Georgia Natural Wonder #130 - Taliaferro Co. (Part 2) - Electric Health Resort. 1,227

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #130 - Taliaferro County (Part 2) - Electric Health Resort

We covered the State Park - Liberty Hall - Alexander Hamilton Stephens - yesterday. We touched on some sites around Liberty Hall. I thought it would just be a one post Wonder because Taliferro County is the least populated county in the state. But the more I surfed the Net, the more I found interesting. Got over 150 photos, so I broke this down to a Two Part Wonder #130. Really neat (I think) the stuff I found.

Tangent Taliaferro County

Taliaferro County (pronounced "Tolliver"), in east central Georgia, is the state's sixty-ninth county, created in 1825 from Greene, Hancock, Oglethorpe, Warren, and Wilkes counties. It was named for Benjamin Taliaferro, who was a colonel during the American Revolution (1775-83), as well as a Georgia legislator and a judge. The land was originally held by Native Americans, who ceded it to the colonial government of Georgia in 1763.



Benjamin Taliaferro served as a Continental soldier during the American Revolution (1775-83). He moved in 1784 from Virginia to Wilkes County, Georgia, where he established himself as a planter and an upcountry political leader. Taliaferro served as a trustee for the University of Georgia, a state representative, a president of the Georgia senate, a member of the anti-Yazoo faction, a superior court judge, and a member of Congress. Taliaferro County, in east central Georgia, is named in his honor.


Battle of Princeton

Benjamin Taliaferro (pronounced "Tolliver") was born in 1750 in Amherst County, Virginia, to Mary Boutwell and Zachariah Taliaferro, both members of prominent Piedmont families. During the American Revolution Taliaferro avidly supported the American independence, or Whig, cause.  He was promoted to captain, participated in the Battle of Princeton, volunteered to serve in Lee's Legion. He served in two local rifle companies before transferring with his unit to the Sixth Regiment of the Continental army in March 1776. Taliaferro distinguished himself at Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey, and as one of Colonel Daniel Morgan's 500 crack riflemen at Saratoga, New York.



By June 1779 Taliaferro had joined Colonel Richard Parker's First Virginia Battalion to aid Georgia Whigs in their fight to end the British occupation of Savannah.Parker's regiment resided in Augusta before and after the Siege of Savannah in October 1779. The Virginia troops arrived at a time when conservative and radical leaders jockeyed for control of the remnant Whig government. Taliaferro had a chance to observe Georgia Whig politics firsthand before his regiment marched to reinforce Benjamin Lincoln's Southern Army defending Charleston, South Carolina. He was captured by the British at Charleston in 1780. After American forces surrendered the city on May 12, 1780, Taliaferro returned to Amherst County, Virginia, as a paroled prisoner of war.


Capture Charleston.

Two years later Taliaferro joined a migration effort led by his former militia commander, George Mathews. A well-known merchant and land speculator of Augusta County, Virginia, Mathews served briefly in Georgia near the end of the war and brought news of its rich upcountry lands back to Virginia. As did most of Mathews's group, Taliaferro settled in Wilkes County, Georgia. With his first wife he had a family of nine children: Benjamin, Mary Amelia (Emily), Louis Bourbon, Betsy, Martha, David, Thornton, Margaret, and Nicholas. A second marriage produced a tenth child, Zachariah.



Taliaferro worked to recreate the traditional planter-elite status maintained by his Virginia ancestors. He operated a thriving tobacco plantation along the Broad River and in the process became one of the largest slaveholders in Wilkes County. Taliaferro's activities quickly gained him recognition as an influential member of the Goose Pond community. He used this status to build a network of support from family, Virginia acquaintances, and upcountry leaders whom he had met while stationed in Augusta. Taliaferro's efforts garnered him legislative appointment as one of the first trustees of the University of Georgia and as a county magistrate. His coalition of Wilkes citizens elected him to the Georgia Assembly in 1786.



As a state legislator Taliaferro consistently supported issues favoring upcountry growth and economic development. Throughout his political career Taliaferro remained a proponent of conservative Republican principles. He fashioned an alliance with lowcountry planter-elites who shared those same values, including John Milledge and Lachlan McIntosh, a former commander at the Savannah siege. These connections enabled Taliaferro to act as a powerful upcountry assembly member. When Georgia reorganized its government in 1789, Taliaferro entered the state senate, serving as its president from 1792 to 1796.

If anyone has a picture of this guy, PM it to me.

