamental plantings were locusts and shade mulberries. At last oaks and elms were decided upon as most satisfactory and were planted profusely along the narrow streets. Wilkes County began to receive its share of the wealth that came to Georgia as a result of Eli Whitney's invention, and plant­ ers greatly increased their cotton acreage. The production for the state had been only 1,000 bales in 1790, but it reached 20,000 in 1801, went up to 90,000 in 1821, and skyrocketed to 561,472 in 1859. This enormous yield was made possible by the use of slaves, who by 1802 numbered 5,039 in the county. A few of them had been brought by early settlers from Virginia and the Carolinas, but most of them had been bought in Georgia. Newspaper notices of 1807 show that L. Prudhomme, Jr., a refugee from the HISTORY 39 revolution in Santo Domingo, conducted a remunerative slave­ trading business in Washington. Wilkes County men never owned as many Negroes as some of the planters of the coastal region, but the average holding for the county steadily increased throughout the ante-bellum period. In 1820, 1,057 farmers owned 8,921 slaves. After this many plantations were increased in size, as the less successful farmers sold their estates and moved to new acres in the western part of Georgia. Consequently there were only 469 owners in 1857, but they possessed 7,587 slaves, represent­ ing an average holding of 16.17 Negroes, as large as that of any county in the state. Wilkes County planters were usually kind to their slaves, be­ cause, if for no other reason, they considered them capital that must be protected. Some were especially concerned with the clothing of their Negroes and bought shoes whenever they could not get cobblers to make them on their plantations. Garnett An­ drews gave his slaves "full common overcoats, reaching below the knees, made of common osnaburgs, or Negro shirting, and made impervious to water" for the protection from rain in the field, but he later complained that the "only difficulty was they never had them in the field except in fair weather." Others maintained "sick houses" and had the best doctors for their slaves in times of illness. Unlike planters in some parts of the state, many Wilkes County men encouraged their slaves to attend churches and hold religious gatherings, for they felt that religion would make them more obedient. With the increase in size of plantations, a few Wilkes County men came to own land not only in Wilkes but in neighboring and even distant counties. Garnett Andrews had a plantation of 1,313 acres in the far-removed Dougherty County, which he of­ fered for sale in 1856. By 1857 Lodowick Merivvether Hill owned 8,229 acres, part in Wilkes and part in adjoining Oglethorpe County. For efficiency the land was divided and operated as two THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES distinct plantations. Alexander Pope, residing in Washington, maintained three widely separated plantations, ,iVhile Robert Toombs had a farm in Stewart County and owned land in other sections of southwest Georgia. Cotton, which quickly supplanted tobacco as the leading crop, brought a high price throughout the early part of the nineteenth century, and many Wilkes County planters became wealthy. Ex­ cept for a short depression caused by the embargo acts at the be­ ginning of the War of 1812, the prices remained good until two years after the national panic of 1837. Then it began to decline and reached a low rate of 5.9 cents a pound in 1844. Many farm­ ers lost money and some even became bankrupt, since the average for the period from 1840 to 1845 was only 7.7 cents. Encouraged by a subsequent rise, they were again disheartened in 1849, when the price fell to 7.55 cents, but in the following year it soared to r 3.5 cents and remained high throughout the lavish years that were ended by the War between the States. The farmers once more made money. It is said that Robert Toombs made as much as $50,000 annually on his plantations. The fact that cotton could be easily cultivated and sold for cash profits enticed many farmers to abandon all efforts to maintain a well-balanced farm economy. The rapid fluctuation of cotton prices, however, did stimulate a few prudent men to grow diversi­ fied food crops. A record of one such attempt was made in 1828, when D. P. Hillhouse of Washington published a long account of his experiments in planting sugar cane in Wilkes County. The stalks grew to a height of eight or ten feet but did not mature sufficiently to develop seed cane the second year. The Wilkes County Agricultural Society, incorporated in 1819, made sustained efforts to raise farming standards, and their annual livestock shows, with a,Nards for the best animals, stimulated considerable improvement. Nevertheless, the fertility of the soil was generally wasted by the cultivation of cotton, and many pioneering citizens HISTORY moved west~Nard with the state frontier to clear new acres. After the livestock exhibit of the society in 1843, the Washington News commented: "It is by such associations . . . that exhausted lands are to be revived, that the disastrous spirit of emigration that has devastated this county is to be checked." But those who remained learned to increase their yield by the use of Peruvian guano, which became extensively used after 1850, when freight rates were low­ ered and the prices became moderate. As additional roads were built and progress in transportation was made, Washington became a busy junction for mail and stagecoach routes. An advertisement early in the nineteenth cen­ tury for bids to carry the mail from Augusta by way of Washing­ ton, Greensboro, Lexington, and Georgetown, back to Augusta shows that departures were made from Augusta every other Satur­ day at six in the morning and that arrivals were made in Wash­ ington on the following morning at eleven. The carrier, traveling on horseback, plodded over rough roads hardly more than trails. Later, when he was able to increase his speed and spend the night in Washington before an early morning start for Greensboro, the mail was delivered weekly. A company to operate stages between Augusta and Washington was incorporated in 1804, and it was not long before a line was in operation from Powelton by way of Washington to Petersburg and points in South Carolina. Facili­ ties were improved in 1816, when a new company was chartered to run stagecoaches from Augusta through Washington to Athens, and again the following year, when a company began operation from Washington to Greensboro and Eatonton. Both the mail carriers and the stagecoach drivers stopped on the south side of the public square at a small hostelry ( now the Washington Market), where the mail could be locked overnight in the vault that extends from the basement beneath the sidewalk and where travelers could find accommodations or await another stage. A story is told that the innkeeper once went out to urge 42 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES the coachman to alight from his box and found that the poor fell ow was frozen to death. The well-trained horses had brought the passengers to their destination unguided. In addition to the stagecoach station Washington had several other inns. The Willis Hotel, built in 1802, was perhaps the most fashionable, for it was host to many notable men. In 1824 the old Washington Tavern, formerly operated by Mrs. Corbett, was taken under the management of Samuel B. Heard. The building was near the public square and faced the main road leading through Washington from Augusta to Athens. Heard announced that his bar was plentifully supplied with choice liquors and that the stables "were under the direction of an experienced ostler." Rice's popular tavern had a "Long Room," where a Mr. Colmes­ nil held a dancing school. Washington's high-spirited gentry took their pleasures when­ ever they could be had. Cock £ghting, popular in the 1790' s, gave way to theatrical entertainments, and almost from the be­ ginning of the nineteenth century the town had a theater. Most of the dramatic performances consisted of readings and songs, but in 1817 the Thespian Society obtained the professional serv­ ices of Mr. and Mrs. Durang, Miss Moore, and Miss Lettine of the Charleston Theater for a series of "theatrical exhibitions." Shortly after this time the old playhouse was converted into quarters for the Washington Female Academy, but another theater was soon built. Othello, a popular Negro entertainer from Monticello, Georgia, came in 1824 to present his "Grand Phantezzine or Norfolk Tragedy." The town was very gay on May 19, 1819, when President James Monroe stopped there over night. In the presidential party were John C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War; Major-General Edmund Gaines; Mr. Governeur, the President's private secretary; and Lieutenant Monroe, a relative. This group was welcomed en­ thusiastically a few miles out of town by a self-appointed horse­ back delegation made up of most of the town's citizens, as well as HISTORY 43 an official committee consisting of Major D. G. Campbell, Major A. H. Sneed, and Dr. Joel Abbott, a member of Congress and a personal acquaintance of the President. The party arrived in town at half-past three in the afternoon and went to dinner at one of the taverns, probably the popular Willis Hotel. "At early candlelight the company returned to their homes," and the next morning the distinguished visitor left for Lexington "bearing along with him the sincere blessing of all the Washington citizens.. . " Except for an occasional ball at the tavern most parties were held in the town and plantation houses. Here young ladies danced the minuet, square dances, reels, and jigs to the accom­ paniment of fiddles and banjos played by slaves. During the summer months they frequently gathered about a mile from town at Mineral Springs, where a hotel had been built to accom­ modate families who fled from the malarial fever of the low counties south of Augusta. A popular recreation of the rural districts was the corn-shucking, held often with Negro partici­ pants. The occasion was especially enjoyable when there was a good leader for singing; then the shucks flew faster from the ears as the men and women kept time to the music. The following was a popular song: Did you ever hear the cow laugh? Ha, hi, ho! And how you think the cow laugh? Ha, hi, hot The cow say moo, moo, moo, Ha, hi, ho! And what you think the cow want? · Ha, hi, ho! The cow want corn and that what the cow want. Ha, hi, ho! Late in the 183o's this section began to show interest in the rail­ road developments that had become prominent throughout the country. Routes were undergoing change as a result of the build­ ing of the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to a site that later be- 44 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES came Atlanta, and four-horse coaches were running every alter­ nate day from Athens and Gainesville by way of Washington to the end of the forty-two miles of track already laid. On January 1, 1839, the Washington Railroad and Banking Company was authorized to construct a railroad from the town to some con­ venient point on that line, either in Taliaferro or Warren County. The body incorporate was composed of Alexander Pope, Garnett Andrews, Adam L. Alexander, Charles L. Bolton, Samuel Barnett, John F. Pelot, Mark A. Love, Aaron A. Cleveland, James M. Smith, William H. Dyson, Edward M. Burton, Joseph W. Robin­ son, and James Alexander. Although these men never built their line, they succeeded in 1847 in inducing the Georgia Railroad it­ self to build a branch from the main line to Washington. The spur of eighteen miles from Double Wells (Barnett) to the town was at last completed in 1853. Shortly before its completion a prophecy was made that when the "iron horse" was among the Washington people, it would "open an era in the history of venerable old Wilkes, in which we hope to see her regenerated to the unexampled vigor and freshness of her youthful day." The population of Wilkes County decreased from 12,ro7 in 1850 to 11,420 in 1860, but Washington continued to grow; although the depot was placed a mile from the business section, only a few years passed be£ ore the small station was surrounded by the town. The first half of the nineteenth century was a time of steady commercial expansion despite two destructive fires in the business district, the first in 1837 and the second in 1841, after which a fire engine was purchased and manned by twenty-five volunteers. In 1800 Washington had its first newspaper, the Washington Gazette, founded by Alexander McMillan. The following year the paper became the Monitor and was edited by David Hillhouse until his death in 1804, when his widow Sarah Hillhouse assumed the management and thus became the first woman newspaper editor in the South. A four-page paper with four columns to the page, the Monitor was clearly printed in old-fashioned hand-set HISTORY 45 type. A typical copy contained a short, non-controversial editorial on the weather and a long essay on education by the Reverend Mr. Morton extracted from the minutes of the Sarepta Baptist Association. The principal item of domestic news, copied from an Augusta paper, described the depredations of a band of mounted bandits who were terrorizing north Georgia. The prin­ cipal foreign event related was the coronation of Napoleon and Josephine, which had taken place more than two months pre­ viously. Mrs. Hillhouse, who also printed reports for the state legislature, published the paper until 1820, when it was purchased by a man named Gieu and rechristened the Washington News. Seven years later it came under the editorship of a Mr. Pasteur. In 1833 Jesse Mercer brought the Christian index to Washing­ ton from Philadelphia, where it had been founded in 1821. He published it until 1840, when he presented it to the Baptist Church as its official organ. That organization continued its publication in Washington until the presses were worn out; then in 1857 the publication was trans£ erred to Macon. A new journal, The Spy, first published in 1834 by Michael J. Kappel and edited by James T. Hay, Jr., was described as "beautifully executed ... and the purity of its principals corresponds with its outward appearance." Despite these attributes, The Spy soon ceased to operate. An in­ teresting journalistic experiment of this decade was The Medical Reformer, published sen1i-1nonthly at Washington by James Price. 1~he Wilkes Manufacturing Company was chartered in 1810 for "manufacturing cotton and woolen goods by machinery," with Matthew Talbot, Bolling Anthony, Benjamin.Sherrod, John Bol­ ton, Frederick Ball, Gilbert Hay, and Joel Abbott as managers. Capital stock was initially $10,000 with provision for expansion to $50,000. A mill called Bolton's Factory was established on Upton Creek, but after a few years it proved unprofitable. This, the first of the cotton mills in the South, led to the establishment of others in Georgia and thereby stimulated the growth of cotton. The evolution of the Colonial settlement into a modern town THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES is shown by the coming of new business enterprises. One of these even suggests the modern chain store, for Charles Cox, who came to vVashington in 1823 as a house and sign painter and paper hanger, ,vas already operating a similar establish1nent in Greensboro. Another new venture was the "dying and scouring business" conducted by William McNeal, who "scoured men's clothes in the neatest sty le, extracting spots of paint, grease, ink, pitch, or tar." William Woodly, who had established himself here as "friseur, coi.ffeur, &c," after long experience in "convolut­ ing, pirilating, bruturating, and carburating hair," offered to the ladies and gentlemen at slight expense "ringlets, patent twister, Circassian, or Georgian convolution." He claimed to have power to "bestow upon his customers whatever degree of grace or beauty their modesty or deficiencies in those particulars may require." Business houses rapidly replaced the few remaining residences around the public square, each selling a variety of articles at high prices. Calico was $1 a yard, a nutmeg 25 cents, pins $2 a pound, and handkerchiefs ranged in price from 56 cents to $1. 75 each. In professional circles, R. W. Worsham was willing to attend any call in the practice of medicine. Richard H. Long and John Ray, associated in the practice of law, agreed to attend any session of the inferior court or superior courts in Wilkes County or on the northern circuit. The early doctors and lawyers were hardy men who traveled the rough county roads on horseback, carrying their medicine and books in saddlebags. For short trips they used the two-wheeled gigs, locally made vehicles called "riding chairs." In 1820 a branch of the Georgia State Bank, the first financial house to be opened in north Georgia, was established in the town. The handsome three-story brick building which was erected served also as the cashier's residence. It was used as a bank until the time of the War between the States, after which it became only a dwelling. A statement of revenue in 1824 for the town of Washington listed $164.44 as received in taxes, $30.37 collected for licenses, and a balance of $69.62 carried over from the previous HISTORY 47 year. A man named Bruckes was paid $70 for keeping the clock, a town well was dug for $125, the sum of $2.87 was expended on bridges, $15.25 was paid to the town marshal, and sundry expense was listed as $18.87. The treasurer thus had a balance of $32.44. Taxes were levied against all vehicles, the rate being determined by whether the conveyance had two or four wheels. During 1815-17 a red brick courthouse was built in the center of the public square to replace the smaller wooden structure, and in the tower was placed a bell and also a clock that cost the citi­ zens the seemingly enormous sum of $1,000. Annual financial statements show that the man hired to set the clock and to keep it running also rang a curfew for slaves each evening at nine and that he was paid at first $30 and later $70 a year. After the building of this second courthouse, political life grew more lively. Once the people became aroused to participation in factional politics, Washington was an arena for battles of words and bloody fist fights. The region produced two of Georgia's leading public men of the early nineteenth century: John Clark of Wilkes County and William H. Crawford of neighboring Oglethorpe County. Clark was the son of Elijah Clarke, but he had dropped the final e from his name because he considered the simpler form more democratic. So bitter was the enmity between the two men that it is even believed that in 1802 Clark's adherents organized a plot to kill Crawford, for young Peter Van Allen, an Elberton lawyer and a friend of Clark, met Crawford in the Willis Hotel and goaded the man into challenging him to a duel. In the subsequent exchange, however, it was Van Allen who was killed. In 1806 Clark himself challenged Crawford and suc­ ceeded in shattering his wrist by a shot from the designated duello distance of ten paces. Crawford's part in local politics became less prominent with his election to the United States Senate in 1807, after which Clark's chief opponent was George M. Troup. The conflict reached intense heat when these two were opposing candidates THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES in the gubernatorial race of 1819. Clark won this contest and that of 1821 by narrow margins, but when he supported Matthew Talbot against Troup in 1823, his party was defeated. Although a second defeat two years later caused his withdrawal from active political life, the followers of both Clark and Troup continued their antagonism for many years. The Clark faction called them­ selves the Union Party and later was absorbed by the Demo­ crats; the Troup adherents beca1ne known as the States Rights Party and later were aligned with the Whigs. John A. Campbell and Robert Toombs, two Washington men who later became nationally celebrated, began their careers here in 1829. In that year both were admitted to the bar, the admission having been gained by legislative act since both men were too young to enter by the regular procedure. Campbell, appointed an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1853, and Toombs, who later became Secretary of State of the Confederacy, furthered the tradition of Wilkes County men in public service. During the first seventy-five years after the establishment of Wilkes County, nine men who had lived within its area served as governors of the state: Stephen Heard ( 1780), George Math­ ews ( 1787 and 1793-96), Peter Early ( 1813-15), William Rabun ( 1817-19), Matthew Talbot ( 1819), John Clark ( 1819-23), John Forsyth ( 1827-29), Wilson Lumpkin ( 1831-35) and George Wash­ ington Towne (1847-51). Most of these men also served terms in Congress, either as senators or as members of the House of Rep­ resentatives. When the Constitutional Union Party of Wilkes County met in the courthouse in June, 1853, Robert Toombs, Garnett An­ drews, A. Pope, Jr., and Isaiah T. Irvin, were chosen to represent the county at the state convention at Milledgeville. The delegates were instructed to support Franklin Pierce for President instead of his opponent, General Winfield Scott. Robert Toombs spoke on slavery before a large audience in Boston on January 4, 1856. Boston papers noted that, although PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

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POULAIN-COLLEY-SIJ\tlS HOUSE

HISTORY 49 there was little applause, "his style at times was fervid, rarely colloquial, but uniform! y in good taste." An oratorical contest that has been termed the most brilliant in Georgia history was held in a large oak grove in Washington in 1856, with Toombs and Benjamin H. Hill as speakers. By breakfast time throngs had gathered and the roads into town were crowded with wagons bringing farm families to hear their distinguished fell ow towns­ man and the talented young speaker from LaGrange debate on current topics. Hill opened the debate with witty remarks on the inconsistencies of public servants, confronting Toombs vvith his change from Whig to Democrat. When he stated that Toombs had slept over the people's rights in Congress, his op­ ponent shouted back, "I have been protecting your rights and your children's rights in spite of yourselves." In 1857, when Isaiah T. Irvin, of Washington, led a nominating committee to select a con1promise gubernatorial candidate, he appeared before the Democratic Convention and named Joseph E. Brown of Cherokee County. Two years later Irvin and A. Pope, Jr., went to Milledgeville as the Wilkes County representa­ tives at the convention of the Union Party, and Irvin was elected a delegate to the national convention at Baltimore. Early in the century, the town and county began to take in­ creased interest in the education of girls. In 1805 Madame Mary Pauline Dugas, who had come to America as a refugee from the French Revolution, opened a private school for girls in Washing­ ton. The institution was so successful that after five years it was removed to the larger city of Augusta. Considering access to the Washington Academy on Mercer Hill too difficult for girls and wishing to give them a more genteel school, the trustees decided to divide the school into the Washington Male and Female Acade­ mies. They inserted the following advertisement in newspapers on June 16, 1814: "Washington Female Academy. A seminary is opened by Mr. Bowen, under the immediate commissioners of the Washington Academy, where will be taught every branch 50 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES of useful and ornamental education, with unremitting attention. Every eflort will be made to introduce the pupils gradually to an acquaintance with those accomplishments that are sought after as indispensable requisites, with sedulous care in forming the manners and polishing and proportioning instruction to the abili­ ties and temper of the pupil." Board and tuition were $100, payable quarterly in advance; music, French and drawing were extra; and a charge of $11 a year was made for washing. Patrons were evidently pleased with the new venture, for in 1820 the theater was purchased for the school. One of the early principals of the Female Academy was Duncan G. Campbell, father of the well-known United States Supreme Court Justice John A. Camp­ bell. In 1822, as the Wilkes County representative in the state legislature, he introduced a bill to provide collegiate training for women. Although the measure was defeated by reactionary op­ ponents, Campbell's zeal was widely effective in arousing senti­ ment for this cause. Private schools both for boys and girls became so numerous that the academies began to lose pupils to a serious extent. Elisha W. Chester, with a recommendation from Middlebury College in Vermont, opened an academy in 1819, and nine years later T. P. Cleveland opened his select English school for young per­ sons of both sexes. To meet this competition the Washington Academy improved its faculty, opening the 1828 term with the Reverend E. S. Hopping conducting the male school and Mrs. Alexander Webster, widow of the first pastor of the Washington Presbyterian Church, supervising the girls' academy with the assistance of Miss Margaret McKenzie, the piano instructor. The cottage in which Mary Minton conducted a select school for small children for many years following 1840 is now used as a store­ room and garage. After the division of the Washington Academy similar schools were established throughout the county: Mallorysville ( char­ tered in 1821), South Liberty (1833), Rehoboth (1837), Danburg HISTORY 51

