By Katharine B. Massey.

When I was a little girl, our fad was the possession of a charmstring. This was a string of buttons, obtained by coaxing from our elders or barter with each other, and constantly added to until some of them reached the length of several yards. With delightful pride we told over the list of our treasures. "This button," one would say, "came from Cousin Mary's wedding dress; this my Uncle John gave me; this was sent to me from China by my aunt who is a missionary in Canton; and this bright brass one was on my father's uniform during the war." Much of family life and many loving associations were thus strung together for the little maiden. In some such way, but in a larger sense, our state has used the naming of its counties as a cord of gold on which to hang traditions of its past, memories of its heroes, and reverences for those who helped us when help was needed.

A group of seven counties embalms the names of the Indian tribes who owned our hills and valleys before us, who hunted the deer with flintheaded arrows where now our cities stand, and threaded their trails in silent forests where today our cotton fields are spread. They are Catoosa, Chattahoochee, Chattooga, Cherokee, Coweta, Muscogee, Oconee—how musically the syllables fall upon the ear. It is like a chime of silver bells.

Four counties may be set together as commemorating large events in history. Columbia, Oglethorpe, Liberty, and Union. The first of these was named for the dauntless sailor who, possessed with the faith which cared naught for all other men's unbelief and rising above poverty, discouragement, and mutiny, held his way westward over unknown seas to find his prophetic vision a reality. Oglethorpe bears the name of the brave soldier, courteous gentleman, and broadminded philanthropist, who founded a colony for oppressed debtors to give them a new chance in life. Liberty County has a pretty little story of its own. A band of Massachusetts Puritans, seeking a milder climate, settled first in South Carolina, and not being fully satisfied, came on to St. John's Parish, Georgia. Their distinguished devotion to the cause of liberty in the perilous days of 1776-1783 gained for them that name when the parishes were changed into counties. Union County was so named because its citizens claimed to be known as Union men, when the rest of the state stood for state rights.[1]

Another group of seven counties bears the name of English statesmen who spoke for us in the halls of Parliament and withstood the tyranny of king and nation in dealing with their brothers of America. They were the fiery-tongued orator Edmund Burke, the commoners Glynn and Wilkes, the Duke of Richmond, and the Earls of Chatham, Camden, and Effingham.

Three other foreigners, lovers of liberty, drew sword and fought in our battles, side by side with our struggling heroes. Georgia has honored herself by naming counties for Baron DeKalb, Count Pulaski, and General LaFayette.

Next comes the long muster-call of heroes whose names are written on the roll of fame as having fought for the freedom of their country—men whose names recall Bunker Hill and Valley Forge, King's Mountain and Guilford Court House, and all the grim experiences of a nation struggling for existence. Georgia has named counties for Baker, Bryan, Butts, Clarke, (Gen. Elijah, who fought the Tories in our own state), Clinch, Early, Greene, (Gen. Nathaniel, who settled on his grant of land in Georgia after the war,) Jasper, (the brave sergeant who leaped over the parapet to rescue the flag at Fort Moultrie,) Laurens, Lee (Light Horse Harry, father of the grand General of the Civil War,) Lincoln, Macon, Marion (the Swamp Fox of South Carolina,) Meriwether, Montgomery, Morgan, Newton, Putnam, Screven, Stewart, Sumter, Twiggs, Taliaferro, Warren (killed at the battle of Bunker Hill,) Wayne (Mad Anthony,) Wilkerson, Paulding, White, McIntosh—grand and glorious names that break upon the ear like a trumpet call, inspiring to deeds worthy to be ranked with theirs. The last of these names, McIntosh, was given in honor of a whole family which had contributed many sons to freedom's cause.

Seven presidents of the United States have given names to our counties. They are Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Polk, Taylor and Pierce.

