Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

The University of Georgia

June 20

1661 On this day, a fleet of canoes carrying Westo, or Chichimeco, Indian raiders descended the Altamaha River to attack and destroy the Guale mission of Santo Domingo de Talaje near present-day Darien, Ga. The survivors from the mission fled to Sapelo Island and later re-established their town on the north end of St. Simons Island. The Westo/Chichimeco, armed with muskets from Virginia and later South Carolina, preyed for the next two decades on Georgia missions and other villages in the interior in search of Indian slaves they could capture and sell to the English. [Contributed by Dr. John Worth, The Coosawattee Foundation]

1732 Although Georgia's Charter of 1732 was dated June 9, final signing by the various officials, bureaus, and councils in the British government were completed on this date, which is considered the charter's official date of promulgation.

1740 During the siege of St. Augustine, James Oglethorpe sent an ultimatum to Florida Gov. Manuel de Montiano to surrender the town and its Castillo de San Marcos fortress. From Anastasia Island in the harbor, Oglethorpe's artillery began a bombardment of the town and fort, which Spanish artillerey in the fortress returned. [Click here to view a map of the siege of St. Augustine.]

1770 Famous antebellum educator Moses Waddel was born in Rowan County, North Carolina. With an aptitude for learning at an early age, he became a schoolmaster in South Carolina at age 14. He subsequently moved to Georgia, where he opened a school near Greensboro in 1788. He graduated from Sydney College in Virginia in 1791 and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Waddel returned to teach in Georgia, where one of his students was future U.S. Treasury Secretary and presidential candidate William H. Crawford. In 1795, Waddel married the sister of John C. Calhoun and moved to South Carolina, where he taught her brother and future U.S. vice president.

An academy that he opened in the early 1800s soon gained national attention, and in 1819 Waddel was offered the presidency of the University of Georgia. Arriving to take over the helm, Waddel was shocked to discover that the "university" consists of one faculty member and seven students. Though he served as president for only a decade, the university grew rapidly under Waddel's leadership. Resigning in 1829, he moved to South Carolina. After a stroke in 1836, he returned to Athens to live with his son, who taught at the university. Moses Waddel died in 1840.

1773 Noted antebellum Georgia politician Peter Early was born in Culpeper County, Virginia. Accompanying his parents to Georgia in the early 1790s, Early became a lawyer in Oglethorpe County in 1795. Five years later, he moved to Greene County and continued his law practice. Subsequently, Early was elected to Congress, where he served 3 years. He returned to Georgia to become a judge, and then was elected governor in the midst of the War of 1812. Defeated in a bid for reelection, he was elected to the state senate in 1816 but died the next year. Two years later, the legislature named a new county for him.

1793 Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his new invention, the cotton gin. The patent was granted in March 1794, and Whitney and a partner began manufacturing gins. Their invention was very successful, but their business sense was not. Instead of outright sale of gins, they proposed a fee system where planters paid Whitney's partnership the equivalent of 40 percent of the cotton ginned. Planters balked, and because the cotton gin was of fairly simple design, other companies began offering copies. The partnership failed, but the cotton gin went on to change history.

1819 After a 29-day voyage, the Savannah steamed into Liverpool, England becoming the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. With smoke billowing from its stacks, the Savannah sailed from its namesake city in Georgia on May 22. Once at sea, however, most of the voyage would be made under sail, as the ship's supply of fuel (coal and wood) was exhausted after 105 hours of steam power.

1928 Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived in Warm Springs, Ga. for a brief, one day visit to his "second home." This was his twelfth overall visit to Georgia.

1933 State highway department employees were paid for the first time in three months following a military order by Gov. Eugene Talmadge. Deposed highway department chairman J.W. Barnett promised to challenge Talmadge's actions in court.

