Georgia Natural Wonder #58 - Savannah River Rapids - Augusta (Part 1). 937

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #58 - Savannah River Rapids - Augusta (Part 1)

We posted about the First National Heritage Area in Georgia yesterday, with the Augusta Canal. We heard about our only two National Heritage Areas when we did Panola Mountain because it was part of a National Heritage Area combined with Arabia Mountain (A future GNW). The main reason we came to Augusta for a Natural Wonder, is because it is located on the Fall Line. We are starting our Fall Line exploration of Georgia in our next several post, giving us great liberty to tangent on the Fall Line Cities of Georgia. The Savannah River provides some outstanding whitewater.



We found this company on line if you want to paddle the Savannah.

Savannah Rapids Kayak Rental

Savannah Rapids Park
Martinez, GA 30907
1 (706) 832-5323

Savannah Rapids Kayak Rental is conveniently located alongside the historic Augusta Canal at the Savannah Rapids Park and Pavilion, we provide kayak rentals for Augusta locals and tourists alike at very reasonable pricing. We have a launch site at our location and friendly staff to help you take off and get started on our most common route down the Augusta Canal to our pick up location at Lake Olmstead where our staff will help you out of your kayaks, load them up on our trailers, and provide shuttle services back to the Savannah Rapids Pavilion if needed. This 5.3 mile trip is perfect for beginners with a nice easy current assisting you; it takes people about 2 hours on average to complete. We provide everything you need except for water, sunscreen, and maybe a zip lock bag for your valuables.



KAYAK RATES Weekday Weekend

• Single $20 $30
• Tandem $30 $40
• Stand-up Paddle boards $30 $30
• Shuttle $5 $5
• Shuttle w/ personal kayak $10 $10

Pricing includes tax. Price is per trip/ 4 hour rental limit

• Paddles, life  vests, whistles are included in price
• Shuttle price is per person (kids and military free)
• You may want to park a car at the Lake Olmstead Park (by boat ramp) to avoid shuttle price



Other things to consider bringing:

1. -Water, snacks, a small cooler
2. -Sunscreen
3. -Cell phone (in case of emergencies)
4. -A dry bag or even just a zip lock bag
5. -A parent/guardian to sign a waiver for anyone under the age of 18
6. -Your dog

River Description

This section of the Savannah offers easy access and lots of areas to explore. It is easy enough that it gets heavy use by recreational kayakers in flat water and touring boats. However, the numerous wide shoals offer plenty of potential for whitewater practice and play spots. The Augusta Canal parallels most of this section and offers additional flat water boating.

Savannah Rapids Park; put in (Class N/A)Put in Stairs

The easiest and most popular put in is just below the Augusta Canal Head gate / Savannah Rapids Pavilion. This county park has a visitor center, picnic areas and plenty of free parking. As you enter the park, turn right to the lowest parking lot. A pedestrian bridge leads across the canal. Fairly wide stairs climb over a low wall then descend to the river.



Previous descriptions suggested putting in at Steven's Creek dam, but as of 2011 there is no public road access to that dam. There is a public launching area 6 miles upstream of Steven's Creek dam on Betty's Branch at German Island. There is also public access 12 miles upstream at the base of Strom Thurmond Dam. The river is flat water above the Augusta Canal Diversion Dam and above Steven's Creek dam. The only whitewater is below the canal diversion dam to Hammond Rapids.



From Edward Leahy"...Put in below the Steven's Creek dam. Following that is about a mile of flat water to the Augusta canal diversion dam. There is some whitewater starting below this dam. The portage is on the Georgia side just below the dam and is accessed via the canal path below the Savannah Rapids pavilion. It is 5 miles to the North Augusta boat ramp. This section is class I-II with one borderline III, Hammond Rapid on the South Carolina side just downstream from the Augusta waterworks (which is on the Ga side. Optimal flow is 8,000- 15,000 CFS. The gauge is downstream and the canal usually diverts around 3,000 CFS. After Hammond rapid, there is no more whitewater on the Savannah."


This You Tube pretty much covers it all.

Historically, the Savannah River was quite rocky upstream of Augusta. River men brought bails of cotton downriver to Augusta in very large but maneuverable canoes, called Petersburg Boats. These rapids are now completely hidden by a series of very long reservoirs which generate hydro-electric power for the region.



