Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· Literature,
Principally Belletristic .
fragments of what were probably extensive journals or diaries as well as
some single-journey records. The 1708 "Diary of a Journey from South
Carolina to the Indian Country" kept by Captain John Evans is principally
notations of distances, but in it are a few accounts of conversations with
the red men, and similar journals such as that of Colonel George Chicken
are noticed in Chapters I and II above. Then there is the more formal diary
of the Reverend Oliver Hart (1743-I780) of Charleston, who records
some examples of wonder-working providence "relative to or noticed by
an unworthy traveler to the New Jerusalem." This journal covers most of
the author's life, his journeyings from his native Pennsylvania to South
Carolina, storms and conversions, relationships with other dissenting clergy,
and other matters of life in Char leston.185
A New Voyage to Georgia. By a Young Gentleman . .. (2d ed., London,
I 737) includes a poem to Oglethorpe on his arrival in Britain from
Georgia. The journal gives an account of the author's disembarkation in
Charleston in I733, a description of Savannah, the manufacturing of silk
and wine, and a separate "Curious Account of the Indians." Perhaps useful
as a promotion pamphlet, it is most interesting as a view of the settlements
in their earliest period. Stylistically it is not noteworthy, nor is
Francis Moore's A Voyage to Georgia begun in the Year I735 (Savannah,
1840 ) .186 Moore's is a detailed relation of the voyage and the religious
conduct and affiliations of the settlers who accompanied him. The numerous
"purely" promotional tracts were in most instances based on similar
journals or on letters and official memoranda sent back to the mother
country. The Journal of William Stephens, I74I-I745 (ed. E.M. Coulter)
is the continuation of a memoir published by the Trust:ees of Georgia to
promote colonization or emigration. The I737-I740 journal, originally
appearing in I742, has been reprinted in A.D. Candler, Colonial Records
of Georgia, IV, and Supplement to IV (2 vols., Savannah, 1906, 1908). In
the continuatio'n there is information on the treatment of dissenters, on
church services and preaching, on individuals such as clergymen Gronau,
Bolzius, and Whitefield, and on James Habersham. Stephens (1671-
I753), educated at Winchester and King's College, Cambridge, had been
M.P. for twenty years and a colonel of militia before he went to South
Carolina and later Georgia. In 1741 he became resident secretary in Georgia
for the Trustees, a post he held until I750. His journal, though overloaded
with trivia, is accurate as well as detailed. One vignette illustrates
style and content :
Mr. William Aglionby, a Freeholder in this town (Savannah), died this
morning and was buried in the Evening. His Character was better forgot,
than remember'd to his Infamy: But it may not be improper with regard
to the Colony, to touch upon it briefly. He was of a good Family, and had
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