On this day in 1735, a group of Scottish Highlanders sailed from Inverness, Scotland aboard the Prince of Wales, bound for Georgia. They disembarked on the northern bank of the Altamaha River, where they founded New Inverness—later named Darien—60 miles south of Savannah. The Scots were among the finest soldiers in the world and had […]
Lyman Hall was an ordained minister, a doctor and one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence, quite a resume for a man born in Connecticut in 1747. Hall was from old New England stock and graduated from Yale. He abandoned the congregational ministry for medicine and moved South, eventually settling in Georgia […]
When James Oglethorpe and the English colonists arrived in Georgia in 1733, Tomochichi was here to greet them. It was his artful diplomacy between the English settlers and the native population that ensured Georgia's peaceful beginnings. Tomochichi was chief of the Yamacraw tribe, which he created from a group of Creek and Yamasee natives. They […]
Casimir Pulaski came from Poland to fight in the American Revolution and is one of only seven people to be granted honorary U.S. citizenship. Pulaski was born an aristocrat in Warsaw in 1745. He first led men in battle as a freedom fighter in Poland. After meeting Ben Franklin in France, he came to America […]
On September 16, 1779, the Siege of Savannah began during the American Revolution. Captured in December 1778, Georgia was the only colony the British re-conquered. The following September, America's new French allies anchored a fleet of 47 ships offshore carrying 5,000 soldiers, including 500 Haitians. Their commander, Admiral Charles–Hector d'Estaing, linked up with American General […]
