14

SOCIAL AFFAIRS 1782 - 1789

IN SOCIAL matters and institutions, during the postwar decade two effects of the Revolution were evident—an attempt to return to prewar conditions, and a turn toward democratization. Georgians soon discovered, with regret, that the war had changed much in their everyday lives and that only in the fields of amusement and poor relief was it possible to return to approximate prewar conditions. The separation from Britain and the general leveling effect of the war generally destroyed any official status of individuals or institutions. The budding aristocracy and the established church were gone. The idea of freedom and opportunity for the common man was perhaps most obvious in the establishment of a public school system and in the changes in religious organizations. In considering life in this period, it is important to realize that Georgia was an area dominated by the frontier viewpoint. Postwar leaders were rougher and more uncouth than the colonial leaders, and the tone of society changed accordingly.

One of the first and most obvious changes in the social field was the disestablishment of the Anglican Church by the state constitution of 1777. Immediately after the British evacuation in 1782, organized religion was at a low ebb. The Anglican and Lutheran clergy had left with the British; and the outstanding dissenting clergy, Zubly and Moses Allen, were dead. Itinerant Baptists had effected little permanent organization in the upcountry. Church buildings were either destroyed or in bad repair, congregations were scattered, and governing bodies were disorganized. The most pressing problem for most Georgians was economic support for the here and now rather than concern for the hereafter.

However, there were Georgians who thought that religion and education should receive official encouragement. Eleven days after the assembly returned to Savannah, a bill was introduced for the establishment of churches and schools, but consideration was postponed.¹ Early in 1783 the executive called upon the inhabitants of each county to meet in their churches to elect vestrymen, church wardens, and other needed officials. On Easter Monday Savannah Anglicans met and chose vestrymen and church wardens, and the trustees of the Presbyterian Meeting House soon called a meeting to consider physical repairs and procurement of a minister.² In 1784 bids for repairs on the Presbyterian and Anglican churches and the Anglican parsonage in Savannah were advertised for, and the glebe lands of Christ Church (Anglican) were advertised for rent.³

In his opening message to the assembly on July 8, 1783, Governor Lyman Hall, a New Englander by birth and education, recommended that laws be passed to restrain vice and to encourage virtue and that encouragement be given to religion and education. The assembly agreed to a committee report recommending the establishment of churches and schools, but took no further action. The same month a number of inhabitants of Augusta petitioned the assembly that the glebe lands at Augusta be sold and that the money be used to construct a church to replace the one destroyed during the war. The assembly agreed to the sale of lots and directed the erection of a church and seminary of learning with the proceeds. The 1784 assembly considered a bill “for promoting religion and piety” but took no action.⁴

The 1785 assembly passed a religious establishment act that was the transitional step between a single established church and voluntary support of religion. The act declared that a knowledge and practice of the Christian religion tended to make good men and citizens, and that the regular establishment and support of religion were among the most important objects of legislative action. The bill directed heads of families in each county with thirty families to choose a minister, who should “on every Sunday Publickly explain and Inculcate the great doctrines and precepts of the Christian Religion as opportunity shall offer.” County ministers’ salaries should be paid from state taxes collected in each county. All sects and denominations were to have equal liberty and toleration in the exercise of their religion, and presumably in the choice of county ministers. Religious societies already in existence were confirmed in all usages, rights, immunities, privileges, and public appropriations which they already held.⁵

The only evidence of any application of this church establishment law was a notice for Episcopalians in Chatham County to give in their names to the church wardens so that tax money could be received from the state under the law. In 1786 the Baptist Association remonstrated against the law to the assembly, but the assembly took no action toward repeal.⁶ However, there is no evidence and little likelihood that the law ever went into effect. It was invalidated by the constitution of 1798 but never repealed.