Rapid Descriptions

Augusta Canal Diversion Dam (Class N/A, Mile -0.3) Savannah River Spillway

This long dam diverts water into the Augusta Canal. There are a few spots along the dam where some boaters carry over the dam or paddle over without portage. Most boaters will take out on river right about 30 yards upstream of the head gates. They then carry across the head gate to the canal trail and downstream to stairs leading to the river.



Reed Creek (Class V, Mile 0.0) Reed Creek: bottom drop

Reed Creek is a small side creek that is next to the put in parking area at Savannah Rapids Park. The creek enters the Augusta Canal immediately downstream of the pedestrian bridge.



When rains bring the flows up enough, boaters can launch near the top of the parking area and crash down to the canal. There are several large drops in this very short section.



Back to the main river. You are past the dam and you have already seen the wondrous rock garden below in many photos. When the water is up, you can float and re-float this all day.



You go under I-20 and there are long stretches of rocks across the river. This You Tube gives a 7 minute video of a family float.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwcrZDdnbGQ[/video]

There are rocks and class two shoals for several miles, but the main show is coming up.



Hammond Rapid (Class II, Mile 3.9)



These shoals form the main rapid of significance on this section.



They are not usually as high as the top photo indicates.

They are in the far left channel by the South Carolina shore and are the furthest downstream of any rapids.


They can get pretty low sometimes too.

Rae's Creek (Class N/A, Mile 5.4)

The mouth of Rae's Creek is on river right (Georgia side) about 1/4 mile upstream of the North Georgia Boat Landing. It is the first creek outlet on river right below Hammond Rapid. Paddle up the channel almost one half mile to a railroad bridge and an easy take out. There is also a pretty waterfall with water released from the canal.



Rae's Creek a lot more famous upstream.



Take Out:

1) There is a developed public boat launching area on river left at the North Augusta Boat Landing. The landing is on Hammonds Ferry Rd. at Riverview Park, North Augusta, SC. There are limited, primitive campsites nearby which require reservations. Call 803.441.4300


Frisbee golf at this park, woo!

2) Boaters can also take out by paddling up the Rea's Creek channel towards Lake Olmstead. Take out under the railroad bridge. It looks like you may be able to drive a car to this location. However, it is probably faster to just carry boats to the canal trail and then across a pedestrian bridge to a parking area at Milledge Rd and Lake shore Loop. There is a parking area at the canal overflow, which can be reached by taking Broad St. to Goodrich St. toward the pumping station. The takeout trail head is immediately before Goodrich St. crosses the RR tracks. The parking area is immediately after the RR tracks.You could also carry boats along the railroad to the canal trail, then across a pedestrian bridge to a parking area at the end of Milledge Road. The walking distance is about 340 yards. This take out reduces the shuttle distance considerably.



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That was pretty short for a Natural Wonder so let's go way overboard on a History tangent of Augusta and Richmond County. Augusta is Georgia's second oldest and second largest city and is the seat of Richmond County. Augusta was founded in 1735 as part of the British colony of Georgia, under the supervision of colony founder James Oglethorpe. It was the colony's second established town, after Savannah. Today, Augusta is the third-largest city in Georgia, and the largest city of the Central Savannah River Area. Wait is it 2nd or 3rd largest, I love it when dictionary’s clash.



Nature helped determine the course of Augusta's history. Situated at the fall line between the Piedmont and the Upper Coastal Plain, it was first used by Native Americans as a place to cross the Savannah River, because of Augusta's location on the Fall Line. It was the focal point of natural trails, and the head of navigation of the Savannah River, the town was destined to become an important trading center. Abundant waterpower promoted the rise of industry.

The Beginnings

Some 4,000 years ago nomadic hunters stopped at the islands in the shoals of the Savannah River, learned to fish and farm, and remained there for several hundred years. Stallings Island above Augusta has provided valuable artifacts of that culture. Still later, three large chiefdoms dominated the central Savannah River valley.



