History of Augusta Georgia Presented by the National Park Service

8/4/2019 History of Augusta Georgia Presented by the National Park Service

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Harris-Pearson-Walker HouseHistoric Augusta, Inc

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AUGUSTA

History of Augusta

Founded in 1736 on the western bank of the Savannah River, Augusta, Georgia became the second

town of the 13th British colony. General James Edward Oglethorpe, the colonys founder, ordered the

settlement and chose its location at the head of navigation of the Savannah River below the shoals

created by the fall line. Oglethorpes vision was to establish an interior trading post for purchasing

furs and other commodities from Native Americans to compete with New Savannah Town, a smalloutpost on the South Carolina side of the river.

Augusta thrived as a trading post from the beginning, with several of the South Carolina traders

moving their base of operations to the new settlement. By 1739 a fort was completed, and the official

surveyor of the colony, Noble Jones, laid out the town. Its colonial plan was similar, but not as

elaborate as the one used in Savannah. Augustas plan focused on one large square or plaza and was

four streets deep and three streets wide. Fort Augusta was adjacent to the 40 town lots on the west

side near the river. Augusta named two of its original streets for Georgias colonial governors:

Reynolds Street for John Reynolds, and Ellis Street for Henry Ellis. These streets are still prominent

features of the Downtown Augusta, Broad Street, and Pinched Gut Historic Districts.

As traders populated the town, they brought their

wives and began to have children. The desire for a

more civilized atmosphere dictated the need for a

church. As a British colony, Georgia petitioned the

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for a

minister after constructing a church building in

1749. The first minister, the Reverend Jonathan

Copp, arrived in 1751 and began conducting

services according to the rites of the C hurch of

England. After Georgias division into parishes in

1756, the Augusta District fell into St. Pauls Parish,

and the Augusta church became known as St.

Pauls Church.

During the French and Indian wars, refugees from

the surrounding countryside came to Augusta, taking shelter in the fort and church. The building

suffered significant damage in that period and was replaced in the 1760s. Soldiers coming to Georgia

during the war spread the word about fresh lands, and in the early 1770s new settlers arrived to claim

land grants in the surrounding countryside. Many had formerly been tobacco planters in Virginia and

the Carolinas. They transported their tobacco culture to Georgia, where tobacco soon became the

main cash crop of the colony. In approximately 1797, one of the last important tobacco merchants in

Augusta built the Ezekiel Harris House (also known as the Harris-Pearson-Walker House), which is

representative of that nearly forgotten economic factor in Georgias history.

Augusta played a significant role in the American Revolution as one of the westernmost towns in the

13 British colonies. The first of the two battles fought here, the Siege of the White House, resulted in

the hanging of 13 patriot soldiers by Tory forces under C olonel Thomas Browne. After the second,

called the Siege of Augusta, patriot forces, under the command of General Light Horse Harry Lee,

retook the town. The British erected Fort Cornwallis on the site of the former Fort Augusta and in the

process destroyed St. Pauls Church. After the Revolution, a new church, built between 1786 and 1789and lasting until 1820, served all denominations, although much of the time it had a resident Episcopal

minister. The present building, the fifth on the site, dates from 1918 after a terrible conflagration

destroyed 30 city blocks in 1916.

During the Revolutionary War, the original town plan of Augusta expanded to the south, east, and

west. At that time, the city named new streets for important Revolutionary War generals. Washington

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St. Paul's Episcopal C hurchHistoric Augusta, Inc.

Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art (Ware's Fo lly)Historic Augusta, Inc.

Street (now 6th Street) on the west was for General George Washington; McIntosh Street (now 7th

Street) was for General Lachlan McIntosh; Jackson S treet (8th Street) was for General James

Jackson. All are now within the Augusta Downtown Historic District. Elbert Street (now 4th Street) to

the east was for General Samuel Elbert; and Lincoln Street (now 3rd Street) was for General

Benjamin Lincoln. Both of these now lie within the boundaries of the Pinched Gut Historic District.

Greene Street on the south, named for General Nathaniel Greene, is a major artery that bisects both

the Augusta Downtown and Pinched Gut Historic Districts.

