Chapter VI · (continued 2)

With regard to the sojourn of Rev. John Wesley in Georgia, of his designs and anticipations in visiting the colony, and of the disappointments there experienced, we have perhaps the fullest memoranda in a little undated volume entitled An extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal from his embarking for Georgia to his return to London, Bristol; printed by S. and F. Farley. It gives his own interpretation of the events, trials, and disappointments which induced him so speedily to abandon a field of labor in which he had anticipated much pleasure and success.[880] In a tract published in London in 1741, called An Account of money received and disbursed for the Orphan House in Georgia, the Rev. George Whitefield submits a full exhibit of all expenditures made up to that time in the erection and support of that institution. To it is prefixed a plan of the building.[881] His efforts to convert it into a college are unfolded in A Letter to his Excellency Governor Wright, printed in London, 1768. Appended to this is the correspondence which passed between him and the Archbishop of Canterbury. This tract is illustrated by plans and elevations of the present and intended structures, and by a plat of the Orphan House lands. There are sermons of this eloquent divine in aid of this charity, and journals of journeys and voyages undertaken while employed in soliciting subscriptions. His friend and companion, the Hon. James Habersham, has left valuable letters explanatory of the scope and administration of this eleemosynary project. William Bartram, who visited Bethesda in 1765, wrote a pleasant description of it.[882]

Among the histories of Georgia we may mention:—

An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, London, 1779,[883] in two volumes, octavo. Although published anonymously, these volumes are known to have been written by the Rev. Alexander Hewitt,[884] a Presbyterian clergyman and a resident of Charlestown, South Carolina, who returned to England when he perceived that an open rupture between the Crown and the thirteen American Colonies was imminent. While in this work the colonial history of Georgia is given at some length, the attention of the author was mainly occupied with the establishment and growth of the Province of Carolina. His labors ended with the dawn of the Revolution.

To A View of the Constitution of the British Colonies in North America and the West Indies at the time the Civil War broke out on the Continent of America, by Anthony Stokes, his Majesty’s Chief Justice in Georgia, London, 1783, we must refer for the most intelligent history of the civil and judicial conduct of affairs in Georgia during the continuance of the royal government.

Soon after the formation of the general government Mr. Edward Langworthy—at first a pupil and then a teacher at Whitefield’s Orphan House, afterwards an enthusiastic “Liberty Boy,” Secretary of the Provincial Congress of Georgia, and one of the early representatives from that State in the Confederated Congress—conceived the design of writing a history of Georgia. Of fair attainments, and personally acquainted with the leading men and transactions of the period, he was well qualified for the task, and addressed himself with energy to the collection of materials requisite for the undertaking. From a published prospectus of the work, printed in the Georgia Gazette, we are led to believe that this history was actually written. Suitable encouragement not having been extended, the contemplated publication was never made. Mr. Langworthy died at Elkton, in Maryland, early in the present century, and all efforts to recover both his manuscripts and the supporting documents which he had amassed have thus far failed.

From the press of Seymour and Williams, of Savannah, was issued, in 1811, the first volume of Major Hugh McCall’s History of Georgia,[885] and this was followed, in 1816, by the second volume published by William Thorne Williams. Oppressed by physical infirmities, and a martyr to the effects of exposures and dangers experienced while an officer in the army of the Revolution; now confined to his couch, again a helpless cripple moving only in an easy-chair upon wheels; dependent for a livelihood upon the slender salary paid to him as city jailer of Savannah; often interrupted in his labors, and then, during intervals of pain, writing with his portfolio resting upon his knees; without the preliminary education requisite for the scholarly accomplishment of such a serious undertaking, and yet fired with patriotic zeal, and anxious to wrest from impending oblivion the fading traditions of the State he loved so well, and whose independence he had imperilled everything to secure,—Major McCall, in the end, compassed a narrative which is highly prized, and which, in its recital of events connected with the Revolutionary period and the part borne by Georgians in that memorable struggle, is invaluable. He borrowed largely from Mr. Hewitt in depicting the colonial life of Georgia.[886]

As early as March, 1841, the Georgia Historical Society invited Dr. William Bacon Stevens to undertake, under its auspices, the preparation of a new and complete History of Georgia. Liberal aid was extended to him in his labor, and of its two octavo volumes, one was published in 1847 and the other in 1859.[887] This author brings his history down to the adoption of the constitution of 1798.

In 1849 the Rev. George White published in Savannah his Statistics of the State of Georgia, and this was followed, six years afterwards, by his more comprehensive and valuable work entitled the Historical Collections of Georgia, illustrated with nearly one hundred engravings, and published by Pudney and Russell, of New York. In this volume a vast mass of statistical, documentary, and traditional information is presented; and for his industry the author is entitled to much commendation.

The History of Georgia, by T. S. Arthur and W. H. Carpenter, published in Philadelphia in 1854, and constituting one of Lippincott’s cabinet histories, is a meagre compendium of some of the leading events in the life of the Colony and State, and does not claim special attention.

In his History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi (Charleston, S. C., 1851) Colonel Albert James Pickett furnishes abundant and interesting material illustrative of the aboriginal epoch; and, in a manner both intelligent and attractive, traces the colonization of the territory indicated down to the year 1820.[888]

The present writer has already printed [1883] the first two volumes of History of Georgia; and his preface unfolds his purpose to tell the story from the earliest times down to a period within the memory of the living. The two volumes thus far issued embrace the aboriginal epoch, a narrative of discovery and early exploration, schemes of colonization, the settlement under Oglethorpe, and the life of the province under the guidance of the Trustees, under the control of the President and Assistants, under the supervision of royal governors, and during the Revolutionary War. They conclude with the erection of Georgia into an independent State. All available sources of information have been utilized. The two concluding volumes, which will deal with Georgia as a Commonwealth, are in course of preparation.

We refrain from an enumeration of gazetteers, historical essays, and publications, partial in their character, which relate to events subsequent to what may be properly termed the period of colonization.