Hernando de Soto's adventurers found both banks of the river occupied by Uchee Indians in 1540. The first Carolinians encountered the Westo Indians on the left bank of the river in the 1670s. They obtained firearms from the English in Virginia before most other Indians in the Southeast did, which gave them a tremendous military advantage over bow-and-arrow Indians. The Westos used this advantage to enslave natives throughout Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. They then traded their captives as field slaves to colonists in Virginia and South Carolina for items of European manufacture. A wandering tribe called the Savannah Indians, armed by a group of Carolinians, drove out the Westos in the Westo War of 1680 and gave their name to the river. Other small bands, including the Appalachees, the Yuchis, and the Chickasaws settled near the fall line.


During the 1909 season, Shoeless Joe Jackson played 118 games for the South Atlantic League's Savannah Indians. He batted .358 for the year.

In 1716 the Carolinians constructed Fort Moore to guard Savannah Town, a trading post on the present-day site of North Augusta, South Carolina. From there, Carolina traders carried goods to the distant Creeks and Choctaws.



Colonial Augusta


Celtic cross behind Saint Paul's Church, commemorating the site of Fort Augusta

When James Oglethorpe came to Georgia in 1733, he learned that the Creeks resented the unfair trading practices of the Carolinians. He obtained legislation requiring traders west of the Savannah River to secure a Georgia license. In 1736, two years after James Oglethorpe founded Savannah, he sent a detachment of troops on a journey up the Savannah River. He gave them an order to build at the head of the navigable part of the river. On June 14, 1736, gave orders to lay out the town of Augusta after the forty-lot pattern he had used three years earlier for Savannah. The job fell into the hands of Noble Jones, who created the settlement to provide a first line of defense against the Spanish and the French. Jones owned Wormsloe and we learned about him in GNW #39. Oglethorpe then named the town Augusta, in honor of Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales.


Princess Augusta!

Carolina traders based in Savannah Town crossed the river and became Augustans. A fort and its garrison protected the town. When Oglethorpe arrived in the town in September 1739, after his visit to the Creek Nation, he declared it the key to the Indian country. By regulating the trade, he secured the allegiance of the western Indians.



The town was laid out on the flat slopes of the Savannah River, just east of the sand hills that would come to be known as Summerville. The townspeople got along peacefully most of the time with the surrounding tribes of Chickasaw, Creek, Yuchi and Shawnee Indians. The Shawnees in the region were known as the Savano Indians. The name of the Savannah River is an Anglicization of their tribal name.



In 1739, construction began on a road to connect Augusta to Savannah. This made it possible for people to reach Augusta by horse, rather than by boat, and more people began to migrate inland to Augusta. Later, in 1750, Augusta's first church, Saint Paul's, was built near Fort Augusta. It became the leader of the local parish.


Current St. Paul’s was built in 1920. This is the 4th church, 3rd one burned in fire of 1916.

The town's relationship with the neighboring Cherokee who traded with Augusta was not as good as its relationships with other tribes. During the Anglo-Cherokee War their war parties came close to Augusta and were repulsed by the Creek. During the 1759-60 Cherokee War the Creeks and Chickasaws helped defend Augusta. In 1763 a congress of Indian nations met four colonial governors in Augusta, concluded the peace, and ceded land between the Savannah and Ogeechee rivers to Georgia. The treaty set state lines.



By restricting settlement to the Appalachian Mountains, the royal proclamation of 1763 fostered migration into the 1763 cession. Friction soon developed between the new settlers and the Native Americans who followed the traditional trails to Augusta. To accommodate the influx of settlers, Governor James Wright negotiated a second land cession at Augusta in 1773. Creek Indian discontent, however, erupted in a series of raids on outlying settlements in 1773 and early 1774. The perception that the royal government favored the merchants and Indian traders rather than the settlers caused many in the back country to join the revolutionary movement.


Governor James

While slavery was originally banned in the colony by James Oglethorpe, it soon became an integral part of Georgia's history. Under Georgia's new constitution, a new political structure was laid out in 1777; Augusta's parish government was replaced by a county government, Richmond County, named after the Duke of Richmond.


Field Marshal Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond painted 1758

American Revolutionary Era

George Walton, whose home at Meadow Garden still stands in Augusta, signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

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Tangent on George Walton was one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence. He served in numerous capacities for the state of Georgia after the American Revolution (1775-83).



