Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

October 10

1918 Atlanta remained relatively healthy as only 105 new cases of Spanish influenza were reported, with only eight deaths in the past week. These numbers were far fewer than those in other East Coast cities of similar size. [For more information on the pandemic, see PBS's The American Experience: Influenza 1918 web site.]

1920 Future Heisman Trophy winning collegiate football star for the University of Georgia - Frank Sinkwich - was born in Pennsylvania.

1944 Joseph Simeon Flipper died. Born on Feb. 22, 1859, he was one of four younger brothers of Henry Flipper, one of the first blacks to graduate from West Point. During his sophomore year at Atlanta University, Joseph Flipper dropped out to teach school in several Georgia cities. In 1877, he joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Subsequently, he became a deacon, elder, pastor, and eventually bishop in the church. In 1903, he served as dean of Turner Theological Seminary in Atlanta, and from 1904-1908 as president of Morris Brown College.

1976 A Time Magazine survey indicated Jimmy Carter had a better than 2-1 electoral vote advantage in states with strong leanings. Carter led in 21 states and the District of Columbia, with 273 electoral votes (three more than necessary to win), while President Ford led in 17 states with 113 electoral votes. Meanwhile, Carter was campaigning in Cleveland, where he received a warm welcome at an African-American church service, then later attended a Polish-American Congress dinner, where he again labeled as "disgusting" Ford's comments about Eastern Europe not being under Soviet domination.

1980 The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site and Preservation District was established in Atlanta.

1997 The Georgia Music Hall of Fame celebrated the 20th anniversary of the B-52's, the popular band from Athens, with an exhibit entitled "20 Years of Wigs & Gigs."

Georgia towns and cities incorporated by acts approved on Oct. 10:

1868 Grantville (Coweta County) and West End (Fulton County)

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1737 From Ebenezer on the Savannah River, Salzburger minister John Martin Boltzius recorded a positive attitude in the face of the hard life they faced:

"Cornberger's youngest daughter died last night and was buried this afternoon. She was sick and miseraable the entire time of her short life. Those children who have been plagued with fever up to now are mostely well again and attend school regularly. In this harvest time, since the bean gathering demands much effort, those whose parents request it are permitted to miss school once or twice for the sake of field work. Although we have had a crop failure in corn and a few other things this year, the honest members of our congregation are content with their small supply and thank God for it just as well as if they had much more. We trust our loving Father in heaven to look upon our plight and lack with the eyes of His mercy and to let no one perish who trusts in Him. There are some widows, very poor children, and impercunious people among us who cannot earn as much as they need to sustain their lives, so we shall give something from the poor-box to them in their need."

Source: George Fenwick Jones and Renate Wilson (ed. and trans.), Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America . . . Edited by Samuel Urlsperger (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1976), Vol. 4, p. 176.

1804 Savannah merchant Robert Mackay regularly sailed to England on business, leaving behind his wife and three young sons. On this day, business partner William Mein had the painful duty to write Mackay with distressing news:

"You must prepare your Mind to bear up under a most severe affliction for I never took up my Pen to address you with so heavy a heart And how to disclose to you the Cause of my distress when it affect you more severely My hand shakes, my Pen trembles And I want language to impart to you My feelings Would to God I could take you by the hand & mingle my Tears with yours for the Loss (how shall I name it) of your oldest & Darling Son Yes! my dear friend Poor Robert is no more & you are bereaved of the finest child I ever beheld -- He was the pride of our City And I had flattered myself would long have been spared as a Comfort to his Parents and an ornament to his Country But alas! it has been otherwise decreed by Providence And We must bow with Submission to the omnipotent had who gives & takes away . . . Poor little fellow It was soon over with him but it was a severe fever while it lasted . . . ."

Source: Georgia Society of the Colonial Dames of America, The Letters of Robert Mackay to his Wife: Written from ports in America and England, 1795-1816 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1949), pp. 36-37.