[GEORGIA.]
Poem composed by Mrs. C. M. O'Hara and read before David Meriwether Chapter, Greenville, Ga., Georgia day, 1911.
Georgia, the baby of the original thirteen,
Not, however, youngest in importance, I ween,
Was born to the colonies in seventeen thirty-two,
To help those in prison their lives to renew.
What Oglethorpe planned for this child of his heart
Was that rum and slaves of it should not be a part,
But this wayward child would have her own way,
In spite of her mistakes she has made up to date,
Georgia is called of the South the Empire State.
She was the fifth of her sisters in secession to say,
"The Union she'd leave" when there was not fair play.
This child of famous men has sent her portion
From the "marshes of Glynn" to the Pacific Ocean.
Near Savannah, where Oglethorpe first planted his foot,
Ebenezer, the first orphanage, has taken firm root.
Another distinction, too, fair Georgia can claim
Is the first college for women, Wesleyan by name.
Towering intellects she reared in her Toombs and her Hills;
She can boast of her factories and her mills;
She has kept pace with her sisters in every movement
That tends to her children's uplift and improvement.
Now in heathen lands, across the deep waters,
Performing deeds of mercy are Georgia's sons and daughters.
[FORTS OF GEORGIA.]
Miss Francis Clarke.
Prize Essay of Girls' High School, Atlanta, Georgia, for the loving cup offered by Joseph Habersham Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution.
The forts of Georgia, though for the most part hurriedly and roughly built for protection against Indian, Spaniards, Englishman, or Federal, have nevertheless been the scenes of the bravest defenses, of the most courageous deeds. In them probably more than anywhere else, the men of Georgia have shown their hardy spirits and distressing trials. Never has a Georgia fort been surrendered except from absolute necessity, though its protectors were weak from starvation.
The first of the long list of five hundred forts that have been erected in Georgia is Fort Charles, on the northeastern coast of Georgia. It was built about 1562 by the direction of John Ribault, who with a party of Huguenots had come from France with the approval of Admiral Coligny, the Protestant leader at that time. Two years later the fort was abandoned, and there is now no sign to point out the spot where it once stood.