BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH
How often it occurs that the great work a man set out originally to
accomplish, is lost sight of, by future generations, in contemplation of
other achievements of that man, which he himself regarded as of
secondary importance.
In 1733, the year in which General Oglethorpe started his Georgia
colony, there were more than a hundred offenses for which a person might
be hanged in England; Oglethorpe's primary idea in founding the colony
was to provide a means of freeing debtors from prison, and giving them a
fresh start in life; yet it is as the man responsible for the laying out
of the beautiful city of Savannah, that Oglethorpe is probably most
widely remembered to-day.
Oglethorpe was a first-rate soldier. He defeated a superior Spanish
force from Florida, and successfully resisted attacks from the Indians.
Also, he was a man whose ethical sense was in advance of his period. He
did not permit slavery in Georgia, and it was not adopted there until he
went back to England. In planning Savannah he was assisted by a
Charleston engineer named Bull, for whom the chief street of Savannah
is named. The place is laid out very simply; it has rectangular blocks
and wide roads, with small parks, or squares, at regular intervals.
There are some two dozen of these small parks, aside from one or two
larger parks, a parade ground, and numerous boulevards with double
roadways and parked centers, and the abundance of semi-tropical foliage
and of airy spaces, in Savannah, gives the city its most distinctive and
charming quality--the quality which differentiates it from all other
American cities. Originally these parks were used as market-places and
rallying points in case of Indian attack; now they serve the equally
utilitarian purposes of this age, having become charming public gardens
and playgrounds. One of them--not the most important one--is named
Oglethorpe Square; but the monument to Oglethorpe is placed elsewhere.
Madison Square, Savannah, is relatively about as important as Madison
Square, New York, and though smaller than the latter, is much prettier.
It contains a monument to Sergeant Jasper, the Revolutionary hero who,
when the flag was shot down from Fort Moultrie, off Charleston, by the
British, flung it to the breeze again, under fire. Jasper was later
killed with the flag in his arms, in the French-American attempt to take
Savannah from the British. Monterey Square has a statue of Count
Pulaski, who also fell at the siege of Savannah. Another Revolutionary
hero remembered with a monument is General Nathanael Greene who, though
born in Rhode Island, moved after the war to Georgia where, in
recognition of his services, he was given an estate not far from
Savannah. "Mad" Anthony Wayne, a Pennsylvanian by birth, also accepted
an estate in Georgia and resided there after the Revolution.
An interesting story attaches to Greene's settlement in Georgia. The
estate given to him was that known as Mulberry Grove, above the city, on
the Savannah River. The property had previously belonged to
Lieutenant-governor John Graham, but was confiscated because Graham was
a loyalist. Along with the property, Greene apparently took over the
Graham vault in Colonial Cemetery--now a city park, and a very
interesting one because of the old tombs and gravestones--and there he
was himself buried. After a while people forgot where Greene's remains
lay, and later, when it was decided to erect a monument to his memory in
Johnson Square, they couldn't find any Greene to put under it. However,
they went ahead and made the monument, and Lafayette laid the
cornerstone, when he visited Savannah in March, 1825. Greene's remains
were lost for 114 years. They did not come to light until 1902, when
some one thought of opening the Graham vault. Thereupon they were
removed and reinterred in their proper resting place beneath the
monument which had so long awaited them. That monument, by the way, was
not erected by Savannah people, or even by Southerners, but was paid for
by the legislature of the general's native Rhode Island. When the
remains were discovered, Rhode Island asked for them, but Savannah,
which had lost them, also wanted them. The matter was settled by a vote
of Greene's known descendants, who decided almost unanimously to leave
his remains in Savannah.
The foundation of the general's former home at Mulberry Grove may still
be seen. It was in this house that Eli Whitney invented the cotton-gin.
Whitney was a tutor in the Greene family after the general's death, and
it was at the suggestion of Mrs. Greene that he started to try and make
"a machine to pick the seed out of cotton." It is said that Whitney's
first machine would do, in five hours, work which, if done by hand,
would take one man two years. This was, of course, an epoch-making
invention and caused enormous commercial growth in the South, where
cotton-gins are as common things as restaurants in the city of New York.
Which reminds me of a story.
A northern man was visiting Mr. W.D. Pender, at Tarboro, North Carolina.
On the day of the guest's arrival Mr. Pender spoke to his cook, a negro
woman of the old order, telling her to hurry up the dinner, because he
wished to take his friend down to see the cotton-gin. "You know," he
explained, "this gentleman has never seen a cotton-gin."
The cook looked at him in amazement.
