Hancock County, Georgia
Biographies

CARLISLE POLLOCK BEMAN was born in Hampton, Washington county, New York, May 5, 1797. He was the seventh and youngest child of Samuel Beman and his wife, Silence Douglas. His father was of Welsh origin, and his mother was of that Scotch blood which flowed to America through Ireland, and which is, therefore, known as Scotch-Irish. For about three years, from 1807 to 1810, Carlisle Beman attended the school of Mr. Salem Town, of West Granville. The two succeeding years were spent in diligent labor upon his father's farm. In the autumn of 1812, when less than 16 years old, he accompanied his brother, Rev. Nathan S. S. Beman, to Georgia. Dr. Nathan Beman was pastor of the Mt. Zion church in Hancock county, this State, from 1812 to 1821, and at the same time he was rector of a large boarding school at the same place. Carlisle was a pupil at the school of his brother and gave a part of his time as assistant to his brother in giving instructions to some of the younger pupils. Having completed his preparatory studies, he returned to the North in 1815 and entered Middlebury College, Vermont, where he was graduated, with the first honors of his class, in 1818. Soon after graduation he returned to Georgia. In 1820 he again associated himself with his brother and took charge of the male department of the Mt. Zion Academy, while his brother remained the principal and the teacher of the female department.
Soon after his return to Georgia, Carlisle Pollock united with the Presbyterian Church. At Eatonton, September, 1820, he was received under the care of Hopewell Presbytery as a candidate for the gospel ministry. In the meantime he continued his connection with the Mt . Zion Academy and pursued his theological studies at the same time, until the close of the year 1823. December 30, 1823, he was united in marriage with Miss Avis De Witt. At the beginning of 1824 he took charge of the Eatonton Academy, but he was forced, by continued ill health, to abandon the school.
At Bethany, Green county, April 3, 1824, he was licensed to preach the gospel by Hopewell Presbytery.
In 1827 he assumed the charge of the Mt. Zion Academy, formerly taught by his brother, as principal, and continued at the bead of this school until his removal to Midway, near Milledgeville, in 1835, as rector or principal of the Manual Labor School, then established at that place by Hopewell Presbytery. This school was soon after elevated to a college under the name of Oglethorpe University and transferred to the care and control of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, with Kev. C. P. Beman as its first president. This position he held from 1836 to 1840.
At the meeting of Presbytery at Forsyth, April 5, 1829, the church of South Liberty, Green county, which had recently been organized, mainly through his ministry as a licentiate, presented a call to Mr. Beman for his pastoral labors in that congregation. July 11, 1829, he was regularly ordained and installed pastor over that people. Rev. Nathan Hoyt preached the ordination sermon. Mr. Beman retained his connection with the school at Mt. Zion while pastor of South Liberty Church. April 2, 1833, his pastoral relations to that church were dissolved, having continued only about four years. He never formed any other pastoral connection.
At the close of the year 1840 Mr. Beman resigned the presidency of Oglethorpe University and removed to La Grange. He established a high school at that place and remained in charge until 1844. While residing in La Grange he organized the Brainerd Church in Heard county, and preached for this church several years, although the place of worship was twenty miles from his residence, and for five days of each week he was confined in the schoolroom.
In 1846 he returned to Mt. Zion and established a private boarding school, with a limited number of boys and young men. He continued this school until about 1859, when he retired. In 1855 the honorary title of D.D. was conferred upon him by Oglethorpe University.
In his day Dr. Beman was regarded as the Nestor of education throughout the South. He had unusual gifts as a teacher and a disciplinarian. He had thorough knowledge of human nature, and almost unerring judgment of character. His methods of instruction were most thorough and his government and school discipline were firm and positive. He would not for a moment tolerate or excuse disobedience to authority or the questioning of his right to govern. He never exacted more than was just and due, but he was sure to obtain all he called for in conduct and in study. When these results were not reached for the asking, they were always secured through compulsion.

Dr. Beman made no distinction among his pupils as to discipline. The young and the old; the elementary and the advanced were all brought under the rod if they could not be controlled without it. He was a man of great physical courage and determined purpose. No bad conduct ever escaped his notice, nor did the perpetration of evil deeds ever escape punishment. His methods put into practice for this day would be considered severe, but it can not be denied that he made many good citizens of very bad boys and brought under subjection scores and hundreds of boys who were beyond control in their homes and such as had become disturbing elements in the communities from which they came. His patronage extended throughout the South, and for the latter years of his teaching he was never able to accommodate the great number of students who applied for places. His school marked a distinct era in the educational interests of the State. As a teacher of boys and young men, he was highly gifted in the talents of imparting instruction and administering discipline. The strength of his life was given to shaping, for usefulness, the characters and minds of the young. In this department of labor he achieved his highest mission in life. Dr. Beman was a man of very decided, humble and active piety, while he had great force and energy of character.

