INTERESTING BITS OF HABERSHAM COUNTY HISTORY PART 2 EARLY HISTORY OF HABERSHAM VERY IMPORTANT TO GEORGIA, PART 2 Miss Addie Bass The county of Habersham, as originally organized in 1818, was bounded on the north by Rabun, east by the Tugalo river, south by Franklin and Hall counties. It was thirty-one miles long and twenty-three miles wide, containing 713 square miles. This territory was originally owned by the Cherokee Indians. Six miles southeast of Clarkesville stood for many years the Chopped Oak, a favorite meeting place of the Indians where they planned their raids upon the whites and to quote Lucien Knight, "judging from the appearance of the tree when last seen, the Indians must have made life in this region a mightmare to the settlers." The county was named in honor of Joseph Habersham, of Savannah, whose father, James Habersham, accompanied the Rev. George Whitfield to Georgia from England. The town of Clarkesville dates its beginning from 1821. It was named for Gen. Elisah Clarke, soldier of the Revolution and twice governor of our state. My grandmother said that when she came here a bride in 1838, the U. S. Troops were encamped here for the purpose of removing the Indians. The young Lieutenant in command was J. B. Magruder, who afterwards became a famous Confederate General. The discovery of gold in the Nacoochee Valley soon brought to this hitherto unknown section many seekers after the precious metal, but from the first the settlers were of a very superior class. The attitude is such that it has almost unrivaled advantages as a summer climate, and before the railroad system was opened, when it was necessary to reach these mountain resorts by private conveyance, the people from the low country began to come here for the summer. The population, however, was made up largely of the sturdy stock before-mentioned. In 1830 the population was 10,000 in the county. The first Court House, erected in 1821, was the little wooden building occupied for many years by John Jones, and adjacent to his livery stable. Here the famous Judge Dooly held Habersham's first court. The firsdt bank was established in the little building, still standing, known for years after it ceased to be a bank as Mr. Sam Lambert's tailor shop. The second Court House was built in 1832 and stood on an elevation in the center of the public square. This elevation, known as the Court House wall, was the gathering place for the men of the town. The jail at this time stood on the corner just above Mr. Frank Asbury's present home. It was a very ordinary wooden building and badly arranged. Dr. George D. Phillips, a Virginian, came from North Carolina and settled at Farm Hill where his son, the beloved Dr. Jas. P. Phillips, lived for so long. Dr. George Phillips was also the father of Col. Chas. D. Phillips and Gen. Wm. Phillips, and these three sons were all gallant officers in the Confederate army. My great uncle, Col. Samuel A. Wales, just graduated from the law school at Yale, built the house afterwards owned successively by General Toombs and Judge Bleckley, and burned while the home of the latter. It was here that Col. Wales' sister, Catherine, whose home was in Mt. Zion, where she was a graduate of Dr. Beman's famous school, visited her brother and met the man she afterward married, Alexander Erwin. Col. Wales' brother-in-law, Col. Turner H. Trippe, built the Campbell house long the residence of Rev. A. C. Ketchum and now owned by Mrs. Walter B. Hill. My grandfather, Alexander Erwin, a North Carolinian, son of a man who as a mere boy fought at the battle of King's Mountain, came here in 1829. He, with Gen. B. F. Patton, a brother-in-law of Dr. George Phillips, put up a store for the purpose of trading with the Indians. Their place of business was the old O'Callaghan building on the site of the present Court House. Too old for service when the War Between the States broke out, he kept the postoffice and helped to look after the affairs of the town, but he sent three gallant sons, Capt. W. S. Erwin, J. B. Erwin and Capt., afterwards Judge, Alex S. Erwin. John R. Stanford, a man of fine family and of wealth, was for years a prominent merchant here. He built the beautiful home on the hill which he called Pomona Hall, afterwards owened by Gen. Jeremy Francis Gilmer and now in the possession of his son-in-law, J. F. Minis. This home was long the center of hospitality for the little town. Mrs. Stanford was of the distinguished Charlton family of Savannah. Mr. Jarvis Van Buren came here from New York to take charge of the iron works at what is now the Porter Mills. He was a cousin of President Martin Van Buren and was said to resemble him greatly. He bore the distinction of having been the engineer on the first railroad train ever successfully run in the United States. It was a line about forty miles in length and ran from Albany to Schenectady, N. Y. William Smith built the Grove House. He was the grandfather of Rev. William Beane, Thos. S. Beane and the Ansleys of Atlanta. Judge Garnett Andrews in his "Reminiscences of an Old Georgia Lawyer" gives an amusing account of a lawyer of our town whom he called Col. Stamper. The original of this sketch was William A. Steelman, and he owned the house afterwards owned and occupied by Alexander Erwin. He was a brother-in-law of J. W. H. Underwood and was said to have been quite as original a character as Judge Andrews has depicted him. The Grove house afterwards came into the possession of Col. Robert McMillan, who came from County Antrim, Ireland, in 1831, and settled in Elbert county, removing to Habersham in 1852. He was a fiery little Irishman. His father was a Scotchman and his mother was Jane Montgomery, a niece of the famous general who fell at the battle of Quebec. Col. McMillan went heart, soul and money into the Confederate cause. He raised and commanded the 24th Georgia Regiment, although nearly sixty years old and was noted for his bravery. When Gen. Thos. R. R. Cobb fell, mortally wounded at Fredericksburg, Col. McMillan was placed in temporary command and would have been made Brigadier-General but his health failed and he came home