Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

March 3

1801 David Emanuel, president of the Georgia Senate, assumed the office of governor following the resignation of James Jackson, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate. Emanuel, generally believed to be the first Jewish governor of any state in the U.S., served just over eight months before retiring from politics. He was born in Pennsylvania around 1743, but little is known about his early life. Around 1756, his family moved to Georgia. By 1770, Emanuel was living in Burke County. During the American Revolution, he served both as a soldier and a member of the Whig's executive council. After the war, Emanuel represented Burke County in the legislature for many years, also serving in the constitutional conventions of 1789 and 1795. In 1796 was appointed to the commission to investigate the infamous Yazoo Act. He died at his home in Burke County on Feb. 19, 1808. Four years later the Georgia legislature named a new county in his honor.

1817 Georgia's western territory -- ceded to the U.S. in 1802 -- was divided into the Alabama Territory and the new state of Mississippi.

1832 In the case of Worcester vs. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Government had exclusive rights over the Cherokees located in Georgia.

1874 Gov. James Smith signed legislation authorizing a convict lease system in which state prison inmates could be leased out to persons or companies for periods of one to five years for such fee as agreed to by the governor. The act required the humane treatment of convicts and limited them to a ten-hour work day, with Sunday off. Equally important, leases had to free the state from all costs associated with prisoner maintenance. Once all state convicts were leased, the law provided that all state penitentiary officers and employees be discharged.

1932 Former governor Joseph Mackey Brown died in Marietta, Ga. Born Dec. 28, 1851 in Cherokee County, Georgia. Brown was the son of Georgia Civil War governor Joseph Emerson Brown and later wrote a history of the momentous events he experienced during the war. As an adult, Brown became a Western and Atlantic Railroad executive. Based on almost a quarter century of railroad management experience, Brown was appointed to the Georgia Railroad Commission in 1904. Gov. Hoke Smith surprisingly dismissed Brown in 1907, touching off a decade-long political feud between the two. Brown was elected governor over Smith in 1908, but then lost a narrow race for re-election to Smith in 1910. When Smith resigned to become a U.S. senator, Brown won the election to succeed him. However, four years later, Smith easily defeated Brown in the senatorial race. Brown then retired from public life, though continuing to present his opinions in the Atlanta Constitution on matters such as the Leo Frank case, World War I, and women's suffrage. Brown and Smith finally settled their differences aside in 1928 to support Al Smith for president. That year, Brown's health began to decline, and he died in 1932.

1962 Football great Herschel Walker was born in Wrightsville, Georgia. The Johnson County High School running back was considered one of the top college prospects in the country. After extensive recruiting in the spring of 1980, Walker decided to sign with the University of Georgia Bulldogs. That fall, his impact was immediate and incredible. Walker was the catalyst that transformed a very good Georgia team into an undefeated national champion. During his three-year career at Georgia, the Bulldogs won 33 games while losing only three.  In 1982 Walker was awarded the Heisman Trophy, symbolic of the best college football player in the nation. He went on to a successful professional football career with the USFL New Jersey Generals, then with the NFL Dallas Cowboys, Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles, and New York Giants. Walker retired from professional football in 1998. The following year, in his first year of eligibility, Walker was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Georgia cities and towns first incorporated by acts approved by the governor on March 3:

1856 Chickasawhatchee (Lee County), Fort Valley (Houston County), and White Plains (Greene County)

1874 Bryon (Houston, now Peach County), Corinth (Heard County), DuPont (Clinch County), McRae (Telfair County), Mount Airy (Habersham County), Ochlocknee (Thomas County), and Waycross (Ware County)

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1732 Supporters of the Georgia charter were frustrated over King George II's continuing refusal to sign the charter that had been approved by the Privy Council, as noted by the entry in the diary of Sir John Percival (later Earl of Egmont):

"This morning I visited Mr. Horace Walpole [brother of prime minister Robert Walpole]. I told him of the stop that is made of the Carolina grant [i.e., the proposed charter to create Georgia from South Carolina]; that we apprehended there was still a distrust that we sought our private advantage in it, whereas we had no view but serving the public, and I did not know how we came to be such knight-errants. I gave him substantial reasons why we could not depart from the purport of the charter as it now stands, particularly the point the King objects to, namely the Governor of Carolina's naming the inferior officers of the Militia, and that it would be good to tell us soon whether the King is resolved not to pass it without that alteration, that we might return the money we made of the Government Lottery tickets, being resolved not to accept the charter with that alteration. He replied that he knew not one of the Ministry who were against the charter, but that was the King's own objection, he being jealous of his prerogative, but he hoped it would be got over and believed it, that he thought we could make no private advantage of the design, the guards are so strong against it by the charter, though indeed they did think so at first. I said I understood the King could not alter the charter, it having passed the [Privy] Council, where he was present; he replied, 'Yes, the King might by referring it back to be considered in Council.' . . . "

Source: U.K. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Diary of the First Earl of Egmont (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1923), Vol. II, p. 232.

1742 The Salzburger settlement at New Ebenezer on the banks of the Savannah periodically faced flooding, which could affect the operation of the community water-powered mill. In his journal, minister John Martin Boltzius recorded the Salzburgers' efforts to divert flooding and keep their mill operational:

". . . A great gift could not have pleased me as much as seeing the mill in operation again this afternoon, as it was my intention to voice a hallelujah to our dear Lord for the clattering of the mill. The water is rising to the point that the young Kieffer fears his plantation will be inundated again, yet God is so clearly standing by the laborers that they are plugging one hole after the other, directing the stream to the correct course, and leading the superfluous water over the dam and a sufficient quantity of it to the mill. Dresler understands water works very well. . . ."

Source: George Fenwick Jones (ed.) and Don Savelle (trans.), Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America... Edited by Samuel Urlsperger, Volume Nine, 1742 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980), p. 59.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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