Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

February 26

1823 Scientist and educator Joseph LeConte was born in Liberty County, Georgia. Raised on a successful plantation, LeConte had the means to pursue his love of science and literature. He graduated third in his class at the University of Georgia and earned his M.D. in New York. But it was the study of science -- not medicine -- that attracted him. When Harvard opened its Lawrence Scientific School, LeConte was easily persuaded to enroll. He was among the first four students to graduate. Upon returning to Georgia, LeConte held a teaching position at his original alma mater for six years before moving to the College (later University) of South Carolina. He and his brother John lost most of their possessions when Sherman destroyed Columbia. Radical Reconstruction in the South forced the LeConte brothers to seek employment outside the region. They were both rewarded with positions at the newly opened University of California in 1869. Here LeConte found his niche and earned an international reputation for his writings on science and religion. Altogether LeConte published 190 articles and nine books. An avid outdoorsman, he helped found the Sierra Club -- and wrote treatises on the formation of the mountains he loved to climb. His writings on race and education, and attempts to reconcile Christian beliefs with the notion of evolution, earned him acclaim as one of the nation's leading intellectuals. He died in the Yosemite Valley of California on July 6, 1901. Later, he was remembered with the naming of LeConte Hall on the University of Georgia campus.

1854 Gov. Herschel Johnson signed an act of the General Assembly directing the governor to determine the feasibility of draining the Okefenokee Swamp. As stated in the preamble of the act, "the State of Georgia holds the title to a large tract of unimproved, and at present worse than useless land, known as the Okefenoke Swamp . . . [and] . . . in the opinion of many intelligent persons . . . said lands could be rendered so valuable by drainage as to yield a large revenue to the State."

1856 Gov. Herschel Johnson signed legislation creating Miller County as Georgia's 117th county. Created from portions of Baker and Early counties, the new county was named for judge and state senator Andrew J. Miller, who had died 23 days earlier after representing Richmond County in the Georgia Senate from 1837 until his death in 1856

1868 A special meeting of the Atlanta city council voted to offer the combination Atlanta city hall-Fulton County courthouse for use as the new Georgia state capitol if the constitutional convention then meeting in Atlanta would include a provision designating Atlanta as Georgia's new state capital city.

1877 Gov. Alfred Colquitt signed legislation providing for a June 1877 election of delegates to a constitutional convention that would meet in July 1877

1926 Theodore "Tiger" Flowers won a 15-round decision over Harry Greb in New York City to become the first African American to win the world middleweight boxing championship. In a rematch the following Aug. 18, Flowers again defeated Greb in 15 rounds. Flowers lost the title on Dec. 3, 1926 in a controversial 10-round loss to Mickey Walker. Born in Camilla, Ga., Flowers (sometimes known as "The Georgia Deacon") began his professional boxing career in 1918, winning his first 29 fights. He would go to fight in 143 bouts, with 116 wins (49 by knockout), 13 loses, and 14 draws. Shortly after winning the world title in 1926, Flowers built a 20-room luxury home on Simpson St. in Atlanta. Unfortunately, he died the next year following an operation.

1951 The 22nd amendment to Constitution was ratified. Introduced in response to Franklin Roosevelt's election to four consecutive terms as president, the amendment prohibited any person from being elected president more than twice.

1977 Red Barron, Sterling Dupree, Sam Elliott, Elmer Morrow, Peter Pund, Fran Tarkenton, and Rudy York were inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.

1996 The World Champion Atlanta Braves visited the White House, where they presented Pres. Clinton a team jersey.

Georgia cities and towns first incorporated by acts approved by the governor on Feb. 26:

1856 Hartwell (Hart County)

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1738 Throughout his diary is repeated evidence that Salzburger minister John Martin Boltzius believed that religion was a serious matter. In this day's entry, he showed his disdain for those who did not reserve Sunday for worship and rest:

"Sunday, the 26th of February. The ill-behaved Purysburg shoemaker, who has been working here for a while, still continues his eveil custom of going to Purysburg on Saturday and remaining over Sunday; and therefore he is to get no more work from us unless he improves. Mrs. Ortmann kept him company yesterday and travelled with him to make some purchases, and this scandalized our congregation and the people in Purysburg, who well know how seriously we observe Sundays and holy days. . . ."