The 1785 assembly also passed a new marriage law. In many areas no clergyman was regularly available, and many people had long ignored the colonial requirement that marriages must be performed by a clergyman. The new law legalized all marriages previously performed by a minister or justice of the peace and provided that henceforth all ordained ministers and justices of the peace might perform marriages after eight days’ public notice or upon authority of a license issued by the governor or register of probates. This recognized an existing practice that it would have been difficult to change, especially in the back country.⁷

Existing churches all had difficulty securing ministers in the immediate postwar period. The Anglicans in Savannah are known to have had a rector for at least the first three months of 1784 in the person of the Reverend John Holmes, an S. P. G. missionary to St. George’s Parish before the Revolution and one of the two Whig Anglican clergymen in Georgia. After the death of Holmes, March 20, 1784, there are indications that there was no regular rector at Christ Church for about two years. The Reverend Edward Lucas kept a grammar school at the parsonage in 1786, and it is assumed that he was rector as well before the arrival of the Reverend William Nixon in July. Nixon remained at Christ Church for about two years, and the Reverend Benjamin Lindsay was rector in June, 1788. Apparently the Episcopalians had no parish organization at Augusta until the summer of 1789.⁸

When the British withdrew from Ebenezer, the Salzburgers began restoration of their damaged town and church. Since the pastor, Christopher F. Triebner, had left with the British, a new pastor was requested from Germany. Temporary pastors sometimes served the Ebenezer and Savannah Lutherans until John Ernest Bergman arrived from Germany in the spring of 1785 to take up pastoral duties at both places. Bergman set about immediately to repair the damages to the Lutheran church organization brought about by the war and the division of its congregations. The next year there appeared Christian Eberhardt Bernhardt, who remained at Ebenezer as schoolmaster for about a year. Bergman remained at Ebenezer and continued his pastoral duties well into the nineteenth century, but the church never regained its former position of dominance in the community. Only one pastor could be employed, as opposed to two or three before the war, because the funds formerly available from the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge were cut off. The close knit feeling of the Salzburgers broke down with the Revolution. Some Lutherans tended to become Methodists and Baptists; Bergman himself had close relations with the Methodist Bishop, Francis Asbury, who usually visited Bergman during his trips to Georgia.⁹

The Congregationalists at Midway also had trouble in securing and keeping ministers. They had at least two young Yale-trained ministers during the 1780s, Abiel Holmes and Jedediah Morse, each of whom remained a short time.¹⁰ The church organization continued to function, but the building burned by the British in 1778 was not replaced until 1792, when the substantial frame meeting house which still stands was built.

In the last half of the 1780s, the Methodist and Baptists began the growth in the back country that was soon to make them the leading denominations in Georgia. The first Methodist minister came to Georgia in 1785; and the next year two other ministers, John Major and Thomas Humphries, arrived. At the end of a year’s toils, they reported 430 Methodists in the state, mainly in upcountry Wilkes County. Work of ordained and lay preachers made Georgia important enough for Bishop Asbury to hold the first Methodist conference at the forks of the Broad River in Wilkes County in 1788. Asbury reported that many who had no religion in Virginia found it upon removal to Georgia and South Carolina, where he was sure the Methodist Church would flourish.¹¹

There had been Baptist ministers in Georgia since the early 1770s. Daniel Marshall, the best known early Baptist clergyman, died at his church at Kiokee in November, 1784, after a busy and eventful life. A Georgia Baptist Association was separated from the South Carolina Association in 1784 or 1785, when five churches are known to have existed. Thirty-one churches, a few of them in South Carolina, were represented at a meeting of the Georgia Association in October, 1788.¹²

Although many of the settlers of the upcountry were Scotch-Irish, the Presbyterian Church never made the effort to minister to this area that the Methodists and Baptists did. There were by 1788 no more than eight or ten Presbyterian churches in upcountry Wilkes and Greene counties. Independent Church, Zubly’s old church in Savannah, was repaired; but nothing is known of its operation or activities in the 1780s nor of the Presbyterian Church among the Scots at Darien.¹³

There was probably Jewish worship, at least periodically, in Savannah after 1786, when the Jews are reported to have rented a house to be used for religious services.¹⁴

