Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

February 27

1729 James Oglethorpe and the Gaols [Jails] Committee visited Fleet Prison, where they questioned warden Thomas Bambridge.

They also examined Sir William Rich, a baronet who had been imprisoned at Fleet and placed in a neck iron.

The committee order that Bambridge have the 15-pound irons removed from Rich. The warden complied, but as soon as the committee left, he not only had the irons replaced but added two extra sets.

Famous British artist William Hogarth accompanied the Gaols Committee during its Fleet investigation and sketched the committee at work. In his oil on paper rendering [click to view], a standing prisoner (possibly Rich) is shown testifying. James Oglethorpe is shown seated at the far left and has turned to question warden Bambridge (standing at the far left). Hogarth subsequently decided to produce an oil on canvas [shown above]. A number of differences between the initial sketch and subsequent canvas are immediately noticeable. The sketch shows the committee in a well-lighted room, while the canvas shows them in bowels of Fleet Prison. It is known that the committee did visit the dungeons of Fleet, but in February it would have been quite cold. Also, as one committee member wrote, the stench was so bad that members had to hold their noses. So, Hogarth apparently used artistic license to portray the Gaols Committee investigation. In any event, his final canvas, which shows Oglethorpe at far left and a prisoner in neck iron on his knees answering committee questions, has become an icon of Georgia history. Later, Hogarth's painting was engraved for publication.

1734 Georgia magistrate Peter Gordon, who had returned to London for surgery, appeared before the Trustees to report on the status of the colony. He brought a plat of Savannah, which the Trustees took and had a sketch done, which in turn was used to create the famous "View of Savannah" engraving.

Gordon gave an enthusiastic report on the status of Georgia, reporting that as of Nov. 1733 (when he left to return to England):

"That there were about 500 Souls, and of them 100 fighting Men. That 40 houses were already built of Timber & Clap board, with Shingled roofs, but Mr. Oglethorp [sic] Still lay in his Tent. That the town was intended to consist of 6 Wards, each Ward containing 4 Tythings, and each Tything 10 houses, so that the whole number of houses & Lots would be 240. That there is a battery of 12 guns on the River and over them a Guard Room, besides which 2 block houses at the Angles of the town had each 4 guns. That a Town house is erected where Mr. Quincy perform'd divine Service. . . . That the people were orderly and healthy when he came away, and Mr. Oglethorp indefatigable in carrying on the affairs of the Province, conducting the building the Town, Keeping peace, laying out land, Supplying the Stores with provision, encouraging the faint hearted &c."

1864 During a Union probe led by Gen. George H. Thomas to test Confederate forces under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, the third of three skirmishes took place at Rocky Face Ridge. The day before, fighting had occurred at Tunnell Hill, and two days before at Buzzard Roost. The casualty count of the three days of skirmishes was 20 killed and 120 wounded for the Confederates, and 17 killed and 272 wounded for the Federals. In May, Confederate and Union forces would tangle again with major battles at these sites. For more, see This Week in Georgia Civil War History.

1930 Actress Joanne Woodward was born in Thomasville, Georgia.

1933 Gov. Eugene Talmadge signed an act allowing the consolidation of Albany and Dougherty County governments subject to approval of Dougherty County voters in a special referendum (which failed).

1942 Famous Georgia educator Martha Berry died in Atlanta, Georgia. Born in Rome on Oct. 7, 1866, she became interested in educating the rural children of North Georgia as a result of teaching Sunday school in a log cabin on her family estate. Berry soon saw the need for further commitment to education, leading to the construction of a new school building. She taught there and helped fund the salaries of the other two teachers. From these humble beginnings rose a philanthropic career in education rivaled by few. Berry raised funds for the construction of a Boys Industrial School and the Martha Berry School for Girls. Eventually her efforts led to the founding of Berry Academy and Berry College, providing education from pre-school through graduate school on a beautiful 27,000 acre campus. Altogether she raised over $25 million for her schools.

Berry was honored for and encouraged in her efforts by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt. Her first large endowment ($50,000) came from Andrew Carnegie, the largest ($4 million) from Henry Ford. But Berry did not rely solely on large investors; much of the money she raised came from small, anonymous donors and from women's groups. She received numerous honors in her lifetime, including being named "Distinguished Citizen of Georgia" by the General Assembly, the "American who did more than any other for humanity" by Variety Club, and a listing in Good Housekeeping as one of the twelve greatest American women.

