Georgia Genealogy Trails "Where your Journey Begins"

Columbia County, Georgia 
Biographies

This branch of the Smith family was founded in Georgia by A. W. Smith's great-grandfather, who came in with one of those colonies from Virginia which so largely settled the State about the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. The grandfather, John Carter Smith, showed much the same characteristics which now crop out in his descendants. He was a miller and a wheelwright. He located in Columbia County and led a quiet, ostentatious life—a man of strong religious views, devoted to the church and its work, loved and honored by all his neighbors. He had a patriarchal family of eighteen children. When A. W. Smith came of school age his father, one of the most capable business men of his section, was beginning to recover from the disasters of the war when the son was of school age. After passing through the Thomson High School young Smith entered Emory College, from which he was graduated in 1878, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Later, in 1884, the honorary degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him; but in the meantime he had taken a course of study at Vanderbilt University, at Nashville, Tennessee, 1881-82. He became principal of the Augusta District High School, at Thomson, Georgia, afterwards known as the George F. Pierce Collegiate Institute.

In 1885, after teaching a few years, Mr. Smith entered the Methodist ministry as a member of the North Georgia Conference and served two years. He loved the ministry and educational work, but finding himself confronted with a situation that was embarrassing and did not afford proper scope for his energies he retired from the work to take up the life of a planter. When he turned to farming, Mr. Smith by no means gave up his connection with educational interests, and he has been connected in some capacity with the educational work of the country for many years, first as teacher, then as County School Commissioner, then as member of the Board of Education for Columbia county, and now as Chairman of the Board.

He is now, and for a number of years past has been Chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee of his county. He has twice represented his county in gubernatorial nominating conventions, 1898 and 1910. Like other members of his family, he is exceedingly active in church work, and is a local preacher of the Southern Methodist Church, having been licensed to preach July 9, 1881, by H. H. Parks, and ordained a deacon at Newnan, Georgia, by the distinguished Bishop Alpheus W. Wilson, November 29, 1885. He is an active member of the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union, and was for a time president of his county union. He holds membership in the Phi Delta Theta college fraternity. A glance over the record so far given demonstrates that Mr. Smith has tried to the utmost of his ability to be a useful man in his generation. This, it may be said, is a family characteristic.

He has been twice married. His first wife was Caroline McLean, daughter of Doctor William and Louise Janet (Parks) McLean. Subsequent to her death he married Ethel Dean White, daughter of William Micajah and Willie Mairo (Sewell) White. Eleven children have been born to him. Of these the following eight are living: Earl M., Karl Rowland, Hermann Walton, Virginia Louise, Andrew Louis, Carolyn McLean, Willie Lucile White, and Edward Russell Smith.

As might be expected from his life record, Mr. Smith is a strong believer in the value of the Bible. As the Bible forms the basis of the civil laws of every Christian nation, he believes it should be made a part of the curriculum of every school in the nation. In addition to this he would put into our common schools an epitome of our civil and criminal laws, especially those most commonly violated, and teach our children respect for and observance of law, for it is in this direction that we have made the greatest failure. Naturally he is a reading man. The daily papers, the religious papers, agricultural papers, our excellent magazines, and a little romance thrown in occasionally, contribute to make him a well read man; and having the advantage to begin with of liberal education, he is now a man of wide information. Almost an infant in arms at the outbreak of the Civil War, he has naturally had no military career, but his people did their share of the fighting. Three of his uncles died in the service of the Southern Confederacy; the fourth carried upon his body the scars of five honorable wounds. Two others being master mechanics, did efficient service in preparing the munitions of war. His father, on account of physical disability, did not serve in the army regularly, but saw a few weeks of service in the State troops during Sherman's disastrous march through Georgia.

Mr. Smith is a thoughtful student of conditions. He believes that the most important questions with which our people have to deal as a nation are the suppression of the flood tide of crime; the crushing out of the liquor business, which is the source and cause of more than half our crime; a wider extension of the benefits of education ; a concerted movement looking to the improvement of country life and country homes; the better conservation and development of our material resources, and the suppression of graft in our public life—all these are in his judgment vital questions. To us of the South he has a message of special value. The greatest menace, as he sees it, to the Southern people, is the race problem. He believes that our churches should do vastly more missionary and educational work among the colored people than is being done; that they need moral, legal and industrial training above all else. He believes therefore that institutions like Paine College, at Augusta, and the Lane Institute in Tennessee, should be multiplied and manned with competent white teachers, and that the colored people should be made to see, realize and acknowledge that the Southern white men are the best friends they have in the world. Mr. Smith believes that our greatest mistake has been in leaving the education of the Negroes to themselves and to aliens. Such men as A. W. Smith are a priceless asset to any State in which they hold citizenship,

Albertus Walton Smith

In the little town of Appling, in the old county of Columbia, the subject of this sketch, Albertus W. Smith, whose active business life has been spent on a plantation, leads the life of a quiet citizen. Mr. Smith was born in Columbia county, October 19, 1858, son of John Edward and Virginia Frances (Morris) Smith. His father, now in his eighty-fourth year, resides near the town of Thomson ; is an active president of a bank ; operates a cotton factory, and is one of the largest planters of his section. He is perhaps the most remarkable man of his years in Georgia, and a sketch of him appears in the fifth volume of this work.