Education, the handmaiden of religion, made considerably more progress in postwar Georgia than did religion. The constitution of 1777 provided that “Schools shall be erected in each county, and supported at the general expense of the state. . .,” but nothing was done to carry out this provision until after the fighting stopped. In his July, 1783, assembly message, Governor Lyman Hall recommended that steps be taken to encourage both education and religion. In the field of education Hall recommended that land be granted to endow schools and that property formerly used for the support of education but then in private hands be secured by the state.¹⁵ The assembly passed a bill which directed commissioners to lay out lands at Augusta in acre lots, sell these lots at public auction, and use the income thus secured for the erection of a church and seminary of learning. The public ferry at Augusta and the income from it were put under the control of the commissioners. The commissioners were authorized to procure professors, institute by-laws, and conduct the academy. The same act appointed commissioners to lay out Washington in Wilkes County and Waynesborough in Burke County, sell the lots, and use the income to erect a “free school” and church in Washington and the necessary public buildings in Waynesborough. One thousand acres of land was authorized to each county in the state for the erection of free schools.¹⁶

When the University of Georgia was chartered in 1785, its governing board was given general oversight over all publicly supported schools in the state and was directed to inspect them and to make general recommendations about schools, their curricula, and instructors. The next year the assembly directed that academies be established in every county, appointed commissioners for each county, and voted £1,000 value of confiscated estates plus vacant lands to support each academy.¹⁷

Richmond Academy, at Augusta, the oldest public school in the state, began operation on the second Tuesday in April, 1785, in new buildings erected for its use. Its initial rates were four dollars per quarter for children in the first stage (letters, spelling, and reading), five dollars for those in the second stage (English grammar, writing, and arithmetic), and ten dollars for those in the third stage (Latin or Greek and mathematics). By July fees were reduced to two, three, and five dollars per quarter for the three stages. The next year the commissioners were given additional lands for the benefit of the academy, and newspaper publicity indicates that henceforth the academy prospered.¹⁸

Besides Richmond Academy, Augusta had private schools, which helped to make it the cultural center of the upcountry. A French School was advertised in 1786 and an evening school in January, 1789, where S. Chandler would teach French, arithmetic, bookkeeping, geography, use of globes, mensuration, algebra, trigonometry, heights and distances, astronomy, navigation, surveying, and gauging. An adjunct to public education in Augusta was the Academic Society which held public debates at the academy. The catholic interests of the society are indicated by the subjects announced for debate: “Is it consistent with the policy of the American Republic to establish a Navy?” ‘‘Which is the most desirable, a very beautiful and accomplished young lady, with a small, or no fortune, or one of an ordinary person, good sense, large fortune, and advanced in years?” “Is the knowledge of the dead languages a necessary part of education in this country?” “Would universal toleration, in religion, be consistent with good government?”¹⁹

The academy in Washington began operation in January, 1786, with a rector and one tutor. By November it held an examination before the chief justice, commissioners, and other gentlemen and gave a play in the evening. Rates ranged from two to six dollars per quarter. In 1788 the academy moved one mile out of Washington to Chalybeate Springs, reputed to be a very healthy spot and one where students would be more immediately under the supervision of the rector than in Washington.²⁰

Savannah continued its pattern of private day and evening schools at which French, English, ancient languages, reading and writing, navigation, bookkeeping, needle work, dancing and music, and many other subjects were offered to the public. Schools were taught by clergymen and laymen, natives and recent immigrants, men and women—in short by as varied a group of instructors as the curriculum which they offered.²¹ The assembly on February 1, 1788, established an academy for Chatham County, appointed trustees, and set aside vacant lands and confiscated estates for the support of the school.²² Actual instruction at the Chatham Academy was delayed for some months beyond its founding.

The act establishing Chatham Academy confirmed ownership of the property of Bethesda College to the Countess Dowager of Huntington, to whom it had been willed by George Whitefield. Bethesda reopened in June, 1788, under the patronage of the Countess of Huntington. The Reverend David Phillips, lately come from England, was superintendent of the school and the Reverend Benjamin Lindsay, Rector of Christ Church, was classical tutor. Instruction was to be given in English grammar, writing, use of figures, every branch of mathematics, use of globes, Latin, Greek, and French. Fees were thirty guineas per year, including board, washing, etc. Bethesda was called a college, but its instruction was on a par with that of the newly-founded county academies and the private schools.²³

The academy for Liberty County was established by law in Sunbury in 1788, and £1,000 value of confiscated estates was set aside for its support. At the same time commissioners were appointed to resurvey the town of Brunswick, as nearly as possible on its original lines, to sell town lots, and to build an academy for Glynn County at Brunswick.²⁴ There is no record that the Liberty and Glynn County academies began operations in the period of this study.