The exact year of Walton's birth is unknown; it is believed that he was born in 1749 in Virginia. In 1769 he moved to Savannah, where he pursued a legal career. By the eve of the American Revolution he was one of the most successful lawyers in Georgia. Active in Georgia's Revolutionary government, he was elected to the Provincial Congress and then became president of the Council of Safety in 1775. In 1776 he served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where on July 4 he signed the Declaration (along with Button Gwinnett and Lyman Hall of Georgia).


The bottom of the 3 Georgia signatures on the left.

Walton served the state in a variety of important capacities: trained as a lawyer, he served in the Continental Congress (1776–81) and in the Georgia militia, in whose service he was captured by the British during the 1778 Capture of Savannah. Exchanged and released, he was soon afterward elected Governor of Georgia, an office he held from November 1779 to January 1780. Having switched allegiances from the conservative to the radical faction, he served for two controversial months before reelection to Congress.


Bust in rotunda of Georgia State Capital.

After the Revolution Walton served as chief justice of Georgia, as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1788 that ratified the new federal constitution, as a presidential elector in 1789, as governor that same year, as U.S. senator (appointed by the legislature when James Jackson stepped down to fight the Yazoo Land Act), and as a justice of the state superior court. He eventually retired in the 1780s to College Hill in 1804. Walton County is named for him.


College Hill 1934.

In 1787, the state of Georgia granted George Walton 100 acres outside Augusta for his services to the state. Walton had "College Hill" built on this land in 1795, moving there from Meadow Garden. The house has been in the hands of his descendants (named Harper) since then.College Hill, also known as George Walton House, Harper House, or Walton-Harper House, is a historic house at 2216 Wrightsboro Road in Augusta, Georgia. It was built in 1795, and was the home George Walton, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, from then until his death in 1804. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1971. It is a private residence, and is not open to the public. The Walton House is located on the south side of Wrightsboro Road, about 2 miles west of downtown Augusta. It is set on a secluded 6-acre estate, all that is left of the 100 acres it was originally associated with. It is a two-story wood frame structure, with a gabled roof, clapboard siding, and a pair of brick chimneys near the ends. The main facade, seven bays wide, is adorned with a two-story veranda, the sections each consisting of a segmented arch supported by slender square columns. Entrances at each level are located at the center, with flanking sidelight windows and pilasters, and fanlight windows above.



He and Lyman Hall, another of Georgia's three signers, are buried beneath Signers' Monument on Greene Street. They never could find the body of Button Gwinnett (he was body snatched from his current Savannah grave). Dedicated July 4, 1848, in honor of the signers of the Declaration of Independence for Georgia: George Walton, Lyman Hall and Button Gwinnett. The first two lie buried in crypts beneath this shaft. The body of Gwinnett has never been found.



The historical marker reads…….

George Walton, born in Virginia, settled in Georgia, and was a colonel in the Revolutionary Army, twice governor of Georgia, judge of Superior Court and chief justice of Georgia, six times elected to Congress and served one term as United States Senator; wounded and captured by British at Savannah.

Dr. Lyman Hall, born in Connecticut, was one of the group of ardent revolutionaries from Midway, Georgia, who helped lead Georgia into open rebellion in 1776. He represented Georgia in the Continental Congress.

Button Gwinnett, born in England, settled in Savannah shortly before the Revolution and was a magnetic and fiery figure in the early days of the war. He was president of Georgia in March 1777. A quarrel with General Lachlan McIntosh, arising out of the ill-fated expedition to Florida, resulted in a duel in May 1777, on the outskirts of Savannah in which Gwinnett was mortally wounded.

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Back to Augusta history, during the American Revolution, Savannah fell to the British. This left Augusta as the new state capital and a new prime target of the British. General Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander in chief, sent an army under Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell to land on the Georgia coast, march to Augusta, and there meet Indian allies. Thomas (Burnfoot) Brown and his rangers joined Campbell's regulars in Savannah and marched to Augusta. On the way they attempted to rescue Loyalists in the Burke County jail; Brown was wounded in the effort. We learned about Brown in several earlier GNW's. He was lynched but survived an attack by patriots in Columbia County, then went all ape shit as leader of loyalist and really did some vengeful things like killing General Screven at Midway instead of taking him prisoner.



