Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

June 18

1807 Commissioners from Georgia and North Carolina agreed to recognize 35°N as the mutual boundary of the two states and "to run and mark the line [35th parallel] accordingly; which line, when ascertained and completed with joint concurrence, shall forever after be regarded as the line of separation and boundary between the two states." Commissioners, however, were unable to agree on where the 35th parallel should be marked. North Carolina's legislature ratified the agreement, while Georgia's would not. Faulty surveying later would mark the 35th parallel south of its true location for almost all of Georgia's northern boundary. Since then, both North Carolina and Tennessee have insisted on the surveyed boundary rather than true 35°N. On the other hand, Georgia law has to this day consistently (though futilely) prescribed the 35th parallel as the state's northern boundary. If this boundary were observed, a good portion of Chattanooga, Tenn. would fall within the jurisdiction of Georgia.

1841 Wesley Connor, known as the father of education for the deaf in Georgia, was born near Anderson, South Carolina. As a youth, he moved to Cave Spring, Georgia to live with a sister. Here, in 1857, he began work at what would become known as the Georgia School for the Deaf. The school closed during the Civil War, but re-opened in 1867, with Connor as principal. He served as principal of the school for 49 years, becoming nationally respected for his work with deaf students and becoming associated with others in the field, most notably Alexander Graham Bell and Helen Keller. Connor died in Cave Spring on Feb. 18, 1920.

1862 Seven of the raiders who had hijacked the General locomotive were taken from the Fulton County jail to a wooded area outside of Atlanta. Here, on a long scaffold that had been built for the execution, the seven were hanged and their bodies buried in a shallow trench that had been dug near the scaffold. At the end of the Civil War, the U.S. government dug up their remains and reinterred them at the national cemetery in Chattanooga.

1894 The Richmond & Danville Railroad was reorganized into the Southern Railway Company, with headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. Absorbed into the Southern were a number of rail companies serving Atlanta, including the Atlanta & Charlotte Air-Line, Georgia Pacific, and Atlanta & Florida.

1917 Politician and lawyer Judson Clements died in Washington, D.C. Born in northwest Georgia's Walker County in 1846, Clements served in both the Georgia House and Senate before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1880. Here he served for ten years, his expertise and interest mainly in transportation. Clements was influential in creating the legislation leading to creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission. After retiring from Congress, Clements acted as U.S attorney in acquiring the lands which became Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. In 1892 he was appointed to the Interstate Commerce Commission, where his knowledge of railroad transportation proved invaluable. He served on the commission for 25 years, retiring just three months before his death.

1933 In Washington, D.C., Georgia senator Walter F. George was hospitalized for exhaustion following the adjournment of Congress. As a member of the Senate's finance committee, George had worked tirelessly throughout the session that had dealt with Pres. Franklin Roosevelt's legislative agenda to combat the Great Depression.

1953 Martin Luther King Jr. married Coretta Scott at her parents home in Marion, Ala. The ceremony was conducted by Martin Luther King Sr.

1977 Former Athens-area resident Kenny Rogers' record "Lucille" peaked at number one in the UK pop singles chart and number seven in the U.S.

1998 On the centennial of the original issue, the U.S. Postal Service released a bi-color reissue of the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition set of nine commemorative stamps -- one of which was a 5-cent stamp featuring Savannah-born John C. Fremont.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1735 Francis Moore was another early Georgia colonist who kept a journal. He recorded a military ruse on this day:

"Mr. Oglethorpe, with seven Horses and Men upon them (which were all we had) went down to the Sea-Point, that the Spaniards might see that there were Men and Horses there. At his setting out a number of Cannons were fired, which they also could hear at Jekyll Island. When he arriv'd at the Point the Independent Company was under Arms, being drawn up in one line at double Distances, to make them appear a larger Number to the Spaniards, who lay upon Jekyll Island. The Independent Company saluting him with their Cannon, managing them so as to seem to have many more Guns by reloading. ..."

Source: [no author or editor cited], Our First Visit in America: Early Reports from the Colony of Georgia, 1732-1740 (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1974), p. 153.

1865 From his home near Lithonia, Thomas Maguire wrote in his journal:

"Report said our negroes would leave last night, but I did not believe it -- Dick is at his post this morning. I think the excitement of the negroes going to the Yankees is nearly over. The poor negroes will be sorry enough after they realize the effects of this, to them, great revolution. The race, I think will be exterminated in a few years. The negroes will be like the Indians, but in a far worse condition . . . ."

Source: Franklin M. Garrett, Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of its People and Events (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1954), Vol. I, p. 678.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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