Besides county academies, Georgians were also interested in a state university to provide higher education and to coordinate the educational system. The movement for a university got its beginning from New England-born and Yale-educated men, Governor Lyman Hall and Abraham Baldwin. As noted above, Hall recommended to the assembly in 1783 that education and religion should be encouraged in order to restrain vice and encourage virtue. This message, which was concerned with the entire realm of government, was referred to a special committee of Joseph Clay, Edward Telfair, and John Houstoun. The assembly agreed to a committee report which directed that a reserve of land for the endowment of a college should be laid out in each new county created thereafter.²⁵ Seven “Trustees for a College” (John Houstoun, James Habersham, William Few, Joseph Clay, Abraham Baldwin, William Houstoun, and Nathan Brownson) were elected on February 24, 1784, and the next day the counties of Franklin and Washington were created with a reserve of 20,000 acres of land in each to serve as an endowment for the college.²⁶

Abraham Baldwin’s address to the trustees at what was probably their first meeting shows that he was mainly responsible for the organization of the university. He pointed out that there was no university south of Virginia and that it was bad policy to send youth out of the country to be educated in foreign ideas and ideals. He suggested that the proposed university be located in a healthy climate and have sufficient land attached to raise fresh milk and provisions that would provide an adequate and cheap diet for faculty and students, help to support charity students, tend to promote an interest in gardening and agriculture, and prevent student mischief. All that was necessary to begin a university whose main concern was practical education and not the knowledge of the ancients would be a small collection of books for instruction in “the principles and rudiments of language, more particularly of the English; the ready and exact use of numbers; some of the first principles of Geography, History, Mensuration, a Pair of Globes, and some small part of a Philosophical apparatus.” After these books and apparatus were collected, students and a tutor could be sought. Once the university began operation it would increase in students, facilities for instruction, and usefulness. Baldwin then proceeded to outline a constitution under which he thought the university should operate. It was so similar to the charter as passed by the assembly in 1785 that it seems obvious that Baldwin wrote the charter, which tradition has long attributed to him.²⁷

The charter of the University created a board of visitors of the governor, council, speaker of the assembly, and chief justice to visit the University and to see that the intent of the assembly was carried out. More immediate control was vested in a board of trustees to consist of the seven trustees named in 1784 plus John Habersham, Abiel Holmes, Jenkins Davis, Hugh Lawson, William Glascock, and Benjamin Taliaferro. Both boards, united into one, made up the “Senatus Academicus of the University of Georgia,” which made University statutes, subject to disallowance by the assembly. The president was appointed by the Senatus Academicus upon the recommendation of the trustees, who appointed all other faculty members and set salaries, had direct control of University property and funds, prescribed the curriculum, and adopted regulations for the University. Faculty members and officials were required to be Christians, but no student “of any religious denomination, whatsoever,” was to be denied full equality and liberty at the University because of his religious beliefs. The president, with the consent of the trustees, was empowered to confer all honors, degrees, and licenses that were usually conferred by colleges and universities.

The Senatus Academicus was directed at its annual meetings to consult and advise upon matters of the University and on other matters, “to remedy the Defects, and advance, the Interests of Literature through the state in general.” Its members were to study the schools in their counties so that they could recommend types of schools and curricula needed. The president and trustees were directed to inspect once a year all schools which received public funds, all such schools being considered a part of the University. Thus all public education was put under the Senatus Academicus or trustees who were directed to make recommendations to the assembly for the entire educational system.²⁸