In the early part of the last century the Presbyterian Church formed a union with the Congregational Church, which proved quite unsatisfactory. By way of relief, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church cut off four of its Synods in 1837. These were Geneva, Utica, Genesee and Western Reserve. This action gave rise to what was known as the "Old School" and the "New School" churches. This cutting off is known, in the parlance of the Presbyterian Church, as "The Excision Act." Dr. Beman did not approve the excision measures. For a time, at least, he sympathized with the views of the New School theologians, yet when three of his co-presbyters, Rev. C. W. Howard, Rev. H. C. Carter and Rev. J. H. George, withdrew from Hopewell Presbytery and organized themselves into a New School Presbytery, known as Etowah, Dr. Beman refused to unite with them. On the contrary he employed all of his powers of argument and persuasion in efforts to dissuade them from such schismatic movement. In 1857 at Mt. Zion, Dr. Beman and Rev. C. H. Cartledge had a long argument in private upon the subject of the atonement, Dr. Beman maintaining the New School view. When hard pressed in the argument, he said: "Brother Cartledge, you are a man of too much sense and too much logic to believe a just God would punish his innocent son for sins which he never committed." Mr. Cartledge instantly replied: "Brother Beman, you are a man of entirely too much sense and too much logic to believe a just God would doom his innocent son to suffer, as he did suffer, for nobody's sins at all." Dr. Beman attempted no reply, and from that time forward he manifested toward Mr. Cartledge a very strong and tender attachment, which seemed to increase with his increasing years.

With the exception of the three years spent in Middlebury College, his whole life, from his sixteenth year to the day of his death was spent in Georgia. Here he pursued his studies preparatory to entering college, here he studied theology, was licensed to preach and was ordained to the full work of the gospel ministry; here he lived, preached, taught and served most honorably his generation. Few, if any, of the native born sons of Georgia ever accomplished more for the good of church or State in her borders than this noble adopted son. None entered more heartily into the spirit of the sixties. Whilst he contributed most liberally of his substance to the needs of the Confederacy as a loyal son of the South, he gave his two sons, splendid cultured young men, a willing sacrifice for the cause he loved as he loved his own life.

Having met the full measure of an honorable and useful life, Dr. Beman died at his home in Mt. Zion, Hancock county, Sunday morning, December 12, 1875.
"Men of Mark in Georgia: a complete and elaborate history...", Volume 2 By William J. Northen - Transcribed by Barb Ziegenmeyer

REV. LOVICK PIERCE, the great father of a great son, is perhaps the most historic character in Georgia Methodism. Ho was a native of North Carolina, born in Halifax, March 17, 1785. He lived until November 9, 1870, when he died at Sparta, Ga., in his ninety-fifth year. Nearly seventy-five years of that period was spent in the Methodist ministry. In his early youth his people moved to Barnwell county, S. C. His educational advantages were limited to six months schooling at the "old-field" schools of his day. Coming under religious convictions as a youth just about grown, in January, 1805, then not quite twenty years old, he with hi? brother Reddick, then twenty-two years old, applied for admission to the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist church, which met at Charleston in that year. Both were admitted. Never was there a greater contrast between two brothers—Roddick, strong of frame, vigorous of mind, and rugged in every sense of the word, while Lovick was shrinking, sensitive and timid. Roddick's life work as a preacher was mainly in South Carolina, and many people acquainted with him regarded him as quite the equal of his more famous brother. The South Carolina conference then comprised part of North Carolina, all of South Carolina, and so much of Georgia as was then settled.

Young Pierce was sent to the Appalachee circuit with Joseph Tarpley as an associate, the custom of that day being to send two preachers to a circuit, in order that the younger man might have the benefit of the clder's experience and counsel. This first circuit comprised what is now the counties of Greene, Clarke and Jackson. While the majority of the people in hit circuit were rude and unlettered, there was yet a percentage of the most prominent men of the State and highly cultured men and women. Notwithstanding his limited education and the few books at his command, the Bible being his chief reliance, the untutored but gifted boy at once made an impression upon the most cultivated people of his circuit, and gained in his first year a reputation which steadily grew during life. The old veteran of Georgia Methodism, Hope Hull, met him, took him to his heart, and twelve years later Lovick Pierce preached the funeral sermon of the valiant old pioneer preacher. In 1809 he moved and settled in Greene county, Ga. In those four years he had achieved remarkable reputation. He had served one year at Columbia, S. C., one year at Augusta, Ga., and was presiding elder of the Oconee district at the time of his removal and settlement in Greene county.