Taliaferro's most notable role as an upcountry leader came with his opposition to the 1789 and 1795 Yazoo land bills. Both statutes involved a legislative effort to sell Georgia's western territories to private land companies. Taliaferro's stand against the 1795 sale and the widespread bribery engaged in by its supporters attracted the attention of James Jackson, a U.S. senator from Georgia. Jackson resigned from the Senate and organized an anti-Yazoo faction to repeal the land sale and remove its supporters from office. Taliaferro briefly considered an appointment from Governor George Mathews (his friend and former commander) to replace Jackson in the Senate but declined. His decision to remain in the state prompted the Jackson-dominated assembly to extend Taliaferro an appointment as superior court justice to stop Yazooists from exerting their influence in the state courts. Supporters of the Yazoo bill challenged Taliaferro's authority and accused him of violating his standards of Republican independence in favor of factional interest. Taliaferro resorted to at least one duel to defend his character against the abuse of his political enemies.


This was the first year the State Capital was at Louisville so Ben did not have to travel far to get to work.

In 1798 Taliaferro agreed to submit his name as a congressional candidate. He won the election and worked with Georgia's federal legislators to arrange a settlement concerning the state's western lands. Their efforts paved the way for an 1802 land cession to Congress. Illness forced Taliaferro to retire from office in 1802. Although upcountry leaders approached Taliaferro in 1813 to serve in the U.S. Senate, he refused. Taliaferro died at his Broad River plantation in September 1821.

Crawfordville

The seat of the 195-square-mile county is Crawfordville, named for William Harris Crawford, an early presidential cabinet member and candidate for U.S. president in 1824. We covered him extensively in our post of Shaking Rock Park and Oglethorpe County GNW #124 , as he is buried in Crawford, Georgia.


Crawford

Hermon Mercer, brother of the founder of Mercer University in Macon, produced a city plan for Crawfordville. Known thereafter as the "Crawfordville Plat," it was later used by a number of Georgia towns. The historic commercial district features buildings dating back to the antebellum period.


Crawfordville Plat

The population was 572 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Taliaferro County.



Attractions


Wall mural in Crawfordville

As already discussed, Crawfordville was the birthplace and home of Alexander H. Stephens. Stephens' home, Liberty Hall, is preserved as a museum and is a part of the A. H. Stephens Historic Park, a Georgia State Park located in Crawfordville. The Taliaferro County Courthouse, built in 1902, is designed in the High Victorian style.



Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, it is the county's second courthouse.



TRD Addendum to covering Crawfordville.

Main Street for Crawfordville was an old Indian Trail. Lafayette came through Crawfordville in his tour of Georgia in 1825.



Vanishing Georgia gives us the following images of historic homes in Taliaferro County.


The home of Dr. White, it’s been empty for many years. I hope someone can save it before it’s too late.


A Queen Anne House.


This is next door to the colorful Queen Anne shown in the previous picture.

TRD wandered around recently looking for Historical markers and homes.



Intersection named after my son.



Historical Society Building Main Street.



More on Main Street.



Not much happening in Crawfordville these days.



Still our Georgia Bulldog Pride is present.



Main Street Saturday morning recently.



Across the Street from the Courthouse.



Hopping town until the Boll Weevil.



Street behind Courthouse.



"Evening on A Village Street"



On New Year's Day 1910, much of downtown Crawfordville was destroyed by fire.The results of the town's recovery can be viewed on this Post Card 1910.

Georgiawood

The movie Sweet Home Alabama was partially filmed in Crawfordville. It includes the historical Taliaferro County Courthouse in one scene, as well as a scene with Reese Witherspoon walking down Main Street.



Paris Trout (1991), starring Dennis Hopper and based on the novel by the same name by Pete Dexter, was primarily filmed in the county.



Coward of the County with Kenny Rogers was filmed in Taliaferro County.



Get Low with Robert Duvall was filmed in Taliaferro County.



The 1978 TV movie Summer of My German Soldier was filmed here.



Other  towns in Taliaferro County are Sharon, incorporated in 1884, and the unincorporated communities of Raytown and Robinson.


Sharon today.

Sharon is a city in Taliaferro County, Georgia, United States. The population was 105 at the 2000 census.

History

The community of Sharon is visible on maps as early as 1865. The Georgia General Assembly incorporated Sharon as a town in 1884. The community is named after the Plain of Sharon, a place mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.



Into the 1890s, Sharon was bustling with thousands of travelers who came there for the reputed healing powers of the nearby Electric Health Resort.



Where it was said that exposure to bedrock in a subterranean chamber provided electrical healing powers.



The resort, which included a hotel, lake, and post office, eventually burned down.



But the rubble left behind is still visible.



In the 1880s and 1890s, Hillman was a boomtown, not because of agriculture or timber, but because of an unusual attraction known as the Electric Health Resort.



