The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the SouthwestSparks, W. H. (William Henry)
History
The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest
Sparks, W. H. (William Henry)
Georgia -- History -- 1775-1865; Southwest, Old -- History; United States -- Biography
There was great eccentricity of character in all the conduct and
language of Duffy. He had his own method of prayer, and his own
peculiar style of preaching, frequently calling out the names of
persons in his audience whom it was his privilege to consider the
chiefest of sinners, and to implore mercy for them in language
offensive almost to decency. Sometimes, in the presence of persons
inimical to each other, he would ask the Lord to convert the sinners
and make the fools friends, first telling the Lord who they were by
name, to the no small amusement of his most Christian audience; many
of whom would in deep devotion respond with a sonorous "Amen."
From such a population sprang the present inhabitants of Georgia; and
by such men were they taught, in their budding boyhood, the rudiments
of an English education;--such, I mean, of the inhabitants who still
live and remember Duffy, Cummings, and McLean. They are few, but the
children of the departed remember traditionally these and their like,
in the schoolmasters of Georgia from 1790 to 1815.
At the close of the war of 1812-15, a new impetus was given to
everything throughout the South, and especially to education. The
ambition for wealth seized upon her people, the high price of cotton
favored its accumulation, and with it came new and more extravagant
wants, new and more luxurious habits. The plain homespun jean coat
gave way to the broad-cloth one; and the neat, Turkey-red striped
Sunday frock of the belle yielded to the gaudy red calico one, and
there was a sniff of aristocratic contempt in the upturned nose
towards those who, from choice or necessity, continued in the old
habits.
Material wealth augmented rapidly, and with it came all of its
assumptions. The rich lands of Alabama were open to settlement. The
formidable Indian had been humbled, and many of the wealthiest
cultivators of the soil were commencing to emigrate to a newer and
more fertile country, where smiling Fortune beckoned them.
The first to lead off in this exodus was the Bibb family, long
distinguished for wealth and influence in the State. The Watkinses,
the Sheroos, and Dearings followed: some to north, some to south
Alabama. W.W. Bibb was appointed, by Mr. Madison, Territorial Governor
of Alabama, and was followed to the new El Dorado by his brothers,
Thomas, John Dandridge, and Benajah, all men of substance and
character.
For a time this rage for a new country seemed to threaten Georgia and
South Carolina with the loss of their best population. This probably
would have been the result of the new acquisition, but, in its midst,
the territory between the Ocmulgee and Chattahoochee was ceded by the
Indians, and afforded a new field for settlement, which effectually
arrested this emigration at its flood. The new territory added to the
dominion of Georgia was acquired mainly through the energy and
pertinacity of George M. Troup, at the time Governor of Georgia.
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