About 1810 he married Ann Foster, a daughter of Colonel George Foster, who had lately come from Prince Edward county, Va. She was a sister of Thomas Foster, a prominent lawyer, Congressman and judge of that day. In 1812 Mr. Pierce served as chaplain in the army. It is probable that he acquired some little property by his marriage. Having become uneasy about his physical condition, he went to Philadelphia, studied medicine, and in Methodist parlance "located." In the meantime, in 1812, he had served as a delegate to the general conference of his church, then only twenty-seven years of age and but seven years in the conference. This was a remarkable promotion. On February 3, 1811, was born George Foster Pierce, perhaps the greatest orator Southern Methodism has ever produced, and for many years one of its leading bishops. While practicing medicine, Dr. Pierce preached regularly as a local preacher, and after a few years finding his health stronger went back into the itinerant ministry. At the formation of the Georgia conference in 1830 he was active in its first session, which met at Macon on January 5, 1831, and had the pleasure the next year, 1832, of seeing his son George, then fresh from college, admitted to the ranks as an itinerant preacher. The record shows that Dr. Pierce filled every class of appointment, circuits, stations and district. In the general conferences of 1836, 1840 and 1844, he was a prominent delegate, and in 1844 when the division in the church occurred, both he and his son were delegates, and George Pierce at that conference made a profound impression as an orator and debater, which gave him a national reputation. When the Methodists in Georgia decided to establish the Wesleyan Female College, the first college especially designed for women in the world, George Pierce was put at the head of it, and Dr. Lovick Pierce assisted in securing the money for its establishment, acting as financial agent. After the division of the church in 1844, and the establishment of the Southern Methodist church, Dr. Pierce continued to be the leader of the Georgia conference, and for the last thirty years of his life was the Nestor of Southern Methodism. At the general conference held in Louisville in 1874 he had the great pleasure of seeing present as co-delegates with himself his son and grandson.

It is exceedingly unfortunate that a mass of matter which he had accumulated and had in manuscript form, bearing upon the history of the church in his time and to a certain extent being an autobiography, was destroyed by fire, and this loss was irreparable, as even his own son could not furnish the data necessary to fill out the gaps. In 1878, just one year before his death, he published a volume of theological essays. Dr. Pierce was described as a very handsome man, always neat in appearance, sparely built, black hair, hazel eyes, and weighing about one hundred and forty-five pounds. He was the last survivor of his generation and in his latter years was loved and honored by a constituency as wide as the Southern States. While an eloquent orator, he was not in this respect counted the equal of his son, the Bishop, but it is said that as an expository preacher he had no superior, that he was a most effective and moving speaker, whose work was always crowned with great results. He died while his son, the Bishop, was attending conference in Arkansas, and just before his death, he sent this message to the conference: "Tell the brethren I am lying just outside the gates of Heaven." His death was as peaceful as the falling on sleep of an infant.
"Men of Mark in Georgia: a complete and elaborate history...", Volume 2 By William J. Northen - Transcribed by Barb Ziegenmeyer

Johnston, Richard Malcolm, author and educator, was born in Hancock county, Ga., March 8, 1822. His boyhood was spent upon his father's plantation of over 2,000 acres of land. In 1841 he graduated with high honors at Mercer university, after which he taught for about a year, when he began the study of law. Upon being admitted he began practice at Sparta. Some years later he was tendered a judgeship in the northern circuit of the state, and about the same time was offered the presidency of his alma mater. He declined both, however, to become professor of belles-lettres in the state university at Athens, which position he held until the commencement of the Civil war. Subsequently he established a preparatory school at Rockly, which became known all over the Southern States. A few years after the war he removed his school to Chestnut Hill, near Baltimore, Md., where it took the name of the Pen Lucy Institute. He published several works, the. best known being " Dukesborough Tales," "Georgia Sketches,'' "A Historical Sketch of English Literature," and a "Life of Alexander H. Stephens." He died in 1898.
Johnston Station, a town in the southwestern part of Liberty county, is on the Atlantic Coast Line railroad, and in 1900 had a population of 300. It has a money order postoffice, express and telegraph offices, and is the commercial center for that section of the county.
(Source: Georgia Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, VOL II, by Candler & Evans, Publ. 1906. Transcribed by Tracy McAllister)

Chappell, Absalom Harris, lawyer, congressman, author, was born Dec. 18, 1801, in Hancock County, Ga. He was a representative of the Georgia state legislature for three terms; a member of the state senate; and president of that body. In 1843-45 he was a representative from Georgia to the twenty-eighth congress. He died Dec. 11, 1878, 'in Georgia.
[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]

Merritt, Robert Lewis, is an able member of the Hancock county bar and is established in successful practice in Sparta. He was born in Monroe county, Ga., Aug. 24, 1867, and is a son of Capt. John R. and Mary Gayle (Lewis) Merritt, the former of whom was born in Monroe county and the latter in Hancock county. John R. Merritt was captain of Company A, Fourteenth Georgia volunteer infantry, in the Confederate service in the Civil war, making a record for gallantry and intrepid valor. He is now living at Sparta. His wife died Feb. 22, 1905. Robert L. Merritt secured his early educational training in the schools of his native county, having been for some time a student in Hilliard institute, now the Banks Stevens institute in Forsyth. He read law under the preceptorship of Robert L. Berner, of that place, and was admitted to the bar on Sept. 8, 1888. He initiated the practice of his profession in Forsyth, whence he removed to Barnesville, Pike county, in 1889, there remaining in practice until 1896, when he located in Sparta, where he has built up a flourishing and important professional business. He was associated in practice with Thomas M. Hunt for five years after coming to Sparta, and since that time has conducted an individual practice. Mr. Merritt is a leader in the local ranks of the Democracy. In 1898 he was elected to represent Hancock county in the state legislature, being chosen as his own successor in 1900, and in 1902-3 he served as a member of the state senate, making an excellent record in both houses of the legislative body.
[Source: Georgia Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons,  Vol 2, Publ 1906. Transcribed by Tracy McAllister]

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