Source: George Fenwick Jones and Renate Wilson (trans. and ed.), Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America... Edited by Samuel Urlsperger, Volume Five, 1738 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980), p. 42.

1743 The day before Gen. James Oglethorpe, his army regiment, and volunteers left St. Simons Island for the second siege of St. Augustine, Edward Kimber wrote in his diary:

"On Saturday, February 26, 1743, the detachment of the regiment appear'd under arms at Frederica. Their arms and ammunition were examined, and everyone receiv'd his complement of cartages and was order'd to provide himself with a haversack and water bottle for the march. Afterwards they march'd out of the town, and each platoon fir'd at a mark before His Excellency [Gen. Oglethorpe] for the prize of a hat and matchet to the man who made the best shot at an hundred yards distance. He afterwards gave beer to the soldiers and order'd the whole to be ready to proceed by nine the next morning."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), Georgia: History written by Those who lived It (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1995), p. 24.

1839 On St. Simons Island, Fanny Kemble Butler did what she could for her husband's slaves, but Pierce Butler felt that was doing too much and ordered her to stop. In one of the most poignant entries of her entire journal, Fanny described the depression, distress, and helplessness she now felt:

". . . I have had a most painful conversation with Mr. [a reference to her husband, Pierce Butler], who had declined receiving any of the people's petitions through me. Whether he is wearied with the number of these prayers and supplications, which he would escape but for me, as they probably would not venture to come so incessantly to him, and I, of course, feel bound to bring every one confided to me to him, or whether he has been annoyed as the number of pitiful and horrible stories of misery and oppression under the former rule of Mr. K [overseer Roswell King], which have come to my knowledge since I have been here, and the grief and indignation caused, but which cannot, by any means, always be done away with, though their expression may be silenced by his angry exclamations of: 'Why do you listen to such stuff?' or 'Why do you believe such trash? don't you know the niggers are all d--d liars?' etc., I do not know; but he desired me this morning to bring him no more complaints or requests of any sort, as the people had hitherto had no such advocate, and had done very well without, and I was only kept in an incessant state of excitement with all the falsehoods they 'found they could make me believe.' . . . I suppose, [Mr. Butler] is weary of hearing what he has never heard before, the voice of passionate expostulation and importunate pleading against wrongs that he will not even acknowledge, and for creatures whose common humanity with his own I half think he does not believe; but I must return to the North, for my condition would be almost worse than theirs -- condemned to hear and see so much wretchedness, not only without the means of alleviating it, but without permission even to represent it for alleviation: this is no place for me, since I was not born among slaves, and cannot bear to live among them.

"Perhaps, after all, what he [her husband] says is true: when I am gone they will fall back into the desperate uncomplaining habit of suffering, from which my coming among them, willing to hear and ready to help, has tempted them. He says that bring their complaints to me, and the sight of my credulous commiseration, only tend to make them discontented and idle, and brings renewed chastisement upon them; and that so, instead of really befriending them, I am only preparing more suffering for them whenever I leave the place, and they can no more cry to me for help. And so I see nothing for it but to go and leave them to their fate; perhaps, too, he is afraid of the mere contagion of freedom which breathes from the very existence of those who are free; by way of speaking to the people, of treating them, or living with them, the appeals I make to their sense of truth, of duty, or self-respect, the infinite compassion and the human consideration I feel for them -- all this, of course, makes any intercourse with them dangerously suggestive of relations far different from anything they have ever known; and, as Mr. O [Thomas Oden, Butler island overseer who replaced Roswell King in 1838] once almost hinted to me, my existence among slaves was an element of danger to the 'institution.' If I should go away, the human sympathy that I have felt for them will certainly never come near them again.

"I was too unhappy to write any more . . . .God will provide. He has not forgotten, nor will He forsake these His poor children; and if I may no longer minister to them, they yet are in His hand, who cares for them more and better than I can. . . ."

Source: John A. Scott (ed.), Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 by Frances Anne Kemble (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), pp. 210-211.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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