"Lor'! Mistuh Penduh," she exclaimed. "An' dat man _look_ like he was
edjacated!"
* * * * *
Another item in Savannah history is that John Wesley came over about
the middle of the eighteenth century to convert the Indians to
Christianity. It was not until after this attempt, when he returned to
England, that he began the great religious movement which led to the
founding of the Methodist Church. George Whitfield also preached in
Savannah. Evidently Wesley did not get very far with the savages who, it
may be imagined, were more responsive to the kind of "conversion"
attempted in South Carolina, by a French dancing-master, who went out
from Charleston in the early days and taught them the steps of the
stately minuet.
Another great event in Savannah history was the departure from that
port, in 1819, of the _City of Savannah_, the first steamship to cross
the Atlantic. If I may make a suggestion to the city, it is that the
centennial of this event be celebrated, and that a memorial be erected.
Inspiration for such a memorial might perhaps be found in the simple and
charming monument, crowned by a galleon in bronze, which has been
erected in San Francisco, in memory of Robert Louis Stevenson. A ship in
bronze can be a glorious thing--which is more than can be said of a
bronze statesman in modern pantaloons.
* * * * *
More lately Savannah initiated another world-improvement: she was the
first city to abolish horses entirely from her fire department,
replacing them with automobile engines, hook-and-ladders, and
hose-carts. That is in line with what one would expect of Savannah, for
she is not only a progressive city, but is a great automobile city,
having several times been the scene of important international
automobile road races, including the Grand Prize and the Vanderbilt Cup.
Nor is there want of other history. The Savannah Theater, though gutted
by fire and rebuilt, is the same theater that Joseph Jefferson owned and
managed for a time, in the fifties; in the house on Lafayette Square,
now occupied by Judge W.W. Lambdin, Robert E. Lee once stayed, and
Thackeray is said to have written there a part of "The Virginians."
A sad thing was happening in Savannah when we were there. The Habersham
house, one of the loveliest old mansions of the city, was being torn
down to make room for a municipal auditorium.
The first Habersham in America was a Royal Governor of Georgia. He had
three sons one of whom, Joseph, had, by the outbreak of the Revolution,
become a good enough American to join a band of young patriots who took
prisoner the British governor, Sir James Wright. The governor's house
was situated where the Telfair Academy now is. He was placed under
parole, but nevertheless fled to Bonaventure, the Tabnall estate, not
far from the city, where he was protected by friends until he could
escape to the British fleet, which then lay off Tybee Island at the
mouth of the Savannah River, some eighteen miles below the city. This
same Joseph Habersham, it is said, led a party which went out in 1775
in skiffs--called _bateaux_ along this part of the coast--boarded the
British ship _Hinchenbroke_, lying at anchor in the river, and captured
her in a hand-to-hand conflict. Mr. Neyle Colquitt of Savannah, a
descendant of the Habershams, tells me that the powder taken from the
_Hinchenbroke_ was used at the Battle of Bunker Hill. After the war, in
which Joseph Habersham commanded a regiment of regulars, he was made
Postmaster General of the United States. The old house itself was built
by Archibald Bulloch, a progenitor of that Miss "Mittie" Bulloch who
later became Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., mother of the President. It
was designed by an English architect named Jay, who did a number of the
fine old houses of Savannah, which are almost without exception of the
Georgian period. Archibald Bulloch bought the lot on which he built the
house from Matthew McAllister, great-grandfather of Ward McAllister.
When sold by Bulloch it passed through several hands and finally came
into the possession of Robert Habersham, a son of Joseph.
The old house was spacious and its interiors had a fine formality about
them. The staircase, fireplace and chandeliers were handsome, and there
was at the rear a charming oval room, the heavy mahogany doors of which
were curved to conform to the shape of the walls. To tear down such a
house was sacrilege--also it was a sacrilege hard to commit, for some of
the basement walls were fifteen feet thick, and of solid brick straight
through.
Sherman's headquarters were on the Square, just south of the De Soto
Hotel, in the battlemented brick mansion which is the residence of
General Peter W. Meldrim, ex-president of the American Bar Association,
and former Mayor of Savannah.
Among other old houses characteristic of Savannah, are the Scarborough
house, the Mackay house, the Thomas house in Franklin Square (also known
as the Owens house), in which Lafayette was entertained, and the Telfair
house, now the Telfair Academy. The Telfair and Thomas houses were built
by the architect who built the Habersham house, and it is to be hoped
that they will never go the way of the latter mansion.
