Disappointed, and yet not despairing, the inhabitants of the parish of St. John “resolved to prosecute their claims to an equality with the Confederated Colonies.” Having adopted certain resolutions by which they obligated themselves to hold no commerce with Savannah, or elsewhere, except under the supervision of a Committee, and then only for the absolute necessaries of life, they appointed Dr. Hall, as we have already seen, an independent delegate to represent the parish in the general congress of provinces. The patriotic spirit of its inhabitants, and this independent action of St. John’s parish in advance of the other parishes of Georgia, were afterwards acknowledged when all the parishes were in accord in the Revolutionary movement. As a tribute of praise, and in token of general admiration, by special act of the Legislature the name of LIBERTY COUNTY was conferred upon the consolidated parishes of St. John, St. Andrew, and St. James. Sir James Wright was not far from the mark when he located the head of the rebellion in St. John’s parish, and advised the Earl of Dartmouth that the rebel measures there inaugurated were to be mainly referred to the influence of the “descendants of New England people of the Puritan Independent sect” who, retaining “a strong tincture of Republican or Oliverian principles, have entered into an agreement amongst themselves to adopt both the resolutions and association of the Continental Congress.” On the altars erected within the Midway district were the fires of resistance to the dominion of England earliest kindled; and Lyman Hall, of all the dwellers there, by his counsel, exhortations, and determined spirit, added stoutest fuel to the flames. Between the immigrants from Dorchester and the distressed Bostonians existed not only the ties of a common parentage, but also sympathies born of the same religious, moral, social, and political education. Hence we derive an explanation of the reason why the Midway settlement declared so early for the Revolutionists. The Puritan element cherishing and proclaiming intolerance of established church and the divine right of Kings, impatient of restraint, accustomed to independent thought and action, and without associations which encouraged tender memories of and love for the mother country, asserted its hatreds, its affiliations, and its hopes with no uncertain utterance, and appears to have controlled the action of the entire parish.[193]