(1838), Rocky Mount (1838), and V✓ ashington Fe1nale Seminary ( 1838). These institutions, like all academies receiving aid from the state-appropriated academic fund, were considered members of the University of Georgia and made annual reports to the Senatus Academicus, the university board of trustees. Since the state appropriation was not sufficient for maintenance, they too were forced to charge tuition. Two of these academies, sponsored by local churches, were opened in Washington, Rehoboth under the direction of the local Baptist board of trustees, and Washing­ ton Female Seminary under that of the Presbyterians. The prin­ cipals of the schools were called rectors and, like the earliest teachers in the county, were often ministers of the gospel. The most influential of these academies was Vi/ ashington Fe­ male Seminary, which was opened soon after its incorporation on December 31, 1838. The trustees secured the services of Sarah Brackett, who had come from East Hampton, Massachusetts, in 1835 to tutor the children of Adam Alexander. Under her ad­ ministration the school prospered and received pupils not only from cities of Georgia, but fro1n those of neighboring states. The second annual catalogue ( 1840) listed a wide variety of courses ranging from the study of Peter Paley's Geography to that of Wilkin's Astronomy and Homer's Odyssey. The fees were low, running from $24 to $48 a year, but the extras were higher. Music was $60 a year and French $20. The academies received small appropriations indeed from the state academic fund; in 1829 Wilkes County's portion was only $778.30. In addition, however, the county obtained an appropria­ tion of $1,875.13 from the state poor school fund. Since Georgia's schools were operating principally as private institutions, charging tuition, this latter fund was for the purpose of providing an ele­ mentary education for children whose parents were unable to pay the fees. The school period for these unfortunate children was at times limited to three years, and the term frequently to four months. Since those who received aid from the appropria- 52 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES tion were permitted to go to any school that would receive them for the small allowance, many enrolled in the county academies. One educator, unable to find a record of any expenditure of the fund in 1829, expressed a hope that "the enlightened County of Wilkes had not forgotten the children of the poor." The follow­ ing year the county received and expended $r,074.9r as its share of the poor school allotment. Meanwhile it had become evident that the churches intended to participate vigorously in movements for higher education. When Washington again entertained the Georgia Methodist Con­ ference in 1834, "Uncle Allen" Turner opposed a resolution that the convention contribute to the support of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia and insisted in an eloquent speech that Georgia Methodists should have a college of their own. His senti­ ments were repeated on later occasions by Ignatius Few, who be­ came the first president of the Methodist college opened at Oxford in 1838 and later expanded into Emory University. In 1835 the Presbyterians made an effort to have Oglethorpe University lo­ cated in Washington. The school was opened near Milledgeville, but the effort strongly impressed Jesse Mercer, who immediately set out to found a Baptist school in Washington to be called the Southern Baptist College. By April 1, 1837, forty thousand dol­ lars had been subscribed, and on April 16 an Athens newspaper quoted the Washington Spy as stating that the proposed Baptist college would be built in Wilkes County and that more than $100,000 had been subscribed toward the building fund. Finan­ cial difficulties, however, proved to be too great; so the Georgia Baptist Convention procured a transfer of the donations to Mercer Institute, which was rechartered as Mercer University. The statement that Washington had a theater before it had a church, though literally true, is misleading as to the attitude of the sincerely devout citizens. Religious services were held fre­ quently in the courthouse and later in the academy on Mercer Hill. Worship was conducted by many noted visitors, including HISTORY 53 Bishop Asbury and Lorenzo Dow, the eccentric Methodist evan­ gelist who traveled about the eastern half of the United States proclaiming dire threats of hell and eternal hopes of paradise. A deep sense of personal sin led him to work not only for his own salvation but for that of the people of any community where he could find a hearing. On his visit to Georgia early in 1802, he came to Wilkes County to visit Hope Hull, by whom he had been converted in his native Connecticut. Disheveled and with long hair and beard, this young minister preached in Washington first on February 16 and then on several later dates. Witnesses have told how on one occasion he came into town without speaking to anyone, delivered an eloquent sermon in the courthouse, and silently left, looking straight ahead with spiritual intensity. Dow's fervor led to strong religious activity among all church members, who long remembered the years 1802, 1803, and 1809 for their vigorous evangelistic meetings. Such revivals later stirred the community after periods of sorrow and disaster; es­ pecially noteworthy were those that followed the fever epidemic and other illnesses of 1825, still known as the "sickly year." Early in the century the Presbyterians inaugurated the custom of hold­ ing camp meetings; other denominations followed their example; and soon the county was dotted with "arbors," where both town and rural people, white and black, could meet their friends for a few days of intensive religious zeal. At these meetings and in the houses of worship hymns were sung from manuals prepared by Hope Hull and Jesse Mercer, for hymn books were expensive and difficult to obtain. Hull's book, Hymns· and Spiritual Songs, was published in Washington in 1803 and came to be widely used by Methodists throughout Georgia. Still more successful was Mercer's Cluster of Sacred Songs first printed in Augusta and later by a Philadelphia publisher. The first of three Philadelphia editions was in 1817, the last in 1835. As the century advanced, the churches succeeded in establishing themselves more firmly. In r823 the Methodist congregation, 54 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES which had been holding services for many years in the court­ house or academy building, erected its own church, the first within the town limits. In 1938 the members celebrated their sesquicentennial anniversary, for they date their origin from the organization of the Grant's Meeting House congregation. At first this church, with its gallery for slaves, was used not only by the Methodists for regular services but by other denominations on special occasions. In 1827 the Washington Presbyterian con­ gregation was incorporated, with Andrew G. Semmes, Thomas Terrell, Samuel Barnett, Joseph W. Robinson, Felix G. Hay, James Wingfield, and Duncan G. Campbell as trustees. The Baptist church was incorporated the same year, Jesse Mercer, James Armstrong, William G. Gilbert, John W. Butler, and Os­ borne Stone being named as executive officers. Religion continued to play an itnportant part in the life of the ordinary man, but when restrictions became severe they some­ times met with sharp resistance from pleasure-loving members. A high church official, summoned to explain why he had taken his children to the circus, stoutly answered that he had taken them for his own enjoyment and was not in the least sorry. When his nonplussed cross-examiner, unwilling to antagonize so gen­ erous a contributor, begged him at least to be sorry for the esca­ pade, he gayly promised to try and retained his high position. Many of the ardently religious people of Wilkes County ab­ stained from spirituous liquors, but many others made their own wines and beers. Liquor stores and bars were dependent chiefly on transient business for their support. At first, licenses not to exceed $500 a year in cost were granted by the state, and not until 1821 was Washington permitted to grant its own licenses £or the sale of alcoholic beverages. Although Indians had long ceased to give trouble, Washington retained its old military organizations to provide a colorful parade now and then. Muster days brought out the full splendor of brass-buttoned coats and blue and buff breeches. The Wilkes HISTORY 55 Dragoons, the best known of these organizations, assembled on its parade ground at ten o'clock each Saturday morning, fully armed and equipped with six rounds of blank cartridges, and a crowd usually gathered to watch the drill. Despite the impoverishment of the county's fertile soil by in­ judicious planting and a consequent fall in population, this section shared in the wealth that made this era the heyday of the South. Especially was this true of the 1850-60 decade, when cotton prices went skyrocketing and many of Washington's columned houses were built. But dark threats of secession hovered close and filled the wiser citizens with fear. Robert Toombs' impassioned speeches on the issues of the day were but a small part of the great national frenzy that was drawing the country into_ war.

WAR BETWEEN THE STATES AND RECONSTRUCTION With the rest of the South, Washington was being swept to­ ward war. The town in 1860 was the center of a plantation section that had grown prosperous through tobacco and cotton. About two-thirds of its 2,200 inhabitants were Negroes. In such a com­ munity it was natural that slavery and secession should be stirring issues, and the town went wild on the night of January 19, 1861, when messengers brought the news of Georgia's secession. Eells were rung, guns were fired, and the singing, shouting throngs pressed about the courthouse to raise a new Confederate emblem, a blue flag with a single five-pointed star. In The War-Time Journal. of a Georgia Girl, Eliza Frances Andrews describes how this flag was made by her and her sister­ in-law, secretly because her father, Judge Garnett Andrews, was an unflinching upholder of the Union. Later, when a flag had been selected to represent all the Confederate states, Miss An­ drews' flag was used to line a blanket for a soldier. Months before secession the local military units had begun to prepare for fighting. One troop was reorganized in 1860 into the Irvin Guards, named for its captain, Isaiah Tucker Irvin, who THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES was killed the same year in a steamboat explosion off the Texas coast. This unit left Washington in June, 1861, to be n1ustered into service at Richmond as Company A, 9th Georgia Regiment, General Barton's Brigade. During the entire war these men fought under three successive leaders, Gideon G. Norman, John Lane, and John T. Wingfield. After the Battle of Manassas the company was transferred to the artillery and became known as Irvin Artillery, or Company C, Cutt's Battalion. When General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, the Irvin Artillery was ordered to bury its large guns and report to General Joseph E. Johnston at Lincolnton, North Carolina. Al­ though these instructions were carefully fallowed, the men of this company maintained that they never actually surrendered. As in the Revolution, there was sharp conflict with established ties on the question of breaking with the Union. Garnett An­ drews, Jr., the; son of a stead£ ast Unionist, was the first man in Wilkes County to enter the Confederate army. Serving for the full duration of the war, he was wounded while campaigning in North Carolina. Porter Alexander, who resigned his com­ mission in the United States Army, had a distinguished career with the Con£ederate signal service and later became brigadier general of artillery. Robert Toombs was led by his secessionist convictions to sacri­ fice a still more distinguished position-that of United States Senator. When the Convention of Southern States at Montgom­ ery, Alabama, failed to elect him to the Presidency, he reluctantly accepted the post of Secretary of State under Jefferson Davis. During his brief period of service he differed so strongly with his superior on financial matters that he soon resigned and requested military assignment. As a brigadier general he distinguished himself at Antietam, Virginia, but when his service did not result in promotion he resigned and returned to his home in Washing­ ton, where he continued to utter forcible objections to Davis1 policies. HISTORY 57 A number of Washington men served with General John B. Gordon's Raccoon Roughs. A story is told of T. W. Bell, a wiry, red-haired young man of Wilkes County who acted as one of Gordon's scouts. Going out one day to reconnoitre, he discovered nine Union soldiers in a field. The young man, keeping himself vvell hidden by bushes, sharply commanded them to halt, moving at intervals to different positions and changing his voice each time. The nine men, thinking themselves outnumbered, gave up their arms, and Bell led them into camp, explaining laconically, "I surrounded 'e1n." No battles were fought within a hundred miles of Washington, but the distress of war-time was felt to the fullest by the non­ combatants who stayed at home. At the time of Sherman's march through Georgia many Wilkes County citizens hid their silver, and those from neighboring counties drove their cattle for refuge into the thick forests along Kettle Creek. Food, clothing, and articles of all kinds became very scarce. The old Wilkes Republi­ can, which became the Washington Independent in 1860, had barely enough newsprint folio to publish a small edition. Some­ how, though, it was maintained throughout the war, and only in 1865 did the paper go out of business and then because former readers could not afford to keep up their subscriptions. Ingenious makeshifts were substituted for commonly used articles. Cane syrup granules were used for sugar, parched wheat and ground sweet potatoes for co.ff ee, sassafras brew for tea, and various herbs and roots for medicines. The dirt beneath old smokehouses was dug up and leached to extract the old salt. · Despite these hard­ ships, life frequently went on at a merry pace, for the town was periodically filled with refugees whom their hosts valiantly en­ tertained even though party refreshments were almost unprocur­ able. After the surrender of General Robert E. Lee on April 9 and that of General Joseph E. Johnston on April 26, Wilkes County became a thoroughfare for returning soldiers, ragged and starv- 58 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES ing. Because of the mountain barrier to the west and because many of the railroads had been destroyed, the 1nen from the Southeastern and South Central States were forced to follow the old post roads established by the early settlers in Colonial days. First came some of the Confederate officers with their staffs, then many paroled Confederate soidiers, then the Federal soldiers to take possession of the state, and finally the sick and wounded from the hospitals and prisons. Many tramped over the hot and dusty roads, while others came on horseback. At Washington those who could afford railroad fare were able to obtain trans­ portation on the Georgia Branch Railroad. The train on this short line kept no schedule during these confused days but con­ tinually shuttled back and forth between Washington and Barnett, where connection was made with the main system. Horses, which during the war had been at a premium, were no longer needed, and their value rapidly declined. These animals were sold for as little as $2.50 and sometimes for even less. Near the beginning of this long procession just be£ ore the dis­ solution of the Confederate States of America came Mrs. Jefferson Davis, who stopped for a few days with her children before going farther south. The Confederate President himself arrived on May 4, preceded by scouts who were watchful for pursuing Fed­ eral troops. By this time the President's cabinet had begun to break up. Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State, had left Davis only a short time before the party reached Washington, and upon arrival Stephen Ro Mallory, Secretary of the Navy, took leave to attend the wants of his family after depositing his official papers with Judge Garnett Andrews, the Union sympathizer. Accompanying the President from Richmond were not only the members of his cabinet but also a bodyguard, a brigade of General John C. Breckinridge, Secretary of War, and a store of gold and silver specie and gold bullion. This treasure, packed in money belts, shot bags, and castiron chests and guarded by two hundred men, consisted of $300,000 belonging to the Confed- HISTORY 59 erate Treasury and about an equal amount owned by Virginia and Louisiana banks. After crossing the Savannah River into Georgia the procession halted a few miles from Washington. Davis commanded General Breckinridge to remain there and pay his soldiers with the silver specie; so, late into the night, soldiers crowded around a camp fire to get their share of the treasure. Between $108,000 and $110,000 was disbursed, each man receiving about $32. General Basil W. Duke, charged with guarding the money, has told in his account of this long trek that the residue of the treasure was taken into Washington the following day and delivered to M. H. Clark, acting Confederate Treasurer. During his brief visit Davis and most of his cabinet members were lodged in the old Georgia Branch Bank Building, and here on May 5 they convened for their last conference. Among the fourteen officials in attendance were General Braxton Bragg, military adviser; C. E. Thornburn, naval purchasing agent; I. M. St. John, commissary general; A. R. Lawton, quartermaster gen­ eral; John H. Reagan, postmaster general; and Burton Harrison, the President's private secretary. At this meeting the last Con­ federate papers were signed and the government was offically dissolved. The final official act, drawn by Breckinridge and signed by St. John, ordered Major Raphael J. Moses, of the com­ missary department, to arrange with some Federal official to provide Confederate troops and hospitals with necessary food and medicine. Breckinridge, by this time in Washington, ordered the treasurer to give him $30,000 for this purpose and $10,000 for the quartermaster's department. The last official writing was an order for Moses to pay this latter appropriation and a receipt for the amount. When the Federal commander, General Emory Upton, passed close by on his way to receive the surrender of the arsenal in Augusta, Davis resolved to flee at once. Accompanied by Colonel F. R. Lubbock, Colonel John Taylor Wood, and Colonel William Preston Johnston, several minor officers, and an escort 60 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES of ten soldiers, he left on horseback shortly after the cabinet meet­ ing. John H. Reagan, postmaster-general, remained in the city to oversee the further paying off of troops, but he soon left to overtake Davis. Immediately after the departure the greater por­ tion of the soldiers were given a formal discharge. Many stories have been told as to what happened to the remain­ ing gold of the treasure. One related that the portion belonging to the Virginia banks was packed to be returned to Richmond but that on the way back it was pilfered near the Savannah River by a group of Confederate officers and discharged soldiers. As soon as the officers learned that the treasure was private property, their part was returned to the bank officers who had come with it from the old Confederate capital. The Northern soldiers, sent to take possession of the conquered land, considered it Federal prop­ erty and on June 4 seized $100,000 of the amount from the Wash­ ington bank and arrested the bank officers for misappropriation of funds. While trying to recover the portion stolen by the dis­ charged soldiers, they made many arrests and succeeded in getting only part of the store. For many years Wilkes County citizens talked of buried treasure. The remaining part of that which be­ longed to the Confederacy was captured with Davis on May 10 at Irwinville. During 1866 and 1867 Richmond and New Orleans banks put in a claim to the Federal government for this gold bullion, but since it could not be identified the claims were not recognized. Before the proceedings were over, the gold was made into coins. Robert Toombs, who was at home when Davis arrived, opened his house to several of the subordinate officials. A few days after the flight of the presidential party, a troop of Federal soldiers was sent to his house to arrest him, but he escaped by way of New Orleans to I-Iavana. His wife and family were turned out of the house by Federal soldiers but later were permitted to return. Afterward Mrs. Toombs joined her husband in Cuba, and the two left immediately for England. HISTORY The hungry, ragged soldiers from the demobilized armies were fed by citizens from their own scanty store. The Federal garrison quartered here aroused such antagonism that clashes with the homecoming men of Irvin's Artillery were averted only with diffi­ culty. Public safety fluctuated with the changing command of the Federal garrison, for some of the officers were temperate and just, even when insulted by hot-tempered Confederates, while others were cruelly intent upon heaping hun1iliation on the helpless people. Some men of the town cut down the flagpole in the square to forestall raising the national emblem, but this move was countered by the placing of a large flag across the street where passersby must go under it. The oath of allegiance to the Union was made a condition of receiving marriage licenses and other official documents. Emancipated Negroes crowded into town in the hope of re­ ceiving aid from the Freedmen's Bureau and listened to the missionaries of that organization who rode about town in car­ riages with escorts of Negro troops. Under the influence of these men they founded their own society, the Sons of Benevolence, and became so bold that it was dangerous for ladies to go into town. Many Negroes, unable to find houses, lived in tents and under brush arbors, feeding upon supplies stolen from their former masters. Families buried their silver at dead of night; conversa­ tion was guarded lest the servants carry tales to the conquerors. When Federal soldiers and Negroes celebrated the Fourth of July together with loud cannon salutes, the Confederates took no part but joined the Irvin Artillery in a demonstration of their own two days later. The impoverished condition of Wilkes was shown by the report of the grand jury in September, 1865, that the county treasury contained only $3.85 in worthless Confederate notes. The com­ mon school board of the county showed a balance of $481.40 in similar specie. Burdened already with a great debt, the officials borrowed money to meet current bills and repair public buildings. THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES Private concerns and individuals were in a similar predicament, for creditors began suing and foreclosing. Racial conflict caused crimes ranging frotn simple larceny to murder. Washington and Wilkes County citizens pressed the state legislature to pass a concealed weapon measure and a strong prohibition law to curb this lawlessness. A powerful influence toward order was the Ku Klux Klan, which spread terror among the Negroes, with white robes and occasional violent punishments by night. In June, 1868, state-wide interest was aroused by the trial of Robert and Luke Arnold, Negroes, for the murder of Thomas Thaxton. Robert, who confessed to killing him because of the mistaken belief that he was the man who had "ku-kluxed" them, was given the death penalty while his brother was sen­ tenced to life imprisonment. A company of United States in­ fantry came to preserve order at the execution as well as to assist the Negro tax collector in collecting revenues and to investigate reported actions of the Klan. For some months Wilk.es County became a military subdistrict with headquarters at Barnett for the trials of suspected persons by a military commission, but the troops finally withdrew when their efforts "failed to unearth a single ku-klux." By 1868 the white people of Washington were beginning to regain control of local affairs. Although a Negro was elected to the legislature in that year, his companion representative from Wilkes County was Richard Bradford, a white Democrat. In this year there was a faint stir of educational revival when Dr. Thomas J. Beck opened a new school at Mount Pleasant called Burdett's Academy. Advertisements in the new Washington Gazette showed that commercial enterprises also were awakening. J. D. Floyd was making mattresses at his cabinet shop, while W. L. Keohl made coffins and did undertaking in addition to operating a lumber yard in connection with his furniture store. Although livestock shows prior to this time had been held, the custom of having annual county fairs was not begun until 1869. HISTORY The outstanding event of this first fair was an address by Robert Toombs, who had returned two years before, u111nolested though he had not signed the oath of allegiance to the United States. In the following year Wilkes County founded the Agricultural Fair Joint Stock Con1pany with a capital of $5,000 and reorgan­ ized the Wilkes County Agricultural Club. When the stock com­ pany offered for sale fifty shares at a hundred dollars a share, Toombs immediately purchased eighteen of them. Despite political discord and military demonstrations, it vvas evident that business and agricultural conditions were better by 1870, when census figures rated Wilkes County population at 11,796 and Washington residents at 1,506. The nu1nber of busi­ ness firms had increased from 24 to 48 during the past decade, and the capital stock of these enterprises had grown fro1n $41,300 to $58,905. Although wages ave.raged only $2.92 a week, the earners once more were paid in standard currency. The planta­ tion owners had been unable to maintain their large holdings without slave labor and had found it expedient to break up their land into smaller units. Consequently the number of farms in­ creased from 393 in 1860 to 513 in 1870. It is evident that many of the former slaves found employment on these farms, for in 1870 there were 2,316 hands working in agriculture. Other evidences of prosperity were the facts that railroads re­ ceived increased patronage and that many business men and farmers were buying buggies and carriages. Railroads, which had been gaining in popularity, were so well patronized in 1870 that the old stagecoach line from Washington to Abbeville, South Carolina, was abandoned. The two local firms selling vehicles were rushed with business: Lorenzo Smith made carriages, and Bohler and Bigbee, whose advertisements picture a smart phaeton, received orders for various types of conveyances. Early in the 187o's some of the Washington citizens began to align themselves with the newly formed group that advocated reconciliation with the North and increased industrialism for THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES their own section. In this agricultural community, however, there was a far greater number who believed that the foremost political necessity was the protection of the farmers' interests, and this group found a ready spokesman in Robert Toombs, ageing but still dynamic. Although he \Vas in no position to dictate terms, the town and county as a whole supported Toombs and his policy of co-operation between Democrats of the South and West. On August 8 he addressed the Georgia State Agricultural Society at Rome on "The Best Policy for Developing the Interests of the State." Other Wilkes County delegates were T. S. Hunter, James R. DuBose, and William H. Jordan. Soon after this meeting the society appointed Samuel Barnett, another Washing­ ton man, to make addresses on agricultural subjects in nine other Georgia towns. Probably it was Toombs' stand on the attitude of the South that caused him to be debarred from the benefits of the Amnesty Bill, passed May 28, 1872, which permitted many disfranchised South­ erners to hold office. In blistering epithet he expressed his scorn for the Southern men who were reaping benefits from the North­ ern capital that was pouring into various experimental enter­ prises in the newly industrialized South. As a result he was almost drawn into a duel with the equally hot-tempered Joseph E. Brown, Georgia's war-time governor. Though legally shut out of political office, Toombs seemed to grow even stronger in his influence; he remained to the last a powerful personage to lead the "unreconstructed rebels." A Unionist of equally sincere convictions was Judge Garnett Andrews, who died in 1872. Although he had been aligned with an unpopular minority, he had won universal respect by his un­ remitting e.ff orts during Reconstruction to make peace between the citizens and their conquerors. Andrews, who had been judge of the superior court for almost a quarter of a century, had also become known as the author of a quaint little book, Reminis­ cences of an Old Time Georgia Lawyer. MARIA RANDOLPH HOUSE

TOWN SQUARE

OLD SLAVE CABINS NEAR WASHINGTON

HISTORY The State Legislature expanded the banking facilities of Wash­ ington by incorporating the Merchants' and Planters' Bank in 1872. Other evidences of recovery were seen in the establish­ ment of a telegraph line from Washington to Barnett. One of the most important occasions of the time was the fourth annual county fair sponsored for the second time by the Wilkes County Far1ners' and Mechanics' Club and held for four days early in NoT1ember, 1872. Public gatherings of these years usually featured the new 1y formed brass band. With the rest of the state, the town and county soon began to take a bolder stand against the carpetbaggers who had seized control shortly after the war. On August 24, 1874, a mass meet­ ing in the courthouse expressed its approval of the State Legisla­ ture for declaring fraudulent certain bonds that had been issued under the Reconstruction governor, Rufus B. Bullock. The meet­ ing not only recommended non-redemption of these bonds but urged that a new state constitution be drafted on grounds that the document then in use had not been made by representatives of the state's legal voters. By this time the heavy expense of rehabilitat­ ing county and municipal affairs had been met and the treasury showed a balance of $1,500. The Roman Catholic Church was responsible for two of the principal religious and educational advances of the decade: in 1876 the St. Joseph's Home for Boys was £ounded by Fat her James M. O'Brien and in the following year the St. Joseph's Female Academy was established under the direction of the St. Joseph Catholic Sisters. The girls' school ,vas well attended until 1912, when it was burned. The sisters then moved it to Augusta, calling it Mount St. Joseph School for Girls. In 1877 a public library was established, many books were donated, and the services of an efficient librarian, Milton 1\.rnold, were secured. Another cul­ tural asset was a flourishing dramatic club. The people of Washington-Wilkes had a personal sense of tri­ umph when they received the tidings that the new state constitu- 66 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES tion, adopted in 1877, had been formulated under the guidance of Robert Toombs. The doughty old Confederate declared that he had, in effect, "locked the State Treasury and thrown away the key" in order to prevent grafting by scalawags and carpetbaggers. When the State Legislature failed to appropriate sufficient funds to meet expenses of the constitutional convention, Toombs ad­ vanced $25,000 of his personal funds and promised to increase this amount to $100,000 if necessary. The people felt that the era of radical rule had ended and that the Democratic Party could now take hold in full power.