The Georgia General Assembly incorporated the place in 1887 as the Town of Hillman. A couple years later a hotel was built on the property and a small resort called the rocks that shock which was a collection of drilled out holes to dip the guests feet in because the water from the underground water source had supposed healing effects.



The story is that Andrew L. Hillman was sick and went mining for valuable minerals to help pay for health care.  When Hillman was drilling for minerals he felt an electrical shock go through his drill and into his body he continued to for a little while longer and when he checked back with a doctor he was no longer ill.



He soon started a resort called the Hillman with a large hotel and smaller buildings around it with areas for the guests to sit on the rocks and dip their feet in the water a while later in 1901 the hotel burnt down and now today very little remains. The town's municipal charter was dissolved in 1995.



Jackie Sturdivant Watson recently shared this history of Hillman: I heard stories of the “Rocks That Shock” from my Grandfather, Bill Dozier, who lived in Hillman from his birth in 1909 until the death of his father in 1922. His brother Wyman remained in Hillman and operated the family’s mercantile store until his death in 1966. As the story goes (very briefly), Reverend A. L. Hillman was searching for gold and alum and sank a shaft on his property. `He felt an electric shock while drilling and soon his rheumatism subsided.



The wonders of electricity was new to the general population in the late 1800's.




Spending time in the ankle deep water in the shaft reportedly caused cures to a variety of illnesses.



As a result, a hotel was built on the property and people came from all around to spend time at the Electric Mound Hotel or “The Hillman”.



Henry W Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, was responsible for the financing and building of the hotel, according to an article in the Advocate-Democrat written by Bill Dozier, Nov. 1, 1991. Bill’s parents, Charles Wilder Dozier and Kate Jackson Dozier were operating the Hillman Hotel when it burned in 1901.


Dozier House from the tracks of the Georgia Woodlands Railroad

I haven’t located anything about the early history of this house, but Jackie Sturdivant Watson writes: My great uncle Wyman Dozier and his wife Annie Sue lived in this house in Hillman in the 1950s and 1960s…The site of the old hotel built in the 1880s is across the road and on the other side of the railroad tracks. Kathy Wright Groseclose notes that the house was occupied as late as the 1980s and was in good condition at that time.



Only the ghost of Electric Health Resort lingers.



Hell, this may have been a better Natural Wonder for Taliaferro County.

Raytown is the oldest community in Taliaferro County, developed around a plantation granted in 1784 to Marmaduke Mendenhall and his sister Hannah Mendenhall, both Quakers. The Mendenhalls named the property Colonsay Plantation, after an island near Scotland. Colonsay Plantation passed through several owners and is still privately owned. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The Colonsay Plantation (originally the Old Hamilton Place) was one of the very earliest tracts of land to be granted in the Ceded Lands, while the Province of Georgia still belonged to the British Crown. It was named after the Scottish island Colonsay.


OK I am having a hard time getting images or history for Mendenhall or Colonsay Plantation, here is  the Scottish island Colonsay.

James Mendenhall, born November 26, 1718, in East Caln, Chester County, Pennsylvania, settled near what is now Jamestown, North Carolina, in 1762 and built a mill on the Deep River at a location that is now within City Lake Park. His original land is now under the water of High Point Lake in Guilford County. His mill was just 8 miles  from the site of the Battle of Guilford Court House. British troops camped at his mill on March 14, 1781, the day before battle.


Battle of Guilford Court House North Carolina.

Due to the persecutions of Governor Tyrone, Mendenhall and his family were forced to move again. He bought 600 acres near Wrightsboro, Georgia on December 7, 1773, when a warrant of survey was granted to him by Governor James Wright. The land was located in the fork of Williams Creek and the Little River, in the extreme northeast corner of what was then Wilkes County. Mendenhall went to Wrightsboro with two of his sons, Phineas and Marmaduke. He was unable to take possession of his grant on Williams Creek because he died shortly after his arrival. He died in the cabin 1782 in Wrightsboro that he had built there and was buried on his land. This land is now in Taliaferro County.



Raytown itself remains a quiet village, comprising of two Churches, two stores (now closed) and about two hand fulls of homes scattered through out the village.  Anyone riding through would undoubtedly say, "Nothing of importance can be found here." 


Writer who influenced Edgar Allen Poe.

In a sense he would be right, but in a larger sense he would be wrong for the Raytown hills and valleys known the tread of many famous men, some of whom but briefly passed this way, and some of whom planted seeds and prospered.