In 1810, about the time these houses were built, Savannah had 5,000
inhabitants; by 1850 the population had trebled, and 1890 found it a
place of more than 40,000. Since then the city has grown with wholesome
rapidity, and attractive suburban districts have been developed. The
1910 census gives the population as 65,000, but the city talks
exuberantly of 90,000. Well, perhaps that is not an exaggerated claim.
Certainly it is a city to attract those who are free to live where they
please. In fall, winter and spring it leaves little to be desired. I
have been there three times, and I have never walked up Bull Street
without looking forward to the day when I could go there, rent an old
house full of beautiful mahogany, and pass a winter. Not even New
Orleans made me feel like that. I feel about New Orleans that it is a
place to visit rather than to settle down in. I want to go back to New
Orleans, but I do not want to stay more than a few weeks. I want to see
some people that I know, prowl about the French quarter, and have Jules
Alciatore turn me out a dinner; then I want to go away. So, too, I want
to go back to Atlanta--just to see some people. I want to stay there a
week or two. Also I want to go to St. Augustine when cold weather comes,
and bask in the warm sun, and breathe the soft air full of gold dust,
and feel indolent and happy as I watch the activities about the
excellent Ponce de Leon Hotel; but there are two cities in the South
that I dream of going to for a quiet happy winter of domesticity and
work, in a rented house--it must be the right house, too--and those
cities are, first Charleston; then Savannah.
The Telfair Academy in the old Telfair mansion was left, by a member of
the family, to the city, to be used as a museum. Being somewhat
skeptical about museums in cities of the size of Savannah, not to say
much larger cities, especially when they are art museums, I very nearly
omitted a visit to this one. Had I done so I would have missed seeing
not only a number of exceedingly interesting historic treasures, but
what I believe to be the best public art collection contained in any
southern city.
The museum does, to be sure, contain a number of old "tight" paintings
of the kind with which the country was deluged at the time of the
Chicago World's Fair, but upstairs there is a surprise in shape of an
exhibition of modern American paintings (the best paintings being
produced in the world to-day) showing brilliant selection. I was utterly
amazed when I found this collection. There were excellent canvases by
Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson, George Bellows, and other living American
painters whose work, while it is becoming more and more widely
appreciated each year, is still beyond all but the most advanced and
discriminating buyers of paintings. I went into ecstasies over this
collection, and I said to myself: "Away down here in Savannah there is
some one buying better paintings for a little museum than the heads of
many of the big museums in the country have had sense enough or courage
enough to buy. This man ought to be 'discovered' and taken to some big
museum where his appreciation will be put to the greatest use." With
that I rushed downstairs, sought out the curator, and asked who had
purchased the modern American pictures. And then my bubble was pricked,
for who had they had, down there, buying their pictures for them, but
Gari Melchers! Naturally the pictures were good!
In one room of the building, on the ground floor, is a collection of
fine old furniture, etc., which belonged to the Telfair family,
including two beautiful mantelpieces of black and white marble, some
cabinets, and a very curious and fascinating extension dining-table,
built of mahogany. The table is perfectly round, and the leaves, instead
of being added in the middle, are curved pieces, fitting around the
outer edge in two series, so that when extended to its full capacity the
table is still round. I have never seen another such table.
Also I found many interesting old books and papers passed down from the
Telfairs. One of these was a ledger with records of slave sales.
In a sale held Friday, October 14, 1774, Sir James Wright, the same
British governor who was presently put to flight, purchased four men,
five women, nine boys, and one girl, at a total cost of £820, or about
$3,280. Sir Patrick Houston bought two women at £90, or $450. The whole
day's sale disposed of thirty-five men, seventeen women, twenty-seven
boys and ten girls, at a grand total of £3206, or roughly between nine
and ten thousand dollars.
The Telfairs were great planters. Among the papers was one headed "Rules
and Directions to be strictly attended to by all overseers at Thorn
Island Plantation." This plantation was on the North Carolina side of
the river, and was owned by Alexander Telfair, a brother of Miss Mary
Telfair who gave the Academy to the city. Dates which occur in the
papers stamp them as having been issued some time prior to 1837. Here
are some of the regulations:
The allowance for every grown negro, let him or her be old and good
for nothing, and every young one that works in the field, is a peck
of corn a week and a pint of salt and a piece of meat not exceeding
fourteen pounds per month.
No negro to have more than forty lashes, no matter what his crime.
The suckling children and all small ones who do not work in the
field draw a half allowance of corn and salt.
Any negro can have a ticket to go about the neighborhood, but cannot
leave it without a pass. No strangers allowed to come on the place
without a pass.
