Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

March 7

1733 The Trustees ordered the printing of 600 copies of Benjamin Martyn's "Some Account of the Designs of the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia in America." Martyn was the Trustees' secretary, and his treatise compared the creation of Georgia to the noble objectives of ancient Roman colonization.

1827 Lawyer and Confederate general Henry DeLamar Clayton was born in Pulaski County, Ga. He practiced law until March 1861, when he became a colonel in the 1st Alabama. Clayton subsequently recruited the 39th Alabama and served as its commander during the Kentucky campaign and the Battle of Murfreesboro. In April 1863, he was promoted to brigadier general, serving at the battles of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge and during the Sherman's Atlanta Campaign. In July 1864, Clayton was promoted to major general. Thereafter, he commanded A.P. Stewart's Division at Jonesboro, Franklin, and during the Nashville and Carolinas campaign. After the war, Clayton served as a university president. He died Oct. 13, 1889 in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

1861 Delegates to Georgia's secession convention reconvened in Savannah. Over the next 16 days, the convention would adopt a new state constitution, authorize the governor to take emergency actions to defend the state, and turn over control of military matters to the new Confederate government.

1866 Gov. Charles Jenkins signed a joint resolution of the General Assembly creating a joint House-Senate committee to report to the next session of the legislature on a common school system for the state. The resolution also designated the State Librarian as State School Commissioner until the next election of state officials, at which time the office would become elective.

1951 Former Atlanta Braves outfielder Jeff Burroughs was born in Long Beach, California.

1951 Georgian-born Ezzard Charles won a 15-round decision against Jersey Joe Walcott in a bout in Detroit to retain the world heavyweight championship.

1965 Alabama state troopers clashed with 600 black marchers led by Martin Luther King, Jr. on the bridge at Selma, Alabama.

1979 Ray Charles performed "Georgia on my Mind" for a joint session of the Georgia General Assembly in recognition of legislation designating the work as Georgia's official state song. [Click here for lyrics and recorded music.]

1982 In an interview with the Nashville Tennessean, Alonzo Mann asserted that Leo Frank was innocent in the murder of Mary Phagan in 1913. At the time Mann was a fourteen-year-old employee of Frank's (as was Phagan). Mann said he returned to the factory the day of the murder after failing to find his mother at a parade. When he entered the factory he saw Jim Conley, custodian of the factory, carrying the limp body of Mary Phagan. According to Mann, Conley threatened to kill him if he ever told anyone. Mann said Frank was nowhere in sight and that he was certain Frank was not involved in the murder. Rather, Mann testified that Conley (who was the prosecution's chief witness at the trial) was Phagan's true killer. In conjunction with his story, Mann passed two lie detector tests and a psychological voice stress test. For more information see the GeorgiaInfo web site detailing the Leo Frank case.

1985 Philanthropist and former Coca-Cola CEO Robert W. Woodruff died in Atlanta. [See Dec. 6 entry for biographical information.]
 
 

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1733 Two months after the arrival of the first English settlers at Yamacraw Bluff, colonist Peter Gordon recorded the elaborate ritual followed by a party of Indian chiefs and warriors who were meeting with James Oglethorpe:

"Thursday the 7th the Indian King & Chiefs desired a talk with Mr. Oglethorp, which he readily granted, and received them at a house which was fitted up on purpose for that occasion. Mr. Oglethorp being seated at the door, on a bench covered with blew cloath with Captain Scott on his right hand and Mr. Jon. Brian on his left, the Indians advancing with Mr. Musgrove, their interpreter, before them. Most of them hade their heads adorned with white feathers, in token of peace, and friendshipp. Before the King and other Chiefs, marched two warriors carrying long white tubes, adorned with white feathers, in their left hands, and ratles in their right hands, which was cocoa nutt shells, with shott in them, with which they beat time to their singing as they marched along, but before they reached where Mr. Oglethorp was they made severall stopps, and at each stopp they begane a new song, in which they recounted all the warlike exploits of their forefathers, which is all the records they have, and the only methode of handing down to posterity the history of their great men. When they came near the place where Mr. Oglethorp was, the two warriors, who carried the feathers, and ratles in their hands, advanced before the King and other Chiefs singing and playing with their ratles and putting themselves in many antike postures. Thane, they came up to Mr. Oglethorp and the other gentlemen and waved the white wings they carried in their hands, over their heads, at the same time singing and putting their bodys in antike postures. Afterwards they fixed a lighted pipe of tobaco to the tubes which they held in their hands, and presented it to Mr. Oglethorp, who having smoaked severall whiffs they thane presented it to the other gentlemen, who observed the same methode which Mr. Oglethorp hade done. Thane they afterwards presented the same pipe to their King and two of their Chiefs, the King and each of the Chiefs smoaking four whiffs, blowing the first whiff to the left, the next to the right, the third upwards, and the fourth downwards. After this ceremony was over, they walked into the house. . . ."

Source: [no author or editor cited], Our First Visit in America: Early Reports from the Colony of Georgia, 1732-1740 (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1974), pp. 19-20.

1863 Atlanta merchant Samuel P. Richards commented in his diary on inflated prices during the Civil War:

"I have been busy enough in the store four days -- trade very good. Lead pencils sell at 1.50 apiece -- violin strings 1.25 -- playing cards of ordinary quality 5.00 per pack. But books in general we only get double the old price, which is not enough as money is."

Source: Franklin M. Garrett, Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1969 reprint of 1954 original volume), Vol. I, p. 557.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

If you have a date related to Georgia history or people that ought to be included, or if know of entries that should be corrected, send a note to Ed Jackson or Charly Pou.

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