This branch of the Smith family was founded in Georgia by A. W. Smith's great-grandfather, who came in with one of those colonies from Virginia which so largely settled the State about the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. The grandfather, John Carter Smith, showed much the same characteristics which now crop out in his descendants. He was a miller and a wheelwright. He located in Columbia county and led a quiet, unostentatious life a man of strong religious views, devoted to the church and its work, loved and honored by all his neighbors. He had a patriarchal family of eighteen children. When A. W. Smith came of school age his father, one of the most capable business men of his section, was beginning to recover from the disasters of the war when the son was of school age. After passing through the Thomson High School young Smith entered Emory College, from which he was graduated in 1878, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Later, in 1884, the honorary degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him ; but in the meantime he had taken a course of study at Vanderbilt University, at Nashville, Tennessee, 1881-82. He became principal of the Augusta District High School, at Thomson, Georgia, afterwards known as the George F. Pierce Collegiate Institute.

In 1885, after teaching a few years, Mr. Smith entered the Methodist ministry as a member of the North Georgia Conference and served two years. He loved the ministry and educational work, but finding himself confronted with a situation that was embarrassing and did not afford proper scope for his energies he retired from the work to take up the life of a planter. When he turned to farming, Mr. Smith by no means gave up his connection with educational interests, and he has been connected in some capacity with the educational work of the country for many years, first as teacher, then as County School Commissioner, then as member of the Board of Education for Columbia county, and now as Chairman of the Board.

He is now, and for a number of years past has been Chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee of his county. He has twice represented his county in gubernatorial nominating conventions, 1898 and 1910. Like other members of his family, he is exceedingly active in church work, and is a local preacher of the Southern Methodist Church, having been licensed to preach July 9, 1881, by H. H. Parks, and ordained a deacon at Newnan, Georgia, by the distinguished Bishop Alpheus W. Wilson, November 29, 1885. He is an active member of the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union, and was for a time president of his county union. He holds membership in the Phi Delta Theta college fraternity. A glance over the record so far given demonstrates that Mr. Smith has tried to the utmost of his ability to be a useful man in his generation. This, it may be said, is a family characteristic.

He has been twice married. His first wife was Caroline McLean, daughter of Doctor William and Louise Janet (Parks) McLean. Subsequent to her death he married Ethel Dean White, daughter of William Micajah and Willie Mairo (Sewell) White. Eleven children have been born to him. Of these the following eight are living: Earl M., Karl Rowland, Hermann Walton, Virginia Louise, Andrew Louis, Carolyn McLean, Willie Lucile White, and Edward Russell Smith.

As might be expected from his life record, Mr. Smith is a strong believer in the value of the Bible. As the Bible forms the basis of the civil laws of every Christian nation, he believes it should be made a part of the curriculum of every school in the nation. In addition to this he would put into our common schools an epitome of our civil and criminal laws, especially those most commonly violated, and teach our children respect for and observance of law, for it is in this direction that we have made the greatest failure. Naturally he is a reading man.
Source: Men of Mark In Georgia

Few, Ignatius A., first president of Emory college, was born in Columbia county, Ga., April 11, 1789.  His father, Capt. Ignatius Few, was a gallant soldier in the war of independence, and the son was a soldier in the war of 1812.  He graduated art Princeton college, and when Emory college was founded in 1837 he was elected the first president.  He opened the new institution on Sept. 10, 1838, but on account of ill heath resigned the presidency the following July.  As a Methodist minister he was known all over Georgia, and even in other states.  In the minutes of the Georgia Methodist Episcopal conference it is recorded that:  “His conversion did not take place until long after his maturity, and shortly afterward he offered himself for the self-denying, cross-bearing duties of the itinerant ministry.  Born to fortune, gifted with extraordinary abilities, bred to the law, given to philosophical studies, an erudite scholar and an accomplished gentleman, he came among us as one of Christ’s little ones, and lived and died equally approved for meekness and purity of heart as he was admired for greatness of mind, profound scholarship and surpassing dignity of manners.”  He died at Athens, Ga., Nov. 28, 1845.
[Source: Georgia: Sketches, Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions & People, Vol. 2, Publ. 1906 Transcribed By:  Maggie Coleman]

Appling, Daniel, soldier, was born Aug. 25, 1787, in Columbia County, Ga. In 1814 he commanded a detachment of one hundred and thirty riflemen on board a flotilla bearing cannon and naval stores to the unfinished ship Superior at Sackett's harbor, then blockaded by the British. He distinguished himself afterward at Plattsburg; and was brevetted colonel in 1814. He died March 18, 1817, in Fort Montgomery. Ala.
[Herringshaw’s National Library of American Biography: Contains Thirty-five Thousand Biographies of the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States, by William Herringshaw, 1909 – Transcribed by Therman Kellar]