CLOSE OF THE CENTURY During the years that followed Reconstruction, when many Southern towns were becoming industrialized to meet new con­ ditions, Washington definitely aligned itself with the old order. The planters, unable to maintain their large holdings without slaves, were forced to break them up into small units, leased to white and Negro tenants who generally could not pay a cash rental or meet the cost of production. Some of these planters consequently established business enterprises in order to trade with and help finance these farmers until the time of harvest. Thus the growth that fallowed was not along new lines but along those formerly laid down; the town remained a market for the farmers of the surrounding region, and its prosperity was largely depend­ ent upon the prices of farm products. Agricultural reverses in 1881 elicited the comment that in Georgia native "corn (was) scarce, meat scarcer, and money scarcest," for farmers were buying Western corn and Northern hay and planting cotton to the exclusion of food crops. In order to help correct the evils of the one-crop system, twenty-four Wilkes County farmers organized the East Wilkes Club in 1884. The original number of n1embers has been retained and, since it is considered an honor to be on the roll, there is always a long wait­ ing list. Throughout the spring and summer for many years this HISTORY organization has held all-day meetings at the homes of the mem­ bers, the host usually serving barbecue. At this time the Farmers' Alliance promoted interest in cattle raising, and several Wilkes County farmers 1nar keted beef cattle in Augusta. A few years afterward a group of Illinois farmers established a colony on the Little River, six miles south of Washington, where improved farm­ ing methods and crop-diversification practices were introduced. Although the settlement was short-lived, the methods of these mid-westerners interested some of the local farmers, who accord­ ingly revised their own farming practices. Although the average price of cotton had a downward trend for the fallowing two decades, farmers continued to increase their acreage, and Washington grew in importance as a cotton market. Only ten cents a pound in 1880, cotton declined in value until 1894, when it brought only five cents. Despite all efforts to con­ vince farmers of the value of crop diversification, the cotton pro­ duction for Wilkes County in 1896 reached the unheard of total of twenty-three thousand bales, and for the next few years it ran between twenty-five and thirty-five thousand bales. Farmers drove their wagons piled high with bales to the public square. If they were not satisfied with the price obtained at auction there, they took their cotton on to Augusta or back home to wait for another day. Prosperity was only moderate throughout this period, for the success of business ventures depended greatly on the buying power of farmers, which in turn depended on the price of cotton. Yet there was a considerable if not spectacular expansion in commer­ cial affairs. Citizens, impoverished by the War between the States, had scarcely any money to put into new enterprises, but they gathered fresh courage after the overthrow of carpetbag rule and the restoration of self-government. Extending credit to one an­ other, they established small stores and offices, so that business soon began to stir. Two of the most important enterprises were a wire fence plant and a guano factory established in 1886. This 68 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES guano plant had long been needed, for as early as 1869 it had been estimated that the farmers of Wilkes County were spending $42,525 annually for imported fertilizer. In addition to these two, the number of business establishments in 1886 had increased to nine general merchandise stores ; two drug stores; two millinery shops; two newspapers, the Gazette and the Chronicle; two banks; two carriage, wagon and harness factories; a grist and flour mill; a chair factory; and an "opera house." Two hotels, providing good food, upheld Washington's reputation for show­ ing cordial southern hospitality. The following year Mark Cooper Pope constructed a canning factory, and W. W. Simpson built a mercantile house facing the public square. By 1889 applications for new enterprises were so numerous that a special session of the Wilkes County Superior Court was called to charter the proposed industries, and a newspaper article re­ ported that Washington \Vas as "solid as a rock bed and pushing ahead in all industries." In that year twelve thousand dollars was subscribed for the establishment of a cotton coinpress, and a cot­ tonseed oil plant was constructed at a cost of fifty thousand dol­ lars. It was not long before this latter industry was shipping each week a tank car of seven thousand gallons, valued at twelve hun­ dred dollars. Some of the older enterprises were reorganized dur­ ing this period. The _Washington Foundry and Manufacturing Company, the largest of the industrial plants, was put on a sound :financial basis. Although the early years of the 189o's were characterized prin­ cipally by the slow growth of industries established since Recon­ struction, the later years showed some commercial expansion in new enterprises. In 1897 R. A. Almand erected a livery stable at the corner of Main and Jefferson Streets and John W. Wood built another at the corner of Main and Allison Streets. These, with the two older establishments, gave Washington four livery stables that not only kept horses for hire but also sold them. The town thus became a good horse and mule market for the eastern sec- HISTORY tion of the state. Two years later, 0. S. Barnett, a prominent brick manufacturer, handled a single order for a million brick, the largest yet made here. The Excelsior Manufacturing Com­ pany installed a round bale cotton press, and J. R. Dover and M. M. Sims offered competition by setting up a similar press. With the new business enterprises, Washington's population, which was 2,199 in 1880, gradually increased, and a need devel­ oped for additional residential sections and recreational areas. The town's first real estate development began in June, 1887, when Mark Cooper Pope divided a hundred acres into building lots to be sold at prices ranging from $40 to $260. Pope also presented a near-by grove to the city government; the land immediately was converted into a public recreation area and named the Effie Pope Park in compliment to the donor's sister. Through this area the West. End Driving Association directed the construction of a driv- 1ng course. If Washington took little part in the industrialization that was sweeping many sections of the South, it developed its full share of improvements in public utilities. In 1889 a local telephone system was installed and long-distance connections were made with Elberton and Lincolnton. A mule-drawn streetcar line began operation from the depot to the business section. Oil street lamps had only recently been installed, but citizens began to feel the need of electric light service for their homes and offices. When Dr. F. T. Willis, donor of Washington's public library, died early in 1898, he bequeathed not only an additional sum of $1,200 to the library but also $10,000 to the city. The latter bequest, augmented in 1899 by $30,000 received from a local bond issue, was immedi­ ately appropriated for the construction of a municipal light plant in Washington and a water plant at Beaverdam Creek two miles from town. Citizens eagerly welcomed the new improvements and were quick to install electric lights and running water in their houses but were unwilling to give up the cool drinking water they were accustomed to drawing from their deep wells. Although 70 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES the municipal water has always been pronounced pure, there are some who still prefer their well water to "Beaverdam Creek water. " The unprecedented commercial and civic activity aroused such hope for rapid growth that the citizens in 1899 applied for and received a new charter from the state legislature incorporating Washington as a city. The county commissioners, also feeling the spirit of enterprise, began a drive for a new courthouse to replace the old structure erected in 1817. For $3,000 they purchased a lot on the north side of the square from Mrs. A. E. Mulligan, who had inherited it from her father, B. W. Heard, and prepared to tear down the old bank building where Jefferson Davis had held his last cabinet meeting. Despite continued protests from the me.mbers of the newly organized Last Cabinet Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the structure was even­ tually razed to make way for the new courthouse. This general expansion of Washington was seriously impaired by several conflagrations, especially those of 1882, 1895, and 1898. Perhaps the most serious fire the town had known started at 9 P.M. on June II, 1895, and completely demolished five frame stores, an office building, a wagon and machine shop, and also a residence, all in mid-town. The Episcopal Church and two old dwellings were seriously damaged. As a result of this disaster citizens immediately petitioned the city government for fire protection. A new fire company, the E. Y. Hill Hook and Ladder Company, was consequently organ­ ized with Captain Charles E. Irvin as chief. Members included some of the town's most prominent citizens, who in the excite­ ment of organization considered not only their duty as citizens but also the sport of future fire fighting. They bought a new fire engine the fallowing year after a dramatic demonstration in which a fire was extinguished in eighteen seconds. As in all small Georgia towns, a fire in vV ashington was an exciting occasion. At the sound of the alarm, almost every man, HISTORY woman, and child rushed to the scene of action, where they helped the volunteer firemen put out the blaze or saved articles from the burning building. Citizens not only liked to see their own company in action but also enjoyed watching the exhibitions of visiting firemen. They had a good opportunity in the hot, dusty days of July, 1888, when fifteen Negro fire companies and six brass bands came upon invitation to contend for prizes. In addition to the white onlookers there were many Negroes who ca1ne from within a radius of twenty miles to yell for their con­ testants. Washington's interest in politics, strong ever since the days of the Whigs and Tories, was kept alive by the presence of Robert Toombs, who had taken up his law practice after his exile and had become the state's foremost lawyer. Even in his declining years, when poor health and failing eyesight had made him less astute, Toombs remained a dominant influence in Georgia politics, and candidates for various offices visited him in Washington to seek his advice and his endorsement. At the Democratic Convention in Atlanta in 1882 he boldly denounced Stephens for dallying with the Independents and the New Departure Democrats who were in favor of a closer relation with the North. He declared that his lifelong friend was "either the veriest demagogue in the county or in his old age he has lost his grip," but at the funeral of Stephens in March, 1883, he expressed his admiration in a voice broken by grief. The death of his wife the following fall in­ creased his sorrow. His pessimism in regard to national politics often led him to express caustic opinions of public men, but his attitude was somewhat brightened in 1884 by the election of Grover Cleveland to the Presidency. When a crovvd of friends gathered at his home to tell him the good news, he spoke publicly for the last time. He indicated hope in Cleveland's constructive policy and later expressed regret over not taking the Amnesty Oath pledging allegiance to the United States. The distinguished general died at his residence at six o'clock on the morning of 72 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES

December I 5, 1885. I-Iouses and stores bore the crepe of mourn­ ing on the day of his funeral, when special trains brought Gov­ ernor Henry McDaniel and other noted statesmen to pay tribute to his memory. He was buried in a small lot at Resthaven, the Washington cemetery, and his grave is marked by a tall marble shaft, simply inscribed "Robert Toombs." The people of Washington, like Toombs, remained conservative in politics. They believed too strongly in the ideals of plantation days to accept the theories of the New Departure Democrats. Considering interest in politics as a part of their heritage, however, they listened to political speeches and took sides on the dominant issues. It was not long before discussions were becoming heated over the rise of a third political party, the Populist Party, advo­ cated by Thomas E. Watson, the agrarian rebel from neighboring McDuffie County. Watson, thinking that the farmers were de­ clining in wealth and authority as the New South became more closely allied with the industrial North, boldly declared himself a Populist in 1892 and advocated an alliance with the agricultural West. He gained many adherents, who vvere boldly denounced by the conservative Democrats. When a Populist cotton grower wrote a Washington financier for a $200 loan, he received the reply that since the Populist Party seemed bent on raising hell instead of cotton the loan was not advisable. An anonymous letter signed Mob gave a Populist leader a short time either to leave town or to lose his life. General opinion then remained strongly Democratic. Early in May, 1892, the county Democrats listened to J. C. C. Black of Augusta at a party meeting and were influenced to organize a strong Democratic Club. The June ses­ sion of the grand jury called the Populist Party a general nuisance "calculated to disturb the peace, dignity, and health of the people." On August 25 almost three thousand people assembled in Effie Pope Park for a Democratic rally. Preparation, which had been made throughout the past week, included the barbecueing of 120 hogs for this occasion. Long speeches denouncing the platform of HISTORY 73 the Populists and also the high tariff issues of the Republicans vvere made by Tinsley Rucker of Athens, Alfred E. Cox and W. C. Glenn of Atlanta, and Colonel Thomas G. Lawson, con­ gressman of the eighth district. An unusual feature of the rally was the attendance of about twelve hundred Negroes, who ate apart and also stood apart when they listened to the speeches. In their honor Thomas Gadsden, a Negro high school teacher, was allowed to make a speech. Leaving a discussion of tariff and finance to the white speakers, Gadsden made a speech "full of homely truths" that appealed to the voters of his race to support the Democratic policies. Citizens were overjoyed to see the Democratic Party again sup­ ported in the October elections and afterward settled down to local politics. They were so pleased with their city administration that the following year they did not hold their periodic city election. The incumbent board and mayor (G. E. Lyndon) con­ tinued in office. Although Washington with its county academies and private schools had long been well known for its educational facilities, its schooling was mostly for those who could afford to pay tuition. As late as 1887 there were no schools in Washington supported by public taxation. The Male Academy under Hylamon Wilson and the Female Academy under Ida A. Young still taught their clas­ sical and mathematical courses along with a few scientific subjects, and there were also two Catholic academies administered by Father J. M. O'Brien. In this year, however, the enrollment of the academies was so small that citizens petitioned the state com­ mittee on education and the state legislature to establish a public school. Al though a charter was granted, the school did not func­ tion until 1892 and several years elapsed before it vvas properly housed. Presaging educational expansion, William Wynne intro­ duced a bill in the state legislature to amend the city charter so that the n1ayor and council could issue bonds for public school buildings. In July, 1896, bonds were voted and the city offered 74 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES for sale 30 bonds of $500, easily sold since this was the town's only bonded indebtedness. The new public school building, finished in April, 1897, at a cost of $17,000, \Vas equipped with sanitary plumbing, central heating, and electric lights. In 1897 also a school for the children of Christian Scientists was opened at the Armstrong House on the Washington and Elberton Road by Mrs. Carolyn Armstrong, who for many years had been teaching her neighbor's children along with her own. The in­ stitution, opened by chance when a Scientist friend came to live with her, was one of the first schools to be conducted along Chris­ tian Science principles. It was so successful that pupils came from many states, and an announcement in a church paper resulted in so many applications that a large number had to be rejected. Mrs. Arn1strong, a Scientist reader and leader, soon found her limited facilities were not sufficient to accommodate all she wished to take. The school was consequently closed after seven years, to the dis­ may of the pupils who had come to love the old plantation house. Throughout the last two decades of the century, Washington citizens, as always, were busy with religious activities. The Meth­ odists in 1882 completed and dedicated a new brick structure, which was the setting for a moving occasion in October of that year. Robert Toombs, then seventy-four years old, affiliated him­ self vvith their congregation and was baptized by his devoted friend, Bishop George Foster Pierce. The Baptists finished a new church two years later, and the Episcopalians replaced the build­ ing destroyed in the fire of 1895 with a new church adjacent to the Toombs House. At the same time the Episcopal congregation built a rectory in order that members might have the services of a full-time pastor. The Baptists and Methodists were especially active, holding re­ vival meetings and entertaining their religious associations. The annual revivals were not only well but frequently attended, for services were held four or five times daily. During the two-week HISTORY 75 periods merchants closed their shops at 5 P .M. instead of the cus­ tomary 7 P.M. in order that employees might attend. Washington Baptists were honored in 1884 not only to entertain the Georgia Baptist Convention but at the sa1ne time to celebrate the centen­ nial of the Georgia Association. They were especially interested in the latter organization because it was the first religious associa­ tion formed in the state and because Wilkes County men were in­ fluential in its organization, thirty-eight years before it joined younger Baptist associations to for1n the Georgia Baptist Conven­ tion. Before the Georgia Methodist Conference grevr too large, Washington had been selected several times as a site for its annual convention. When the organization was divided into the North Georgia and South Georgia Conferences in 1886, Washington Methodists felt they could again offer to entertain their conference. Consequently in December, 1890, two hundred and seventy-eight delegates of the North Georgia Conference met in Washington. Closely allied with religious affairs was the increasingly wide­ spread demand for prohibition. In 1882 the Rehoboth Precinct of Wilkes County exercised its local option privilege and voted to go "bone dry," and three years later, after much agitation, the matter was brought to a vote by Washington citizens. The town, how­ ever, remained "wet." The government derived good revenue from selling retail licenses for $300 and wholesale licenses for $150. In order to forestall an appeal to the state legislature for another local vote, the city council in 1889 passed more stringent laws for the regulation of saloons. Each patron was permitted to buy only a quart at a time, screens were forbidden in barrooms, and meas­ ures were taken to keep out minors. Because the license fee was raised to $500, the town's revenue from liquor sales was increased from $1,600 to $2,000. The recurrent struggle for prohibition was again of primary interest in 1898, when there was a movement to establish a dis­ pensary system. Negro ministers united with white prohibition THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES leaders against the saloon keepers. Because of their combined ef­ forts, Washington became dry with a majority of 351 votes ten years be£ ore Georgia became a prohibition state. Many social activities were closely connected with church life, for the ladies of the town gave many programs and bazaars to raise money for charitable purposes. Accounts not only of these but also of the more cultural and sporting events were printed in J. W. Chapman's Washington Gazette. In the 188o's the young ladies of the Methodist Church gave benefit concerts under the direction of Professor Leo Mehrtens. At Father O'Brien's house the Roman Catholics held "Irish Fairs," bazaars to raise money for their orpha~s, and the Baptists conducted like enterprises for their organization. Members of the Round Table Literary Club, formed in 1882 for its "social and mental advantages," met to read and discuss the classics. Horse racing was being replaced rapidly by baseball as a spectator sport. In the fall of 1885 the towns­ people gave a noisy demonstration for their team, the Cozarts, who had come through the season unbeaten. A professional bat­ tery had been hired from Chicago and Philadelphia for the season. Until 1882 the benefit musicales and violin or piano concerts were held in church and school auditoriums, but in that year John D. Floyd moved the old Methodist Church and converted it into the Floyd Opera House, which seated four hundred patrons. This auditorium was popular for lectures, for concerts and plays by local per£ormers, and for more professional entertainment by traveling troupes. It was used until 1896, when Floyd again moved the building, this time to the rear of the lot, and built a more modern brick structure on the former site. Amateur and professional entertainments were held in the new building until it was burned in 1912. The L' Allegro Club, a local musical and theatrical organization, often gave programs in this auditorium. Early in August, 1899, the repertory of this club was presented in Lexington, Elberton, and other towns as a means of making money to purchase new musical instruments. HISTORY 77 For entertainment during this period most older women relied on receptions and teas, attendance at their club meetings, and oc­ casional visits with their friends to summer resorts. There were so many whose ancestors had fought in the Revolutionary War that in 1895 they organized the Kettle Creek Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. During the summer they met their friends from neighboring cities at Hillman, a near-by resort, to gossip and drink medicinal spring water. This village was so popular during the summer of 1897, that the Georgia Railroad was requested to run its short train, the Picayune, from Washington to Hillman on Saturdays. The business men were thereby enabled to join their families for the week-end. On hot summer evenings the ladies of the Claudale Driving Club, then in its second year, drove out to swim in a "beautiful soft water pond" fed by springs. It was not until the closing years of the century that card playing and dancing were introduced by the young ladies and young men, who occasionally hired a band from Augusta to play for dances at King's Hall. During the 189o's the Irvin Guards in their bright uniforms at­ tracted much attention when they paraded in Effie Pope Park or made an encampment there, and invitations to their military balls were much prized by the young ladies of Washington and neigh­ boring towns. The guards, organized in 1889 as a unit of the state militia, adopted the name of the distinguished company that bravely fought during the War between the States. When they first received their uniforms, they went to Atlanta and marched in a spectacular parade at the opening of the annual Atlanta Exposi­ tion. On July 23, 1890, they met the First Georgia Battalion from Atlanta at the Washington railroad station and with the visitor's Zouave band paraded throughout the business section. A midday barbecue was followed by a dress parade, watched by "the famous belles and beauties of this charming place," and in the evening all attended a banquet at the Good Templar's Hall. In 1897 twenty­ seven members paraded before Governor A. D. Candler on Mili- THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES tary Day at the Augusta Merrymakers Fair. When Colonel W. B. O'Bear, inspector general of the state militia, came to in­ spect the Irvin Guards in late summer, the company made so good an impression that new uni£ orms, guns, and accoutrements were immediately supplied by the state. The Irvin Guards closely watched the development of the ap­ proaching Spanish-American War. In February, 1898, Captain R. 0. Barksdale received word from Major N. A. Teague to be in readiness to move the Irvin Guards at a moment's notice, and in May Lieutenant A. L. King and a corps of sixteen men were as­ signed to a company with headquarters at Barnesville, Georgia. Other Washington men were accepted as members of regiments throughout the state. After their return from war duties the guards remained an active organization until their disbandment in 1906.

THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY At the beginning of the new century, Washington had a pop­ ulation of 3,300, which was an increase of 63 per cent over that of the preceding decade. The town now entered its period of great­ est prosperity, a happy condition that had come not suddenly but as the natural result of the hard work done during the years after Reconstruction. The early twentieth century was a time of ex­ pansion in commerce and increase in the number of luxuries. Substantial evidence of this state of affairs was seen in the new Fitzpatrick Hotel, opened in March, 1900. Its elaborate bay­ windowed fa~ade was greatly admired, and because of its running water and elevator service this hostelry was considered very mod­ ern indeed. The Fitzpatrick "wore quite a New England aspect" in May, 1900, when it entertained members of the 11assachusetts Institute of Technology solar eclipse expedition. During the fall of 1899 the path of the moon's shadow had been carefully plotted on a HISTORY 79 map with the line of passage running through Washington. Be­ cause it was the place of highest altitude and easiest approach on that line, this town was selected as the site to view the eclipse. Several days were spent in constructing a pier for an astronomical transit, a sketching stand, and a building for cameras and tele­ scopes. Five young ladies of Washington aided in sketching the corona of the eclipse, and twenty high school teachers and stu­ dents assisted with the many cameras. The total eclipse came at 7:02 A.M. on May 28 and lasted for eighty-five seconds. Arrange­ ments had been made to inform an American astronomer in Tripoli of the results; so in1mediately afterward a cablegram was telephoned from the cotton field where the eclipse had been ob­ served. This message arrived in Tripoli ten minutes later, two and a half hours ahead of the moon's shadow. Several e:ff orts were instituted to make the town a manufactur­ ing center but with little effect. One such attempt was made in 1900 when R. A. Almand and J. R. Dyson opened a knitting mill, but the following year this plant yielded its site to the Planters' Compress Company and moved into a renovated livery stable where operation was maintained for only a short time. A false note of expansion was sounded in July, 1901, when a second dis­ covery of gold was made in the northern part of Wilkes County. After a thousand pounds of soil submitted to the stamping mills had assayed $1,500, Washington got ready for a boom. It was soon discovered, however, that the deposits were negligible, and the people again resumed their leisurely manner of living. Just before this period of excitement, however, merchants were prosperous enough to subscribe $1,000 to secure a two-weeks' en­ campment of the state militia. In July also, companies from Greensboro, Madison, Elberton, Conyers, Augusta, and Athens, assembled at Effie Pope Park, called Camp Dyson for the time in honor of Washington's mayor, J. R. Dyson. A band from the Fourth Regiment at Bainbridge provided music for the drills. 80 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES The entire regiment met Governor Allen D. Candler on the 13th, when he arrived to inspect the soldiers. After a cannon salute as he rode into the reservation, the governor reviewed the regi­ ment and watched a sham battle. For the ladies, who had given the soldiers a reception at the home of Mrs. John J. Hill in addi­ tion to many informal parties, the military men gave a german opened by the regimental commander at the new Fitzpatrick Hotel. There were other new enterprises of a civic or commercial nature. The new courthouse was completed in 1904 at a cost of $40,000, and the old structure in the center of the square was de­ molished and the site made into a grassy plot. A new pumping station was installed at Beaverdam Creek in the following year. In 1906 Bishop Warren A. Candler dedicated the new Methodist Church, and the Sisters of St. Joseph began construction of a $15,- 000 auditorium for their school. Although there were many com­ plaints of financial depression throughout the North, cotton brought twelve cents a pound in Washington in 1907, and bank deposits increased so rapidly that the Citizen's National Bank was organized as the four th bank in Washington. Also in that year the Armour Fertilizer Company began the construction of a new storage warehouse. Since the completion of the new courthouse, the Confederate Memorial Association had been planning to erect a monument on the old site. The women of this organization aroused the interest of the whole town and enlisted the churches, schools, and clubs to raise funds. For this purpose the young ladies of St. Joseph's Academy presented a recital in their school auditorium, and on Washington's Homecoming Day the men of the town had a base­ ball game between the Fats and the Leans. When the monument, a granite shaft surmounted by a Southern soldier, was unveiled on Confederate Memorial Day in 1908, Burwell Green, commander of the local camp of Confederate veterans, presided as master of ELLINGTON HOUSE

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HISTORY 81 ceremonies, and General Andrew J. West, of Atlanta, made the principal address. After the exercises the memorial society, in ac­ cordance with Washington hospitality, entertained the veterans at dinner in the city council chamber. The residential section, established during plantation days, was slow in changing, but in 1908 the business section of Main Street was paved with creosoted wooden blocks and people began to buy lots in Washington's second residential subdivision, called Grandview because it was on the site of the solar eclipse expedition of 1900. With increasing number of sales in farm lands, the Wilkes County Good Roads Association was formed. This or­ ganization, holding a meeting each month, did much to improve the condition of the county roads. During the first years of the century the old question of prohibi­ tion again became a dominant issue. Church people were aroused in 1901, when they learned that a state senator from Wilkes County had introduced a bill in the legislature to provide for a liquor dispensary as a solution to the problem of bootlegging in the dry town. Prohibition officers were charged with making raids for financial profits rather than for breaking up "moon­ shining." Although indignant prohibitionists quickly left for Atlanta to make a fight, the measure was passed. After return­ ing ho1ne they continued their struggle by hiring detectives to run down these illegal dispensers, but the brutal methods of the detec­ tives aroused so much antagonism to their campaign that at the next local election in November, 1902, the town voted in favor of opening the legal dispensary. Although this "tank," located on the public square, was well supervised by prominent citizens, its purpose failed, for the illegal sale of liquor was not stopped. Despite a legislative act making Georgia a dry state on January 1, 1908, bootlegging continued, and it was not long before Wash­ ington citizens felt the need of for ming the Law and Order League to protest against violation of the state law. In 1910 forty-five THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES women members of that organization appeared before the mayor and council, who as a result called a mass meeting and organized prohibition forces for the elimination of "blind tigers." State politics had lost some of its old excitement for Washington people. With no Robert Toomb to fire them, newer generations were hardly aware of the political power formerly wielded by ante-bellum planters. The citizens discussed the qualifications of various Democratic candidates but opposition was generally good­ natured. Something of the spirit of past political campaigns was shown in 1908 when the incumbent Governor Hoke Smith bit­ terly attacked his opponent Joseph M. (Little Joe) Brown at a rally in Washington. Feeling died quickly, however, for after Brown's election supporters of both candidates met at a friendly "crow eating" at the home of P. T. Callaway. Local politics, on the other hand, was frequently accompanied by bitterness. In 1903 the whole town became angry when it was learned that the opponents of the incumbent mayor and board were enlisting for their candidates the votes of Negroes who usually took no part in political elections. Despite this Negro vote, J. R. Dyson was again elected mayor and only one council­ man lost his position. Negroes again voted the same year on a bond issue for the new courthouse, but after that the question of the Negro vote was not raised. Although relations between Negroes and white people had been friendly since the turmoil of Reconstruction days, all Washing­ ton laughed good-naturedly when a Negro was inadvertently the cause of a summary dismissal of court in 1909. Cy Bullard, sum­ moned to the witness stand in a misdemeanor case, had hardly taken his seat when there was a stampede for every exit. In a trice he was the sole occupant of the room. Upon investigation the judge learned that Cy had smallpox and sent an immune officer to remove him to jail until he was well. On another oc­ casion the Negro section became much alarmed over the expected appearance of Halley's Comet, having heard discussions as to the HISTORY possibility of its hitting the earth. Thinking the Negroes good subjects for a practical joke, several young men sent up lighted paper balloons over their houses and spread the alarm that the coin et was coming. Wailing loudly, some of the terrified Negroes sought refuge in their churches. Some were there the next morn­ ing and refused to emerge until they knew the outcome of the " comic.. " The prosperity that came to Washington during the first decade of the twentieth century encouraged citizens to plan further pro­ gressive measures. The Washington Chamber of Commerce was organized in 1910 and $1,200 was subscribed to advertise the town. When the Federal census of that year showed a decline in the town's population instead of the expected increase, the organiza­ tion was dismayed and immediately appointed fifty volunteer enumerators to make a recount. The census figures were virtually substantiated, but disappointment was somewhat alieviated by the fact that the Wilkes County population had increased from 20,- 866 in 1900 to 23,441 in 1910. Townspeople were encouraged to go on with proposed civic and business enterprises. Commercial and civic organizations began to broaden their activities in 1912. Early in the year the gray brick jail now used was completed at a cost of $20,000, and soon afterward the main streets of the town were paved as the result of a $60,000 bond issue. Taxable property reached the unprecedented level of $2,000,000 for the city and $4,000,000 for the county. This civic expansion reached a climax in 1913, when contracts were awarded for new buildings and improvements valued at $100,000. Business activity encouraged citizens to undertake the task of reorganizing their county fair, which had not been held for a number of years. In 1912 the managers co-operated with those of an adjoining county and held the first Wilkes-Lincoln Fair. The exhibition was so successful that a permanent fair organization was chartered the following year with a capital stock of $25,000. During the succeeding years attendance was drawn not only from THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES Wilkes and Lincoln but from the surrounding counties; conse­ quently in 1920 the stockholders of the fair corporation spent $2,- 000 improving the exposition grounds and announced that the exhibition would henceforth be named the East Georgia Fair. Al­ though hundreds of farmers entered their best produce and live­ stock in various competitions and thousands attended from many small towns, the fair was not a financial success and was aban­ doned after a few years. The prosperity brought by successful business enterprises led to an interest in gayer social entertainments. Washington had al­ v✓ ays en joyed its smaller gatherings. The ladies had begun the new century by inaugurating a study of current literature at the meetings of the Twentieth Century Club and conducting bazaars for the charities of the Nightingale Club. The ladies of the Frank Willis Literary Club and the members of the Athene Club were meeting to discuss the classics, while the young people of the Bowling Club were bowling in summer and playing euchre in winter. But many people were calling for fresh amusements: in 1913 the Washington Country Club was built, and an opening re­ ception was held with Governor and Mrs. John M. Slaton among the three hundred guests. Soon people were flocking to the club to play tennis, to swim in the large concrete pool and-despite the disapproval of many strict church members-to play cards and dance. The clubhouse remained popular until it was burned in 1935· Business was still doing well in 1914, when a local newspaper editorial stated that "the war scare hasn't yet been sufficient to silence the music of the saw and the hammer." Cotton continued to bring a good price until that year, when the European markets were closed to America. Fortunately the Wilkes County Cotton Growers' Association, co-operating with Lincoln County farmers, had organized in 1907 a cotton-holding company with capital of $100,000, its purpose being to finance the cotton growers until their product would bring a better price. Many farmers availed them- HISTORY 85 selves of the privileges of this company, but by the end of October they felt the pinch of financial stress. In a mass meeting they re­ solved to reduce cotton acreage for the next season and to use the minimum amount of fertilizer. These men even asked Governor Slaton to call a special session of the legislature to pass a law mak­ ing cotton reduction necessary and expressed hope that the state would float a bond issue for the purchase of surplus cotton. Al­ though the legislature did nothing, the farmers reduced their acreage themselves. Cotton acreage reduction was forgotten by 1916, however, when the price rose to nineteen cents because the Allies were using many bales for war munitions. After the United States had entered the World War in 1917 patriotic organizations were rapidly formed, among them the local Red Cross Chapter and the Wilkes County Food Council. Two military companies, a national unit and a home guard unit, were organized, and six Wilkes County men attended the first officers' training camp at Fort McPherson. The seventy-four Con­ federate survivors organized themselves into a military company and offered their services to the President. Citizens raised their $10,000 Red Cross quota at two mass meetings and later con­ tributed $5,059 for the army Y .M.C.A. in a twelve-hour drive. They were also active in selling Wilkes County's allotment of $50,- 000 in war saving stamps; before the middle of 1918, Washington and Wilkes County had exceeded their quotas in five Liberty Loan campaigns. Washington's soldiers who had served overseas re­ turned on July 4, 1919, and in September the Jerome A. Wooten Post of the American Legion was formed. Although the World War had been uppermost in the thoughts of Washington citizens, the eighty-year-old problem of additional transportation facilities had again asserted itself. In the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century members of the Wash­ ington Business Association, seeing the need of improvement, had appeared before officials of the Georgia Railroad in Augusta and requested a new station, which was built in 1907. Early in Janu- 86 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES ary, 1916, work was begun on the much discussed Washington and Lincolnton Railroad, and in 1919 the Washington and El­ berton Railroad, at this time the Elberton and Eastern, began to construct the final ten miles between Washington and Tignall. Two strikes on the Georgia Railroad had emphasized the need of new lines. Citizens suffered greatly from a shortage of food in 1908, when transportation was interrupted because of a strike. When groceries and stock feeds became almost exhausted, the desperate citizens called a mass meeting and drew up resolutions addressed to the governor of the state and the president of the rail­ road company. Protection was promised to strike-breaking crews who should put the trains into operation, and after several days regular schedules were resumed. The townspeople were again perplexed in the fall of 1912, when the Georgia Railroad conduc­ tors and flagmen, protesting against the discharge of one of their brothers, voted for a walkout and raised a disturbing transporta­ tion problem. Bankers, seeking practicable means of financing cotton growers without shipments of currency, asked the farmers to co-operate by using checks whenever possible. Others carried mail, passengers, and supplies to and from Elberton and Athens. One enterprising citizen, after hearing that the people were "ba­ nana and fruit hungry," drove to Augusta where he purchased two hundred bunches of bananas, four barrels of apples, and quantities of other fruit. Violence was condemned at a mass meeting, and the governor was petitioned to end the distressing situation. The to~.vn' s mayor, leading a group of a hundred citizens, warded off attempted interference with an engineer who had volunteered to operate a train into town. Railroad officials at length enlisted Federal aid in the protection of the United States mail and the shipment of interstate freight; service was resumed after ten days. Throughout the twentieth century destructive fires, prevalent during the preceding century, were held in check. The only serious damage to the town was caused by a cyclone on the morn­ ing of March 29, 1920. In addition to unroofing houses, uproot- HISTORY ing trees, breaking telephone and telegraph wires, and littering the streets with debris, the twister seriously damaged the municipal lighting plant, the telephone company, the Baptist Church, the courthouse, and the public school buildings. There were no deaths, but losses were estimated at $250,000. After the cyclone, residents hastily repaired the damaged struc­ tures and erected new buildings to replace those demolished. Leo Krumbein bought the old telephone structure on the southeast corner of the square and replaced it with his modern daylight corner store. The J. T. Lindsey Building was constructed about the same time on the west side of the square.

MODERN TIMES In the period that fallowed the World War, Washington ex­ perienced little of the spurious prosperity that came so quickly to more industrial sections. Wilkes County remained agricultural, with cotton as its principal cash crop, and, when the boll weevil wrought its destructive path through the region, the plight of the farmers became critical. Many of them, unable to keep their homes, left the county to find more favorable conditions. Busi­ ness, mercantile, and banking enterprises were seriously affected. Years before the nation-wide depression, many of Washington's citizens had become accustomed to circumstances that later be­ came general. Newspaper articles published during these years carry a run­ ning story of desperate efforts to relieve the farmers and halt the exodus to other regions. The News Reporter donated space for advertisements whenever the farmers had products for sale. In 1921, when the boll weevil reduced the expected cotton yield in Wilkes County by more than seven thousand bales, the Washing­ ton Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis Club initiated a program of crop diversification. The county office of the National Farm Loan Association approved loans amounting to $25,000 for Wilkes County farmers, their part of the $200,000-loan which 88 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES Georgia had requested from the national organization. After a study of remedial measures that had been found beneficial else­ where in the South, Wilkes County farmers were urged to sustain themselves by more intensive production of food crops. In a contest held by the Kiwanis Club, the judges selected for the diversification program this slogan:

"The cow, the hog, the hen, A little cotton now and then."

At the East Georgia Fair held in Washington in 1921, Governor Thomas W. Hardwick won enthusiastic applause by criticizing Georgia's fifty-year-old tax system and suggesting the abolition of state taxes on farms and homes. As a substitute he proposed the law of graduated income tax which was being newly tried in other states. At the first poultry sale, held in July, 1922, 3,500 head of poultry were sold to a buyer stationed in a box car. The farmers, en­ couraged by the county agent, brought their fryers and hens to this movable market and received this innovation so favorably that the sale has since been repeated every few months. After the sale the car is taken to a larger city, where the poultry is resold. In 1923, impetus was given to this diversification program when bankers of this section pledged $1,000-fund to lend money to poultrymen who would promise to improve and increase their stock. Farmers also began to turn more to dairying and sheep raising, to which their grassy pasturelands were well adapted. Hog rais­ ing was encouraged; in April, 1923, the White Provision Com­ pany of Atlanta bought two carloads representing 24,680 pounds, which brought $1,690.04 to farmers of the county. For several years the Wilkes County Peanut Growers' Association, formed about this time, urged farmers to plant peanuts as a substitute cash crop on lands formerly planted in cotton and recently left idle because of destruction by the boll weevil. Although peanut HISTORY 89 growing was still largely experimental, the proceeds from the crop of 1923 brought a measure of prosperity to the community. Pecans also were raised more extensively. In later years, when the national depression had engendered a system of barter, a Wilkes County woman paid in pecans for a magazine subscrip­ tion; the following year the publishers sent her an order for nuts valued far in excess of the subscription price. In order to encourage farmers to grow less cotton and raise more food crops, the women of Washington in co-operation with the county home demonstration agent opened a produce market on Jefferson Street in 1935. An attempt to open such a market in 1922 had resulted in failure because of lack of proper manage­ ment, but this time operation was put on a sound financial basis. Each Saturday the members of organized rural women's clubs from all sections of Wilkes County bring to market their best fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, canned goods, cakes, and pies. Washington housewives rush to have a choice selection of these products and consider the institution one of the most successful small markets in Georgia. The success of this enterprise to a great extent is due to the work of the county home demonstration agent, who visits the women in their homes and attends the meet­ ings of their clubs, such as those at Rayle and Metasville. Once a month each organized group holds an all-day meeting, during which the women have a program on some chosen topic, dinner at noon, and a demonstration in improved methods of cooking, vegetable canning, preserving, and even needle handicraft. Be­ cause the women are interested in learning new processes, they always have a stock of select produce to bring to market. Many farmers co-operate wholeheartedly with the county agri­ cultural agent, who for thirty years has worked to improve farm­ ing practices in Wilkes County. At the present time this agent plans and manages all poultry and hog sales, helps to secure the seed of improved plants, and encourages the farmers to raise more food crops. Working with the various state and Federal agencies, 90 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES he helps the farmers with their individual problems of preventing soil erosion and increasing the fertility of the soil. Although the program of the agent has resulted in increased acreage in red clover, field peas, peanuts, alfalfa, and other cover crops as well as in fruit orchards and garden produce, the principal money crops are still cotton and corn. Small grain, such as wheat, oats, and rye, is cultivated extensively for home consumption. As instability in banking conditions became constantly more alarming, public confidence was impaired. The Washington Ex­ change Bank, which had been established in the 188o's, was the first to fail when it closed its doors in 1925. Other monetary in­ stitutions were also tottering; so, in order to strengthen their financial positions and to increase the public good will, the Citi­ zens National Bank merged with the National Bank of Wilkes. Under the name of the latter, the combined institutions continued to operate until December 23, 1930, when an announcement was made that this bank would no longer be open for business. The railroads were also in a precarious financial condition. Stockholders suffered in 1931, when receiverships were declared for the small Washington and Lincolnton and the Elberton and Eastern Railroad Companies. The lines were soon afterward junked. Although the construction and operation of these rail­ roads had been uppermost in the minds of many Washington and Wilkes County citizens for more than half a century, they had existed for only a few years. Their failure left only the short branch line of the Georgia Railroad to serve Washington, despite the efforts citizens had made to have the main line of some rail­ way system pass through the town. For the past few years, how­ ever, the need for more efficient service has been alleviated to some extent by bus facilities. Washington is now on the route of the Southeastern Stages from Atlanta to Augusta. Despite widespread distress, numerous civic and social improve­ ments were made. In 1924 the downtown area took on a more modern appearance when lamp posts equipped with electric lights HISTORY 91 were placed around the square and along one block of the main street. Thus for the first time Washington had a white way. An event of great importance during the same year was the open­ ing of the .Washington General Hospital under the supervision of a group of public spirited local physicians. The hospital con~ tinued to operate under this system until 1936, when it was taken under municipal control with a board of trustees appointed by council. The Mary Willis Library, always important in the estimation of Washington, became the center of considerable agitation in 1925 when Mrs. Hardeman Toombs Wood resigned her post as librarian to go into business for herself. The citizens were well satisfied, however, when the position was accepted by Miss Kath­ leen Colley, a great-niece of General Toombs and a citizen who was keenly interested in preserving the history of the section. Happy excitement prevailed in 1926 when the well-known teacher, writer, and botanist Eliza Frances Andrews ( 1840-1931) was elected to the International Academy of Letters and Science, an honor never before accorded to a woman. Miss Andrews, one of the first graduates of La Grange College, had taught for fifteen years at Wesleyan College, had written several novels and a text­ book on botany, and had published a diary of her experiences during the War between the States. At that time she was quietly living in Rome, Georgia. Expressing deep appreciation of the honor, she declared that she was too old to go to Naples, Italy, to receive the award. Two years later, when she returned to visit her native Washington, she was honored by a celebration held by local civic and patriotic organizations as vvell as the public schools. Her former pupils in Washington planted a white oak to her memory on the public school grounds. In 1927 another Washington citizen was honored for a very different achievement. Young Tom Nash, who had been attend­ ing the University of Georgia and playing football, was chosen by the famous sports writer Grantland Rice as All-American end. 92 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES The citizens of the town made Nash a gift of a handsome gold watch. A salient trend of the times was the extension of the work done by civic bodies, particularly women's organizations. The Wash­ ington Woman's Club, organized in 1910, began to take a much more important place in local affairs. In 1927 this group, then established in downtown clubrooms, began serving weekly lunch­ eons at the Kiwanis Club. They held a large reception in 1930 to celebrate the opening of their new clubhouse, the old W. D. Ellington dwelling which they had restored. In the same year an auditorium-armory was erected on the high school grounds, this building to be used not only as a gymnasium and auditorium for the school but also as headquarters and armory for Battery B, local unit of the National Guard. The Kiwanis Club, directed by the Daffodil Garden Club, took a prominent part in beautification of the city during the following year, when members planted 264 dogwood trees along the princi­ pal streets. Other organizations were active in designating important his­ toric sites in the vicinity, and interest in the history of this section was becoming more widespread. Two important 1narkers were erected in 1930: one, a gift of the Daughters of the American Revolution, was on the Nancy Hart Highway in honor of the robust heroine of the Revolution; the other, donated by the Fed­ eral Government, indicated the Kettle Creek site of the noted Revolutionary battle. This latter marker was erected on a twelve­ acre plot the Kettle Greek Chapter of the D .A.R. had bought in 1900. The Federal Government, also in this year, set up a marker over the grave of Sergeant Lewis Flemister, who had been a member of George Washington's bodyguard. Boyce Ficklen, Sr. (1851-1937) created interest in local history by editing and pub­ lishing a column called "Keep History Straight" in his Wilkes County Forum. These newspaper articles served an admirable purpose in correcting mistaken legends frequently accepted as HISTORY 93 historical facts. Ficklen was also known for his work as banker, county treasurer, and state legislator. The News-Reporter, Washington's only surviving newspaper, was organized early in the twentieth century by Boyce Ficklen, Sr., and called the Reporter. This paper immediately assumed leadership among the local journals, later took over the Gazette­ C hronicle, and about 1916 was merged with the News. The cotn­ bined papers were published bi-weekly as the News-Reporter until depression reduced its publication to once a week. The publica­ tion underwent further important changes in 1937, when its editor, John Stoddard, was appointed adjutant-general of the state and Charles I. Reynolds, Jr., took his place with the newspaper. After Reynolds' marriage to Margaret Woodward, a gifted young journalist, this couple collaborated in an associate editorship of the paper and in a popular column, "Southern Accent." In religious activity the period was notable not only for the erection of one new church but for the recognition of the long history of several other churches. In 1930 the recently organized Presbyterian congregation in the near-by village of Ficklen con­ structed its own building for services; it is now the only church of this denomination in the county outside of Washington. The Fishing Creek Baptist Church, the oldest ecclesiastical organiza­ tion north of Augusta, was the first to celebrate its long existence when in 1933 the members held services commemorating the sesquicentennial anniversary of its founding. The Baptists of Phillip's Mill held their ceremonies in 1935, and those of Clarke's Station, Ebenezer, and Sardis in 1938. The Washington churches did not lag far behind. The First Methodist Church held such a celebration also in 1938, and two years later on October 8-9-10, 1940, the members of Washington Presbyterian Church enter­ tained the Synod of Georgia in commemoration of their sesqui­ centennial anniversary. Memorial exercises were conducted at the poplar where the Reverend John Springer had been ordained one hundred and fifty years before. 94 THE STORY OF W ASHINGTON-vVILKES Churches and other organizations of this area were united on the question of prohibition; throughout all the many social changes of these two decades an overwhelming majority of the citizens remained detern1ined to keep the town and county "bone dry.'' Early in the 192o's the citizens gathered around the court­ house grounds to look triumphantly upon the confiscated whisky distilling equipment captured by diligent revenue officers in their raids. As the years passed there were some voices boldly lifted in favor of repeal, but they were overruled. In the referendum of June 8, 1937, when Georgia voted against repeal, the county did likewise by a majority of two to one. Although local option was permitted to counties by legislative action on February 3, 1938, Wilkes has remained dry. The year of 1937 was a 1nemorable one for both the county and town. Farmers of the section switched on their first electric lights in June just after the Rayle REA lines were completed. Especially beneficial to the farmers was the first veterinary hos­ pital in the county, opened in this year by Dr. Clyde Smith. Con­ current with improvements in agricultural areas came one of Washington's few attempts at industrial development. The Royal Manufacturing Company, the first garment factory in town, now opened and gave employment to numbers of young women of the county. Another important event of this year was the estab­ lishment of Washington as district headquarters for the Federal Land Bank. The town was made district headquarters of the newly created State Highway Patrol in 1938. The officers, who occupy one of the numerous ante-bellum columned houses, have co-operated with local policemen in reducing traffic hazards. Among the developments of the fallowing year was the passage of a zoning law to restrict business from the residential sections of Washington. On August 25, 1938, the Woman's Club acted as sponsor for Homecoming Day, featuring the "Wanderers' Edi­ tion" of the News-Reporter and a program in the auditorium­ armory. The special issue of the newspaper, containing articles of HISTORY 9S local news and historical essays, also carried letters from former residents of Washington and Wilkes County. In order to obtain the letters, the club women made a list of the for mer citizens and gave their names to friends now living in the county. These old friends then wrote to them in a friendly manner, asking for a reply, and received letters from many states and several foreign countries. Because the Wilkes County people are proud of their heritage and like to hear from those who have moved away, the club women sponsor the "Wanderers' Edition" every few years. The principal speaker at the homecoming exercise was Dr. Kerr Boyce Tupper, whose reminiscences of his boyhood in Washing­ ton delighted many citizens with his memories of past events of outstanding personalities such as Robert Toombs. Many of the more thoughtful members of the audience drew sober com£ ort from his evocation of the hardships endured here during the War between the States and Reconstruction. Many felt that Washing­ ton, justly proud of an illustrious history, could meet the modern problems with the same high spirit that had animated those who made that history. Points of Interest