The Indians were slow to arrive, and a contingent of Loyalists were caught by Georgia and South Carolina militia under Elijah Clarke, John Dooly, and Andrew Pickens and defeated in the Battle of Kettle Creek on February 14, 1779. The British retreated from Augusta, only to turn on the pursuing Americans in the Battle of Briar Creek, March 3, 1779. The British victory there permitted the restoration of royal government in Georgia and the return of Governor James Wright and his council.


Briar Creek

During the French and American Siege of Savannah in October 1779 Brown and his rangers helped defend the city. Sir Henry Clinton dispatched more troops to Georgia and South Carolina and laid siege to Charleston. When that important city fell to the British on May 12, 1780, American opposition generally collapsed. Thomas Brown and his rangers, now styled the King's Rangers, garrisoned Augusta. In 1779 Brown became superintendent of the Creek and Cherokee Indians and attempted to employ them against rebel resistance according to his original plan. In September 1780, however, Brown was surprised by a raid of approximately 600 Georgians under Clarke at his camp in Augusta. Elijah Clarke's failed attack upon Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Brown in September 1780 was a prelude to the American victory at Kings Mountain.



In the course of a four-day battle Brown was again wounded but was relieved by British reinforcements from Ninety-Six, South Carolina. Either Brown or Lieutenant Colonel John Harris Cruger, who outranked him, ordered thirteen American prisoners hanged in accordance with Lord Cornwallis standing order regarding those who swore to lay down their arms and took them up again. For better protection of Augusta, Brown constructed Fort Cornwallis on the grounds of St. Paul's Church, dismantling the church in the process.



He withstood a siege by continentals under Lieutenant Colonel Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, Georgians under Lieutenant Colonel Elijah Clarke, and South Carolinians under General Andrew Pickens. After two weeks of fierce fighting, during which Americans dug trenches near the fort and mounted a cannon on an improvised tower, Brown, together with his rangers and their Indian allies, surrendered on June 5, 1781.



Brown was taken under escort to Savannah and paroled. When he was exchanged for an American officer held by the British, he recruited another regiment of rangers and engaged in skirmishes outside Savannah with encircling American troops under General Anthony Wayne. A hastily reconvened Georgia legislature in Augusta gave American peace negotiators cause to argue for Georgia's independence, even though Savannah remained in British hands for another year.

Federal Period

After shuttling between Augusta and Savannah, the state legislature convened in Augusta from 1785 to 1795 while a new capital was prepared at Louisville, on the Ogeechee River. A commission governed the town, laid out new streets, disposed of land, and in 1783 chartered a school, Richmond Academy. Classes did not begin until 1785, but Richmond Academy was the only school in operation in the state until after 1785, when the legislature authorized county academies and a state university.



Old Richmond Academy.



Two more Revolutionary War soldiers made their mark on Augusta history.


William Few great grandson Sid Williams, started Life Chiropractic College.

William Few was one of Georgia's two signers of the United States Constitution. Born in Baltimore, Maryland June 18, 1748. Lieutenant Colonel, Georgia Militia during the American Revolution, 1776-1770. Representative, Georgia General Assembly 1777, 1779, 1783, 1793. Delegate, Continental Congress 1780-1788. Delegate, Constitutional Convention and Signer of the United States Constitution for Georgia, 1787. Member, Georgia Convention to ratify the United States Constitution, January 2, 1788. One of the First Two United States Senators from Georgia, 1780 - 1703. Trustee, University of Georgia, 1785. Delegate, New York General Assembly, 1802-1805. Inspector of New York Prisons, 1802-1810. Alderman, City of New York, 1813-1814. Director Manhattan Company, 1807-1813. President, City Bank of New York,1814-1816. President, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, 1820. Died in Beacon, New York, July 16, 1828. Buried at the Reformed Church of Beacon. Remains Removed and Reinterred in Augusta, Georgia, October 10, 1973.


Damn..... folks in Augusta are ghoulish digging up these dead document signers.