1942 Charlayne Hunter was born in Due West, South Carolina. Her family later moved to Atlanta, where she graduated from Turner High School in 1959. After she and fellow high school graduate Hamilton Holmes were denied admission to the University of Georgia that fall, she enrolled in Morehouse College. Both Hunter and Holmes continued efforts to enroll at the University of Georgia, and in January 1961 a federal judge ordered their admission.

After graduation, she married and as Charlayne Hunter-Gault became a print and television journalist. She would win two Emmies for her work on "The MacNeil/Lehrer News-Hour."

1962 In Albany, Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph David Abernathy were tried in recorder's court in a three-hour trial as a result of their arrest the previous Dec. 16 while demonstrating on the steps of Albany's city hall. The judge delayed their verdicts until July 10, when he sentenced them to 45 days in jail or a $178 fine.

1982 Wayne Williams was convicted of two murders in Atlanta's notorious missing and murdered children case. Authorities cleared 23 other cases under the assumption that Williams was responsible in those cases as well.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1736 Aboard the Symond near the mouth of Tybee Creek, James Oglethorpe wrote the Trustees about the arrival of the first colonists on St. Simons island and his subsequent visit with the Scot Highlanders at Darien:

". . . I arrived at Saint Simon the 18th and found the sloop and a detachment of men whom I had sent with her there. . . . We immediately got up a house and thatched it with palmettoes, dug a cellar, traced out a fort with four bastions by cutting up the turf from the ground, dug enough of the ditch and raised enough of the rampart for a sample for the men to work upon.

"On the 22nd a boat arrived with a detachment of the workmen and the same day I left Saint Simon, rowing up the Altamaha three hours. I arrived at the Scotch settlement which they desire may be called Darien. They were all under arms upon seeing a boat and made a most manly appearance with their plaids, broadswords, targets and firearms . . . . They have mounted a battery of four pieces of cannon, built a guard house, a storehouse, a chapel and several huts for particular people. . . ."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), General Oglethorpe's Georgia: Colonial Letters, 1733-1743 (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1990), Vol. I, pp. 239-240.

1743 In 1740, James Oglethorpe led an unsuccessful attempt to take the Spanish fortress at St. Augustine. Now, buoyed by his victory over the Spanish invasion force on St. Simons Island in 1742, Oglethorpe -- now an official brigadier general in the British Army -- was ready to try a second time to take the capital of Spanish Florida. On St. Simons Island, Edward Kimber, a volunteer in Gen. Oglethorpe's invasion force, recorded their departure from St. Simons Island in his diary:

"The whole detachment, rangers, &c. embark'd on board the guard schooner and the two hir'd schooners at ten in the morning. At two, weigh'd and fell down below the point-guard, saluting the town [Frederica] with twenty-one guns."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), Georgia: History written by Those who lived It (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1995), p. 24.

1750 Salzburger minister Johann Martin Boltzius wrote in his diary of the difficulties he was having with a member of his congregation:

"N.N. has been excluded from Holy Communion and other privileges of Christians because of his vexing life (he is very given to drink); but last week he came to me and asked me to accept him again and let him go to Holy Communion with his wife and other members of the congregation. I admonished him sincerely to a true repentance and conversion of his life and let him go this time. He hears God's word regularly and also has a good literal recognition; indeed, he would be a useful man in many ways and prosper well in his household if only he wished to desist from his vice of drunkeness. . . . I considered it advisable to be lenient with him this time, too, and to reserve severity for the future (if it becomes necessary with this man . . . ). It appears God has mightily seized this N. in his conscience again, for eight days ago he was in extreme danger of crushing his head in the millwheel. Recently he heard the sad example of one of his drinking buddies, who moved from Purrysburg to Savannah Town and drank himself full, as was his custom, and died in the snow during a cold night. . . ."

Source: George Fenwick Jones (ed.), Eva Pulgram, Magdalena Hoffman-Loerzer, George Fenwick Jones (trans.), Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America . . . Edited by Samuel Urlsperger Volume Fourteen, 1750 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980), pp. 35-36.