r. WILKES COUNTY COURTHOUSE (open 8-6 weekdays), NE. corner Court and Spring Sts., opposite N. side of Public Square, the fourth court­ house in 162 years of Wilkes County history, was erected in 1904 at a cost of $40,000. A very elaborate three-story granite and brick build­ ing with a red tile roof, it is of the hybrid courthouse architecture so often found in this period, showing French, Romanesque, and Gothic influences in its design. A green lawn with magnolias and mimosas provides a pleasing setting. The tower clock, removed from an ear lier building, has kept perfect time since 1817 except for an interval in 1865 when, according to legend, it stopped running until Federal troops quartered in the old courthouse were withdrawn. Courthouse vaults contain records from early in the 177o's. On the second floor a museum ( opened by appointment with custodian) is maintained by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and contains relics of the War between the States, among them a camp chest Jeffer­ son Davis used after the evacuation of Richmond; the inkstand of Burton Harrison, secretary to President Davis; a box of matches taken from Davis' pocket after his capture; a uniform worn by General Toombs; a silk flag made by Washington women and used by a local artillery unit; several "Joe Brown Pikes"; and valuable files of old newspapers. On this site, after the Revolution, Colonel Micaij ah Williamson operated a popular tavern in a commodious log house whose sign displayed a life-sized portrait of George Washington. The inn was replaced in 1787 by the first permanent courthouse, which in turn was supplanted in 1820 by the Georgia Branch Bank Building. From the balcony of this old structure Robert Toombs delivered fiery seces­ sion speeches, and on May 5, 1865, the last meeting of the Confederate cabinet was held here. g6 CH INTERIOR •

WASHINGTON WOMANS' CLUB BUILDING

PORCH AND BALCONY DETAIL OF BERRY-HAY-POPE HOUSE

,, i

POINTS OF INTEREST 97

THE CAPSTONE OF WILKES l'v1ANUFACTURING COMPANY or Bolton's Fac­ tory, right of walk leading to main entrance of courthouse, is fro1n the South's first cotton mill. This factory was erected on Upton Creek in 1811, at the site of Eli Whitney's workshop and ginhouse. John Bolton, a Rhode Islander, was a leading stockholder in the com­ pany and the architect of the building. The venture soon proved un­ profitable, and T'homas Talbot bought the machinery and removed it to his plantation, Mount Pleasant, where he produced clothing for his slaves. The factory building, bought by the estate of General Nathanael Greene, was sold to the Simpson family in 1834. Richard­ son Booker, prominent in the Methodist Church, taught Sunday School there, and local Baptists conducted services within its walls. A flour and grist mill was later installed. When flood waters damaged the structure beyond repair, the Reverend Franklin T. Simpson pre­ served the capstone. Boyce Ficklen, Sr., was influential in placing the relic on the courthouse square in 1923. NE.LSoN's ROCK, left of walk leading to main entrance of courthouse, is Wilkes County's oldest record. The large flat stone is engraved with a plat of John Nelson's lands and bears the inscription "Land Granted in 1775." The date 1792, cut into the rock, probably indicates the year the stone was set up, since Nelson, a native Marylander, had come to Wilkes County somewhat earlier. In 1923 Boyce Ficklen, Sr., had the marker removed to the courthouse square. The TOWN INCORPORATION MARKER, a pink marble shaft at right of n1ain entrance to courthouse, was erected by the Georgia Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1934 to commemorate the Legislative Acts of January 23, 1780, and July 31, 1783, which created and incorporated the town of Washington. SITE OF THE LAST CONFEDERATE CABINET MEETING, called by Jefferson Davis on May 5, 1865, is shown by a granite marker erected in 1938 by the local U. D. C. chapter at the southwest corner of the courthouse. The marker bears the names of the members who were present.

2. The ELLINGTON HOUSE (private), NW. corner Court and Spring Sts., is a two-story white clapboard structure with green blinds. The house is striking because of its roof, which slants steeply from the two large main rooms on the front over shed rooms on the rear. A simple scroll trim on porches and under eaves is another unusual feature. There is a large piazza across the front and a narrow porch to the east side. 98 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES Two outside end chimneys have been painted ,vhite. The house, built in the corner of the large lot, is almost flush with North Spring Street on the east and Court Street on the south. Several large cotton wood trees along the narrow strip between the house and sidewalks give dense shade. Beside the large old-fashioned garden to the south along Court Street is the small red brick jail built in 1819 and used until 191 r when a modern one was built on the courthouse lot. In the old jail yard con­ de1nned criminals were hanged on carefully built, massive gallows. These executions were public and attracted throngs from far and near. Crowds gathered in the morning on the day of the scheduled hanging long before the legal hours of execution and overran all property adjoining. The Ellington place was filled on these occasions by the curious who cli1nbed trees and fences to gain vantage points from which they could get a good view of the gruesome proceedings.

3. The l\1CRAE-TUPPER-BARNETT HOUSE (private), NW. corner W. Robert Toombs Ave., and Allison St., was built early in the nineteenth century. The two-story ,vhite frame structure, with its encircling Doric-col­ umned porch, is set on a full-story basement like so many houses of the cotton planting era ,vhen the master of a house used the ground floor rooms for business transactions. From the basement level a divided stairway approaches the main entrance which is overhung by a balcony with iron grillwork. Fine fanlighted doorways adorn the first and second stories. The Reverend Henry Allen Tupper, who made alterations along the present Greek Revival lines about 1850, wielded so great an influence during his twenty-year pastorate here that members of his Baptist congregation were dubbed Tupperites. It is told that once during a serious drought he announced a special prayer service for rain and asked all attendants to bring umbrellas; although only one person com plied, refreshing showers fell before the meeting ended. Another story relates how a fourteen-year-old son, Kerr Boyce Tupper, was sent to tell an assembled Negro congregation that his father would be un­ able to conduct its services that afternoon. The Negro patriarch in charge, misunderstanding, announced that the son would preach in his father's stead. The boy, almost speechless at first, quickly regained his composure and read the text his father had used in another church several hours earlier. After preaching as much of his father's sennon POINTS OF INTEREST 99 as he could remember: young Tupper received his call to the ministry, a profession of which he later became a distinguished member. Tupper's wealth enabled him to donate his entire salary to the Baptist Mission Board. He also financed the erection of Phi Upsilon Hall, a temperance lodge, on his own lot. Winding walks and rustic bridges n1ade this a favorite resort of young people, \Vho held debates and theatrical performances here.

4. The POLLY BARCLAY POPLAR, NW. Corner Robert Toombs Ave. and Andrews Grove St., marks the place of execution of the first woman to be hanged in the State of Georgia. On March 1, 1806, John H. Barclay, a local merchant, was found shot to death with "a certain sn1ooth bore gun of the value of five dollars then and there loaded and charged ·"\vith gunpowder and two leaden bullets." Barclay's beautiful young wife Polly, supposedly in love with another man, ,vas arrested for his murder and brought to trial. Two men charged with com­ plicity were released, but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty against the ,voman and, though mercy was recommended, she was sentenced to be hanged. Despite her pleas to the sheriff "not to hang so beauti­ ful a woman," sentence was carried out on May 30, 1806. An unsub­ stantiated account states that the sheriff fixed the noose \Vhere it ,vould not cause instant death, that she ,vas cut down, pronounced dead, and that she was revived by a physician and lived to be an old woman, free because the state's sentence had been carried out.

5. The BERRY-HAY-POPE HOUSE (private), W. Robert Toombs Ave. op­ posite Depot St., is a two-story ,vhite frame house in Greek Revival style. The older portion was built of material from Washington's first Masonic Temple, and marked on the plaster in a closet is the date 1818. After repeated alterations, the house now has a Doric colonnade and the roof is capped by a "widow's walk," an architectural feature unusual in the South. A graceful stainvay, which was made at Glen Holly, Mark A. Cooper's plantation in Bartow County, was installed by his daughter, Susan Cooper Pope. The rooms, though large, have low ceilings. Those in the older portion are \Vorthy of note for their beautifully executed wainscoting. Extensive grounds with formal gardens have settings of boxwood, oaks, and large magnolias, and there is a grassy meadow at one side. Some of the trees are draped with silvery hanging Spanish moss, not 100 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES indigenous to this section but brought from Florida by the present O\vner (1941), M. Pembroke Pope.

6. The CHARLES E. IRVIN HOUSE (private), 430 Lexington Ave., a tvvo­ story white frame house in a grove of water oaks and magnolias, was bought from Stephen Heard late in the 188o's by Captain Charles E. Irvin. The estate is now owned by three Irvin sisters. To the simple structure, erected early in the nineteenth century, Irvin added the balustrated Corinthian portico and the side porches that lead into cross hallways. High wainscoting, paneled doors, and two mantels from the original house are combined with modern architectural features to form a composite style. Irvin, who was commended for bravery during the War between the States, won the admiration of Southern extremists by changing his seat when a Federal officer, stationed in Washington in 1865, sat beside him in church. He helped General Toombs escape after the war and accompanied him beyond the reach of Federal troops.

7. ST. JOSEPH's HOivIE FOR BOYS, II r Mercer St., organized in 1876, is one of the oldest orphanages in the state. The institution now shelters eighty orphan boys, whose education is supervised by nine nuns and a priest. Here the Roman Catholic laymen of Georgia hold an annual retreat every summer. The two-story main building, a substantial edifice of brick and con­ crete construction, contains the classrooms, kindergarten, dining hall, dormitory, infirmary, and chapel. It was completed in 1932 at a cost of $75,000. The front portion of a columned frame house adjoining the property was once the home of the noted Baptist divine Jesse Mercer, benefactor of Mercer University at Macon. Twenty acres surrounding the home provide ample pasturage for the livestock, as well as gardens and orchards. When the boys go on errands outside the grounds, a Ne,vfoundland dog accompanies them as companion and guardian. The home is on the site of the old Academy of Wilkes County. In 1783 the legislature granted a thousand acres to this first public school in the state, and in 1796 a brick building, said to be the first in upper Georgia, was erected. Every denomination in vVashington held church services here until Richard I-I. Long purchased and removed the edifice in 1824 to make way for a residence. POINTS OF INTEREST IOI

8. The cocA-COLA BOTTLING PLANT ( visitors welcorne), 320 W. Liberty St., is housed in a trim, low, modern building of whitewashed brick. Established here in 1907, it serves a territory comprising vVilkes and parts of five neighboring counties. The working staff includes three men in the production department, three salesmen, and one advertis­ ing man.

9. WINGFIELD-LANE-CHENEY HOUSE (private), 301 W. Liberty St., was built early in the r8oo's, foundation timbers having been brought from Walnut Hill, home of the Reverend John Springer, the first Presby­ terian minister to be ordained in Georgia. The first owner, Garland Wingfield, bequeathed the place to Dr. James H. Lane, and the Lane family lived here from 1865 until 1936, when a change of ownership followed the death of the last surviving member, Miss Annie Lane, historian of Wilkes County and a gifted poet. Her popular verses My Mother's Garden ,vere inspired by the old-fashioned Bowers and shrubs that still give their fragrance. Although the present owner (1941), B. Irvin Cheney, has made con­ siderable restoration, he has preserved the good architectural features such as the balustraded balcony, the square portico with tall columns, and the fine cornices of the long front windows.

10. The PRINCE-POPE-SIMPSON-STEPHENS HOUSE (private), 221 W. Liberty St., is a white frame house of Greek Revival style, fronted by Corinthian columns and partly encircled by a white picket fence. The oldest part ,vas a small house probably built very early in the nineteenth century. About 1817 an addition, set upon foundations from the first Wilkes County Courthouse, was built by Oliver Hillhouse Prince, who as­ sisted in laying out the city of Macon. The interior is notable for its high-ceilinged rooms, polished hardwood floors, dark woodwork, and gracefully curved stairway. Most of the furniture is of old ma­ hogany, of which two especially prized pieces are a canopied four­ poster bed and a grandfather clock that chimes the hours with clear musical notes.

II. WASHINGTON GENERAL HOSPITAL, 419 s. Spring St., is a two-story brick structure with white trimmings, erected in 1924 under the spon­ sorship of the Kiwanis Club and now owned by the city. The old Pettus-Palmer-DuBose House, a Greek Revival dwelling built either 102 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES late in the eighteenth or early in the nineteenth century, now forms the central portion which houses Negro patients on the first floor, with operating rooms and laboratories above. The hospital now main­ tains thirty-five beds, nine nurses, and a technician. A private house across Spring Street was bought in 1940 and made into a nurses' home.

12. The ROBERT :MOTTE SMITH HOUSE (private), 762 S. Spring St., is a two-story frame residence \Vith small porches, upstairs and down, sup­ ported by two large square pillars. From a paneled front door the main hall leads to a cross hall, which opens onto side porches. A wing on the south side contains several rooms. Old-fashioned wide plank floors, deep-set windows and doors, and walls and ceilings of heavy plaster are interior features. In the 185o's James DuBose induced his kinsman Robert Smith of Charleston, South Carolina, to accept a tract of land and move to Washington. A dense pine thicket was cleared and The Pines, as the Smith house was known, was erected. Robert Smith was a devout man, and family records show that on February 22, 1857, a dedication service consecrated the new house. The pine trees have disappeared, but the present owner, a grandson of the builder, has landscaped the grounds with boxwood, some of which is said to be eighty years old. The Smith house is one of the few old Washington dwellings owned by descendants of the original occupants.

13. The THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS HOLLY TREE, 200 Chapman St., was planted by the eccentric but richly talented poet during his residence in his brother's house on this site. Chivers was born October 18, 1809, at Digby Manor, the home of his father, Colonel Robert Chivers, a few miles fron1 Washington. When young Thomas inherited the place, he changed its name to Oaky Grove. Some of his best poems were written there. Crushed by the disastrous ending of an early marriage, Chivers left Georgia, but haunting memories filled his writings. He was graduated in medicine from Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1830 but followed this profession for only a short time before continu­ ing his wanderings. Frequently he returned to his home in Wilkes County and to his brother's house in Washington, and on one of these visits he planted the holly tree. In 1837 he married Harriet Hunt of Northampton, Massachusetts. After living for a time in the North, POINTS OF INTEREST 103 he finally settled at Decatur, Georgia, where he remained until his death in 1858. As a writer, Chivers is renowned chiefly for his brilliant technical innovations in verse and for his correspondence with Edgar Allan Poe, whom he charged \Vith plagiarism. His metrics are said to have influenced Swinburne and the French symbolists, and sometimes, like the poets of the present day, he achieved a striking effect by construct­ ing a poem of pure sound. The Chivers house in Washington ( no\v replaced by a modern bungalow) was the childhood home of Maude Ohl (Annulet An­ drews), a ne\vspaper writer and novelist, who served on the staff of the Atlanta Constitution and later wrote stories of her experiences in the Far East with her husband.

14. The OLD PRESBYTERIAN MANSE (private), 309 S. Alexander Ave., is a two-story white frame house, probably dating from the early part of the nineteenth century. A narrow front piazza, to which scroll work ornamentation has been added, opens into a short hall ,vith an old­ fashioned stairway. The interior arrangement, the same for both floors, allows space for two rooms on one side of the hall and a single large room placed endwise on the other. Many-paned windows, a large end chimney, high mantels, and massive doors are striking details of design. One of the several Presbyterian ministers who lived here was Dr. Francis Goulding, inventor of the first sewing machine used in the state and author of The Young Marooners, best known of his popular stories for children. Goulding was pastor in 1837-38. The Presby­ terians owned the place until 1862, when it was purchased by Hugh Marlow. Twenty years later it was sold to Charles H. Smith, whose wife Grace Dyson Smith was an artist of recognized ability. Their son Cordner studied at Chase Art School in New York, but a promis­ ing career was ended by his tragic death by drowning. The parents willed their home to the Presbyterian Church as a memorial to him, and thus the old manse reverted to its original owners. The Presby­ terians, however, had erected a new manse, and the old house is now (1941) owned by Dr. J. G. Allen.

15. The FICKLEN-LYNDON-JOHNSON HOUSE (private), 303 S. Alexander Ave., was erected by an unknown builder, probably about 1825. The THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES square-pillared, two-story ,vhite frame d,velling, constructed on a high basement, has been restored by its present O\Vner R. R. Johnson. In 1851 Dr. Fielding Ficklen moved into this dwelling, after re­ modeling it into a fine residence. High mantels, deep windows, fine doors, and a beautifully carved niahogany stairway are items of rich architectural detail. After Dr. Ficklen's death his son Dr. Burwell Ficklen made it a veritable show place. Mrs. Ficklen had a conserva­ tory under the porch, while the grounds abounded in shrubs, roses, and other Rowers. Fine specimens of these are yet living, though the house was long vacant after the death of George E. Lyndon, who bought it in 1890. In May, 1865, Mrs. Jefferson Davis and her children were guests of the Ficklens, only a few days before President Davis came here to hold the last meeting of the Confederate cabinet. Samuel Davis, father of the Confederate President, once lived near the Ficklen family on a plantation in Wilkes County, ,vhere the President's grandparents are buried. Boyce Ficklen, Sr., who did much to preserve historic landmarks and to differentiate between local history and tradition, was born here in 1851. As editor of the Willtes County Forum, he wrote a column called "Keep History Straight," always backing any statement with authentic proof.

16. The branch plant of the ROYAL MANUFACTURING COMPANY ( open 7-5 weekdays), on Water St., a one-story red brick structure, is Num­ ber Eight in a chain of sixteen factories with headquarters in Allen­ town, Pennsylvania. This branch makes men's clothing from material bought from southern textile nulls. Here the cloth is cut, and the garments are made, pressed, inspected, and packed for shipment to every state in the Union. Most of the two hundred and fifty em­ ployees are young girls. Except ,vhen it is necessary to hire skilled workers from other sections, the personnel manager gives preference to applicants from Washington and Wilkes County.

17. The BEASLEY-ANTHONY-LOWE-HANSFORD HOUSE (private), 205 S. Alex­ ander Ave., is a small two-story house of white clapboards, its small, many-paned windows shuttered by green blinds. In 1847 Bradford Merry sold the lot for $300 to Royland Beasley, for years court clerk of Wilkes County, who soon afterward built the house. His wife, POINTS OF INTEREST 105 beloved for her many kind acts, ,vas among the Washington ladies who aided little Alexander Stephens, after he came to the to\\,n in 1827 to attend the Washington Academy.

18. The OLD :METHODIST PARSONAGE, the BIRD-DILLARD HOUSE (private), 214 Water St., is a white clapboard house of nondescript plan with a broad hall and two rooms on one side and a large single-story wing on the other. A cross hall under the hidden stairway opens onto a porch that extends across the side and front, replacing a former small side veranda and equally small front piazza. High plain 1nantels, heavy doors, and large windows are used throughout. The lot was sold to Thompson Bird about 1784 and the house was probably built soon thereafter. Sold to the Washington Methodist Church in 1856, it was used as a parsonage until 1917. In 1919 Mrs. Ida Reynolds Dillard bought and remodeled the residence. According to legend, the Reverend Habersham Adams allowed Con­ federate officers to conceal a chest of money here in 1865, and some residents insist that the treasure is still hidden somewhere on the premises.

19. CHERRY COTTAGE (private), 204 Water St., a two-story white clap­ board structure with two front doors, still shows some pleasing old­ fashioned features despite the more recent addition of scrollwork banisters and a modern composition roof. In 1819 Constantine Church built the older portion of the house; Henry Terrell later purchased it and made extensive alterations. The residence was subsequently owned by Misses E. M. and M. L. Barnett, who gave it the name Cherry Cottage. W. Meriwether Hill has owned the place since 1884. His annual "open house," held when the harvest on his near-by farm is over, is anticipated by numerous friends. More than a hundred guests assemble for the occasion. Old-fashioned games are played, and refreshments of sugar cane, popcorn, peanuts, and home-made candy are served.

