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242 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
"Then you shall have it," said Galphin, who immediately suited the action
to the word by transferring to him the eoat.
Quite a while elapsed before the old chief returned to the post, but when
he again appeared in the settlement Galphin said:
'' Chief, I dreamed about you last night.''
"Ugh!" he grunted, "what did yon dream?"
"I dreamed that you gave me all the land in the fork of this creek," pointing
to one of the tributary streams of the Ogeechee.
"Well," said the old chief, "you take it, but we no more dream."
There is every reason to believe that the old trading-post at Galphinton was
in existence when the state was first colonized. The settlement which gradually
developed around it may have arisen much later, but the historians are not in accord
upon this point. Says Doctor Smith:* "There may have been, and I think it
likely there were, sundry settlers who were scattered among the Indians and who
had squatted on lands belonging to them; and it is probable that Mr. Galphin had
around his settlement at Galphinton, some of his countrymen before Oglethorpe
came, but I find no positive proof of it, and Colonel Jonesi put the emigration of
the Seotch-Irish to St. George's Parish as late as 1768. I find that certainly as
early as the time of Governor Reynolds, in 1752, there were grants made to men
whom I know were in Jefferson." Be this as it may, George Galphin himself was
an early comer into this region and beyond any question Galphinton was the first
locality in Georgia established by white men for purposes of commerce. The site
of the old trading-post is now owned by heirs of the late H. M. Comer, Sr., of
Savannah.
At Galphinton, in 1785, a treaty was made between the State of Georgia and
the Creek Indians, whereby the latter agreed to surrender to the state the famous
"Tallassee Strip," between the Altamaha and the St. Mary's; but the compact
was repudiated by the Creeks under the artful Alexander McGillivray, under whose
leadership was fought the long-protracted Oconee war. Hostilities were not con
cluded until 1796, when a treaty of friendship was negotiated at Coleraine, con
firming the treaty of New York, in 1790, under which the "Tallassee Strip" was
confirmed to the Indians. This much-coveted bone of contention remained in pos
session of the Creeks until 1814, when, as a penalty for siding with the British, in
the War of 1812, they were forced to relinquish it to the whites.t
QUEENSBORO: A LOST TOWN.—Some eight miles to the north-west of Galphin
ton, a trading post was established about the year 1769 by a band of Scotch-Irish
settlers, who called, the place Queensboro in honor of Queen Anne. It was located
in an angle made by the Ogeechee River with a large creek which enters the stream
at this point. The locality was somewhat elevated and seemed to meet the two
fold requirement of a stronghold which was secure from Indian assaults and con
ducive to general good health. Colonel Jones estimates that in the immediate
vicinity of the trading post there were at one time as many as two hundred families
settled. It was sometimes called the Irish Settlement or the Irish Reserve because
of the predominance of this racial element, most of the settlers having come either
directly or indirectly from the North of Ireland. George Galphin and John Eae,
were instrumental in obtaining for them a reservation of 50,000 acres of land on
the branches of the Ogeechee Eiver. They were Presbyterians in religious faith
and were served for many years by Rev. David Bothwell, a man of unusual force
of intellect and character who caane to them from the home-land in response to
earnest overtures. Queensboro survived for a number of years; but when the town
of Louisville arose only two miles off, it gradually declined in population until
finally it ceased to exist. +
GEORGE GALPHIN: THE PIONEER INDIAN TRADER.—As the result of an extensive
trade with the various Indian tribes, George Galphin became in time one of the
wealthiest land-owners of the Province. Though he lived on the South Carolina
side of the Savannah River, at a place called Silver Bluff, where his principal depot
* "Story of Georgia and the Georgia People," p. 31, Atlanta, 1900.
t "Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials, and Legends," L. L. Knight, Vol. I.
t Ibid., Vol. I.