2002 The White House announced that two people with Georgia ties were among the 12 winners of the 2002 Presidential Medal of Freedom. Atlanta Braves baseball great Hank Aaron is being honored--not just for his baseball accomplishments but because he was able to achieve to do so despite "frequent encounters with racism throughout his career." Also honored was Dr. D.A. Henderson, a scientist at Atlanta's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who led the worldwide efforts of the World Health Organization to eliminate smallpox. The Presidential Medal of Freedom, which recognizes distinguished service, is the highest honor an American civilian can receive from the United States.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1740 Georgia evangelist George Whitefield was well known for his animated preaching and his establishment of the Bethesda Orphan Home near Savannah. Less known was his concern for free blacks and slaves, as evidenced by this day's journal entry by John Martin Boltzius on the occasion of Whitefield's visit to Ebenezer. [In editing Boltzius' journal, Urlsperger replaced many proper names with "N". In this case, the "N" clearly refers to Whitefield.]

"Mr. N. [George Whitefield] is thinking again of traveling to Port Royal and Charleston this coming week. He told me he had already collected more money in America than in England for the orphanage to be erected in Savannah. He hopes to get even more blessings when he travels to New England in a little while. In Pennsylvania he has bought 5,000 acres of land for an institute for Negroes that cost him upwards of 700 £ sterling because all land there is very expensive. It lies rather distant from Philadelphia. The land is undeveloped, and hopes to get such Negroes as have gotten their freedom (for whom he wants to establish a school) to work in the construction voluntarily, above all if they, as he has very good hopes, have been won by the gospel of Christ.

"In Philadelphia he has had a letter printed, directed to the inhabitants of North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, in which he earnestly reproaches them for their irresponsible attitude towards the bodies and souls of these slaves and reveals to them the divide judgments which some have already experience and some are waiting to experience, if there is no improvement."

Source: George Fenwick Jones and Don Savelle (trans. and ed.), Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America . . . Edited by Samuel Urlsperger (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983), Vol. 7, pp. 165-166.

1742 Although Georgians were awaiting the long-feared Spanish invasion, life went on, as William Stephens' journal entry for today reveals:

"June 20. Sunday. Mr. Orton never failed doing his Duty at the Church, and this day Administered the Sacrament, which was omitted during the late Festivals by Reason of his stay at Frederica, where in a few weeks he married 19 pair, and baptized 35 children. This Evening another unhappy Accident happen'd (whereof we have too many). Young Elliot, Nephew to Mr. Watson, who came over with him, 'twas feared was drown'd, for he was known by several to have gone into the River in the Dusk of the evening as 'twas Common among young people to wash and refresh themselves; but he was not seen afterwards."

Source: E. Merton Coulter (ed.), The Journal of William Stephens, 1741-1743 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1959), p. 97.

1864 In his letter to his wife back in Wisconsin, Maj. Fredrick Winkler wrote of heavy rains continuing to slow Sherman's Atlanta Campaign:

"Yesterday the rain was perfectly furious, and we marched and skirmished all day. We are now in position west of Marietta facing east. I lost one man and had five wounded yesterday; one of my captains got a bullet through his haversack. We did not get into camp until eleven o'clock last night, and it seemed as if we might remain quiet to-day."

Source: Civil War Letters of Major Fredrick C. Winkler, in 26th Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers Home Page

1864 On the Confederate side, Bolton Thurmond picked up a letter he had written the previous day to sweetheart Frances Porterfield and continued to tell of his disillusionment with their ability to turn back Sherman's army but indeed with the Confederate cause:

". . . The Yanks are a-shelling us. The bombs have been whistling over my head all this morning, but no one [was] hurt as I know of. General Johnston has withdrawn his line a few miles, but he was obliged to do so. I think they will drive us clear through the Confederacy in a few more months, and I don't care how soon if they intend to now. My dear Frances, I am going to give you a few sketches of my ideas about our present condition. . . . I have here of late been studying about our affairs. We were wrong at the beginning of the war. We are wrong to rebel against a civil government as we did. It is wrong and before I received your letter yesterday I had come to the conclusion to go North. The army is leaving every day and night more or less going over and giving up. My honest opinion is that we will be subjugated and that before long and those that gets out of it the sooner the better for them. But now I am going [to] hang on, for I will never forsake you, no, never. My humble prayer is that I may live to get through this struggle safe and return to my home and to my best friend. Frances, God bless you. If this army falls back much further [sic] it will be ruined. It is nearly demoralized already and when we cross the Chattahoochee River it will go up."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), "Dear Mother: Don't grieve about me. I I get killed, I'll only be dead.": Letters from Georgia Soldiers in the Civil War (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1990), pp. 303-304.