Click on the image for a larger view.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Developer sign on Dutton Island

I paid a visit to Dutton Island today – a great one to photograph fog. You’ll soon see those photos in the stock photography section.

As I was driving out, I spotted this sign back in the bushes.  Are there still plans for development in this wildlife preserve?  It requires investigation.

Paradise View – the irony oozes.  Watch for further posts.

Gene Talmadge

Barack Obama took office without a stumble, except for that oath of office.  Just after World War II, the State of Georgia saw a much more difficult transition.

The November 1946 election for governor saw the people of Georgia do what they’d done three times previously – elect the red suspenders wearing Gene Talmadge to the state’s highest office.

But “Ol’ Gene” was in bad health – he lived through the election but died from cirrhosis of the liver on December 21, 1946 – only weeks before inauguration day.

Now, a word about Georgia politics. Until very recently it was a one-party state. Everyone was a Democrat – but that didn’t lessen disagreements. Then, as now, the party is filled with factions. In 1947 the two largest factions were the Talmadge faction and the anti-Talmadge faction.

Before the 1946 election, Talmadge faction leaders knew about Gene’s poor health and organized a write-in campaign for Gene’s son, Herman, as insurance against Gene’s untimely death.  Their plan centered on a Georgia law which said that if an elected candidate died before inauguration, the General Assembly would elect a governor from the next two highest vote-getters.

But the Talmadge faction ran into two problems with their plan. First, Herman finished third, not second.  Supporters creatively solved the problem when then claimed to find an “uncounted” box of ballots  in Telfair County – the home county of the Talmadges. There were enough ballots to put Herman into second place behind only his late father.  Eventually,  elections officials noticed all the “uncounted ballots” were written in the same hand, were voted in alphabetical order, and that some were cast by residents of a Telfair County cemetery.

The second problem for the Talmadge forces was not so easily solved. In 1945, the people of Georgia approved a new constitution – a constitution that created, for the first time, the office of Lt. Governor. And unlike other in states, the Georgia Lt. Governor was an independent politician – not the running mate of the governor.

M.E. Thompson, an anti-Talmadge activist, won election as Georgia’s first Lt. Governor in that same 1946 election. He shocked people when he stood up to the Talmadge faction and claimed to be governor, arguing the new constitution said the Lt. Governor would succeed the governor if the governor dies.

Herman Talmadge sworn in

Talmadge faction members filled the General Assembly – and quickly elected Herman governor – he was sworn in at 2AM on January 15, 1947.  Outgoing governor Ellis Arnall, an anti-Talmadge, refused to leave office – saying Herman was a pretender.

People expected trouble. The National Guard had recently returned from World War II and supported Talmadge. The State Guard, organized to take the place of the overseas National Guard, supported Arnall. Some feared these two armies would go to war on the State House grounds in downtown Atlanta.

Talmadge ordered Adjutant General  Marvin Griffin to escort Governor Arnall home to Newnan – about 40 miles from Atlanta – and to change the locks on the door of the Governor’s office.  Griffin accomplished his mission, but Arnall drove back later in the day. He was refused admission to “Governor Talmadge’s office” by security.  Incensed, Arnall commandeered the information booth at the door to the Capitol and set up his own governor’s office.  Arnall moved only after a pro-Talmadge legislator dropped firecrackers into the booth from a balcony above.

Arnall claimed the governorship for three days until he “resigned” in favor of M.E. Thompson.  The Lt. Governor proclaimed himself acting governor and set up his own governor’s office in the Lt. Governor’s suite.

Various state office holders took sides. The attorney general refused to bond Talmadge’s choice for state revenue commissioner. The state treasurer refused to honor spending requests. The secretary of state hid the state seal in his wheelchair.

Talmadge proposed that both he and Thompson resign and rerun the election. Thompson refused and filed suit.

In March 1947, the Georgia Supreme Court decided the General Assembly should have declared Ol’ Gene governor-elect even though he’d been dead for three weeks. The court made Thompson governor.

Herman Talmadge had the last say, however.  In the special election of 1948, Talmadge trounced Thompson.

And it was not the last Georgian’s heard from Ellis Arnall.  In 1966, he played an important role in the appointment of another man to the offive of governor – Lester Maddox.