On July 27, 1784, Marmaduke inherited a tract of 600 acres from his father. It was almost square. Starting with the junction of Williams Creek with the Little River, the line followed the river northwardly for about a mile. Turning, it ran a mile straight westward, then a mile, with only a slight dog-leg, southward to join Williams Creek, whose course it followed for another mile until it reached its starting point at the fork of the two streams.



Can't find subject images but did find all these Funky Churches around the County.



In 1789–1790, Marmaduke built a substantial house which apparently was designed as an inn, trading post and stage coach stop on the road from Washington to Wrightsboro. It had two stories and consisted of two large rooms 20 × 20 feet, one over the other. The inside chimney was flanked on one side by a cupboard and on the other by a narrow winding staircase. This staircase was peculiar in that at a height of eight feet it made a complete semicircle. Another circular staircase directly above this led into the loft. The roof sloped down directly over the staircase so that one had to crawl in order to enter the loft. The open beams were all hand-hewn, and all joints were mortised and tenoned and secured with wooden pegs. Both rooms were paneled with wide boards of virgin pine, dark brown and mellowed with the passing years. The house is still standing and occupied. It is owned by Ian Mcfie. Before Ian McFie, the home and 540 of the original 600 acres were owned by his father Girdwood Mcfie. Girdwood maintained the farm animals in exactly the same numbers as listed in the inventory of Marmaduke's estate in 1797.



No church more interesting than Church of Purification.





Super old cemetery.



Civil War

During the Civil War (1861-65) two regiments from Taliaferro County were sent to fight for the Confederacy:

The Fifteenth Regiment, Georgia Infantry, Company D, Stephens Home Guards,


These were the men who were with Toombs at Burnside Bridge.

The Forty-ninth Regiment, Georgia Infantry, Company D, Taliaferro Volunteers.The 49th Georgia Infantry Regiment enlisted 1,160 men during the Civil War. It lost 124 men killed, 18 died of wounds and 289 died of disease.


These links are fantastic recalling history and battles and men lost.

Crawfordville Confederate Memorial (Civil War); Dedicated April 30, 1898; this monument was initially placed at the center of the intersection of Broad and Monument Streets. In 1940, it was relocated to the south lawn of the Taliaferro County Courthouse.



Evidently a local gun manufacturer.



Civil Rights

In 1965 Taliaferro County came to national attention during the struggle to desegregate its schools. Local resistance to integration prompted Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to call for a protest march from Crawfordville to Atlanta.


Hosea marching 1965 with John Lewis in Selma.

According to the 2010 U.S. census, the county's population was 1,717, a decrease from the 2000 population of 2,077, making it the least populous county in Georgia and the second-least populous county east of the Mississippi River (after Issaquena County, Mississippi).


Issaquena County gave us Muddy Waters.

Notable people

Notable persons from Taliaferro County include........

John Loyd Atkinson Sr. - a Tuskegee Airman during World War II (1941-45) and the first black superintendent in the Georgia state parks system.


John Loyd Atkinson Sr., with the help of his family, built the George Washington Carver Park for Negroes on Lake Allatoona as a place for black people, who were not allowed to enter white state parks.

Lloyd D. Brown, United States Army Major General who commanded 28th Infantry Division in World War II



His former home in Washington for sale $385,000.



Dr. Thomas Holley Chivers - An American doctor-turned-poet. He is best known for his friendship with Edgar Allan Poe and his controversial defense of the poet after his death. It is through this relationship that Chivers and his work was rediscovered in the 20th century.


Angry defending Poe.

Robert Grier- founder of Grier's Almanac


A copy of his Almanac back in the day and today.

Historical marker shown above, but here it points to the field, now overgrown, where Grier performed his calculations.



Richard Malcolm Johnston - writer.


We showed his house and historical marker by Liberty Hall yesterday.

Roselle Mercier Montgomery - Educated at Washington female seminary she married New York Lawyer J. Seymour Montgomery and lived in Conn. Considered one of Georgia's best female poets She released two books of poetry Ulysses returns and Many Devices.


Historical Marker shown above on Street she was born. Link provides access to some of her poems.

Romulus Moore - A former slave who became a politician and leader of the early civil rights movement after the American Civil War during the Reconstruction Era.



Michael H. Rhodes -  Crawfordville is also the birthplace of this radio and television personality that worked for Seattle based KING broadcasting during the 1940s–1980s alongside other famous Northwest greats: JP Patches and Stan Boreson.

Great Giggly Wiggly that was a Monster Post and multiple tangents. I - 20 will still be a boring run but there is a lot of history if your interested for exploration. Since Hollywood found Georgia, today's GNW Gals have all acted out in Talliaferro County and Crawfordville.