Centuries Have Not Dimmed the Glory

..."Surmounting a pedestal of granite, the figure of Sergeant Jasper, heroic in size and wrought of bronze, is portrayed in the act of seizing the colors of his regiment. It reproduces the heroic scene of his martyrdom, on the Spring Hill redoubt, during the siege of Savannah. With the flag in one hand, he raises his gallant sword with the other, to defend the emblem of his country's liberties." ¹

The monument to Sgt. William Jasper, unveiled in 1888, stands in Savannah, Georgia's Madison Square. It is inscribed:

To The Heroic Memory Of
Sergeant William Jasper
Who Though Mortally Wounded
Rescued The Colors Of His Regiment
In The Assault
On The British Lines About This City
October 9th, 1779
A Century Has Not Dimmed The Glory
Of The Irish American Soldier
Whose Last Tribute To Civil Liberty
Was His Noble Life
1779 - 1879

All photos © 2010-2013 S. Lincecum.

More about William Jasper from Wikipedia.

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Footnote:

1. Ancestry.com. Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends [images on-line]. Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.
Original data: Knight, Lucian Lamar. Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends. Atlanta, Ga.: Printed for the author by the Byrd Print. Co., state printers, 1913-1914.

About Andrew Bryan, Noted Negro Preacher (A Friend of Friends Friday)

From Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials, and Legends by Lucian Lamar Knight, page 95:

Caesar, one of the numerous slaves owned by Jonathan Bryan, lived to be a centenarian. But long before his death he was made a free man by the voluntary act of his master. Andrew, a son of the old ex-slave, became a noted negro preacher of Savannah during the early ante-bellum period. The following brief items, copied from the records, tell a story of some interest. First, the death notice of Jonathan Bryan's faithful servant Caesar. This reads as follows: "Nov. 27th, 1798. Savannah, Ga. Died at the plantation of Col. Wylly [son-in-law of the late Hon. Jonathan Bryan] aged 103 years, negro Caesar, father of the celebrated Parson Andrew. Caesar was a faithful servant of the late Jonathan Bryan, Esq., for forty-two years, when he gave him his freedom." -- In Book B. Chatham County Records, pp, 213, 214, dated May 4th, 1789, will be found an entry showing where William Bryan, planter, son of Jonathan Bryan, sets free Andrew, a former slave on the estate of Jonathan Bryan and by division of estate, William Bryan's slave. -- In Book N. Chatham County Records, p. 117, dated Sept. 4th, 1773, there is an entry showing where a plot of ground at Yamacraw in what was then called the village of St. Gall was deeded to William Bryan and James Whitefield, in trust for a black man, named Andrew Bryan, a preacher of the gospel. The consideration involved was thirty pounds sterling. On this plot of ground was built the negro church of which Andrew Bryan was the pastor until his death. As an item of interest for the future historian, this fragment illustrative of life under the old feudal regime at the South is worthy of preservation.

The Mother Church of Georgia & Washington's Southern Tour

Photo © 2010-2013 S. Lincecum

"On the original spot where the Colonists established a house of worship stands today the beautiful and classic proportions of Christ Church. Here Wesley preached and Whitefield exhorted -- the most gifted and erratic characters in the early settlement of Georgia." ¹

The edifice from 1838 stated the church building, founded in 1743, was destroyed by fire in 1796. After rebuilding, it was partially destroyed by a hurricane in 1804. It was later added that the church was again partially destroyed by fire, and the current structure was a rebuilding and improvement dating to 1897. The historical marker in Savannah's Johnson Square details this as the "current and third structure" designed by James Hamilton Couper.

Early and noteworthy members of the parish include William Scarborough, who built the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean; Dr. Theodosius Bartow, father of Col. Francis S. Bartow; Dr. George Jones, a U.S. senator; and R. R. Cuyler, a famous railroad pioneer.

George Washington attended services in the original Christ Church 15 May 1791.

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Footnote:

1. Pleasant A. Stovall, as quoted by Lucian Lamar Knight in Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends (pub. 1914).

Hanging at Macon: the Sheriff Never Did a Neater Job

The Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)
26 May 1894, pg. 3

HANGING AT MACON.

Henry Miller, one of John Braswell's Murderers, Dies on the Gallows.

A MEMBER OF A DESPERATE GANG

Though He Declared He Was Innocent When on the Scaffold He Had Confessed Some Terrible Crimes.

