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GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 541
On the authority of Governor Gilmer, we find it stated that General
Clark eventually forgave all his enemies, with the single exception of
William H. Crawford, against whom his old feeling of bitter personal
animosity continued down to the last hour; and had it been within his
power he would doubtless have emulated the example of Michael An-
gelo, who, in depicting the scene of the last Last Judgment, on the walls
of the Sistine Chapel, in the Vatican at Rome, immortalized the features
of his enemies by giving them to the demons in hell.
OEIGIN or THE MUSKOGEES.—It was the commonly accepted belief among the
Muscogee or Creek Indians that the original home seat of this powerful family of
red men was among the mountains of ancient Mexico. At any rate, when Hernando
Cortez, in command of his adventurous army of Spaniards, landed at Vera Cruz, in
1519, and pressed toward the interior of the country, he found the Muscogees form
ing an independent republic to the north of the Aztec capital. The English name
of Creeks was given to them, because of the vast number of small streams which
watered the new lands in which they dwelt.
According to White, Le Clerk Milfort, a highly educated French gentleman, who
came to America in 1775, visited the Creek nation after making a tour of the New
England Colonies. He formed the acquaintance, while at Coweta Town, of the cele
brated Alexander McGillivray, the great chief of the Muscogee Indians. Delighted
with this cultured half-breed, who was a most extraordinary man, he determined to
make his abode in the nation. He afterwards married McGillivray's sister and, in
course of time, became grand chief of war, in which capacity he conducted a num
ber of expeditions against Georgia. He also wrote, at leisure moments, while a resi
dent of Coweta Town, an important historical treatise on the Creeks, which he after
wards published in France. Pickett, in his excellent history of Alabama and Georgia,
has translated from his work an interesting account of the Muscogee Indians.
THE VARNEE HOUSE.—Recently a movement to purchase the historic Varner House
at Indian Springs was launched by Piedmont Continental Chapter of the D. A. R.
Mrs. A. H. Alfriend, on behalf of the chapter, brought the matter before the State
Convention at Marietta in 1912, at which time the initial steps were taken looking to
an ultimate acquisition of the famous old tavern. The identical counter on which
General Mclutosh affixed his signature to the treaty still stands in the office of the
Varner House, preserved intact.