Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

December 11

1841 Gov. Charles McDonald signed an act directing that no person could be excluded from testifying in court because of that person's religions beliefs.

1858 Gov. Joseph E. Brown signed legislation creating Banks, Johnson, and Brooks counties.

Banks County, Georgia's 129th, was created from portions of Franklin and Habersham counties and named for Dr. Richard Banks of Gainesville.

Johnson County, Georgia's 130th, was created from portions of Emanuel, Laurens, and Washington counties and named in honor of former Georgia governor Herschel Johnson.

Brooks County, Georgia's 131st, was created from portions of Lowndes and Thomas counties and named for Georgia congressman Preston Brooks.

1889 Memorial services for Jefferson Davis were held in Georgia's new state capitol on the day of his funeral in New Orleans. Davis had died five days earlier while visiting a friend there.

Jefferson Davis, 1888

1943 United Press was permitted to reveal for the first time, under liberalized censorship restrictions, that B-29 Super-Fortresses were being built in at least three aircraft plants in the U.S., including those operated by the Bell Aircraft Company in Marietta, Ga.; Boeing Aircraft Company in Seattle; and Glenn L. Martin Company near Omaha, Neb.

General Henry H. Arnold said that the plane was capable of carrying bombs nonstop from the U.S. to Berlin and back and had "eyes" to help guide it to its target or warn and plot the course of interceptor aircraft.

The Bell Bomber plant would deliver its first two B-29s before the last day of 1943. Before the plant closed in January 1946 over 660 additional B-29s rolled out of the Marietta facility. After the war president Lawrence D. Bell would say: "I believe, and other people agree with me, that the B-29 in Georgia was probably the biggest and most successful single manufacturing enterprise in the country during the war . . . . My friends down there have repeatedly told me that the operation of Bell Aircraft probably had more influence on the rebirth of the South than anything that's ever been done." [Contributed by Dr. Tom Scott, Kennesaw State University]

1944 Singer Brenda Mae Tarpley was born in Atlanta, Georgia -- in the charity ward of Grady Hospital. Growing up in Lithonia, Brenda's family was poor, and her father was constantly seeking work as a carpenter. Moving among numerous rental houses, Brenda found a rock of stability in her grandfather's Baptist church, where even at age five she amazed church-goers with her powerful voice. Soon her voice was discovered and she was on her way to stardom under the name Brenda Lee. Early in her career, she was rock 'n roll singer with such hits as "Dynamite,""I'm Sorry," and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." By age thirty she had moved to the country music scene, where she continued her popularity. On Sept. 24, 1997, Brenda Lee was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Despite living in Nashville today, she still claims Georgia as her home.

1949 Country music pioneer Fiddlin' John Carson died in Atlanta.

1960 Some 8,000 blacks attended a prayer meeting at Atlanta's Herndon Stadium as part of the growing movement to boycott downtown stores that refused to hire blacks or integrate their facilities. Two thousand of those marched downtown to show their support for civil rights demonstrators.

1961 In response to the arrest of the Freedom Riders the previous day, Marion King, wife of Albany Movement organizer Slater King, and several others prayed for justice outside the Albany city Hall and were themselves arrested.

2007 Bobby Petrino resigned as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. He was in his first year coaching the team, which was thrown into disarray when star quarterback Michael Vick pled guilty to dog fighting charges. Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison on Dec. 10; the team lost a Monday night game that same night, then Petrino resigned to accept the head coaching job at the University of Arkansas the next day.

2010 Cam Newton, a native of College Park, GA, won the Heisman Trophy as college football's most outstanding player; Newton played for Auburn.

In Their Own Words on This Day . . .

1736 In London, the Earl of Egmont met with a Mr. McBane, a Scot Highlander from Darien who was in England to hire servants. McBane gave a positive account of Darien and Frederica, while less complimentary of Savannah, as recorded in Egmont's diary:

"1. That the first place settled by the embarkations this year to the southward of Savannah is called Darien . . . ; that there are about 45 families settled there besides about 30 servants; that it stands on a fruitful bluff, about 10 miles distant from the island of St. Simonds, and has no fort, but some cannon; that the people are extraordinarily industrious and will have corn sufficient not only for their own subsistence but to sell; . . . that they first cultivated their lands and then built their houses, which it were to be wished the inhabitants of Savannah had done.

"2. That the next settlement made is Frederica in St. Simon's Island, where there is a strong fort finished of four bastions ditched and reampiered, and strengthened with palisadoes double; that there are nine cannon there with suitable ammunition, and the storehouse in the midst of the fort has a platform on which a hundred men may stand and defend the place; that there are settled there about 60 or 80 families besides single men, and that many come from Carolina and other parts to fix; that there are two streets laid out, on each side of which about 15 or 16 houses are already erected; . . . that the people are industrious and there is great plenty of fish, fine cedar and other timber etc., and no rum drunk. This was the first settlement Mr. Oglethorp made at his arrival. . . .

"As to Savannah, he [McBane] hold me there are some who have cultivated and are diligent and thrive, but a great number are idlers and will never come to good. Many of these were intending to leave the Province since our orders came to strike them off the stores, but being in debt were not suffered, so that some have made themselves over for servants in order to pay their debts, and it is hoped more will do so; . . . that our public garden is now in good order since Percy has the care of it, and some have already planted mulberry trees taken out of it on their own lands, and that the silkworms thrive and multiply; that the Savannah people still get at rum, notwithstanding all our care, by means of Carolina boats, which in the night time land it in creeks unknown to the magistrates . . . ."

Source: U.K. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Diary of the First Earl of Egmont (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1923), Vol. II, pp. 316-317.

1861 In Bibb County, Maryann Mosely wrote a simple plea to her son, who was serving in the Confederate Army:

"i want you to come home a[t] christmas if you can any how in the world. . . ."

Source: Spencer B. King, Jr., Georgia Voices: A Documentary History to 1872 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1966), p. 299

For more, see This Week in Georgia Civil War History.

1864 As the four portions of his army began to position themselves around Savannah, General Sherman witnessed the following gruesome scene,which he recounted in his memoirs:

"I rode forward by the Louisville road, into a dense wood of oak, pine, and cypress, left the horses, and walked down to the railroad-track, at a place where there was a side-track, and a cut about four feet deep. From that point the railroad was straight, leading into Savannah, and about eight hundred yards off were a rebel parapet and a battery. I could see the cannoneers preparing to fire and cautioned the officers near me to scatter, as we would likely attract a shot. Very soon I saw the white puff of smoke and, watching close, caught sight of the ball as it rose in its flight, and, finding it coming pretty straight, I stepped a short distance to one side, but noticed a Negro very near me in the act of crossing the track at right angles. Someone called to him to look out; but, before the poor fellow understood his danger, the ball (a thirty-two pound round shot) struck the ground, and rose in its first ricochet, caught the Negro under the right jaw, and literally carried away his head, scattering blood and brains about. A soldier close by spread an overcoat over the body, and we all concluded to get out of that railroad-cut."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), Marching Through Georgia: William T. Sherman's Personal Narrative of His March Through Georgia (New York: Arno Press, 1978), p. 159.

For more, see This Week in Georgia Civil War History.