20. The BRANHAM-NEESON HOUSE (private), I 10 Water St., though a green-shuttered white clapboard structure like many other dwellings in the city, presents an unusual appearance because of a front ell, added later, that rises a story above the main body of the house. Interesting interior features of the single-story section include floors and ceilings 106 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES of broad planks, high 1nantels, paneled doors, and very old hardware. A broad shallow porch now replaces the former small stoop. Just above the second-floor level of the ell, a door opens into space indicating the former existence of either a balcony or of an outside stair rising from the front yard. Here cedars, crepe myrtles, and other old-fash­ ioned plantings form a thick growth. Benjamin Branham, an early merchant and commissioner of the academy, lived here when the house was new in 1796. In 1869 his daughter Mary sold the place to Dr. Horace Neeson, a graduate of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dublin, Ireland. His wife Sarah Wright Neeson long conducted a private school in the house.

21. The :MARY WILLIS LIBRARY ( open weekdays 11 to 1 and 3 to 6), SE. corner S. Jefferson and E. Liberty Sts., was founded in 1888, and the building \vas erected in the following year with funds contributed by Dr. Francis T. Willis in memory of his daughter Mary. This organi­ zation, Georgia's first free library for both town and county, contains 18,000 volumes, with an average monthly circulation of 1,200 volun1es, among 3,026 subscribers. Characteristic of the late Victorian period, the vine-covered red brick building has a cupola and high-arched windows of stained glass. The three rooms are finished in natural pine with high beamed ceilings. The main reading room has two large fireplaces, comfort­ able rocking chairs, long tables piled with current magazines and newspapers, and book shelves that reach almost to the ceiling. The reference department has many valuable books, and files of magazines dating from 1889 to the present are stored in the attic. A register of visitors, kept since the opening day, May 7, 1889, discloses the na1nes of many prominent persons. Dr. Willis, born and reared in Wilkes County, returned here in his old age and spent much time discussing poetry and philosophy with his half-brother Samuel Barnett, with whom he selected the library's nucleus of three thousand volumes. Dr. Willis would not allow his portrait to hang in the library, but since his death his grandson has provided a canvas of him for the main reading room. Mary Willis' memory is perpetuated by a fine stained glass window, while other Wilkes County personages, among whom are General Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens, are represented by steel engravings. Other portraits are those of Judge Archibald Campbell, POINTS OF INTEREST 107 Supreme Court Justice from 1853 to 1861; Miss Eliza Bo,ven, astrono­ mer, educator, and writer, whose History of Wilkes County was the first county history in the state; and General E. Porter Alexander, a West Point graduate who served with distinction in the Confederate artillery. The library's most valued relic is an old chest of Dutch manufacture, one of three brought to Washington by the Confederate Treasury in May, 1865, containing coins to pay off the soldiers who were following the government in its retreat from Richmond. Mrs. Carolina Dyson Turner served thirty years as librarian and was followed by Mrs. Hardeman Toombs Wood, ·who held the office for nine years. Miss Kathleen Colley, a great-niece of General Toombs, is only the third person ( 1941) to fill this position.

22. The SEMMES-PETEET-CLEVELAND-JORDAN-LINDSEY HOUSE (private), 212 E. Liberty St., is an exceptionally fine example of Greek Revival archi­ tecture. Set flush with the street, the simple white clapboard house was erected early in the r8oo's by Andrew Semmes, of Maryland, and remodeled along its present lines during the 186o's hy E. F. Jordan, a later owner. Encircling the house are a balustraded Doric portico and balcony, of which the columns are said to have cost the then fabulous price of $100 each. Particularly fine details are the broad dentiled entablature and the two fanlighted front doors. Some of the locks, made of wood and bearing the trade-mark of an English manufacturer, have large brass keys. Panels of wainscoting under the tall windows open like Dutch doors. An arched doorway between the two east rooms reaches almost to the high ceiling and has heavy folding doors hung from long shop-n1ade hinges. Richly carved mantels and plastered walls and ceilings are in their original state, but the old plank floors have been covered with hardwood. The old kitchen, dining room, and storage rooms in the base1nent are now used as playrooms. The small basement windows are barred, and heavy iron-work panels are placed between the brick pillars under the colonnade. When Washington was swarming with Federal troops in the sum­ mer of 1865, an officer went to Mrs. Jordan and asked for some south­ ern figs. She had the servants gather him a basketful. Later in the day, angry soldiers came to the house to place her under arrest for poisoning Federal officers and men. Mrs. Jordan, suspecting the trouble, asked for symptoms of the "poisoned" ones. The soldiers. 108 THE STORY OF \VASHINGTON-WILKES explained that they were in agonizing pain from mouths that were so swollen they could scarcely speak. Mrs. Jordan turned away scorn­ fully, "Why I thought even a Yankee had sense enough to know that figs had to be peeled before they were eaten." She was not arrested.

23. The PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (open), 312 E. Robert Toombs Ave., built in 1825, is the only Presbyterian meeting house ever erected in Washington. Simple and finely proportioned ,vith its tall spire and classic entrance portico, the small white clapboard structure is like the Colonial churches of New England. High wainscoting, plastered walls, a beamed ceiling, high-arched windows, and straight-backed Colonial pews with solid ends and narrow foot-rests, lend an air of restfulness and charm. The lot was donated by Dr. Joel Abbott who owned the adjoining property. Abbott and his neighbor did not live peaceably so close together, so the deed to the church provided for a street between the neighbor's yard and the church. The first pastor after the church was built was Alexander Hamilton Webster, a young Northerner who had come to teach at the Wilkes County Academy. He accepted the pastorate in 1825, and under his ministry the church flourished. He had planned to give up teaching and to devote all his time to the church, but he died in October, 1827, at the age of twenty-eight. The congregation had him buried between the two front doors. In 1836 a spire, a vestibule, and pulpit space were added to the church, and the marble-topped tomb was enclosed in the vestibule. Woodrow Wilson attended services here as a small boy when his father came from Augusta to preach while the church was without a pastor. Both grandfathers of Ellen Axson, first wife of Woodrow Wilson, served this congregation as pastors: Dr. Nathan Hoyt from 1828 to 1830, and the Reverend I. S. K. Axson in 1854-55. When in I 869 Dr. Hoyt expressed a desire to preach once more at Washington, an interdenominational service was arranged.

24. The HILLHOUSE-CALLAWAY-TOOMBs-wooo HOUSE (prz'vate), 315 E. Robert Toombs Ave., is a nvo-story white clapboard house whose ap­ pearance is very pleasing for its simple lines and good proportions. From the level of the high basement, broad steps lead to a square­ columned veranda above which is a small banistered balcony. The POINTS OF INTEREST main body of the house is symmetrically flanked by wings, each vvith a large outside end chimney. Mrs. Sarah Hillhouse, the first southern woman to edit a newspaper, once lived here. David Hillhouse came to Washington before 1800, and when he died in 1804, Sarah his widow carried on his business. The Hillhouses did their printing in an old residence that has long since been removed. Mrs. Hillhouse built this house about 1814 and lived here until her death in 1831. When Merrill Callaway lived here during the War between the States, his home provided a refuge for persons fleeing the danger zones. Gabriel Toombs, a brother of General Robert Toombs, bought the place in 1869 and lived here until his death in 1900. His granddaughter Mrs. Hardeman Toombs Wood has restored the house and created a beautiful garden by blending old-fashioned flowers and shrubs with the new.

25. The PETRIE-TOOMBS-HARDEMAN-PALlvIER-AL}v{AND HOUSE (private)' 319 E. Robert Toombs Ave., is a two-story white clapboard structure with a small piazza, large square columns, and a massive Palladian doorway \Vith an overhanging balcony. Its front garden, beautiful with dark magnolia trees and evergreen shrubbery, is surrounded by a white picket fence. The interior of the large house has two wide hallways crossing in the center and is characterized by heavy doors, finely wrought locks, and handsome mantels, one of marble. This dwelling, built by the Reverend George H. W. Petrie, who served as pastor of the Washington Presbyterian Church from 1839 to 1851, was bought by Gabriel Toombs, brother of Robert Toombs, in 1849. The present owner ( 1941), Mrs. R. A. Almand, is a 1nember of the Toombs family.

26. The ROBERT TOOMBS HOUSE (private), 326 E. Robert Toombs Ave., for years the home of the celebrated Confederate statesman and soldier, is a large, imposing white frame house fronted by a Doric colonnade. The main body, a two-story structure on a high basement, was built in 1794 by Dr. Joel Abbott, who came here from Connecticut. Abbott \Vas first employed by the state as a medical representative in setting up the United States dispensary and later was a member of Congress ( 1817-25). After his death, the house was occupied successively by the IIO THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES Reverend Alexander Hamilton Webster, Alexander H. Stephens' teacher and a popular young Presbyterian minister; Miss Ann Quigly, who conducted a private school here; and William L. Harris, who moved the house back and made additions. The colonnade and west­ ern wing were built by General Toombs after he had bought the place in 1837; the eastern wing was built by him after the War between the States. A wide front door with side and transom lights leads into a large hall. In the room to the right the unusual brass picture molding and the wallpaper with its dim gold pattern recall Toombs' occupancy. The massive cast-iron chandeliers were brought from his home in Washington, D. C., i,,vhen the Confederate States seceded and Toombs left his post in the United States Senate. The chandeliers were lighted with gas from Toombs own private plant, the first gasworks in the town. Left of the hall is the general's library, containing his leather­ tri1nmed book-cases. Some old chairs and two massive whale-oil lan­ terns still in the house also belonged to him. Robert Toombs, born in Wilkes County in 1810, was a powerful and robust personality, one of the most dramatic figures in Georgia history. He attended the University of Georgia and Union College at Schenec­ tady, New York, later studying law at the University of Virginia. He was admitted to the bar by legislative act December 19, 1829, and sub­ sequently amassed a fortune. Entering politics early, he always easily won any Wilkes County office he sought. He served in the State Legislature ( 1837-43), helped establish the State Supreme Court, en­ tered Congress in 1845, and in 1853 was elected to the United States Senate. A large and powerfully built man, a fiery, brilliant, and some­ times sardonic orator, he attracted much attention in the national capital. His farewell speech, January 7, 1861, has been celebrated as a masterpiece on secession. Though at first a member of President Jefferson Davis' Con£ ederate cabinet, he resigned because he believed he could render more valuable service on the battlefield. As a brigadier­ general he went into the thick of the fighting and was wounded at Antietam in 1862. He soon gave up his commission but later was in active service as divisional adjutant and inspector-general of the Georgia Militia during Sherman's Atlanta campaign. By the end of the war T combs was at home. Soon after the mem­ bers of the Confederate Cabinet had left Washington, a man on horse­ back rode up to the Toombs House, threw a bag containing five thou- POINTS OF INTEREST III sand dollars in specie over the fence, and hurriedly galloped away. There was no message ,vith the money, but the inference was that it was to aid the general to flee from Union soldiers who had been or­ dered to arrest the former Confederate officials. Toombs, however, thought that the 1noney was part of the funds belonging to the pilfered Confederate treasure and ordered it to be paid to the returning soldiers. A majestic oak in front of the house sheltered Federal soldiers who came here in 1865 to arrest Toombs, and from this point Negro soldiers marched down the street with his picture stuck on the point of a bayonet so that he might be recognized and captured on sight. The general was in his office when the men came, but while his wife kept then1 occupied he quickly escaped by the back way to the servants' quarters, vvhere he mounted his mare Gray Alice and rode away. It is told that he was hidden in Columbus by Augusta J. Evans, later to be­ come known as the author of St. Elmo and other popular romances. He lived in England and in Europe before returning, "an unpardoned rebel" as he liked to be called, to his native town. After his flight the Federal soldiers wanted to burn down the house, believing he might be hidden there, but Mrs. 'Toombs sent for the fearless Baptist preacher Henry Allen Tupper, who convinced them that Toon1bs had escaped. After the flight, Toombs' wife and daughter were ordered to leave the house. Union troops established headquarters on the first floor and prepared to open a school for Negroes in the basen1ent, but the citizens protested so vigorously that these orders were countermanded. As long as Toombs lived, he kept open house, and rarely was a meal served without guests. He once opposed a movement to build a hotel in the city, because, "If a respectable man comes to town, he can stay at my house. If he isn't respectable, we don't want him here at all." The property is now owned by Miss Kathleen Colley and Mrs. Marian Colley Boyd, great-nieces of the general, who keep the house and the old-fashioned garden with its dark cedars, against which the vermilion color of pomegranate blossoms show vividly in early sum­ mer. Fragrant min1osas throw their shadows across the century-old "herring-bone" brick walk.

27. The MARIA RANDOLPH HOUSE (private), 343 E. Robert Toombs Ave., was built early in the Greek Revival of the 182o's. Trim and white, the two-story house stands on a shady lawn encircled by an iron fence. A shallow hall with a handsome stairway separates the two front rooms, 112 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES with their fine marble mantels, and opens into the spacious dining room that extends the width of the house. This room has two open fireplaces with very high 1nantels that were originally in the old Bank Building. The doors are noticeable for their old locks and keys. From 1827, when the Randolph family purchased this property, until 1880, this was the residence of Miss Maria Randolph, who was described as being "six feet tall and every inch a lady." Miss Randolph, said to be a descendant of Pocahontas, was exceedingly proud of her Indian ancestry. She wore the finest silks, rode in a carriage drawn by t,vo handsome roan horses, and entertained her guests with the greatest ele­ gance. One of her relatives who visited here was Mary Harden, of Athens, the sweetheart of John Howard Payne, who wrote the famous song "Home, Sweet Home." Among Miss Randolph's many fine pieces of furniture ,vas a piano with mother-of-pearl keys; older resi­ dents still recall the town's excitement when the instrument arrived. U pan her death in 1880, Miss Randolph bequeathed $1,000 to the Presbyterian Church. This house, willed to her niece Miss Isabella Nash, was occupied by tenants until 1906, when Gabriel Anthony bought the property and made extensive in1provements. The place is now owned by Colonel A. T. Colley, U. S. A. retired.

28. The JOHN w. CALLAWAY HOUSE (private), 359 E. Robert Toombs Ave., is an early Greek Revival dwelling with deep-corniced windows and doorways, a massive Doric-columned portico, fine woodwork, and wrought-iron hinges and locks. The two-story white structure has a cross-hall arrangement and a side porch with small Doric columns. There are several magnificent oaks in the yard.

29. The SAMUEL BARNETT HOUSE (private), 358 E. Robert Toombs Ave., a two-story white frame dwelling on a high basement, stands well back from the street in a beautiful grove. A hundred-acre lot with the older part of the residence was bought in 1836 by Mrs. Mary Sneed from Andrew G. Semmes. In 1857 Samuel Barnett, one of the first railroad commissioners in the United States, bought the place and added the front portion. Barnett, deeply interested in education, established a small school in the side yard £or his own children, but this soon ac­ commodated numerous other children in the town. Woodrow Wilson and his father were entertained in this home. The house, of the rambling style so popular in the decade from 1850 POINTS OF INTEREST 113 to 1860, has a narrow front veranda with a flat roof. A heavy door leads into a hall between roo1ns, and a long cross-hall with side doors opening onto small porches is entered through an arched doorway. Two marble mantels, massive doors, and fine woodwork are interior details.

30. The PRESBYTERIAN POPLAR, east side of Poplar Drive on the Alexander estate, marks the site where on July 22, 1790, the first Presbyterian ordination on Georgia soil took place. Because at that time there was no church building in Washington, a commission from the Presbytery of South Carolina ordained John Springer in this outdoor temple. The school established by him at his home Walnut Hill, four n1iles frorn Washington, attracted such students as Jesse Mercer and John Forsyth. This tulip poplar, now decaying rapidly, at one tin1e attained a height of 155 feet, and its lower branches were 50 feet from the ground. Its enormous trunk, with a circumference of 28 feet and a diameter of 9 feet, could conceal a man on horseback. Under this old tree, on October 9, 1940, the Synod of Georgia held a service commemorating the sesquicentennial anniversary of Springer's ordination and also the organization of the Washington Presbyterian Church. On this oc­ casion the church officials dedicated a granite marker placed near the trunk. A similar marker was consecrated at the pastor's grave on the site of Walnut Hill.

31. The E. B. CADE HOUSE (private), 120 Tignall Rd., a two-story green­ shuttered white frame dwelling fronted by a Doric colonnade and en­ circled by a white picket fence, was erected in the 179o's by Thomas \Vingfield, an early emigrant from Virginia. Floors and ceilings are of broad planks, and the walls are made of thick, old-fashioned plaster­ ing. Massive cross-paneled doors with iron hinges, high mantels, beautifully wrought wainscoting, and heavy locks with large brass keys are interior features. Wingfield's several daughters sometimes used a private stairway vvith an enclosed side entry, but his sons and guests used the main stairway, which curves gracefully up\vard to a long hall. This is one of the few old houses in Washington that has never undergone extensive altera­ tions. Captain W. G. Cade added a new kitchen after he bought the place from W. J. Harty in 1874, but the old kitchen in the yard still stands. The original hewn-log smokehouse is still in service. Mrs. E. B. Cade, the present owner ( 1941), and her husband, the 114 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES late Dr. Cade, furnished the house throughout with European and Early American antiques. They resided in Switzerland and in Alsace­ Lorraine before returning to Washington at the beginning of the World War in 1914. In 1919 German officials permitted them to bring over their collection of furniture and paintings. A large chest of uncertain age fron1 a feudal castle in Friedburg has ornamental hinges of Damascus steel, an odd lock, a very large key, and coats-of-anns in wood inlay. The collection includes several desks, an old card table with natural-colored morning-glories in exquisite wood inlay, and a corner wine cabinet with inlay. There are a French chair of ivory-like wood, a Viennese bookcase, a cabinet filled with French ornaments, a Swiss hand-carved wood piece, a set of Alsatian hand­ painted china, a chair fro1n Strasbourg Cathedral bearing the date 1835, rugs from Constantinople, a prayer rug, and fine draperies and tapestries. The several paintings by artists of the 1830 or Barbazonian School include an original Rosa Bonheur, "Wild Horses in the Arena at Rome." The Cade House, near the Washington city limits, overlooks a beauti­ ful estate of 165 rolling acres, consisting of rich fields and fertile green pastures. Here Dr. Cade raised pedigreed livestock which won many blue ribbons in county and state fairs. This hobby is continued by his widow, who now raises poultry and livestock, including a large herd of Holstein cattle. In accordance with the taste of her husband all animals are either white or black.

32. OLD sT. PATRicK's CHURCH, 400 block N. Alexander Ave., a vine­ covered brick structure with large leaded-glass windows, is now in ruins. The building, erected in 1830, was the first brick Catholic church in Georgia, and although it has not been used since 1887, older residents recall tl~e great throngs that gathered here when Abram J. Ryan, poet­ priest of the Confederacy, came from Augusta to conduct services. Father Ryan spoke from the doorway, for the congregation vvas much greater than the capacity of the church. In the churchyard, the grave of Father James O'Brien is marked by a granite monolith, erected by contributions from citizens of Washing­ ton and Wilkes County, irrespective of creed. One lot is reserved for the St. Joseph's Catholic Sisters, an order formed in Washington in 1877. POINTS OF INTEREST 115

33. The SIMS HOUSE (private), 210 Sims St., a rambling two-story white clapboard house known as The Cedars, stands on a high hill. The original dwelling was built by Anthony Poulain, a Frenchman of noble birth, who came to Georgia's aid during the American Revolution. He died a few years after settling here, but his son Dr. T. N. Poulain was personal physician to LaFayette upon his visit to Georgia as an old man in 1825. The old dwelling was torn dovvn, with the exception of the present kitchen, and the heavy timbers were used to construct outhouses. The residence is now owned ( 1941) by the children of Mrs. M. M. Sims, whose ancestor, Francis Colley, first lived here in 1818. John Bolton spent his summers here, and General and Mrs. Edward Harden, parents of John Howard Payne's Georgia sweetheart, ,vere frequent guests. A century-old Empress of China rose in the yard is in perfect condi­ tion, and a bowl of its bright pink blossoms is admired at every Wash­ ington flower show.

34. The ALEXANDER HOUSE (private), 312 N. Alexander Ave., is a red brick structure that was erected in 1808 and enlarged with a white frame ,ving before 1840. This original dwelling was probably the first brick residence in Georgia north of Augusta. The interior features a side entrance hall, decorated ceilings, high wainscoting, deep windo,vs, heavy doors and mantels, and wrought-iron hardware. The Gilbert brothers, William and Felix, traveling from Virginia in the 178o's, stopped for the night in a large grove, and in the morning they were so pleased with the site that they took up land grants and later erected this house. The Gilberts became Washington's most suc­ cessful merchants. In 1823, Felix's granddaughter Sarah, who married Adam L. Alexander, inherited the residence. Mrs. J. G. Wright and Miss Carlotta Alexander, present owners of the house, are her grand­ daughters. Alexander hired from New England first an instructress and later a tutor to teach his ten children in a private schoolroo1n on the property. The Alexanders and the Gilberts carried on a voluminous correspond­ ence, and in 1910 these letters, covering the period from 1787 to 1900, were printed in a limited edition. Alexander Stephens spent several months in this old house while he 116 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES was attending the Washington Academy during the 1827-28 term. Through the influence of Alexander Hamilton Webster, rector of the school and pastor of the Washington Presbyterian Church, a group of Wilkes County Presbyterians had agreed to help this fifteen-year-old boy with his education. Young Stephens, staying at first in the Webster residence, developed a strong affection for his benefactor and conse­ quently adopted his middle name. Upon the death of his patron a few weeks after the opening of school, Stephens was invited to live with the Alexander family. The following year he attended the Uni­ versity of Georgia under the auspices of the Presbyterian Georgia Edu­ cational Society and later became a distinguished member of Congress. On his frequent visits to Washington he always returned to his former home, where he received the greatest consideration from all except the old Negro mammy who said she would "make no 'miration'," for young Alex had given her impudence too often. A collection of old firearms and other weapons is being augmented constantly by Alexander Wright, only son of Dr. and Mrs. J. G. Wright. The old kitchen in the yard has a large fireplace complete with cranes, pothooks, and other utensils of frontier days. William and Felix Gil­ bert and many of their descendants are buried in the family cemetery near the house.

