Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

572 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
ties of public life, relinquished his seat in the United States Senate and
retired to his country-seat, Valdosta, in Laurens County, where his re
maining days were spent. Here he lingered for more than twenty years
but took no active part in public affairs.
Judge John P. King, of Augusta, president of the Georgia Railroad .
and one of the state's pioneer captains of industry, succeeded Mr. Troup
as United States senator from Georgia.
The Legislature of 1833 created a new judicial circuit—the Coweta
—to preside over the courts of which Judge Hiram "Warner was elected.
In after years Judge Warner became chief justice of the state.
President Jackson, if bitter in his hatreds, was tenacious of his
friendships. He remained true to his secretary of -war, Maj. John H.
Eaton, of Tennessee, even though the latter's marriage to the notorious
Peggy 0 'Neill became a national scandal, putting the whole of social
Washington against his administration and eventually causing the
famous rupture in 1831 of the Jackson cabinet.
Judge Berrien, after relinquishing the attorney-generalship, resumed
the practice of law in Savannah; but another Georgian was at this time
signally honored by President Jackson. In 1834, John Forsyth, of
Georgia, then a United States senator, was rewarded for his splendid
championship of the administration, both on the floor of the Senate
and in the great anti-tariff convention of 1832. Called into the cabinet
as secretary of state, under President Jackson, Mr. Forsyth retained this
exalted office with credit to himself and to the nation, under President
Martin Van Buren. Dying at the close of his second term of office, he
was buried in the Congressional Cemetery, at the nation's capital.
Alfred Cuthbert succeeded Mr. Forsyth, in 1832, as United States
senator.
Two other events, of signal interest characterized the administra
tion of Governor Lumpkin. One of these was the famous meteoric
shower of 1833, an event giving rise to a body of traditions, all of them
more or less exaggerated, dating back to the time "when the stars fell."
The other was the centennial anniversary of Georgia's first settlement.
On February 12, 1833, the birthday of the state was celebrated with
great eclat. Meetings were held in Savannah, Augusta, Macon, Eaton-
ton, and other towns of the state. One hundred years of existence had
evolved the feeble Colony of Oglethorpe into a powerful commonwealth
of the American Union; and while the future held in store for Georgia
the fiery convulsions of a great Civil war its approaching storm-clouds
were arched by an imperial rainbow.