Robert Forsyth was the first federal law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty. Captain of Light Dragoons in Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee's cavalry during the Revolutionary War, Forsyth had been appointed the first marshal for the District of Georgia by President Washington in 1789. Forsyth also served as justice of the peace and as a trustee of Richmond Academy. On January 11, 1794, Marshal Forsyth, accompanied by two of his deputies, went to the house of Mrs. Dixon, in Augusta, to serve a civil court process on two brothers, Beverly and William Allen. Beverly Allen, a former Methodist minister from South Carolina, saw the Marshal approaching, so he hid in a room on the second floor of the house. When Forsyth knocked on the door of the room, Alan fired his pistol at the direction of the knocking. The ball hit Forsyth in the head, killing him instantly. The deputies arrested the two brothers immediately. Robert Forsyth was 40 years old. He left behind a wife and his two sons, Robert and John. John was 13 at the time of his father’s death. William Allen pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. Beverly Allen was sent to the Richmond County Jail but managed to escape with the help of a guard. He was recaptured a short time later and placed in the Albert County Georgia jail. But justice was not to be served. Led by William Allen, a group of armed men helped Beverly Allen escape the second time. The Allen Brothers reportedly, fled to Texas and were never recaptured.


Sheriff Robert.

Robert Forsyth, father of Georgia Governor John Forsyth, is buried in St. Paul's cemetery. In 1981 the United States Marshals Service created the “Robert Forsyth Act of Valor Award,” which commemorates the first Marshal killed while performing the duties of his office.



Jesse Peters Galphin, one of the African American organizers of the pre-revolutionary Silver Bluff Baptist Church, led the congregation to Augusta after the Revolution and established Springfield Baptist Church. Silver Bluff–Springfield traces its roots to the year 1773, bolstering its claim to be the oldest African American congregation in the United States.


Springfield Baptist Church, 1867-1879 site of the Augusta Institute. In 1879 the Institute moved to Atlanta, and in 1913 became known as Morehouse College.

Land speculation dominated politics while the legislature met in Augusta. Legislators were stockholders in land companies, to which they sold state land in the infamous Yazoo Fraud. Augusta town government, established in 1789, proved ineffective. The legislature granted a city charter in 1798. During the 1790s Augusta prospered as a tobacco market. After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton took precedence over tobacco as the chief staple of trade.



Augusta Cotton Exchange Building It was designed by Enoch William Brown and built in the mid-1880s during a cotton boom. The structure includes ornate details and ironwork and is considered High Victorian architecture. Materials for its construction were supplied locally by Charles F. Lombard's foundry. The exchange was organized for the cotton trade. It housed brokers and a trading floor. Women were excluded and off hours cockfights and Saturday football meetups took place.

Antebellum Expansion

Augusta enjoyed prestige as the principal market of the expanding Georgia back country during the antebellum period. A number of handsome residences testify to the prosperity of the period. George Washington visited the city in 1791, James Monroe in 1819, the Marquis de Lafayette in 1825, Henry Clay in 1844, and Daniel Webster in 1847. Other prominent Augustans are presented on local historical markers. Here stood the home of Edward Telfair. He was one of the group of young patriots led by Joseph Habersham, who broke open the British powder magazine at Savannah on May 11, 1775 and carried away the powder for future use in the Revolutionary War. Later Telfair became a member of the Continental Congress and was the first Governor of Georgia after adoption of the U.S. Constitution. It is believed that as Governor he entertained George Washington in his home here in 1791, when Augusta was the State Capital.



No images of Telfair or his Augusta home. There is a Mary Telfair house in Savannah. Anyway, two photos his grave in Savannah.



This house was part of the home of John Forsyth located on this property. As U.S. Minister to Spain, in 1819 Forsyth negotiated the treaty by which Florida was acquired by the United States. He was Congressman from Georgia, 1813- 1818; 1823- 1827; Governor of Georgia, 1827- 1829; U.S. Senator, 1819; 1829- 1834; Secretary of State of the United States, 1834- 1841 under U.S. presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. In 1832, he successfully led the State`s opposition to the nullification movement at the Milledgeville Convention.