35. WASHINGTON W0!\1:AN's CLUB BUILDING (open), 115 N. Alexander Ave., an old house that stood originally at the northwest corner of W. Robert Toombs and N. Alexander Avenues, is a white frame structure of two stories with a small entrance porch and an outside stairway. It is believed that Colonel Micaijah Williamson, who bought the original lot for $75 in 1784, built the house. At his death in 1793 it was inherited by his son-in-law, John Griffin, an early lawyer of this section who was buried on the property in 1814. In later years the place was owned by the Pettus, Palmer, Wynn, and Ellington families. Not until 1929 was the house acquired by the Woman's Club and re­ moved to its present site without drastic change. Partitions were dis­ placed between the hallway and the two front rooms to make a large assembly hall where civic clubs have their meetings, entertainments, and dinners. Points of Interest in Environs

SMYRNA CHURCH YARD, 6m. SE. of Washington on State 47, is one of the oldest burial grounds in Wilkes County. Here dimly inscribed tomb­ stones and unmarked graves lie beneath large oaks, dark cedars, and glossy-leaved magnolias, some entwined by lavender wistaria and native smilax; individual lots are designated by crumbling stone walls and rusty iron fences. Among those interred in the old cemetery are John Talbot, an early settler; his son Matthew, governor of Georgia in 1819; Colonel David Creswell and Major Francis Triplett, officers of the American Revolution; Samuel Barnett, cashier of the Georgia State Branch Bank in Washington; and Colonel William Jones, a veteran of the War of 1812. The cemetery ,vas laid out in 1788, when John Talbot gave two acres to establish a Presbyterian Church, the first church of that denomination to be built in Wilkes County. The con­ gregation grew until 1825, when a Presbyterian church was erected in Washington. Afterward, so many members went to town for worship that the property was given over to the use of Methodists. The white clapboard church, built in 1910, is the third to be erected on the site. John Talbot spent most of his life in Virginia, where he prospered and became a member of the House of Burgesses th.::: signed the Vir­ ginia Declaration of Rights, proclaiming independence three weeks before the American Declaration of Independence was adopted. After coming to Georgia he built in 1785 the first house other than pioneer log cabins. Having brought with him slaves, fine furniture, and books, he was considered very wealthy by the early citizens. Several of his books are now on the reference shelf of the Mary Willis Library. From State 47 is a view of GRAVES MOUNTAIN, a small elevation in ad­ joining Lincoln County. The site is a favorite picnic ground for young people of Washington-Wilkes, who climb to the summit and drink the cool water from a spring at the base. A noted New York jewelry company formerly obtained from the mountain the rutile it used in II7 118 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES polishing gems and fine gold. This elevation was named for Colonel John Graves, a Revolutionary officer, who made his hon1e near by. MOUNT PLEASANT (private), 7m. SE. of Washington on State 47, is the plantation given by John Talbot to his son, Thomas. The house, built in 1790, is a two-story, white frame structure with blue-green window shutters and four end chimneys. The original entrance stoop has been replaced by a low-roofed front porch extending across the entire front. Details of the interior are ,vide-plank floors and ceilings, high wainscots, heavy paneled doors, and large fireplaces vvith unusually high mantels. The house was occupied by the Talbot family until 1857, when the farm was bought by Tho1nas P. Burdette, father of the present ovvner ( 1941), J. L. Burdette. Wishing to have a school principally for his own children, Burdette built a small schoolhouse on his plantation in 1868 and secured the services of his nephew, Thomas J. Beck, as teacher. The school re­ ceived so many applications from outside pupils that Burdette soon opened his home as a dormitory and enlarged the school building. The institution, known as the Burdette Academy, was the outstanding school of the county for the seven years of Beck's administration and prepared students for the junior class of the University of Georgia. Mrs. Beck taught music. Commencement exercises on a stage in front of a large brush arbor attracted great crowds of visitors, who ,:vere served a barbecue dinner and supper. Public oral examinations during the day were followed by an "exhibition" of speeches, songs, and piano music at night. To the left of the house is ELI WHITNEY's WORKSHOP, where the in­ ventor spent a few months perfecting his cotton gin. The cabin, built of hand-hewn logs, has paneled doors hung by large, home-made iron hinges. On the narrow window frames are scars made by iron bars that once guaranteed Whitney his privacy. The building was con­ structed in 1795 and stood near Upton Creek on the adjoining Miller and Whitney Plantation of 822 acres until 1810, when that land was bought by the Wilkes Manufacturing Company as the site of a textile mill. Thomas Talbot then bought the shop and moved it to his own farn1, where the structure was used as a kitchen for many years. After making the first m.odel of his gin in 1793 at Mu1.be.rry Grove, General Nathanael Greene's plantation near Savannah, Whitney formed at partnership with Phineas Miller, the tutor of the general's children. These two men planned to obtain a patent, buy cotton, gin it, and sell POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS 119 the lint. When news of the machine spread rapidly, multitudes gath­ ered to see the marvelous invention. Detennined to hide his partner from the prying eyes of others trying to fashion a similar instrument, Miller later bought the plantation on Upton Creek, where he sent Whitney to perfect his machine. On that land, this workshop was built, the "engine" was perfected, and the first gin not propelled by hand power was set in operation. The n1achine was driven by the swift water of Upton Creek. Despite the greatest precaution, many would-be inventors learned of Whitney's shop and went to see the invention. The men, who were not allowed to enter, peeped through the iron grating of the windows, but they could see only the cotton flying from the gin. Believing that women were incapable of understanding n1achines, Whitney often al­ lowed groups of them to see his own in operation. There is a story that Edward Lyon, disguised as a woman, learned the secret and de­ scribed the process to his brother, John. Thereupon John Lyon per­ fected a 1naGhine of his own and began to manufacture gins in Colum­ bia County. Miller and Whitney meanwhile began to manufacture their "engines," which they allowed farmers to use for a 33½ per cent toll. Many Georgia farmers, angered by such a n1.onopolistic policy, bought their gins from others who made use of Whitney's ideas. Al­ though the inventor received a patent in 1794, he was involved in in­ fringement suits until 1807, when his priority was firmly established. Rece~tly J. L. Burdette discovered an early model of Whitney's gin in an old attic on a near-by plantation. This machine, vvhich was operated by hand, has a circular drum with inserted wires to pull the cotton lint from the seed. The use of revolving saws, found in gins today, was a later improvement. The ABRAHAM SIMONS HOUSE, 9m. SE. of Washington on the dirt Old Augusta Road, is a two-story clapboard structure, now very dilapi­ dated. Its outside chimneys are constructed of slave-made bricks, and its window shutters and heavy paneled doors are hung by large hand­ \\7rought iron hinges. There are two front doorways, for the house is different in plan from most old residences in Georgia. Since there is no central hallway, one entrance leads directly into the dining roon1 on the left, while the other door opens into the bedroom on the right. Near the rear of the house and accessible from both sides by means of short flights of steps is a steep stairway that rises between rooms to the second floor with its large ballroom and smaller bedrooms. Evidence 120 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES of former elaborate decorations can still be seen in the dining room where fragments of ornate wallpaper depict English hunting scenes and in both the dining room and ballroom where dilapidated but still handsome moldings extend several inches from the low ceiling. The house was built in the 179o's by Captain Abraham Simons, a Jewish officer who had fought in the Battle of Kettle Creek and had moved to Wilkes County after the Revolution. Here he obtained a large tract of land and became a wealthy planter and horse breeder, so highly respected in the community that he was at one time elected to represent Wilkes County in the state legislature. A lover of fine horses, he raised what were considered the best in the section and joined both the Augusta and the Washington Jockey Clubs. On his private track were trained 1nany racers which were entered in the contests of the Washington Jockey Club, held the first Wednesday of each March. Si1nons 1was also known throughout the county for the four white horses that he always kept to draw his handsome carriages. In 1798 Simons married Nancy Mills, whose family served promi­ nently in the Smyrna Presbyterian Church. Though an Israelite, he frequently accompanied her to worship and entertained the officials of that organization. Three years after Simons' death in 1824, his widow married Jesse Mercer, the Baptist clergyman, who efficiently took over the management of the large fortune bequeathed to her by her first husband. The two made a liberal contribution to the Georgia Baptist Convention to aid in the establishment of the school that was named in Mercer's honor. Acting with the approval of his wife before her death in 1833, Mercer later willed the residue of the estate to form the nucleus of an endowment for the institution, by that time called Mercer University. On the top of the hill beyond the house is the GRAVE OF ABRAHAM SIMONS, surrounded by a high rock wall and reached by means of a heavy iron gate. At his request he was buried standing erect with his musket at his side; if he should meet the devil, he would then be pre­ pared to shoot the demon. The grave has been marked by the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Chronolog; of Events

1773 June 1. Land north of Little River ceded to Georgia by Creek In­ dians. December 31. First settlers arrive on site of Washington. 1774 January. Stockaded fort erected on site of Washington and named Fort Heard; one built eight miles northeast of this site and called Heard's Fort. 1777 February 5. "New Purchase" area north of Ogeechee River made into Wilkes County by first state constitution; Wilkes is first county named in the constitution. 1779 February 12. Battle of Kettle Creek fought. August 25. First court north of Augusta held in home of Jacob McLendon. 1780 January 23. Con1missioners appointed to lay out town to be "called Washington." February. Seat of state government transferred from Augusta to Heard's Fort. 1783 New commissioners appointed by legislature and ordered to proceed with plans for town of Washington. Wilkes County (Washington) Academy chartered, one of first three in Georgia. Fishing Creek Baptist congregation organized; second Baptist church in upper Georgia. 1784 Immigrants from Virginia settle Goosepond tract on Broad River. 1785 First Wilkes County courthouse built at Washington. John Talbot, wealthy Virginian who had settled on 50,000 acres in Wilkes County, builds first house other than log cabins. 1786 First school teacher, Samuel Blackburn, elected to teach in Wash­ ington Academy. 1787 Mineral Springs given to town by Nathaniel Coats. 121 122 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES

Grant's Meeting House, first Methodist Church 1n Georgia, organ­ ized. 1788 Methodist Episcopal Church Conference convenes in Wilkes County for first meeting in state. The Reverend Hope Hull assigned to Wilkes County as itinerant Methodist preacher. Congregations of Liberty, Providence, and Sn1yrna Churches or­ ganized in Wilkes County. I 790 John Springer ordained; this is first Presbyterian ordination on Georgia soil. First Presbyterian congregation in Washington organized. Elbert County created from part of Wilkes. Population of Wilkes County, 31,500 (U. S. Census), more than one-third that of state. 1792 Date inscribed on Nelson's Rock, county's oldest preserved record. Methodist Con£ erence first held in Washington. 1793 Original Oglethorpe County created from land taken from Wilkes. 1795 Eli Whitney perfects and sets up his first successful cotton gin in Wilkes County. 1796 First permanent Washington Academy Building erected. One of first Roman Catholic churches in Georgia built at Locust Grove in Wilkes County. Lincoln County created from Wilkes County land. 1797 Elijah Clarke, Revolutionary officer, dies. 1798 The Reverend John Springer dies. 1800 The Washington Gazette, the town's first newspaper, founded by Alexander McMillan. Population of county, 13,103 (U.S. Census). 1803 Hymns and Spiritual Songs, compiled by the Reverend Hope Hull, published in Washington; used widely as Methodist hymnal. 1805 Private school for girls established in Washington by Madame Pauline Dugas. 1806 First hanging of a \-von1an (Polly Barclay) in Georgia occurs in Washington. 1808 Alexander House, first brick dwelling in Georgia north of Augusta, erected. 1810 Bobert Toombs born. Population of county, 14,887 (U. S. Census). CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 123 1811 Bolton's Factory, first textile plant in South, built on Upton Creek in Wilkes County. 1817 First substantial Wilkes County courthouse co1npleted. 1819 President James Monroe visits Washington. 1820 First religious edifice (Methodist church) built in Washington; used by all denominations. Branch of Georgia State Bank established in Washington. Population of county, 17,606 (U. S. Census). 1825 First Presbyterian church in Washington erected. Some Wilkes County land taken into Taliaferro County. 1828 First Baptist church in Washington erected. 1830 St. Patrick's Church built in Washington; first brick Roman Cath­ olic Church in Georgia. Population of county, 14,237 (U. S. Census). 1831 City Board of Health appointed. 1832 Robert Too1nbs elected member of Board of Town Commissioners; his first public office. 1833 Chr£stian Index brought to Washington and published by Jesse Mercer. 1834 Methodist Conference again held in Washington; movement set in n1otion to organize Emory College. 1839 Washington Female Seminary organized by Miss Sarah Brackett, teacher; building erected by popular subscription. 1840 Population of county, 10,148 (U. S. Census). 1841 Much of Washington's business district destroyed by fire after which first fire engine is purchased and fire company of 25 men organized. 1845 Robert Toombs elected to United States House of Representatives. 1850 Population of county, 12,107; of Washington, 462 free (U. S. Cen­ sus). 1853 Branch of Georgia Railroad from Barnett to Washington c01n­ pleted. Robert Toombs elected to United States Senate. 1860 The Irwin Guards ordered to Atlanta for immediate service in War between the States. Population of county, 11,420 (U. S. Census). 1865 President Jefferson Davis holds last meeting of Confederate Cabinet in Washington. 1868 Thomas J. Beck, outstanding educator, opens Burdette Academy at Mount Pleasant. 124 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES

1870 Population of county 11,796; of Washington 1,506 (U. S. Census). 1876 St. Joseph's Home for Boys organized by Father James M. O'Brien. 1877 St. Joseph's Catholic Sisters organized and St. Joseph's Female Academy established under their control. 1880 Population of county, 15,930; of Washington, 2,199 (U.S. Census). I 884 East Wilkes Club organized by twenty-four county farmers. 1885 General Robert Toombs dies. I 888 Mule-drawn street cars for passengers and freight operated from Georgia Railroad station to courthouse square. 1889 Mary Willis Library, first library free to both town and county in the state, completed and formally opened. History of Wilkes County written by Miss Eliza Bowen and pub­ lished serially in Washington Chronicle. 1890 Washington Foundry, now Washington Manufacturing Company, organized. Population of county, 18,081; of \Vashington, 2,631 (U. S. Census). 1895 Kettle Creek Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, or­ ganized. Business district swept by second large fire. Washington's Baseball Club organized. Episcopal Church destroyed by fire and rebuilt. 1897 School for Christian Scientists opened in Wilkes County by Mrs. Carolyn Armstrong. First public school building erected. 1899 Municipal light and water plants for Washington constructed. Last Cabinet Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy, or­ ganized. 1900 Kettle Creek battlefield purchased by local chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. Population of county, 20,866; of Washington, 3,300 (U. S. Census). r 904 Present courthouse built. 1905 Pope Manufacturing Company, Washington's first ice factory, built. 1907 Washington Coca-Cola Bottling Plant constructed. 1908 Washington Civic League organized . .A.pril 26. Confederate marker on public square unveiled. 1909 Grandview, first residential subdivision in Washington, developed and lots offered for sale. 1910 Woman's Club organized. Population of county, 23,441; of Washington, 3,065 (U.S. Census). CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 125

1911 New Wilkes County jail completed. 1912 St. Joseph's Female Academy destroyed by fire; reopened in Au­ gusta. Wilkes-Lincoln Fair first held. 1913 Washington Country Clubhouse built. Washington's first concrete paving laid. I 9 I 6 The Washington and Lexington Railroad begun. First Wilkes County soldiers leave for World War. 1919 Elberton and Eastern Railroad completed. 1920 Kiwanis Club organized. Population of county, 24,210; of Washington, 4,208 (U. S. Census). 1921 The Wilkes Milling Cornpany, Washington's first electric flour mill, built. 1923 Jerome Wootten Post American Legion organized. 1924 Washington General Hospital opened. 1927 Wilkes County Welfare Association organized. 1928 Wilkes County Co-operative Creamery organized and put into opera­ tion. r 929 Washington Building and Loan Association established. An old residence converted into clubhouse by Washington Woman's Club. 1930 Kettle Creek Battleground Marker dedicated. Battery B, unit of National Guard, organized. Auditorium-Armory built on the public school grounds. Population of county, 15,944; of Washington, 3,158 (U. S. Census). 1935 First successful curb market opened in Washington by club women of county. 1937 First garment factory, Royal Manufacturing Company, opened in Washington. 1939 Washington selected as headquarters for anti-aircraft unit of National Guard. 1940 Lions Club organized. Presbyterian Synod of Georgia met in Washington to commemorate the organization of Washington Presbyterian Church and ordination of the Reverend John Springer. Population of county, 15,084; of Washington, 3,537 (U.S. Census). Consultants

Mrs. R. A. Almand R. 0. Barksdale ( deceased) Mrs. F. Vl. Barnett, Sr. J. Luke Burdette Dr. E. B. Cade ( deceased) E. A. Callaway, Sr. Miss Kathleen Colley Joseph R. Dyson, Sr. (deceased) Tuck Edmundson Boyce Ficklen, Sr. (deceased) Mrs. Frank Hill W. Meriwether Hill Mrs. W.R. Latimer 1'frs. J. T. Lindsey Miss Annie Neeson Miss Rosa Neeson Mrs. Augusta Richards Mrs. S. C. Sanders ( deceased) Dr. Addison W. Simpson, Sr. W. A. Slaton Mrs. Harry Smith

126 Bibliography

Andrews, Eliza Frances (Elzey Hay, pseud.). The War-Time fournal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1908. 387 p., illus. from contemporary photographs. Ashmore, Otis. "Wilkes County, Ils Place in Georgia History." The Georgia Historical Quarterly, pub. by the Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, Ga. V. 1, p. 59-69, !vlarch, 1917. Ashmore, Otis and Olmstead, C. H., "The Battles of K.ettle Creek and Brier Creek." The Georgia Historical Quarterly, pub. by the Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, Ga. V. 10, p. 85-125, June, 1926. Avery, Isaac W. The History of the State of Georgia from 1850 to 1881 ... New York, Brown & Derby, 1881. 754 p., ports. (incl. front.), facsim. Baker, John William. History of Hart County. Atlanta, printed by Foote & Davies Co., 1933. 426 p., front., illus. (incl. ports., map). Bartram, William. Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida . . . Philadelphia, James & Johnson, 1791. 520 p., front., plates, map. New edition dist. by Barnes & Noble, Inc., New York, 1940 (Facsimile Library). Boggs, Marion Alexander, ed. The Alexander Letters. Selections from the correspondence of six sisters and four brothers, children of Adam Leo­ pold Alexander and his wife, Sarah Hillhouse Gilbert. Savannah, priv­ ately printed for G. J. Baldwin, 1910. 387 p., front., ports, fold. geneal. tab. Boogher, Elbert W. G. Secondary Education in Georgia~ 1732-1858. Phila­ delphia, 1933. 452 p., bibl. Issued as thesis (Ph.D.) University of Penn­ sylvania and printed by I. F. Huntzinger Co., Inc., Camden, N. J. Bowen, Eliza A. History of Wilkes County, Georgia. Published serially in the Washington Chronicle of 1889; copied, indexed, and bound with authority of J. B. Wilson under direction of Mrs. J. E. Hays, 1940. 174 p. typewritten by WPA project No. 5993 ( copies in Carnegie Library and Rhodes Memorial Hall, Atlanta, Ga.) 127 THE STORY OF WASHINGTON-WILKES Burdette, Mrs. John C. and Dillard, Reynolds. "The High School of Wash­ ington, Georgia.;; The Southern Association Quarterly. Nove1nber, 1 939· Burton, Alfred E. "The M. I. T. Eclipse Expedition to vVashington, Ga." The Technology Review (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Bos­ ton, v. II, No. 3, July, 1900. Candler, Allen D. The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia . ... Comp. and pub. under authority of the legislature. '\T. XIX, Part II, con­ taining statutes, Colonial and Revolutionary, 1774 to 1805. Atlanta, Ga., Chas. P. Byrd, State Printer, 1911. --The Revolutionary Records of the State of Georgia. . . . Comp. and pub. under authority of the legislature. V. I., containing introductory re­ marks, miscellaneous papers, Journal of Provincial Congress, etc. At­ lanta, Ga., The Franklin-Turner Co., 1908. The Christz'an Index, comp. History of the Baptist Denomination in Geor­ gia with Biographical Corllpendium and Portrait Gallery of Baptist Min­ isters and Other Georgia Baptists. Atlanta, James P. Harrison, 1881. 613 p., illus., ports., fold. maps. Davidson, Mrs. Grace Gillam, comp. Early Records of Georgia. Macon, Ga., J. W. Burke Co., 1932. 2 V ., front. (port.). Flanders, Ralph Betts. Plantation Slavery in Georgia. Chapel Hill: Uni­ versity of North Carolina Press, 1933. 326 p., illus., charts, maps. Gilmer, George Rockingham. Sketches of Some of the First Settlers of Upper ·Georgia, of the Cherok_ees, and the Author. Americus, Ga., Amer­ icus Book Co., 1926. 458 p. ( 1st pub. in 1855). Jones, Charles Colcock, Jr. The Dead Towns of Georg£a. V. 4. Collec­ tions of the Georgia Historical Society. Savannah, Ga., print. for the Georgia Historical Society, 1878. 263 p. -The History of Georgia. Boston, New York: Houghton Miffiin & Co., 1833. 2 V., fronts., ports., maps, plans. Knight, Lucian Lamar. Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends. . . . Atlanta, Ga., print. for the author by Byrd Printing Co., State Print­ ers, 1913-14. 2 V., fronts., plates, ports. Mallory, C. D. Memoirs of Elder /esse Mercer. New York, print. by John Gray, 1844. 455 p., front. (port.). McCall, Hugh. The History of Georgia, Containing Brief Sketches of the Most Remark_able Events up to the Present Day ( z784). Savannah, Ga., Seymour & Williams, 181 I. 2 V. Reprint in one volume by A. B. Cald­ well, Publisher, Atlanta, 1909. BIBLIOGRAPHY 129 McIntosh, John H. The Official History of Elberi County, 1790-1935. Supplement 1935-1939 by Stephen Heard Chapter, Daughters of the An1erican Revolution. Athens, Ga., print. by McGregor Co., c. 1940. Mercer, Jesse. A History of the Georgia Baptist Association. Washington, Ga., Georgia Baptist Association, 1838. 419 p. Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell. The Life of Robert Toombs. New York, Mac­ millan Co., 1913. 28r p., front. (port.). Smith, George Gillam. The History of Georgia Methodism fro1n 1786 to 1866. Atlanta, Ga., A. B. Caldwell, 1913. 430 p. incl. plates, ports. --The Story of Georgia and the Georgia People, 1732 to 1860. Macon, pub. by the author, 1900. 634 p., illus. Stacy, James. A History of the Presbyterian Church in Georgia. Elber­ ton, Ga., Press of the Star, 1912. 404 p., plates, ports. Stovall, Pleasant Alexander. Robert Toonibs, Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage: his career in Congress and on the Hustings, his Work in. the Courts, his Record with the Army, his Life at Home. New York, Cassell Publishing Co., c. I 892. 396 p., illus. Note: Valuable material can also be found in the records of the Wilkes County Courthouse, including deeds and the minutes of the inferior court, the superior court and the commissioners of Washington; in the files of the Washington Gazette and Ch1·onicle, Washington News, Wash­ ington Reporter, and Washington News-Reporter in the ordinary' s office of the courthouse; and in the files of the Athens Banner, Athens Gazette, Athens Weekly Banner, Augusta Chronicle, Foreign Correspondent and Georgia Express, Southern Banner, Southern Cultivator, and Southern Watchman in the University of Georgia Library, Athens, Georgia.