to die. His son, Capt. Garnett McMillan, my father, who married Miss Julia Erwin, was a student in Emory and Henry College in Virginia when the war broke out. On the eve of graduation he came home and enlisted as a private in his father's regiment, subsequently becoming Captain of the 2nd battalion, Georgia Sharp-Shooters. In 1874 he received the Democratic nomination for Congress over the great Benjamin H. Hill and in the ensuing election he swept the field by a majority of 5,500 votes. But in January 1875, less than two months before the opening of Congress, he died at the early age of thirty-two and Mr. Hill succeeded him. That Habersham deserves its reputation of being one of the two spots with the lowest death rate in the world is borne out by the fact that the little Methodist cemetery holds the dust of all the Clarkesville citizens who passed away during a period of seventy-five years. The present place of interment was laid off in 1893, and Capt. Wm. Stanhope Erwin was the first person buried in it. In the old cemetery rest the remains of at least two Revolutionary soldiers, Mr. McCroskey, the grandfather of Mrs. Caroline Hunt, and Matthew Rhodes. As we have before said the delightful climate of Habersham attracted many persons from the low country who built handsome homes in the vicinity of Clarkesville. One of these was the summer home of John McPherson Berrien, Attorney General under Andrew Jackson and twice U. S. Senator. By a strange coincidence this place was brought by Amos T. Akerman, who held the same office under President Grant. The Alston home near Clarkesville was built by Col. Alston, who was either a brother or nephew of Governor Alston of South Carolina, who married the beautiful and ill-fated Theodosia Burr, daughter of Aaron Burr. The Alston place passed into the hands of the Middleton brothers, Arthur and Walter, grandsons of the signer of the Declaration of Independence. To Habersham also came John E. Ward, first U. S. minister to China. He built a handsome house on the Tallulah Falls road, but it was burned and nothing remains to mark the spot except the old well and a few charred logs on the terraces. Judge Law lived between Clarkesville and Mt. Airy. I have heard my mother say what a pretty sight it was to see him come into church on Sunday morning with his fourteen pretty daughters, occupying two pews. I do not think I have exaggerated the number, but think of having to dress than many girls! Judge Law's home was later owned by Robert Tyler Waller, a grandson of President Tyler. Mrs. Waller and her brother George H. Johnson, long a resident of Clarkesville, were great-grandchildren of Major Gen. Nathanel Greene. The venerable and saintly Rev. W. E. Eppes lived at his county home, Sunnyside, and was rector of the Episconal church. He was, if I mistake not, a grandson of Thomas Jefferson. Thos. M. Bradford, whom many will recall as postmaster, was a lineal descendent of James Madison. Mrs. Adkins and Mrs. Robert Lambert were daughters of Dr. Malthus Ward, who had charge of the old Botanical garden at Athens. The fine ld home, Anadale, was begun by Col. Robert McMillan. It was sold to Mr. Waring and later to the brothers, Edwin M. and Geo. W. Clayton of North Carolina, who lived there for some years. General Duncan L. Clinch, a noted officer of the U. S. Army, established a summer home in the same neighborhood and here, as a boy, played his grandson, ex-Governor Duncan Clinch Heyward, of South Carolina. Here also lived the Trists, Owens, Haskells and Kollocks, the latter being close relatives of Commodore Tattnall. The very quaint old home now occupied by J. A. Erwin was, I think, built by Richard Habersham, who sleeps in the old cemetery at Clarkesville. General Toombs and Judge Bleckley were once familiar figures on our streets. The former might be seen almost any day disdaining the sidewalk and strolling down the middle of the stree, an unlighted cigar in his mouth as he wended his way to his accustomed seat on the Court House wall, where he wa ever the center of a circle of admirers. But after the death of his beloved wife, he sold his home to Judge Bleckley and returned to Washington. Next in my mother's notes I find the following: Schools, hotels, churches. Memory is the only guide I have here. Col. Sam Wales had, for awhile, a small boarding school at his home and Miss Metzler taught here about the same time. The old "Academy," which has been turned over to the negroes was probably the first school house built by the town. Buy many of us who went there part of the time received also a part of our education at the "Old College" which stood on "College Hill," and was removed to give place to the beautiful home of Mr. A. N. LaRierre. This rambling old building had its beginning as a girls' boarding school, but it was never successful and was soon abandoned except as it was used from time to time as a county school. White's statistics gives Clarkesville in its early days as having three hotels, "all of which possess the art of making travelers comfortable." One of these was the Phoenix, which stood on Main Street next to Mr. Lambert's tailor shop. Another was the Habersham House, now the Mountain View, and the third must, I think, have been the old Allegheney House. I do not know who built the latter but when I can first remember the Stanfords lived there. Dr. And Mrs. Burns set up housekeeping in the Allegheney in 1885. I do not know which wa built first the old Methodist church which stood in the center of the old cemetery, or the Episcopal church. My first recollection of th elatter is hearing the sainted Bishop Beckwith preach from its high, old-fashioned pulpit. The Presbyterian church was dedicated on the first Sabbath in July, 1848, and my mother, an infant less than two years old, was baptized in it on that day. In it have preached Dr. Nathan Hoyt and Dr. Henry Hoyt, grandfather and uncle of the beloved Groves H. Cartledge and many others of distinction. Few sections of our state have more claim to history than this. It is sacred ground and no one has ever lived here but feels at times the longing to return.