The governors of Georgia have been a notable line, strong men of iron will, believers in state's rights and upholders of the dignity of the commonwealth. More than once they have withstood the national government. The list of them includes some names famous for other services to the state in the Revolution and the Civil War as well as in the halls of Congress. Those for whom counties are named are: Bulloch, Early, Elbert, Emanuel, Gilmer, Gwinnett, Habersham, Hall, Heard, Houston, Irwin, Jackson (soldier and statesman,) Jenkins (who saved the executive seal of state at the close of the Civil War and kept it until military rule was over and it could be returned to a governor legally elected by the people,) Johnson, Lumpkin, Mitchell, Rabun, Schley, Stephens (giant soul in a frail body, whose unheeded counsels as Vice-president of the Southern Confederacy might have prevented much of the bitterness that followed,) Talbot, Telfair, Towns, Troup, Walton, Forsyth, and Tattnall. Wisely and well they guided the ship of state and left a priceless heritage of precedent to their successors.

Georgia has named fourteen counties for statesmen of national fame—Calhoun, Clay, Webster—(these three made the great triumvirate whose eloquence shook the land in times when nullification and democracy were the questions of the day,) Bibb, Franklin, Brooks, Carroll, Douglas, Hancock (one of the first to lift his voice against British oppression in Massachusetts,) Henry (the immortal orator of Virginia,) Lowndes, McDuffie, Murray, and Randolph (quaint, eloquent, sarcastic John Randolph of Roanoke.)

Of her own sons whose voices have thundered in the halls of Congress, or guided her councils at home, Georgia has named counties for Abraham Baldwin (who first planned the state university,) Ben Hill (of the trumpet tongue, who first dared to reply to northern slanders, to speak the truth about Andersonville, to show that we had not food, clothing and medicine for our own soldiers and that we did the best we could for the unfortunate prisoners who fell into our hands; claiming the respect of the nation and the world for the maligned Southern Confederacy.) Berrien, Clayton, Cobb, Colquitt, Crawford, (William H., our candidate for the presidency,) Crisp, Campbell, Charlton, Dawson, Dougherty, Floyd, Haralson, Jones, Miller, Spanding, Turner, Walker, and Ware.

Six of our counties bear the names of men who spent their lives fighting the Indians. They are Appling, Coffee, Butts, Wilcox, Thomas, and Dade. Of the first of these the story is told that, in recognition of his services, the state voted him a sword with an appropriate inscription. Before it was ready for presentation the brave young soldier died. As he left no heir, the sword was kept in the state house at Milledgeville until that memorial autumn of 1864, when it disappeared. Some soldier of Sherman's army thus became richer and the State of Georgia poorer by a handsome sword.

The Mexican War left us the names of Echols, Fannin, Quitman, and Worth. Other brave soldiers of the state who have been thus honored are Glascock, Milton, Pickens, and Pike.

The Civil War gave to us the names of Bartow and Toombs. Francis C. Bartow said: "I go to illustrate Georgia," and fell on the field of the First Battle of Manassas. General Robert Toombs escaped from Georgia on his mare, Grey Alice, when every road and ferry was guarded by soldiers watching for him, made his way to England, and lived there until it was safe for him to return, remaining to the end of his life an "unreconstructed rebel."

Four counties, Dodge, Tift, Gordon, and Upson, are named for captains of industry. The United States Navy gave us the name of Decatur. Banks and Terrell are called for two beloved physicians who made their names blessed in the homes of the people for the alleviation of pain and the saving of life. In both cases the name was chosen for the county by the citizens, in loving recognition of the physician's services.

The Lost Cause left with us the name of its one president, and we who are glad that it is the Lost Cause, that slavery is no longer an institution in our midst and that Georgia takes her rightful place in the sisterhood of states, nevertheless claim the right to cherish our memories, to welcome Dixie with the rebel yell, to cover our graves with flowers on the twenty-sixth of April, to look back through a mist of tears to Gettysburg and Appomattox, and to call one of our counties Jeff Davis.

The noble preacher, Whitfield, who helped to establish the Bethesda Orphan's Home, gave his name to one county; and Henry Grady, silver-tongued and golden-hearted orator who helped to heal the wounds of war and drew together the North and the South into renewed brotherhood, is remembered in the name of another. Rockdale is so called from its granite rocks and wooded dales. One is named for Robert Fulton, the inventor, one for Harris, a prominent jurist, and last of all, Georgia has named one county for a woman—red-headed, cross-eyed, Tory-hating, liberty-loving Nancy Hart.

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