Such was the educational system planned for the small but rapidly growing frontier state. Much of the thinking and work came from Abraham Baldwin and Lyman Hall, Yale-educated New England immigrants. Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale, was consulted by Baldwin before the charter was written.²⁹ The system was a bold dream that could be projected only by a young commonwealth certain of great days ahead. It was helped both by the republican enthusiasm of the eighteenth-century enlightenment and by the successful fight against the political control of England. It was a part of the rise of the common man who was coming into his own in control of state politics, carefully guided by educated leaders who believed in human perfectibility, even of crude frontiersmen. County academies and a state university would insure continued democracy and liberal political institutions. Such was the dream of the Revolutionary generation. The University did not begin operation until 1801, and the entire educational system outlined in its charter was never fully achieved. The vision of a new day to be brought about by an educated and enlightened electorate was disturbed and delayed, but it still lingers in the hearts of many Georgians.

An important adjunct to education, especially in a society that believes in freedom of expression, is the press. James Johnston, Georgia’s only colonial newspaper editor, was named in the state act of confiscation and banishment. He was, however, taken off the act in August, 1782, and put on the act of amercement. He reclaimed his printing equipment and in January, 1783, secured a contract as state printer and brought out the first issue of the Gazette of the State of Georgia (renamed Georgia Gazette, October 23, 1788). Johnston was no more rabid Tory than others who were put on the bill of amercement; his political beliefs never seemed to interfere with his journalistic or printing abilities; and he was undoubtedly the only available editor and printer in Georgia.³⁰

The format and contents of Johnston’s newspaper continued much like the former ones, but more local news was now included. Account of state marriages and deaths were included. The longest funeral notice went to Samuel Elbert, Revolutionary leader, Continental and Georgia officer, and ex-governor. Elbert’s funeral in Savannah was attended by the Cincinnati, Masons, county militia, and many prominent citizens.³¹ The announcement that Joseph Clay, the son of the Savannah merchant of the same name, had won a medal at Princeton commencement for the best dissertation on the subject “What are the best means to be adopted by civil government for the promotion of piety and virtue among the people?” was carried with considerable pride.³² Johnston did not forget former Georgians who had returned to England. The marriage of ex-Lieutenant Governor John Graham’s daughter in London was thought worthy of note. The same issue carried an account of the death of “Sir Patrick Houstoun, Bart, of this State, who about 12 months ago went to London. The many amicable qualities of this worthy gentleman having rendered him extremely dear in life, his death cannot but be an event of uncommon concern and regret to his numerous connections and acquaintances.”³³ Two other and more important ex-Georgians got shorter notices and no favorable comment. A London dispatch of November 22, 1785, reported, “Yesterday morning died, at his house in Westminster, Sir James Wright, Bart, many years Governor of Georgia.” And in the summer of 1786, “General Oglethorpe, died August last, aged 103.”³⁴ Oglethorpe had really died June 30, 1785, at the age of 89, but his age was commonly reported much greater in the British press.

Augusta got its first newspaper in the summer of 1785 when Greenberg Hughes began publication of the Augusta Gazette, which lasted for a year or longer. On September 30, 1786, John Eardman Smith began the publication in Augusta of the Georgia State Gazette, or Independent Register. On April 4, 1789, the name was changed to Augusta Chronicle and Gazette of the State. Through these two newspapers, the present Augusta Chronicle claims its birth date to be August 30, 1785. Continuity since September 30, 1786, can be traced, and it seems that there is continuity from the earlier date through the Augusta Gazette.³⁵ Augusta was now the capital, and Smith soon became the state printer. He sold the usual paper, writing supplies, and blank forms and did job printing. To secure greater circulation, Smith frequently announced the fact that he would take indigo or tobacco in payment for subscriptions and requested various prominent citizens throughout the state to act as subscription agents for him.³⁶

Another reflection of a society, especially of its social consciousness, is the treatment it gives to unfortunates. Truly the poor are always with us, but after a war there are often more unfortunates than usual. This was true in 1782-83 because of the destruction of the war years and because of the returned refugees who had no means of immediate support. Until a crop could be planted and harvested, the state government found it necessary to procure food and distribute it to the distressed inhabitants. Salt procurement and distribution were especially difficult in the immediate postwar years and took up a great deal of the executive’s time.³⁷