Index

Abbott, Joel, 43, 45, 108, 109 Barnett Park, 3 Adams, Habersham, 105 Barnett, Samuel, 44, 54, 64, u2, 117 Agricultural Fair Joint Stock Company, 63 Barnett, Samuel, House, 112 Agriculture, 4-5, 12, 27, 33, 38-39, 40, 55, Bartram, William, 12 63, 66-67, 84-85, 86, 87-90 Beasley-Anthony-Lowe-Hansford House, Alexander, Adam L., 44, 51, 115 104-05 Alexander, Carlotta, 115 Beasley, Rayland, 104 Alexander, E. Porter, 56, I 07 Beaverdam Creek, 69-70, 80 Alexander House, 115-16 Beck, Thomas ]., 62, II 8 Alexander, James, 44 Bedell, Absalom, 16, 21 Alexander, Samuel, 26 Bell, T. W., 57 Allen, Beverly, 32 Berry-Hay-Pope House, 99-100 Allen, J. G., 103 Bethlehem Church, 33 Almand, R. A., 68, 79 Bird-Dillard House, 105 American Legion, 7, 85 Bird, Thompson, 105 Amnesty Bill, 64 Black, J. C. C., 72 Anderson, Captain, 1 9 Blackburn, Anne Mathews, 29 Andrews, Annulet, 103 Blackburn, Samuel, 29 Andrews, Eliza Frances, 8, 55, 91 Bohler and Bigbee, 6 3 Andrews, Garnett, 39, 44, 48, 55, 58, 64 Bolton, Charles L., 44 Andrews, Garnett, Jr., 56 Bolton, John, 45, 97, II5 Anthony, Bolling, 45 Bolton's Factory, 45, 97 Anthony, Gabriel, 112 Booker, Richardson, 97 Armor, James, 30 Bowen, Eliza, 8, I 07 Armour Fertilizer Company, 80 Bowling Club, 84 Armstrong, Carolyn, 74 Boyd, John, 18, 19-20 Armstrong House, 7 4 Boyd, Marian Colley, 111 Armstrong, James, 54 Brackett, Sarah, 5 1 Arnold, Luke, 62 Bradford, Richard, 62 Arnold, Milton, 65 Bragg, Braxton, 59 Arnold, Robert, 62 Branham, Benjamin, 106 Asbury, Francis, 30, 33, 53 Branham, Mary, 106 Athene Club, 84 Branham-Neeson House, 105-06 Axson, Ellen, 108 Breckinridge, John C., 58, 59 Axson, I. S. K., 108 Brown, Joseph M., 82 Burdette Academy, 62, II8 Ball, Frederick, 4 5 Burdette, J. L., I 18, 119 Baltimore, 4 Burdette, Thomas P., I 18 Barbecue, 8 Burton, Edward M., 44 Barclay, John H., 99 Barclay, Polly, 99 Cade, E. B., 113-14 Barksdale, R. 0., 78 Cade, E. B., House, II3-14 Barnett, E. M., ro5 Cade, Mrs. E. B., 113-14 Barnett House, 98 Cade, vV. G., II3 Barnett, M. L., 105 Calhoun, John C., 42 Barnett, 0. S., 69 Callaway, John W., House, 112 131 INDEX

Callaway, Merrill, 109 Dartmouth, 12, 13, 27 Callaway, P. T., 82 Daughters of the American Revolution, 7, Camp Dyson, 79 77, 92 Campbell, Archibald, 106-07 Davis, Jefferson, 7, 56, 58, 59, 60, 96 Campbell, Duncan G., 43, 50, 54 Davis, Mrs. Jefferson, 58, 104 Campbell, John A., 48, 50 Davis, Samuel, 104 Candler, Allen D., So Day, Robert, 16 Carr's Fort, I 8 Democrats, 48, 49, 71, 72, 73, 82 Carter, Thom.as, 27 Dennis Mills, 25 Catchings, Benjamin, 16, 21 Dillard House, 105 Chamber of Commerce, 87 Dillard, Ida Reynolds, r 05 Chantilly Hotel, 37 Dooly, Colonel John, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, Chapman, J. W., 76 22, 24 Cheney, B. Irvin, 101 Dooly, John, 34-35 Cheney House, 1 o I Dooly, Thomas, r7 Cherokee Ford, I 9 Dover, J. R., 69 Cherry Cottage, 105 Dow, Lorenzo, 53 Chester, Elisha W., 50 Downs, William, 21, 22 Children of the Confederacy, 7 DuBose, James R., 64, 102 Chivers, Thomas Holley, 102-03 Dugas, Mary Pauline, 49 Christian Index, 45 Duke, Basil W., 59 Christian Science School, 7 4 Dyson, J. R., 79, 82 Chronicle, 68 Dyson, William H., 44 Church, Constantine, I 05 Citizens National Bank, 80, 90 Early, Peter, 48 Clark, John, 19, 47-48 East Georgia Fair, 83-84, 88 Clark, M. H., 59 East Wilkes Club, 66 Clarke, Elijah, 16, 17, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, Ebenezer Baptist Church, 93 27, 37, 47 Education, 6, 28-30, 49-52, 62, 73-74 Clarke, Hannah, 25, 26 Effie Pope Park, 69 Clarke's Station Baptist Church, 31, 93 Elbert County, 16, 27, 29, 38 Cleveland, Aaron A., 44 Elberton and Eastern Railroad, 86, 90 Cleveland, T. P., 50 Ellington House, 97-98 Coats, Nathaniel, 37 Ellington, W. D., House, 92 Coca-Cola Bottling Plant, IO r Excelsior Manufacturing Company, 69 Coleman, Daniel, 28 E. Y. Hill Hook and Ladder Company, 70 Coleman, David, 22 Colley, A. T., 112 Falling Creek Church, 33 Colley, Francis, II5 Farmers' Alliance, 67 Colley, Kathleen, 91, 107, 1 I 1 Fauna, 5, rr Colmesnil Dancing School, 42 Federal Land Bank, 94 Confederate Memorial Association, 80-8 r Female Academy, see Washington Acad- Confederate Monument, 1-2, 80-8 I emy Confederate Treasure, 58-59, 60 Ficklen, Boyce, Sr., 92-93, 97, r 04 Confederate Treasury, 58-59, 107 Ficklen, Burwell, r 04 Cotton, 27, 33-34, 38-39, 40-41, 45, 55, Ficklen, Fielding, 104 66-67, 84-85, 87 Ficklen-Lyndon-Johnson House, 103-04 Courts: Ficklen, village, 93 'Wilkes County Inferior, 35 Fire Companies, 44, 70 Wilkes County Superior, 16, 21, 34, 68 Fires, 44, 70-71 Cox, Alfred E., 73 First Methodist Church, 93 Cox, Charles, 46 Fishing Creek, I 4 Cozarts, 76 Fishing Creek Baptist Church, 31, 93 Crawford, William H., 47-48 Fitzpatrick Hotel, 78, 80 Creswell, David, II7 Flemister, Lewis, 92 Cyclone, 86-87 Flora, 3, 38 Floyd, John D., 62, 76 Dabney, Austin, 17 Floyd Opera House, 76

Daffodil Garden Club1 7, 92 Forsyth, John, 30, 48, I 13 Danburg Academy, 50 Fort Heard, 13, 22 INDEX 133

Fort James, 12 Heard, John, Jr., 13 Fort \Vashington, 22 Heard, Samuel B., 42 Frank Willis Literary Club, 84 Heard, Stephen, I 3-14, 22, 28, 48 Freedmen's Bureau, 61 Beard's Fort, 22 Hill, Benjamin H., 49 Gadsden, Thomas, 73 Hill, Lodowick Meriwether, 39 Gaines, Edmund, 42 Hill, Mrs. John J., 80 Galphin, George, 1 o, 1 5 Hill, W. Meriwether, 105 Gazette, 68 Hillhouse-Callaway-Toombs-Wood House, Gazette-Chronicle, 9 3 I 08-09 Georgia Baptist Association, 3 I Hillhouse, David, 44, 109 Georgia Baptist Convention, 31, 75 Hillhouse, D. P., 40 Georgia Branch Bank, 46, 59, 96 Hillhouse, Sarah, 44, 45, I 09 Georgia Methodist Conference, 30, 52, 75 Home Coming Day, 94-95 Georgia Railroad, 43-44, 58, 86, 90 Hopping, E. S., 50 Gilbert, Felix, II5, u6 Hoyt, Nathan, 108 Gilbert, Sarah, I Is Hull, Hope, 30, 53 Gilbert, William G., 54, IIS, u6 Hunt, Harriet, 102 Gilmer, Thomas, 28 Hunter, T. S., 64 Glenn, W. C., 73 Goode, Samuel, 37 Indians, 10, II, 14, 20-21, 23, 26, 36; Goosepond Tract, 27 Cherokee, 10, II; Creek, 10, II, 14, 21 Gordon, James, 13 "Irish Fairs," 76 Gordon, Lord George, 13 Irvin, Charles E., 70, 100 Goulding, Francis R., 103 Irvin, Charles E., House, 100 Graham, John, 22 Irvin Guards, 55-56, 61, 77, 78 Grandview, 3, 81 Irvin, Isaiah T., 48, 49, 55-56 Grant, Daniel, 32 Gr ant, Thomas, 32 Jackson, James, 10 Grant's Meeting House, 32, 54 Jails, 35, 98 Graves, John, 118 Johnson House, I 03-04 Graves Mountain, II7-18 Johnston, William Preston, 59 Green, Burwell, 80 Jones, William, 117 Green, Metta Andrews, 3 Jordan, E. F., 107 Greene County, 38 Jordan, Mrs. E. F., 107 Greene, Nathanael, 25 Jordan, William H., 64 Greenwood Church, 3 I Griffin, John, u6 Kappel, Michael J., 45 Guerry, Albert Capers, 7 Keohl, W. L., 62 Gulleytown, 4 Kcowee River, II Kettle Creek, Battle of, 17, 19-20, 92 Hamilton, Colonel, 17-18 Kettle Creek Chapter D. A. R., 7, 77 Hansford House, 104-05 King, A. L., 78 Harden, Edward, 11 s King, John, 34 Harden, Mary, 1 I 2 Kiwanis Club, 7, 87, 88, 92 Harden, Mrs. Ed ward, I I 5 Knights of Pythias, 7 Hardwick; Thomas W., 88 Krumbein, Leo, 87 Harper, Robert, 28 Ku Klux Klan, 62 Harris, William L., 11 o Harrison, Burton, 59, 96 L' Allegro Club, 76 Hart County, 16, 38 Lamar, Zachariah, 28 Hart, Nancy, 24-25, 92 Land Courts, I 2 Harty, W. J., II3 Land Grants, II-12, 13, 23 Hay, Felix G., 54 Lane, Annie, 1 o 1 Hay, Gilbert, 45 Lane, James H., 1 o 1 Hay, James T., Jr., 45 Last Cabinet Ch~pter U. D. C., 7, 70, 96 Hay, William, 36 Lawson, Thomas G., 73 Heard, Barnard, I 3, 22 Lawton, A. R., 59 Heard, B. W., 70 Liberty Church, 33 Heard, Jesse, 13 Libraries, 65, 69, 91, 106 134 INDEX

Lincoln County, I 6, 38 Neeson, Sarah Wright, ro6 Lindsey Building, 87 Negroes, 4, 38-39, 55, 61, 62, 73, 82-83 Lindsey House, 107-08 Nelson, John, 97 Lions Club, 7 Nelson's Rock, 97 Locust Grove Church, 33 News, 93 Long, Richard H., 46, 1 oo Newspapers and Periodicals: Love, Mark A., 44 Christian Index, 45 Lubbock, F. R., 59 Clzronicle, 68 Lumpkin, Wilson, 48 Gazette, 68 Lyndon, George E., 73, 104 Gazette-Clzronicle, 93 Lyon, Edward, I 19 Independent, 57 Lyon, John, II9 Medical Reformer, 45 Monitor, 44-45 McDaniel, Henry, 72 News, 93 McGillivray, Alexander, 20 News-Reporter, 87, 93, 94 McGirth, Daniel, I 9, 20 Reporter, 93 McKenzie, Margaret, 50 Spy, 45 McLendon, Jacob, 21 Will(es Republican, 57 McMillan, Alexander, 44 News-Reporter, 87, 93, 94 McNeal, William, 46 Nightingale Club, 84 McRae-Tupper-Barnett House, 98-99 Madison County, I 6, 38 O'Bear, W. B., 78 Male Academy, see Washington Academy O'Brien, James M., 65, 73 Mallory, Stephen R., 58 Odd Fellows, 7 Mallorysville Academy, 50 Ogecchee River, 11, 16 Marlow, Hugh, 103 Oglethorpe County, 16, 38, 39 Marriage bonds, 35, 36 Ohl, Maude Andrews, 8, 103 Mary Willis Library, 69, 91, 106 Old Methodist Parsonage, 105 Masons, 7 Old Presbyterian Manse, 103 Mathews, George, 27-28, 29, 34, 48 Old St. Patrick's Church, 114 Maxwell, Gilbert, 8 Old Town, 28 Medical Reformer, 45 Oliver, Dionysius, 27 Mehrtens, Leo, 76 Mercer, Jesse, 30, 45, 52, 53, 54, 100, II3, Payne, John Howard, 1 I 2 120 Pelot, John F., 44 Mercer, Silas, 30, 31 Petersburg, 27 Merchants and Planters Bank, 65 Petrie, George H. W., 109 Meriwether, David, 30 Petrie-Toombs-Hardeman ..Palmer-Almand Meriwether, Francis, 28 House, 109 Merry, Bradford, 104 Pettus-Palmer-DuBose House, 1 o 1 -02 Militia, 36, 54-55, 55-56, 77-78 Phi Upsilon Hall, 99 Miller, Phineas, II 8-19 Phillips, Joel, 32 Mills, Nancy, I 20 Phillip's Mill Baptist Church, 31, 32, 93 Mineral Springs, 37, 43 Picayune, 77 Minton, Mary, 50 Pickens, Andrew, 18-19, 20, 26 Mobley, James, 21 Pierce, George Foster, 7 4 Monadue, Henry, 21 Planters' Compress Company, 79 Monitor, 44-45 Pope, Alexander, 40, 44 Monroe, James, 42-43 Pope, A., Jr., 48, 49 Moses, Raphael J., 59 Pope House, 99-100 Mount Pleasant, 62, 97, 118-19 Pope, Mark Cooper, 68, 69 Mount St. Joseph's School for Girls, 65 Pope, M. Pembroke, I oo Mulligan, Mrs. A. E., 70 Pope, Susan Cooper, 99 Pope, vViley, 17 Nash, Isabella, II2 Populist Party, 72 Nash, Tom, 91-92 Poulain, Anthony, 115 National Bank of Wilkes, 90 Poulain, T. N., IIS National Guard, 7, 92 Presbyterian Church, 93, 108, 112, 113, Neeson, Horace, 106 II6, 117 Neeson House, 105-06 Presbytery of Hopewell, 33 INDEX 135 Price, James, 45 Smith, Benaijah, 29 Prince, Oliver Hillhouse, 101 Smith, Charles H., 103 Prince-Pope-Simpson-Stephens House, 101 Smith, Clyde, 94 Prohibition, 54, 75-76, 81-82, 94 Smith, Cordner, 103 Prudhomme, L., Jr., 38-39 Smith, Grace Dyson, 8, 103 Smith, Hoke, 82 Quigly, Ann, 1 IO Smith, James M., 44 Smith, Lorenzo, 63 Rabun, William, 48 Smith, Robert, I 02 Randolph, Maria, II2 Smith, Robert Motte, House, rn2 Randolph, Maria, House, II 1 - 12 Smyrna Church, 33, r 20 Ray, John, 46 Smyrna Church Yard, 117 Reagan, John H., 59, 60 Sneed, A. H., 43 Recreation: Sneed, Mary, r 12 Early pioneers, I 5 Solar eclipse, 78-79 Baseball, 76, 85 Sons of Benevolence, 61 Horse racing, 76 South Liberty Academy, 50 Rehoboth Academy, 50, 51 Southeastern Stages, 90 Religion, 6, 30-33, 45, 52-54, 65, 74-75, 76, Southern Baptist College, 52 93, 94, IOO, 108, I 14 Springdale Circle, 3 Reporter, 93 Springdale Park, 3 Reynolds, Charles I., 93 Springer, John, 30, 33, 93, 101, I 13 Rials, Joshua, 21 Spy, 45 Rice's Tavern, 42 Stagecoaches, 36, 41-42, 44, 63 Richards, Percy Tazewell, 8 States Rights Party, 48 Riden, Joseph Scott, 21 Stephens, Alexander H., 33, 71, 106, u5-r6 Rivers: Stephens House, 101 Little, IO, Ir, 19, 25, 34 Stith, William, 34 Broad, II, 12-13, 18, 19, 27, 34 Stoddard, John, 93 Dart, 12-13 Stone, Osborne, 54 Robinson, Joseph W., 44, 54 Stuart, John, 1 I, I 4 Rocky Mount Academy, 51 Succoth Academy, 30 Round Table Literary Club, 76 Sullivan, Florence, 34 Royal Manufacturing Company, 94, 104 Rucker, Tinsley, 73 Talbot, Matthew, 45, 48, r 17 Ryan, Abram J., u4 Talbot, Thomas, 97, 11 8 Taliaferro, Benjamin, 28 St. John, I. M., 59 Taliaferro County, 16, 33, 38 St. Joseph's Catholic Sisters, 65, II4 Taverns, 36, 41-42; Rice's, 42; Washing~ St. Joseph's Female Academy, 65 ton, 42; Williamson's, 36, 96; Willis, 42, St. Joseph's Home for Boys, 65, 100 47 Sardis Baptist Church, 93 Teague, N. A., 78 Sarepta Baptist Association, 45 Terrell, Henry, 105 Scotchtown, I 3 Terrell, Thomas, 54 Scott's Meeting House, 32 Thatcher, Daniel, 33 Semmes, Andrew G., 54, 107, u2 Thaxton, Thomas, 62 Semmes-Peteet-Cleveland-Jordan-Lindsey Thespian Society, 42 House, 107 Thornburn, C. E., 59 Sherrill's Fort, 14 Tobacco, 27-28, 55 Sherrod, Benjamin, 45 Toombs, Gabriel, 109 Simons, Abraham, 120 Toombs, Robert, 40, 48-49, 55, 56, 60, 63, Simons, Abraham, House, 1 I 9 64, 66, 71-72, 74, 96, 106, IIO-II Simpson, Franklin T., 97 Toombs, Mrs. Robert, 60, 71 Simpson, W. W., 68 Tories, 71 Sims House, IIS Town Incorporation Marker, 97 Sims, M. M., 69 Towne, George Washington, 48 Sims, Mrs. M. M., 115 Treaties (Indian), Io, II, 14 Slaton, John M., 84, 85 Trees: Slaton, Mrs. John M., 84 Thomas Holley Chivers Holly Tree, 102- Slavery, 38-39 03 INDEX

Trees (continued) Wesley and Whitfield School, 30 Polly Barclay Poplar, 99 West, Andrew J., 81 Presbyterian Poplar, I 13 \Vest End Driving Association, 69 Triplett, Francis, r 17 Whigs, 15, 48, 49, 71 Troup, George M., 47-48 \Vhitney, Eli, 33-34, 1 r 8-19 Tupper, Henry Allen, 98-99, 111 Wilkes County Academy, see Washington Tupper, Kerr Boyce, 95, 98 Academy Turner, Allen, 52 Turner, Carolina Dyson, ro7 Wilkes County Agricultural Society, 40, 63 Twentieth Century Club, 84 Wilkes County Cotton Growers' Associa­ tion, 84-85 Union Party, 48, 49 Wilkes County Courthouse, 47, 70, 96-97 United Daughters of the Confederacy, 7, Wilkes County Farmers' and Mechanics' 70, 96 Club, 65 Upton Creek, 45 Wilkes County Food Council, 85 Upton Creek Baptist Church, 3 I Wilkes County Good Roads Association, Upton, Emory, 59 81 Wilkes County Peanut Growers' Associa- Van Allen, Peter, 47 tion, 88 Wilkes Dragoons, 54-55 Walker, Sanders, 31 Wilkes, John, 16 Walnut Hill, 30, 113 Wilkes-Lincoln Fair, 83-84 Walton, George, 34 Wilkes Manufacturing Company, 45, 97 War Hill, 20 Wilkes Republican, 57 Ware, Nicholas) 30 Williamson, Micaijah, 26, 28, 36, 96, II6 Warren County, 16, 38 Williamson, Sarah Gilliam, 26 Washington Academy, 28-29, 42, 49-50, 73, Williamson's Tavern, 36, 96 100 Willis, Francis T., 69, 106 Washington and Elberton Railroad, 86 Willis Hotel, 42, 47 \Vashington and Lincolnton Railroad, 86, Willis, Mary, 106 90 Wilson, Hylamon, 73 Washington Business Association, 85 Wilson, Joseph, 36 \Vashington Country Club, 84 Wilson, Woodrow, 108, 112 Washington Exchange Bank, 90 Wingfield, Garland, 1 o I Washington Female Seminary, 51 Wingfield, James, 5 4 'Washington Foundry and Manufacturing Wingfield-Lane-Cheney House, 101 Company, 68 Wingfield, Thomas, 1 13 Washington Gazette, 44, 62, 76 Woman's Club, 7, 92, 94, 1 I 6 Washington General Hospital, 91, 101-02 Wood, Mrs. Hardeman Toombs, 91, 107, Washington Independent, 57 109 Washington Jockey Club, 37, 120 Wood House, 108-09 Washington News, 45 Wood, John Taylor, 59 Washington Railroad and Banking Com- Wood, John W., 68 pany, 44 Woodly, William, 46 Washington Tavern, 42 Woodmen of the World, 7 Waters, Thomas, I 2, 1 8 Woodward, Margaret, 93 Watson, Thomas E., 72 Worsham, R. W ., 46 Webster, Alexander Hamilton, 108, uo, Wright, Mrs. J. G., IIS, n6 II6 Wynne, William, 7 3 Webster, Mrs. Alexander, 50 vVells, George, 22 Young, Ida M., 73 B £ F G H J K L M

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