Macon, Ga., May 25. -- (Special) -- Henry Miller, colored, was hanged today, at 12:17 o'clock, for the murder of Mr. John Braswell, a well-known farmer of this county. The execution was private, in the jail yard, in this city. He was hanged on a new patent iron gallows, which worked perfectly under the manipulation of Sheriff Westcott. There was nothing bungling whatever about the hanging. The sheriff never did a neater job. Within six minutes after the trap was sprung Miller was pronounced dead by the attending physicians, J. C. Johnson, E. G. Ferguson and J. H. D. Worsham. His neck was broken by the drop. Soon after the hanging the body was carried to Miller a former home, in the Warrior district, a few miles from the city. Miller was twenty-six years old. He has always claimed that he was innocent of the crime, and he died on the scaffold today protesting his innocence. He said that his blood would rest on the head of the jurors and all others who had anything to do with sending him to the gallows. He declared that on the night of the murder, when he left the several negroes, who were arrested for the crime George Troutman had the gun, but he didn't know who fired it. Miller was tried several months ago, found guilty and sentenced to death.

The case was appealed to the Supreme court, but a new trial was refused, and Miller was resentenced to die today. One of his associates in crime, Wash Boston, is serving a life sentence in the penitentiary. The other negroes, who were charged with the crime, have been discharged from custody.

In the latter part of last year, one night, Mr. Braswell while in his wagon, en route home, was waylaid murdered and robbed. The crime was traced to Miller and Boston.

Miller stated today that he was one of a band of negroes who styled themselves kuklux and had committed numerous crimes. He intimated that he had killed the negro, Pink Ryan at the street car stables several months ago and participated in the murder of two men whose bodies had been thrown into the river. He said the members of the kuklux band had sworn never to tell on each other.

Oglethorpe Monument in Savannah's Chippewa Square

Pride and gratitude have always mingled in the emotions with which Georgia has contemplated the career and cherished the name of Oglethorpe; but almost two centuries elapsed before an adequate monument to the great humanitarian was reared in the city which he founded. At last, under bright skies, on November 23, 1910, in the city of Savannah, a superb bronze statue surmounting a pedestal of granite, was unveiled in Chippewa Square.¹

...the Great Soldier, Eminent Statesman, and Famous
Philanthropist, General James Edward Oglethorpe, who, in
this city, on the 12th day of February, A.D., 1733, founded
and established the Colony of Georgia. 

One of four lions holding shields at base of monument.
This shield bears the Georgia State Seal.

All photos © 2010-2013 S. Lincecum

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Footnote:

1. Ancestry.com. Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends [images on-line]. Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.
Original data: Knight, Lucian Lamar. Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends. Atlanta, Ga.: Printed for the author by the Byrd Print. Co., state printers, 1913-1914.

The Capture of Jefferson Davis

Two miles to the west of Irwinville, in what is today a dense thicket of pines, there occurred at the the close of the Civil War an incident concerning which a host of writers have produced for commercial purposes an endless amount of fiction.

...That is how Lucian Lamar Knight began his chapter on the capture of Jefferson Davis in his 1913 publication of Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends. The thicket is not quite as dense today, but you can still get a feel of how things were. And some might recall the gossip surrounding the incident, as it most certainly has continued to be passed down over the last 148 years, one of the most common bits being that Davis was captured while wearing women's clothing.

Mr. Knight refutes this in his writing by way of Mr. James H. Parker, a Federal soldier who witnessed the arrest, who stated:

"I am no admirer of Jeff Davis. I am a Yankee, full of Yankee prejudice; but I think it wicked to lie about him or even about the devil. He did not have on at the time he was taken any such garment as is worn by women. He did have over his shoulders a waterproof article of clothing, something like a Havelock. It was not in the least concealed. He wore a hat and did not carry a pail of water on his head."

Mr. Knight also cited T. H. Peabody, one of the captors of Mr. Davis, as saying that the "hoop-skirt story was purely a fabrication of newspaper reporters."

Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site
338 Jeff Davis Park Rd
Fitzgerald, GA

Photos © 2010-2013 S. Lincecum

An Important Piece of the Story?

I saw this little news item and thought it might be an important piece to someone's family history, so here it is:

The Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)
3 February 1910
(Digital image viewed online at Ancestry.)

CHILDREN WEEP BITTERLY WHEN AWARDED TO FATHER
Savannah, Ga., February 2. -- (Special.) -- Judge Davis Freeman today awarded four of five children to John M. Lubeck, but gave the fifth to Miss Lillie Dotson, their aunt, because the mother of the children before her death had expressed a desire that the eldest child should go to her sister.

Judge Freeman, however, required her to promise that no whisky or gin should be given the boy, as had been done in the past.

After this disposition was made of a case that has run for three days in the city court, two of the smaller children wept bitterly when they learned their father had won them from their aunt, and one little boy ran to a cab that was waiting for them, grasped the whip and announced he would fight before his father should have him. He was pacified.