Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

252 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
•
member of the king's council; but, having been present at this meeting,
he once more incurred the royal displeasure, and once more came an
order for his dismissal. Georgia was not represented in the Continental
Congress of 1774, due largely to her own conservatism and to the per
sonal influence of Governor "Wright. However, an effort was made to
send delegates in 1775. At this time, three delegates were actually
chosen, Noble W. Jones, Archibald Bulloch and John Houstoun; but,
since only five parishes out of twelve had been represented in the
provincial Congress at Savannah, these delegates did not repair to Phila
delphia but addressed a letter to John Hancock, its president. The
parish of St. John, resenting this failure of the province to send dele
gates to Philadelphia, held a separate meeting at which Dr. Lyman Hall
was elected a delegate to represent the parish of St. John in the Conti
nental Congress; and he repaired at once to the seat of government,
where he sat until the close of the session. Since he only represented a
parish he was not allowed to vote; but he was there nevertheless to rep
resent the uncompromising stand for liberty taken by the Georgia Puri
tans. At the outbreak of the revolution, St. John's Parish was erected
into a separate county and called Liberty in honor of the zealous sup
port given by its inhabitants to the cause of American independence.
These events will all be discussed more at length in a subsequent chap
ter. Here they are merely summarized. Georgia's conservatism was
slow to yield. She was the only province of England unrepresented by
a full delegation in the Continental Congress of 1775. But an event
soon occurred which was destined to swing her into line. This was the
battle of Lexington.
BONAVENTURE : THE ANCIENT SEAT OF THE TATTNAI.LS.—Four miles from
Savannah, on the road to Thunderbolt, lies Bonaventnre, today one of the most
beautiful burial places of the dead in America. Its majestic live-oaks, more than
a century old, interlock their rugged branches and trail their pendant mosses over
an area of consecrated ground, beautifully kept by the care-taker in charge, and
the scone presented to the eye by these gnarled and twisted Druids is at once both
weird and fascinating. Bonaventure is today thickly sown with the historic dust
of Savannah; but, in former times, it was the abode of life; a place where hospi
tality expressed itself in the most delightful rounds of entertainment and where
loyal subjects pledged the health of the king.
Originally it belonged to John Mullrync, who purchased the estate in 1762. His
attractive daughter, Mary, an only child, having been wooed and won by Josiah
Tattnall, it became the home of the successful suitor, with whose name its wealth
of associations was afterwards to be entwined. Tradition has preserved a bit of
romance in connection with the old estate, for there still abides an unwritten legend
to the effect that the avenues of magnificent trees were planted in the form of a
monogram combining the letters "M" and "T", the initials of the two aristo
cratic families. The Tattnalls came originally from Normandy, in France. They
afterwards settled in Cheshire, England, where the name first appears among the
gentry as far back as 1530. In the beginning, it was spelt De Taten, afterwards
Taten-hall, borrowing the added syllable, no doubt, from the ancestral manor; and
finally it was contracted into Tattnall. The earliest bearer of the name came to
South Carolina in 1700, where he married the grand-daughter of an Irish peer.
It was his son, Josiah Tattnall, who; in the staid old city of Charleston, sued
for the hand of John Mullryne's daughter; and soon after the nuptials were
celebrated the family abode was established at Bonaventure.
On the approach of hostilities with England, both John Mullryne and Josiah
Tattuall remained steadfast loyalists. The latter was a fighter, whose sword flashed
in the Colonial wars. He could not antagonize the mother-country, however, even