After the Revolution Augusta became the temporary capital of

the new state of Georgia between 1786 and 1795, and many

of the leaders of the government moved to the town. One of

the most notable was George Walton, a Signer of the

Declaration of Independence, who built his home, Meadow

Garden, on what was then the outskirts of town. Walton held

many important offices, including Governor and Judge. Walton

Way, named in his honor, is the main artery through the

Summerville Historic District, a suburban village originally laid

out by Walton in the 1790s. In 1799 Christopher Fitzsimmons,

a prosperous Charleston shipbuilder, built another outlying

plantation house on his productive Savannah River plantation,

the Fitzsimmons-Hampton House on Sand Bar Ferry Road.

Henry Turknett lived at College Hill, another 1790s house, on

property once owned by George Walton, who hoped to have

the University of Georgia built there. Turknett Springs, located

behind the house, provided Augustas first municipal drinking water, piped down the hill in hollowed

out logs beginning in the 1820s.

The town continued to grow in size and population governed by a group of Trustees of the Academy of

Richmond County. In 1791 they added Telfair Street, named for Georgia Governor Edward

Telfair. Telfair Street today is another major artery through the Augusta Downtown and Pinched Gut

Historic Districts. President George Washingtons visit in 1791 was a highlight of this period. Legend

has it that Augustans planted the large ginkgo tree in his honor at the proposed site of the Richmond

County Courthouse, constructed in 1801 and now known as the Old Government House. The Trustees

of the Academy built a new school building in 1802, the old Academy of Richmond County.

Augustas first suburb, part of the Augusta Downtown Historic District, was originally the village of

Springfield, developed on lands confiscated from James Grierson, a Tory during the Revolutionary

War. Captain Leonard Marbury laid out lots there on the west side of Augusta and built some houses.

Augusta included Springfield within the city limits at the time of its incorporation in 1798. Because oftheir displacement from the Silver Bluff Plantation in South Carolina during the Revolution, a large

population of free African Americans settled in Springfield by 1787. They established the Springfield

Baptist Church there, one of the oldest independent black congregations in the United States.

After the seat of the state government moved to

Louisville and subsequently to Milledgeville,

Augusta continued to grow fulfilling the prediction of

William Bartram, the naturalist, who said it would

become the metropolis of Upper Georgia during his

visit of 1774. Robert Mills, Americas first native-born architect, won the competition to design the

First Presbyterian Church built between 1809 and

1812. Nicholas Ware built Wares Folly (Gertrude

Herbert Institute of Art) in 1818 in the Federal

style, reportedly for the astounding cost o f

$40,000.

As Georgia ex panded westward and the states of

Alabama and Mississippi attracted many of its

prosperous planters, Augustas economy began to stagnate. The C harleston and Hamburg Railroad in

South Carolina reached a point directly across the Savannah River from the heart of downtown

Augusta in 1832. In 1833 the Georgia Railroad, chartered in Athens, Georgia, began building

westward from Augusta toward a yet unnamed settlement that would eventually become

Atlanta. Constructing the railroad attracted an Irish immigrant population to Augusta that has an

important presence in the city today. Many were Roman Catholics, who joined the already well

established Church of the Most Holy Trinity, founded in 1810 by French Catholics who settled in

Augusta after the slave revolts on the island of San Domingo in the 1790s. For years the churchs

name was Saint Patrick after its patron saint, in deference to its large Irish population.

The railroad did not ensure Augustas future, as the tug on Americans to move westward grew ever

stron er, but other factors had a ositive im act on the cit . S urred b the invention in 1793 of the

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Brahe HouseRebecca Rogers

King MillRebecca Rogers

Augusta Canal National Heritage Area

cotton gin, local farmers grew upland cotton in the surrounding countryside making Augusta the

center of a large inland cotton market. They shipped their cotton to the port of Savannah via cotton

boats down the Savannah River, or overland to C harleston on the South Carolina Railroad. Henry

Cumming advanced the idea of manufacturing cotton goods locally. He proposed building a canal for

waterpower following the example of Lowell, Massachusetts. Constructed in 1845, the Augusta Canal

attracted flourmills, cotton mills, iron works, and other manufacturing establishments along its

banks. By the time of the Civil War, Augusta was one of the few industrial centers in the South. The

Historic Augusta Canal and Industrial District represents the economic salvation of Augusta from the

1840s until well into the 20th century.