In 1785 the executive was doubtful if the temporary relief act of 1782 was still in effect, but the next year a comprehensive and permanent poor relief act was passed by the assembly. It provided that a special session of the county justices should be held after the spring term of the superior court in each county to bind out orphans and other children in need and to appoint overseers for the county poor. This court was empowered to levy a tax of not over six pence per £100 property valuation, to be used for poor relief.³⁸

Private agencies supplemented governmental relief. The Savannah philanthropic organization, the Union Society, had resumed its prewar activities by 1784. There is a record of at least one meeting every year thereafter except for 1788. Between 1784 and 1789 nineteen children, mostly orphans, were bound to tradesmen or sent to their relations. In 1786 the assembly incorporated the Society with twenty-one members, most of them prominent Savannah Jews and Christians, for the relief of distressed widows and for the schooling and maintaining of poor children.³⁹

The lazaretto, or quarantine station on Tybee Island, the subject of so much colonial executive and legislative consideration, lost its prominence in the postwar years. It must have been no longer used or some mention of it would have been discovered. There was little governmental concern with smallpox after the war, in contrast to frequent concern before the war. Once the executive directed the attorney general to investigate a report that a Savannah Negro had smallpox and to have him removed to Tybee Island if he had the disease. In 1786 Governor Edward Telfair issued a proclamation during a smallpox epidemic in Augusta giving permission to all who wished to be inoculated and directing quarantine measures to be taken.⁴⁰ The assumption is that the disease remained as serious as it had been in the colonial period but that the government gave up its close medical supervision. Some pretense at keeping up a hospital for sick seamen in Savannah was made after 1784, when port fees were applied to its upkeep. Beginning in 1786 the assembly elected a health officer and surgeon annually to head this hospital.⁴¹

Little record of doctors living and practicing in Georgia has been discovered, beyond the notices of several doctors beginning practice in Augusta. However, there were undoubtedly doctors in Savannah and throughout the state, and there is no reason to doubt that the state was as well supplied with doctors after the war as before. Bond & Company, the one drug store known to have existed in Savannah, announced its opening in 1786. It would sell medicines and compound physicians’ prescriptions, sell medical instruments, garden seed, and painters’ colors, and put up medicine boxes for ships and plantations.⁴² Medicine continued, as formerly, to be sold by merchants and doctors.

Besides being concerned about the sterner matters of religion and education, and the unfortunate and sick, Georgians were interested in affairs of a lighter nature. There was in Savannah a theater, housed in the filature in 1783 and perhaps later, that was staffed by a local association of gentlemen whose efforts were at intervals supplemented by visiting actors and entertainers. Tragedies and comedies were presented, often with short one-act “entertainments,” “farces,” or comedies in addition to the main bill and with music between the acts. Plays were presented as commercial enterprises, for the benefit of charity, and for the benefit of certain actors. Prices of admission ordinarily ranged from three to five shillings per seat.

From October, 1783, through June, 1784, nine plays were advertised for presentation in Savannah, seven of them for the benefit of charity, and apparently all by local talent.⁴³ In April, 1785, twenty-eight inhabitants of Savannah petitioned that Dennis Ryan and his company of comedians be allowed to perform plays in Savannah, but the executive refused the request on the grounds that the petition was signed by too few people to support the players. However, in June a large group secured permission for James Godwin and John Kidd, of Charleston, to perform plays in Savannah for nine nights.⁴⁴ They advertised at least eight different plays, including King Richard III and The Taming of the Shrew, during the summer. In November Godwin and Kidd petitioned for permission to give plays occasionally in order to pay their Savannah debts, an indication that their summer season had not been too profitable.⁴⁵

