Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

September 23

 

1806 The fifth edition of George Washington the Great was printed in Augusta; this was the first volume to contain the famous (albeit fictitious) "cherry tree" story.

1884 Politician Eugene Talmadge was born in Forsyth, Georgia. Obtaining a law degree from the University of Georgia in 1907, he practiced law for a year in Atlanta before moving to Montgomery County. He married, moved to Telfair County, bought a farm on Sugar Creek, and practiced law while farming for over a decade. After unsuccessful races for the Georgia House and Senate, he ran for the office of Commissioner of Agriculture in 1926 and won. In 1932, he successfully campaigned for governor. Two years later he was reelected. He came back in 1940 for a controversial term that resulted in the loss of accreditation for Georgia colleges and universities. In 1946, he lost the popular vote--but won because of the county unit system. However, he died before taking office, leading to the "Three Governors Affair."

1930 Singer Ray C. Robinson was born in Albany, Georgia. When he was about six months old, his family moved to Greenville, Florida. His father left, leaving the family to struggle. Robinson later recalled in his autobiography that they were so poor that there was "Nothin' below us, 'cept the ground." About age 5, he started losing his sight from glaucoma. Nevertheless, he loved music--from gospel at the Baptist Church he attended to country from listening to the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday nights.Later, at a state school for the deaf and blind in St. Augustine, he was exposed to classical music. At age 15, Robinson's mother died, leaving him alone in the world. He developed his musical talents, learning to play piano, organ, and several other instruments. He began to play clubs in Florida and saved enough money to get as far away from Florida as he could--which was Seattle, Washington. Here, he won a talent contest and his career was underway.

At this point, he decided to change his name so he wouldn't be confused with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson -- so, Ray Charles stopped using his last name. In 1949, he signed a recording contract--and the rest is history. His many hits are too numerous to list here, but some of the best-known are "What'd I Say, " "I've Got a Woman," and of course the one forever associated with his birth state, "Georgia."

1949 A statue of Eugene Talmadge [photo] was unveiled on the southeast corner of the Georgia state capitol grounds. The ceremony came on what would have been Talmadge's 65th birthday.

1976 Jimmy Carter and President Gerald Ford squared off in the first of three nationally televised debates, this one in Philadelphia. (Click here for transcript of debate.) There were some sharp exchanges, with both candidates attacking the other on unemployment, tax policy, and the role of the federal government. Virtually everything said was a repeat of campaign speeches. The debate was delayed for 27 minutes due to a sound system failure.

1996 In their 2,431st -- and last -- regular season game in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, the Atlanta Braves beat the Montreal Expos by a score of 3-1. Former Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen, Jr. -- who was instrumental in getting the Milwaukee Braves to agree to move to Atlanta -- threw out the first pitch. After the game, ex-Braves appeared in a salute to mark the 31 years the Braves had played in the stadium.

1997 In an action approved by the Georgia State Board of Regents, Macon College officially was renamed Macon State College.

1997 The Atlanta Braves beat the New York Mets 3-2 in the 11th inning and clinched the National League's Eastern Division. In so doing, the Braves made history, for no other Major League team has won its division championship six straight years in a row. The win also made Bobby Cox the only manager in Major League history to led a team to six straight division titles. [On Sept. 15, 1998, the Braves and Bobby Cox would extend their record pace with a seventh consecutive division title.]

1998 Monticello, Georgia's Trisha Yearwood won the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year for the second year in a row.

Georgia cities and towns incorporated by acts approved on Sept. 23:

1881 McVille (Telfair and Montgomery counties)

1885 Waco (Haralson County)
 
 

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1737 After having moved from their original Ebenezer settlement to a new site on the Savannah River known as New Ebenezer in 1736, the Salzburgers at last were getting their new lands surveyed. However, as John Martin Boltzius noted in his journal, most were too ill or weak to help out:

"The surveyor Ross has finally returned to survey the plantations of the Salzburgers. In Charleston, he bought two young Swiss men [indentured servants] from Canton Bern who are both afflicted by the fever but must nonetheless continue working in surveying the ground. Once these two are incapable of work, he shall have to use some of our people and pay them for it, and he has already requested the assistance of an able-bodied man. I very much doubt, however, that he shall find such a one, for most of our people are quite weak from the fever and would soon suffer a relapse were they to work in swampy areas all day and in the still-continuing heat and then camp out at night and be sustained by nothing but the cold food they carry as provisions. This is this man's manner of living. He carries prepared provisions for several days or even a week and takes out no time for cooking for himself or for those accompanying him, and the work goes on from early dawn until well into the night, with only short breaks for breakfast and dinner. We consider it a great blessing that Mr. Oglethorpe ordered this man to use none of our people unless he pays for their labor."

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), pp. 167-168.

1864 In Richmond County, Gertrude Thomas chose this day's journal entry to ruminate on the rightness and wrongness of slavery, expressing private thoughts that would have been unpopular if expressed openly:

"...The doctrine of self government I suppose of course to be right and yet our Southern people do not appear to have learned the art, even if they had the right granted them. Where is there more power exercised than is displayed in the manner in which our Gen's are 'relieved'? But as to the doctrine of slavery altho I have read very few abolition books (Uncle Tom's Cabin making most impression) nor have I read many pro slavery books -- yet the idea has gradually become more and more fixed in my mind that the institution of slavery is not right -- but I am reading a new book, Nellie Norton, by the Rev. E.W. Warren which I hope will convince me that it is right -- Owning a large number of slaves as we do I might be asked why I do not free them? This if I could, I would not do, but if Mr. Thomas would sell them to a man who would look after their temporal and spiritual interest I would gladly do so. Those house servants we have if Mr. Thomas would agree to it I would pay regular wages but this is a subject upon which I do not like to think and taking my stand upon the moral view of the subject, I can but think that to hold men and women in perpetual bondage is wrong -- During my comparatively short life, spent wholly under Southern skies, I have known of and heard too much of its demoralizing influence to consider the institution a blessing. . . ."

Source: Virginia Ingraham Burr (ed.), The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), pp. 238-239.