Augusta prospered again on the eve o f the Civil

War as evidenced by sev eral buildings and homes

constructed during that period. Noted architect,

Charles Blaney Cluskey, who lived in Augusta at

the time, designed the Old Medical College of

Georgia built on Telfair Street in 1835 to house the

states first medical school. The Brahe House, a fine

example of a typical house type in Augusta known

as the Sand Hills Cottage, was the creation in 1850

of German immigrant and jeweler, Frederick

Brahe. Later it became the first house in town to

have electric lighting. Suburban Summerville

Historic District became the summer residence of

choice for wealthy Augustans, who believed it washealthier due to its higher elevation and lack of

mosquitoes. Two fine houses there are the 1849 Reid-Jones-Carpenter House and the Gould-Weed

House, circa 1860. Dennis Redmond, a noted horticultural editor, constructed Fruitlands in 1853 on his

Washington Road plantation, which became famous under the ownership of the Berckmans family as a

fine nursery and still more famous in the 20th century as the clubhouse for the Augusta National Golf

Club.

The Confederate government established the Confederate States Powder Works on the Augusta Canal

in 1862, at the present site of Sibley Mill. A United States Arsenal, erected in approximately the same

location in 1819, moved to the village of Summerville in 1827, after the commandant determined it a

healthier location. The original arsenal buildings remain largely intact as the centerpiece of Augusta

State University, with the Commandants House, known as the Stephen Vincent Bent House, used asan administration building. During the Civil War, gunpowder made at the powder works was moved to

the arsenal to pack munitions sent to soldiers in the field.

Augusta served as a major center of the C onfederacy, providing cotton goods, shoes, guns,

munitions, food, and many other commodities. In addition, the city was a religious center of the South

hosting meetings for the formation of both the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States

of America at S t. Pauls Church, and the Presbyterian Church in the C onfederate States at First

Presbyterian Church. The meeting took place there at the invitation of its pastor, Reverend Joseph

Ruggles Wilson, who lived with his family in the parsonage, the Woodrow Wilson Boyhood Home. Next

door to the future Presidents home was the parsonage of First Christian Church, home of future U.S.

Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Lamar. Wilson and Lamar, both sons of prominent Augusta pastors,

were best friends as children.

Following the Civil War, Augustas economy struggled but

rebounded with the enlargement and expansion of the

Augusta Canal in 1875. Several large new cotton mills were

built along its banks. The old 18th century village of

Harrisburg gained new life, as a large mill village grew around

the Harris-Pearson-Walker House. Continuing expansion to

the west, the City of Augusta completed its first major

annexation in 1880 by taking in what is now the Harrisburg

West End Historic District.

Many of Augustas Irish immigrants lived in a section of town

then known as Dublin. The surrounding streets developed as

enclaves for various immigrant groups in the 19th century,

including African Americans. By the turn of the 20th century,because of Jim Crow laws legalizing segregation, this area ,

the LaneyWalker North Historic District, became

predominantly black. A few blocks to the south is the

Bethlehem Historic District, created in the late 19th and early

20th centuries exclusively by and for African Americans. The Sand Hills Historic District, adjacent to

Summerville, is another historically black neighborhood that developed parallel to a predominantly

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The Partridge Inn Exterior at NightThe Partridge Inn

white business and residential area after the Civil War.

As the old city continued to expand, most religious denominations realized the need to establish a

second congregation in the western end of the city, and often a third or fourth in the suburban

areas. C onsequently, the C hurch of the Most Sacred Heart established at G reene and McKinne (13th)

streets in 1874 became the second Roman Catholic parish in Augusta. A magnificent new building was

constructed between 1898 and 1900 beside the original church, which became a school. Greene

Street Presbyterian Church, founded in 1875, was an attempt by the First Presbyterian congregation

to expand its influence. Curtis Baptist Church, also founded in the 1870s, and Saint James Methodist

Church, dating from the 1850s, were other examples of efforts to evangelize in the city. Most

denominations also established a church presence in LaneyWalker, Bethlehem, Harrisburg,

Summerville and Sand Hills in the late 19th or early 20th centuries.

