Richard's Story- 1800- Louisville, Georgia

Like everyone else in the family, Richard would have greatly enjoyed a day off from farm chores to take a trip to town. Rocky Comfort Creek quickly met with the broader, faster flowing Ogeechee River, and four miles down the Ogeechee was the closest town- Louisville. This was an easy ride by horseback, and not a bad walk, either. And Louisville was not just any town; it was the capital of Georgia. 

State Seal of Georgia, from Trousset encyclopedia, Paris, 1886 - 1891

Here Richard and his father and brothers would run into not just local plantation owners, but others like his uncle Jonathan Kemp, who were gentlemen serving in the Georgia legislature. Great men came to Louisville, and it would have been a gathering place for men of power and wealth. This was no provincial backwater- it was the center of government. Here, in 1798, the Georgia Constitution was crafted. Here the state seal was designed- a U.S. flag and a wharf holding hogsheads of tobacco and bales of cotton (the chief exports of the state) and the motto “Agriculture and Commerce” and three pillars representing values of the time- “wisdom, justice, moderation.”

Louisville was also the market center for the entire region. Richard and his family may have shipped their goods downriver on a flatboat or carried them on pack horses when they conducted their trade in town. Tobacco was traditionally packed into barrel like hogsheads, which were then hitched to mules or oxen to be rolled along the path to the docks. Tobacco was evaluated, sold, and stored at the large tobacco warehouse that had been on the Ogeechee near Louisville. From there the tobacco was shipped downriver to the seaport of Savannah.

The post office was at Louisville- here Jesse Womack would send and receive letters from his far-flung family members, and receive news of what was going on in the nation. The city had been laid out on 40 acres of squares and streets to encourage orderly growth. There were no doubt shops and businesses...here was a fine  colonial open market house where Phoebe could buy cloth and sewing materials, coffee, sugar, and salt. Here Jesse could find tools and ammunition. Here the young people could seek out others of their own age.

Market House, Louisville, Georgia. From Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, HABS GA 82-Louvi 1-2

 Also at Louisville was the now infamous slave market, built in the earliest days of the colony, in 1758. Traders returning from Africa would bring slaves here to trade to upland plantation owners. The unfortunate souls would have met their new masters here, at the slave market. We can only imagine the sights and sounds of this place on days when a shipment of slaves came in for sale.

"Whitney Gin" wikipedia, public domain

Richard’s keenest interest at the time, however, was no doubt the new cotton gin. Men and boys from many miles around would have flocked to see this incredible piece of machinery. Louisville had one of the first  commercial cotton gins in the world, and it is said that Eli Whitney mailed his patent from the Louisville Post Office. 

If the Womack’s grew any upland cotton, Richard and everyone else on the farm would have been all too familiar with the tiresome task of bending over a basket for hours to separate the tiny green seeds from soft cotton boll by hand. This job was so time consuming that it was difficult to make upland cotton productive. Now, with the new gin, 50 pounds of cotton could be seeded in a day. 

Did Jesse and his sons meet Eli Whitney? It is entirely possible. We do know that Eli traveled to Louisville and spent time there. All of the planters would have wanted to meet him to talk with him about his incredible invention. With tobacco profits decreasing and cotton profits increasing, it is almost certain that Richard, along with many other planters, young and old alike, saw cotton as the crop of the future. 

They were right. The cotton gin was the impetus for change. Now increasingly wealthy planters needed more and more land to grow the fluffy white fiber, which was to be planted, harvested, and borne on the shining black backs of more and more negro slaves.

        Richard Womack's world, and that of the south, had changed forever.

First Cotton Ginf from Harpers Weekly 1869 Illustration depicting event of some 70 years earlier (wikipedia-public domain)

Richard's Story- 1800-Life at Rocky Comfort Creek

 Rocky Comfort Creek, Burke County Georgia, 1800

Rocky Comfort Creek was home, and 16 year old Richard Womack would have known every inch of it. He would have silently walked the narrow deer paths that crisscrossed the towering pine forests, carrying a heavy long rifle, while hunting with his father, Jesse, and older brothers Jack and William. Young men his age could track game, shoot straight, and use a knife to clean the carcass. Richard would have carried home fresh venison, turkey, and other small game for his mother to prepare for their cooking pot. These were skills every young man took for granted in those days; but they were also skills every man needed to survive. Richard likely spent pleasant lazy hours under the shade of the oaks and hickory trees that lined the gentle stream, fishing with his two younger brothers, Frank and Jesse Jr., showing them the best spots to find the native trout and other fish that would also grace their table.

Their cabin would have been a simple one, with a couple of sleeping areas in the loft- one for the parents and one for the boys, with beds made of rope and shucked corn or feather mattresses, and quilts made by their mother which kept them warm on chilly nights in winter. A fireplace downstairs warmed the house and provided hot water for tea, but most folks had a separate kitchen building to keep the heat out of the main house in summer. This was often attached to the house by a covered breezeway, and a wide covered porch also shaded the front of the cabin. This design was called a dogtrot, and it was the most common type of home on the southern frontier, hewn of local pine, with a shingled roof.

Richard would have spent many pleasant evenings sitting on that porch, listening to the hoot owls and evening crickets, and watching the stars and fireflies, while his grandmother, and his father and uncles told their tales.