At the end of 1785 a group of Savannahians were granted permission to open a theater in the town. Soon the Gazette carried news of improvement of the theater “by way of Boxes, to accommodate six or eight Persons each.” The opening play was Dr. Young’s tragedy Revenge plus a three-act comedy, The Mayor of Garratt. The actors were members of the Charitable Society of Savannah “with the assistance of Messrs. Godwin and Kidd.” Throughout January and February a play a week was advertised, with benefits for Mrs. Godwin, Mrs. Kidd, and the musicians. Plays continued through June but on a reduced schedule.⁴⁶ Visiting actors and other entertainers, usually on the West Indian Circuit, visited Savannah at rather rare intervals. There were also such entertainments as tumbling and posturing feats “by a person who has performed in London”; there were also lectures, and other popular entertainment.⁴⁷

Judging from the number of licenses to sell liquor and to keep houses of entertainment, no Savannahian needed to go thirsty if he desired alcoholic drink. A coffeehouse was opened on the bay in the fall of 1785 that advertised coffee at any minute from seven in the morning until nine at night, as well as at breakfast, dinner, and supper. There was a spacious dining room for dinners, large parties, and private balls; there were private rooms for business and small parties, and a few rooms available to genteel lodgers. A book of ship arrivals and departures was to be kept, and all the principal newspapers were to be procured from the different states.⁴⁸ If the advertisement was carried out, no American town as isolated as Savannah could hope to offer more.

Music was not neglected by teachers and performers. A number of people advertised to teach instrumental and vocal music in schools or private homes, during the day or evenings. In 1785 John Hiwell, who declared himself a former inspector of music in the American army, advertised that he would give a concert for his benefit and teach all instruments if he got enough scholars. He met with enough success to remain in Savannah eight months and perhaps longer.⁴⁹ Music teachers sometimes also set up in Augusta when they did not get sufficient encouragement in Savannah. Dancing schools were popular. In the fall of 1785 Mr. Godwin, the actor, advertised a dancing school with morning, afternoon, and evening sessions. The next March he announced that he was giving up the stage but would continue to teach dancing. Charles Francis Chevalier advertised a school where he taught dancing and fencing in Savannah in 1783 and in Augusta three years later. Besides these and other teachers who located in Savannah, there were visiting artists (mainly musicians and portrait painters) who stopped in Savannah to display their talents.⁵⁰

Social clubs undoubtedly existed in Savannah as they had formerly, but little record has been found of any. A hunting club was organized in December, 1783, with twenty-one leading citizens as charter members. Other applicants could be admitted to membership if no member voted against them. Every member was to furnish a beagle for the use of the club and to provide a good mount for himself. Bread, beef, or ham, and a case of liquor were to be provided by the club at its meetings, which were to be held every second Saturday.⁵¹

By the summer of 1785 Augusta was growing rapidly and was taking on a new importance as the upcountry metropolis. The academy was opened. A newspaper and printing office began operation, and regular postal connections with the outside world were established. New houses and stores were built.⁵² The next year additional lots were laid out, and Augusta became the capital of the state. Social life in Augusta was similar to that in Savannah but had less elegance and more frontier characteristics. No record of any theatrical performances has been found. Balls and concerts are mentioned frequently, but the races were the main social event. There was a Jockey Club by 1785 which offered purses as high as a hundred guineas. For the December, 1786, races a purse of £100 sterling was offered the first day, £50 the second day, and £30 the third day. In addition prizes of £3 for the best stall-fed beef, 30 shillings for the three best muttons, and 20 shillings for the two best veals were offered. In the evenings after the races, balls were held.⁵³ At least one celebration of St. Tammany’s Day in Augusta was recorded with a hundred gentlemen participating in the festivities—a procession and a dinner with eleven toasts.⁵⁴

Little record of social functions outside Savannah and Augusta has been found. The usual frontier social functions took place, and horse racing was certainly engaged in wherever a sufficient number of people and horses could be collected. Notice of two plays presented in Washington (probably by local actors) have been found.⁵⁵ Other plays may have been presented by local actors, but the presence of touring actors or entertainers outside Savannah or Augusta is extremely doubtful.