Set up in 1874, the Augusta Cotton Exchange moved to an impressive permanent headquarters

building constructed in 1887 in the Queen Anne style. With the expansion of the Augusta Canal, the

city was once again a thriving center of a cotton economy. Cotton warehouses lined Reynolds Street

between St. Pauls Church on the east and 9th Street on the west. One can still find the last cotton

warehouses, now converted to restaurants and shops, along 9th Street in the Augusta Downtown

Historic District. Mills along the Augusta Canal manufactured cotton goods, including the antebellum

Augusta Factory (razed in the 1960s), Enterprise Mill, Sutherland Mill, King Mill, and Sibley Mill.

A horse drawn street car was first put into

operation in 1866, connecting the neighborhoods

that now comprise the Pinched Gut, Augusta

Downtown, Broad Street, HarrisburgWest End,

and Summerville Historic Districts. In 1890,

electrified streetcars provided more acce ss

between Augustas neighborhoods and its

suburbs. This development also sparked Augustas

tourist industry with the construction of the original

Bon Air Hotel in Summerville in 1889-90. The Bon

Air attracted wealthy northerners who wanted to

escape harsh winters. Soon Summerville had a

lively cottage industry of winter boarding houses.

The Partridge Inn emerged from one of these

boarding houses, evolving into its present state over a period of thirty years. Pleased with the

southern climate, some of the winter visitors built their own homes, or remodeled or enlarged existing

cottages in Summerville. Golf came to the village when the hotel established the Bon Air Links as a

recreational opportunity for its guests. This course, originally sand, became the Augusta Country Club

in 1899. Forrest Hills Hotel and Golf Course, laid out to the west of Summerville in the 1920s, had a

complete automobile suburb featuring curving brick streets and Georgian Revival estates on large

lots.

Founded in the early 1930s, Augusta National Golf Club is on the Fruitlands property on Washington

Road west of Augusta on the northern border of Summerville. Also in the '30s, the club established

the Masters Golf Tournament, which has become golfs premier event in the United States.

A military town since its beginning as a military outpost in the 1730s, Augusta served as a place of

refuge in the French and Indian War and passed back and forth between American and British handsduring the Revolution. The city hosted a United States Arsenal beginning in 1819. During the Civil War,

it was a center of military preparedness, supplies, industrial output, and support of Confederate

troops from the domestic front. The United States government established Camp McKenzie at Augusta

during the Spanish American War and Camp Hancock in World War I.

In 1940 shortly before the United States entered World War II, the Federal Government founded

Camp Gordon about 10 miles from downtown Augusta in south Richmond County in an area

historically known as Pinetucky. After the war started, Augusta became a major military town

again. Available space became additional housing, with many of the antebellum and Victorian homes

converted to apartment buildings. The resort hotels became year-round commercial hotels. Soldiers

in uniform were everywhere. The old arsenal buzzed with activity with high security around the

clock. Augusta would never be quite the same.

After the war, subdivisions began spreading to the west, south, and east of town. Camp Gordon

became a permanent installation, Fort Gordon, the home of the United States Army Signal Corps. In

the 1950s, the Army C orps of Engineers finally dammed the Savannah River upstream from Augusta

to curtail the periodic flooding that occurred and to generate electricity. The U.S. Government also

built the Savannah River Plant in nearby Aiken and Barnwell Counties, South Carolina. These three

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Downtown Historic District - Broad StreetGeorgia Department of Economic Development Tourism

Division

governmental expansions of post World War II Augusta generated an economic boom reflected in the

modern commercial buildings constructed in the Augusta Downtown Historic District. Yet this economic

boost for the region eventually caused downtown Augusta to decline, particularly after two shopping

malls, both with approximately 1,000,000 square feet, opened within one week of one another in

1978.

Today, Augustas downtown is on the rebound

with shops and restaurants opening on Broad

Street and near the river and many facades of

historic buildings restored. An Artists Row helped

stimulate new energy and became the impetus

for a monthly street festival known as First

Friday. A reclaimed levee built in the 1910s to

hold back the worst floodwaters from the

Savannah River is now a park called the

Riverwalk. Between 5th and 10th streets, the

park has outdoor historical exhibits, developed in

the 1980s and 1990s, to interpret the citys

history. Regular festivals are held near the

Riverwalk and on a new green space ca lled the

Augusta Common, which is in the 800 block of

Broad Street. The Augusta Common features a statue of Geo rgia and Augusta founder James Edward

Oglethorpe. A second statue of soul singer James Brown of Augusta overlooks the Common from

Broad Street.

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History of Augusta Georgia Presented by the National Park Service