They had ever been wanderers, the Womack’s. His grandmother would have told him tales of her childhood. She and his grandfather had grown up on the banks of the James River on tobacco plantations upstream from the colonial capital of Williamsburg. Richard had probably never seen this fine colonial town, but he had certainly heard all about it from his grandmother. A true city- with brick buildings and ornate carriages; ladies in silk dresses and gentlemen in powdered wigs. Fine plantations along the river which sent barrels of tobacco across the ocean to England. Planters who raced fine horses and drank fine wine. But primogeniture was the law of the land- the eldest son inherited all, and most younger sons were sent out to find their way in the world. His grandparents moved away from their childhood home in Henrico County and on to Lunenburg County, Virginia, and then to Caswell County, North Carolina. Here young Richard had been born, before the family moved on to Georgia, settling here on Rocky Comfort Creek. His grandfather, for whom he had been named, died when he was just a baby.

But while tales of colonial days may have been pleasant to listen to on starry evenings, Richard was probably more thrilled by the stories of battles told by the men of the family. Young men are forever drawn to the tales of glory told by older ones, who, looking back at the excitement, often retell with splendid animation and embellishment. Story telling was an art in those days and one of the main forms of entertainment available. And the men certainly had exciting stories to tell. His grandfather and older uncles had fought in the French and Indian Wars. The woods had been full of Cherokees, allies of the French, attacking the British colonists. Now there were just a few renegade Indians here and there, who would occasionally attack isolated homesteads. During the war, however, there had been danger at every turn. The men had fought bravely with their colonial comrades to carve out their small settlements. The Indians had fought bravely to protect their lands. Now they were mostly at peace, the Indians having drawn back farther west to the mountains. 

His father, Jesse, told of much more recent battles- the Revolutionary War against the British. Perhaps he talked less about these more recent, still painful, memories. But Richard would have heard about how the settlers in Georgia were split in their loyalties. The Tories were loyal to the King, the Whigs wanted to break away and form a new nation. Both parties had been friends and neighbors in Georgia, making it a painful situation between families. In the end, they became bitter enemies. The fighting was fierce throughout Georgia and the Carolina's. The British occupied Georgia during this time, and much of South Carolina. Both of Richard’s parents could tell of those bitter years of occupation and fighting. Jesse had fought as a Patriot for the newly emerging nation. Richard, hearing the stories, was likely forming an intense patriotism of his own for the newly formed United States of America. He must have been eager, as most young men are, for some excitement and action in his own life, which at times, probably seemed very dull.

Days were spent with the hard work of carving a farm out of the wilderness. There were fields to be cut and cleared and burned down so they could be plowed and planted. The Womack’s traditionally had grown tobacco- back to the early days on the James River in Virginia. Richard’s grandfather was knowledgeable about this early crop, and likely his father Jesse had taken up that tradition. The tobacco was gathered and taken in rolling hogsheads or on flatboats down the river to the tobacco warehouse in town. From there it was shipped further downriver to the seaport of Savannah.

There were half-wild cattle to be cared for; most grazed in the pine forests, along with the family hogs.  A few milk cows were generally kept close to home, and chickens for meat and eggs. Richard’s mother, Phoebe, probably kept a good sized vegetable garden near the house as well, fenced off from marauding stock and wildlife. There would have been fields of corn, which Phoebe would have pounded for cornbread, and which Jesse would have stockpiled to feed stock. The creek and a spring or well would have provided plenty of clear, good water, but it had to be hauled to the house. Richard and his brothers would have been kept busy with the monotony of seemingly endless daily chores.

There was schooling as well; we know that Richard could read and write, a skill not every man had in those days, and very few women. The Womack and Coleman boys had a tutor- Peter Spencer- who leaves an account of his teaching fees for Isaac, Frank, and John Coleman in 1790, one scholar for Jesse Womack in 1791, and six scholars in 1792 in this area.1 Books would have been rare, but there was almost certainly a family bible that provided a source of reading and inspiration. In the evening, by candlelight, Richard may have spent some time reading precious books, and hearing his father read letters from relatives who had stayed in Carolina or moved westward. It seemed in those days that everyone was moving westward.

1- Accounts of Peter Spencer for Teaching- Early Records of Georgia, Wilkes County, by Grace Gillam Davidson p 317 online 3/10/15

1785 Peitition signed by Richard's Grandfather

The Womack family was about to be expelled from their homestead on the Rocky Comfort Creek at the forks of the Ogeechee River in Burke County Georgia.

The Ogeechee River

Richard Womack, the head of the family, signed a petition with his neighbors, calling for a halt to the sale of these lands. The petition was addressed to Samuel Ebert, the governor of Georgia. The petition notes that the settlers were under the impression that the land was vacant at the time that they settled, and that they were the first settlers in the area and had "stood as a wall" against the Indians and had made considerable improvements on the land. According to the petitioners, they were living in one of the few liveable areas covered by the survey- most of it being barren sand hills. They ask that the land sale be postponed. The sale was indeed postponed- final outcome unknown to me. One of the other  nine signatures was by neighbor Captain Blasengame Harvey- under whom Jesse Womack served in the Revolutionary War.

 Richard Womack Sr. died in July of the same year- about age 75. Soon afterward, his son, Jesse Womack, led his family westward through Georgia.

Petition of the Inhabitants of Burke County Georgia to Samuel Elbert, Governor 1785 May 5 (Telamon Cuyler, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, The University of Georgia Libraries, presented in the Digital Library of Georgia http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/zlna/id:tcc940