Swanquarter lies on the coast of the Tarheel State. It’s so small it’s unincorporated – the only unincorporated county seat in America. Swanquarter’s people have fished the waters of the Pamlico Sound for hundreds of years. But the waters, and God, never played a more dramatic role than they did on September 16th and 17th, 1876.

In the mid-1870s the people in Swanquarter decided they needed a church building. The congregation had been meeting in homes and other buildings, but there was no full-time church. So, they formed a building committee, found volunteers to construct the building, and took up a collection to buy land.

After praying, the committee members found a perfect piece of land. It stood on a corner had a beautiful view of Swanquarter Bay. The committee members knew the lot was an answer to their prayers. But the landowner had other plans for the property and refused to sell.

The committee found another lot. The congregation was disappointed. Volunteers began to build the church, and, as soon as the structure was closed in from the weather, the congregation showed its thanks by holding services.

On the night of September 15th, a storm began to blow in from the Atlantic. By the next day, the people in town were sure a hurricane was on the way. Water rose to five feet above street level, and houses began to flood.

On September 17th, the hand of God arrived. As the wind and water increased, townspeople were shocked to see their unfinished church break free of its foundation and float into the street. It sailed down the center of the road and missed other buildings.

The church gently bumped into the town’s general store doing no damage, turned 90 degrees, sailed across a canal, hit a couple of saplings, and turned to face the street. It had stopped on the original lot in the exact place the committee members had originally wanted to build their church.

The landowner was as stunned as the church members. He met the committee chairman at the courthouse, and he donated the property to the church congregation. The grateful members voted to name it Providence Church.

A newer brick building stands on the spot today, but around in back the old wooden building is still serving God by hosting Sunday school classes. And above the front door is the sign – “The Church Moved By The Hand of God.”

Bishop John Freeman Young

Bishop John Freeman Young sleeps in Jacksonville’s Old City Cemetery. While there’s nothing on his tombstone to indicate it, he’s known internationally for his English translation of the world’s favorite Christmas carol – “Silent Night, Holy Night.”

Young was born in Pittston, Maine on October 30, 1820. He graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in April, 1845 and a month later was assigned to St. Johns Episcopal Church in Jacksonville. He was ordained in Tallahassee the next year, and he served as one of only two priests in the state until 1847.

From Florida he moved to various posts in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana. In 1855, he became assistant pastor at Trinity Church in New York City.

The hymn “Stille Nacht! Heillge Nacht!” was written in Austria by Rev. Josef Mohr in 1816. It was originally a six verse poem. Two years later, the Reverend was assigned to a parish in Oberndorf, where he met Franz Xaver Gruber. Mohr asked Gruber to set the poem to music. The parish’s organ had fallen in to such disrepair, Gruber wrote the music for choir accompanied by guitar. Rumors say that the song was set to be performed on Christmas Eve when Mohn and Gruber found that the church’s organ had been damaged by mice. They quickly wrote the arrangement for guitar to save the performance.

However, Gruber’s son wrote in a letter, “During the time when my father was the organist of the church of St Nikola, there was a very poor almost unusable organ there. This may well explain why the Reverend Mohr preferred to accompany the carol on a well-tuned guitar than on an off-pitch organ.”

Silent Night score

In New York, Young continued his interest in hymnology. He collected and translated Christian hymns from churches all over the world. It’s not known how Young came to know the song, but in 1859 he published “Carols for Christmas Tide”, a 16-page pamphlet, containing “Silent Night, Holy Night.”

In July, 1867, the Rev. Young was consecrated as the second Bishop of Florida and returned to Jacksonville. During his nearly two decades as bishop, he increased the number of parishes from 20 to 48, established both a boy’s school and a girl’s school in Jacksonville, and helped revive The University of the South at Suwannee, Tennessee. In Key West, he established St. Pauls, the first Episcopal church for African-Americans, and St. Johns, a Spanish-language parish for Cubans.

During a trip to New York, Bishop Young caught pneumonia and died on November 15, 1885. His body was returned to Jacksonville. Two years later, St. Andrews Church was dedicated to him. St. Andrews still stands as headquarters of the Jacksonville Historical Society.

The gravesite, like many in Old City Cemetery, fell into disrepair. In July, 2008, the headstones of both Bishop Young and his wife were restored through the efforts of Flagler’s Bill Egan and the Episcopal Diocese of Florida. Bishop Young’s gravesite is decorated every year by the Austrian Silent Night Society.