For Georgians who wished to join, there were fraternal orders that had both a social and civic program. The Masonic order flourished, especially in regions where there were a sizable number of Virginia immigrants, and included many leading citizens in its membership. There were at least six lodges in the state by 1787. An annual meeting of all lodges was held in Savannah every December at which state officers were elected.⁵⁶ Besides the annual meeting and meetings of individual lodges, there were usually celebrations of saints’ days, especially St. John’s Day. Such celebrations usually consisted of a procession to the church, a sermon, a “most excellent” dinner, and the remainder of the day spent in “extreme harmony.”⁵⁷

The Georgia Society of the Cincinnati was organized on August 13 and 14, 1783, in response to an invitation from the national society. General Lachlan McIntosh was elected president; Colonel Samuel Elbert, vice president; Captain John Milton, secretary; Lieutenant Colonel John McIntosh, treasurer; and Major John Habersham, assistant treasurer. Most of these officers retained their places until 1789 when General Anthony Wayne was elected president and a new slate of officers installed. The Georgia Society usually held quarterly meetings in Savannah, or in Augusta if the assembly was in session there. At these meetings Society business was transacted, a dinner was served, thirteen toasts were inevitably drunk, and the “day concluded with joy and satisfaction, everyone feeling a soldierly affection for each other.” The main business was the election of officers and delegates to the general meeting and the reading of dispatches from the general society. In Georgia, the Society seems to have been a fraternal order entirely. There is no record that it was opposed as “aristocracy” or that it tried to exert any political influence. Its membership was too small to exert much influence upon the state had it tried. At the 1788 and 1789 meetings, toasts were drunk urging Rhode Island and North Carolina to adopt the United States Constitution. Besides the Continental officers, a few French and Georgia state officers were admitted as honorary members. Along with the Georgia State Society, there was a district society at Augusta.⁵⁸

Georgians were especially fond of all days that could be celebrated with liquid refreshment. A pattern for July 4th celebrations developed in Savannah and Augusta, which began with a parade and review of the military (Continental and state troops and militia) and a public dinner for the troops participating. At an “elegant repast” for the military officers, civilian officials, and important guests, thirteen toasts were always drunk. The rest of the day was usually spent in the “utmost good form and patriotic endeavor.” There were often addresses by local or visiting officials and sometimes a Cincinnati address or a special church service. Augusta was more likely to end the day with a ball and concert than Savannah and other towns, and all towns might be illuminated at night with candles and bonfires. The account of the Savannah celebration for 1784 reports that plenty of people were drunk but that there was no bad behavior. Accounts have been found of celebrations in Savannah, Augusta, Washington, and Wrightsborough, and by state troops in the field. The toasts drunk at Savannah in 1783 are a good example of July 4th toasts:

1. The state of Georgia

2. The United States in Congress assembled

3. His Most Christian Majesty Louis the 16th, our great ally

4. His Catholic Majesty the King of Spain

5. The Seven United Provinces

6. General Washington and the Patriot Army of America

7. Cavalier de la Luzerne

8. Count Rochambeau and the gallant troops which served under him in America

9. Our Ministers at foreign courts

10. The Navy of the United States

11. The memory of those American Heroes who sealed the Liberty of their Country with their blood

12. May trade and commerce flourish

13. May this Anniversary continue a Festival until the latest posterity.⁵⁹

Toasts changed from year to year to fit the current situation. In 1785 two were concerned with Georgia’s relations with the Confederation: “May Georgia never need exertion to comply with her confederal engagements.” “May Congress never want support to maintain the liberties of the States.”⁶⁰

Only one record has been discovered of the celebration of Washington’s birthday in Georgia. This was a dinner for some thirty gentlemen who had served in the war, held at the State Hotel in Savannah on February 11, 1786. The usual thirteen toasts were drunk. The vessels in the river displayed their colors and fired their cannon in honor of the occasion.⁶¹

Most personal social life must have been of the sort not recorded in the newspapers or personal letters of the day. Certainly there were private parties and drinking bouts, literary and musical sessions for those, interested, dinners of all sorts, horse races, and the usual combination of fun and work that went together on the frontier. Though the separation from Britain resulted in the dropping of old days of celebration and the adding of new ones, the pattern of celebration remained the same. The greatest changes in entertainment came from the increased commercial recreation resulting from the increasing population and the increasing predominance of the common man and of the frontier in the state.