The negroes to be tasked when the work allows it. I require a
reasonable day's work well done. The task to be regulated by the
state of the ground and the strength of the negro.
All visiting between the Georgia plantation to be refused. [The
Telfairs owned another plantation on the Georgia side of the river.]
No one to get husbands or wives across the river. No night meeting
or preaching allowed on the place except on Saturday or Sunday
morning.
If there is any fighting on the place whip all engaged in it, no
matter what may be the cause it may be covered with.
In extreme cases of sickness employ a physician. After a dose of
castor oil is given, a dose of calomel, and blister applied, if no
relief, then send.
My negroes are not allowed to plant cotton for themselves.
Everything else they may plant. Give them ticket to sell what they
make.
I have no Driver (slave-driver). You are to task the negroes
yourself. They are responsible to you alone for work.
Certain negroes are mentioned by name:
Many persons are indebted to Elsey for attending upon their negroes.
I wish you to see them or send to them for the money.
If Dolly is unable to return to cooking she must take charge of all
the little negroes.
Pay Free Moses two dollars and a half for taking care of things left
at his landing.
Bull Street, the fashionable street of the city, is a gem of a street,
despite the incursions made at not infrequent intervals, by
comparatively new, and often very ugly buildings. Every few blocks Bull
Street has to turn out of its course and make the circuit of one of the
small parks of which I have spoken, and this gives it charm and variety.
On this street stands the De Soto Hotel, which, when I first went to
Savannah, years ago, was by all odds the leading hostelry of the city.
It is one of those great rambling buildings with a big porch out in
front, an open court in back, and everything about it, including the
bedchambers, very spacious and rather old fashioned. Lately the Savannah
Hotel has been erected down at the business end of Bull Street. It is a
modern hotel of the more conventional commercial type. But even down
there, near the business part of town, it is not confronted by congested
cobbled streets and clanging trolley cars, but looks out upon one of the
squares, filled with magnolias, oaks and palms. But another time I
think I shall go back to the De Soto.
The building of the Independent Presbyterian Church, on Bull Street, is
one of the most beautiful of its kind in the country, inside and out. It
reminds one of the old churches in Charleston, and it is gratifying to
know that though the old church which stood on this site (dedicated in
1819) burned in 1889, the congregation did not seize the opportunity to
replace it with a hideosity in lemon-yellow brick, but had the rare good
sense to duplicate the old church exactly, with the result that, though
a new building, it has all the dignity and simple beauty of an old one.
Broughton Street, the shopping street, crosses Bull Street in the
downtown section, and looks ashamed of itself as it does so, for it is
about as commonplace a looking street as one may see. There is simply
nothing about it of distinction save its rather handsome name.
Elsewhere, however, there are several skyscrapers, most of them good
looking buildings. It seemed to me also that I had never seen so many
banks as in Savannah, and I am told that it is, indeed, a great banking
city, and that the record of the Savannah banks for weathering financial
storms is very fine. On a good many corners where there are not banks
there are clubs, and some of these clubs are delightful and thoroughly
metropolitan in character. I know of no city in the North, having a
population corresponding to that of Charleston or of Savannah, which has
clubs comparable with the best clubs of these cities, or of New
Orleans. When it is considered that of the population of these southern
cities approximately one half, representing negroes, must be deducted in
considering the population from which eligibles must be drawn, the
excellence of southern clubs becomes remarkable in the extreme.
Savannah, by the way, holds one national record in the matter of clubs.
It had the first golf club founded in America. Exactly when the club was
founded I cannot say, but Mr. H.H. Bruen, of Savannah, has in his
possession an invitation to a golf club ball held in the old City Hall
in the year 1811.
The commercial ascendancy of Savannah over Charleston is due largely to
natural causes. The port of Savannah drains exports from a larger and
richer territory than is tapped by Charleston, though new railroads are
greatly improving Charleston's situation in this respect. Savannah is a
shipping port for cotton from a vast part of the lower and central
South, and is also a great port for lumber, and the greatest port in the
world for "naval stores." I did not know what naval stores were when I
went to Savannah. The term conjured up in my mind pictures of piles of
rope, pulleys and anchors. But those are not naval stores. Naval stores
are gum products, such as resin and turpentine, which are obtained from
the long-leafed pines of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida.
The traveler through these States cannot have failed to notice gashes on
the tree-trunks along the way. From these the resinous sap exudes and
is caught in cups, after which it is boiled, there in the woods, and
thus separated into turpentine, resin and pitch. Vast quantities of
these materials are stored on the great modern docks of Savannah. It is
said that owing to wasteful methods, the long-leafed pine forests are
being rapidly destroyed, and that this industry will die out before very
long because the eager grabbers of to-day's dollars, having no thought
for the future, fail to practise scientific forestry.