Richard Henry Wilde, one of Georgia`s most gifted sons - poet, scholar. lawyer, statesman. lived in this house from 1825 to 1842. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Sept. 24, 1789, he moved to Augusta with his parents in 1802. He was listed as a merchant and law student until 1809, when admitted to the bar. Served as Solicitor General and ex-officio Attorney General of Georgia in 1811- 13; elected to Congress in 1815- 17, again in 1825 and for four more terms in 1827 through 1835.





Spent his time writing and traveling from 1835 through 1840, then moved to New Orleans to teach law at the University of Louisiana in 1843. He died in New Orleans in 1847 but was reburied in the Augusta City Cemetery in 1886. Damn, another dead writer reclaimed by this city.


2229 Pickens Road, Augusta

Three Augustans - Freeman Walker, Nicholas Ware, and John Pendleton King - served in the U.S. Senate.


Walker – Ware - King

Wares Folly is perhaps the most famous house in Augusta, the Nicholas Ware House was given its pejorative nickname for its excessive construction costs. Ware was an early Augusta mayor and United States Senator. The structure is now home to the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art.



George W. Crawford was secretary of war in U.S. president Zachary Taylor's administration. Crawford died on July 27, 1872, at his Belair estate.


George

Augusta’s prominence and prosperity were due partly to improvements in transportation. The first steamboat reached Augusta in 1816. Gazaway Bugg Lamar of Augusta built the first iron steamers for the Savannah-Augusta trade. Narrow "Petersburg" boats carried goods from the upper Savannah River towns through the rapids to Augusta. A German immigrant named Henry Schultz operated the first commercial wharfs at Augusta, constructed the first successful bridge, and laid out the town of Hamburg, South Carolina, opposite Augusta. The 136-mile railroad from Charleston to Hamburg was said to be the longest in the world when it was completed in 1833.


All that remains from first bridge today.

Augusta and Athens entrepreneurs hired John Edgar Thomson to build the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to Atlanta and later connected it with the Carolina railroad. The construction of the Augusta Canal in 1845 provided industrial waterpower that would help make the South less dependent upon the North for manufactures. We went into the canal with great detail yesterday.


Thompson and Augusta Depot.

Augustans made distinctively southern contributions in fields from science to religion. In 1828, the Georgia General Assembly granted a formal charter for the Medical Academy of Georgia, and the school began training physicians in two borrowed rooms of the City Hospital. MCG studied regional diseases and issued The Southern Medical and Surgical Journal. By 1873, an affiliation was made with the University of Georgia, and the school became the Medical Department of the University. The school would become the Medical College of Georgia in 1956. In 1914, University Hospital was founded near the Medical College, forming the anchor of a heavily developed medical sector in the city.


Old Medical College

An influential agricultural journal, The Southern Cultivator, was published in Augusta. Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, an Augusta native, wrote a popular series of humorous sketches entitled Georgia Scenes (1835).


Augustus

The Southern Baptist Convention (1845) and the Southern Presbyterian Church (1861) were established in Augusta. In 1845, Augusta was the location of the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention, today one of the largest Protestant denominations in the country. Due to increasing tensions between northern and southern Baptists on the subject of slavery in the 1840s, southern Baptists decided to withdraw formally from the national Baptist organizations. They met at the First Baptist Church of Augusta in May 1845 and formed the new convention, naming it the Southern Baptist Convention.



From then until the American Civil War, with the establishment of the Augusta Canal, Augusta became a leader in the production of textiles, gunpowder, and paper. The Georgia Railroad was built by local contractors Fannin, Grant & Co in 1845, giving Augusta a rail link to Atlanta. The railroad connected to the Tennessee River at Chattanooga, Tennessee, thus providing access from inland Georgia to the Mississippi River. The cost-savings of this link from the middle of the country to the Atlantic Ocean via the Savannah River increased trade considerably.



The old Southern Railway freight depot stands at Fifth and Reynolds Street (above and below). Parts of the building date back to the 1850s when the site was used by the South Carolina Railroad (later merged into Southern). The long freight section along Reynolds Street was constructed in the early 1900s.



By 1860 Augusta had a population of 12,493; it was then one of 102 U.S. cities to have a population of over 10,000, and was the second largest city in Georgia.

Civil War

Originally, Augustans welcomed the idea of the Civil War. The new Confederate Powderworks were the only permanent structures constructed and completed by the Confederacy. Because of the rail connections and the canal's waterpower, Colonel George W. Rains constructed the Confederate Powder Works in Augusta. The tall chimney of the Powder Works stands today as a memorial to the Confederate dead.



The city contributed more than 2,000 soldiers to the Confederacy. Several area residents gained prominence during the war, among them Generals James Longstreet, Lafayette McLaws, William Henry Talbot Walker, and "Fighting Joe" Wheeler.




Augusta Arsenal




Came by this historical marker and rock for Wheeler off Wheeler Road.



A short distance north of this place, General Joseph Wheeler was born on Sept. 10, 1836. He graduated from West Point in 1859 and held the rank of 2nd lieutenant when the Civil War broke out. Resigning his commission in the Mounted Rifles, U.S.A., to join the Confederate Army, Wheeler was promoted within twenty-one months to major general in charge of all cavalry of the Army of Tenn. In Feb. 1865, he was commissioned lieutenant general. Wheeler played prominent parts in Bragg’s invasion of Ky., and the campaigns of Chattanooga, Atlanta, Savannah, and the Carolinas. Criticized for lack of discipline among his troops, Wheeler was superseded by Lieutenant General Wade Hampton as chief of cavalry. Wheeler had 16 horses shot out from under him during Civil War combat. He was wounded three times, and also had 36 officers on his staff killed or wounded. After the war, Wheeler lived in the town of Wheeler, Ala., which was named for him. He studied law and was admitted to the Ala. bar. Elected to Congress in 1881, he served almost continuously until his resignation in 1900. As a major general of the U.S. Volunteers in the Spanish-American War, Wheeler fought at San Juan Hill, as well as in the Philippines. He retired from the U.S. Regular Army in 1900 with the rank of brigadier general. General Wheeler died in 1906 and is buried in Arlington Cemetery.


Here he is (small older scruffy) up front with Teddy and the boys at San Juan Hill.

But the war did not set into the minds of Augustans until the summer of 1863. It was in that year that thousands of refugees from areas threatened by invasion came crowding into Augusta, leading to shortages in housing and provisions. Next came the threatening nearness of General Sherman's advancing army, causing panic in the streets of the once-quiet town. Sherman, thinking that Augusta was more heavily defended than it actually was, avoided the city on his march to the sea. The city was never burned to the ground.


Confederate section Magnolia Cemetery

Other sons of Augusta made their marks on Civil War history. James Ryder Randall, a 22-year-old Baltimore native teaching English literature at Poydras College in Pointe-Coupee, Louisiana, was outraged at the news of Union troops being marched through his home town.



This incident stirred Randall’s Southern sympathies, inspiring him to write a poem said to be American’s "most martial poem." Maryland, My Maryland was first published in the April 26, 1861 edition of the New Orleans Delta. The poem, the best known of all Randall's poetry, quickly found its way back to Baltimore where it was eventually set to the familiar music of O Tannenbaum [O Christmas Tree]. It became instantly popular and the most famous war song of the Confederacy.



After the war was over in 1865, Randall served several positions with various newspapers. His final post was as an editor and correspondent for the Augusta Chronicle.


Statute of Randall downtown

One of two native Georgians who served as generals in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, Montgomery C. Meigs was born here on May 3, 1816, grandson of a University of Georgia president. After graduating from West Point, he oversaw construction of some of Washington D.C.'s greatest engineering feats, including the U.S. Capitol dome. Meigs became Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army in 1861, coordinating the massive supply effort throughout the Civil War, and continuing in that position until he retired in 1882. His organizational genius created an efficient war machine that helped defeat the Confederacy.



In 1864, Meigs ordered that Arlington, the confiscated plantation of Robert E. Lee's wife, be used for military burials, creating the nation's premier national cemetery. Meigs was buried there when he died Jan. 2, 1892.



Jesus, 2 AM and I am just through the Civil freaking War. Oh well, guess this will have to be a three part post for Augusta history Sunday. Our GNW gal for today at Rae Creek Falls Augusta.


Dang we haven't had a face yet in Augusta. Added two more Gals at a Georgia waterfall, fun diversion, seeking GNW Gals.