All about Savannah, within easy reach by trolley, motor or boat, lie
pleasant retreats and interesting things to see. The roads of the
region, built by convict labor, are of the finest, and the convict
prison camps are worth a visit. In the Brown Farm camp, living
conditions are certainly more sanitary than in ninety nine out of a
hundred negro homes. The place fairly shines with cleanliness, and there
are many cases in which "regulars" at this camp are no sooner released
than they offend again with the deliberate purpose of carrying out what
may be termed a "back to the farm" movement. The color line is drawn in
southern jails and convict camps as elsewhere. White prisoners occupy
one barracks; negroes another. The food and accommodations for both is
the same. The only race discrimination I could discover was that when
white prisoners are punished by flogging, they are flogged with their
clothes on, whereas, with negroes, the back is exposed. The men in this
camp are minor offenders and wear khaki overalls in place of the stripes
in which the worse criminals, quartered in another camp, are dressed.
Strict discipline is maintained, but the life is wholesome. The men are
marched to work in the morning and back at night escorted by guards who
carry loaded shotguns, and who always have with them a pack of ugly
bloodhounds to be used in case escape is attempted.
* * * * *
All the drives in this region are extremely picturesque, for the
live-oak grows here at its best, and is to be seen everywhere, its trunk
often twenty or more feet in circumference, its wide-spreading branches
reaching out their tips to meet those of other trees of the same
species, so that sometimes the whole world seems to have a groined
ceiling of foliage, a ceiling which inevitably suggests a great shadowy
cathedral from whose airy arches hang long gray pennons of Spanish moss,
like faded, tattered battle-flags.
On country roads you will come, now and then, upon a negro burial ground
of very curious character. There may be such negro cemeteries in the
upper Southern States, but if so I have never seen them. In this portion
of Georgia they are numerous, and their distinguishing mark consists in
the little piles of household effects with which every grave is covered.
I do not know whether this is done to propitiate ghosts and devils
(generally believed to "hant" these graveyards), or whether it is the
idea that the deceased can still find use for the assortment of
pitchers, bowls, cups, saucers, knives, forks, spoons, statuettes,
alarm-clocks, and heaven only knows what else, which were his treasured
earthly possessions.
In Savannah, I have heard Commodore Tatnall, who used to live at
Bonaventure, credited with having originated the saying "Blood is
thicker than water," but I am inclined to believe that the Commodore
merely made apposite use of an old formula. The story is told of one of
the old Tatnalls that in the midst of a large dinner-party which he was
giving at his mansion at Bonaventure plantation, a servant entered and
informed him that the house was on fire. Whereupon the old thoroughbred,
instead of turning fireman, persisted in his rôle of host, ordering the
full dining-room equipment to be moved out upon the lawn, where the
company remained at dinner while the house burned down.
Most of the old houses of the plantations on the river have long since
been destroyed. That at Whitehall was burned by the negroes when
Sherman's army came by, but the old trees and gardens still endure,
including a tall hedge of holly which is remarkable even in this
florescent region. The old plantation house at the Hermitage, approached
by a handsome avenue of live-oaks, is, I believe, the only one of those
ancient mansions which still stands, and it does not stand very
strongly, for, beautiful though it is in its abandonment and decay, it
is like some noble old gentleman dying alone in an attic, of age,
poverty and starvation--dying proudly as poor Charles Gayarré did in New
Orleans.
The Hermitage has, I believe, no great history save what is written in
its old chipped walls of stucco-covered brick, and the slave-cabins
which still form a background for it. It is a story of baronial decay,
resulting, doubtless, from the termination of slavery. Hordes of negroes
of the "new issue" infest the old slave-cabins and on sight of visitors
rush out with almost violent demands for money, in return for which they
wish to sing. Their singing is, however, the poorest negro singing I
have ever heard. All the spontaneity, all the relish, all the vividness
which makes negro singing wonderful, has been removed, here, by the
fixed idea that singing is not a form of expression but a mere noise to
be given vent to for the purpose of extracting backsheesh. It is
saddening to witness the degradation, through what may be called
professionalism, of any great racial quality. These negroes, half
mendicant, half traders on the reputation of their race, express
professionalism in its lowest form. They are more pitiful than the
professional tarantella dancers who await the arrival of tourists, in
certain parts of southern Italy, as spiders await flies.