History:  Columbia County. Basil Neal, Dr John Briscoe, John B Neal, 
and Elias Welborne, Reminisces of Dr. H. R. Casey
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	 This file was contributed by: Stephanie Harrison
                                  info@conquestmusic.com 

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Articles written for the Columbia Sentinel in 1883.

Permission granted by the Columbia County News and transcribed by 
Stephanie Harrison.

The articles were written in 1883 by Dr H. R. Casey for the Columbia 
Sentinel. 
He writes about many of the early pioneers of Columbia County 
who arrived in Georgia in the late 1700's and early 1800's."



Basil Neal, Dr John Briscoe, John B Neal, and Elias Welborne

February 7, 1883
BASIL NEAL
was a native-born Marylander, but resided in Henry county, Va., after 
he was grown. He came to Georgia and located in Columbia county and was
one of the early settlers. He bought a farm of some 380 acres and built
a comfortable house near to what is now known as Sharon meeting house,
on the Washington road. Here he lived for many years and was one of
those stalwart, enterprising men who came into the dense forests of the
new country, determined to gather from its fertile soil the wherewith 
to feed and clothe his family. He married early in life a daughter of 
Dr John Briscoe, who lived below Appling. By her he raised one son, 
John B. Neal, and four daughters. He married the second time in old age 
and raised two sons and three daughters.

The farm which he settled has been under cultivation from that day to
this, and still yields a compensating reward for fair labor. It was
"New Columbia" then, when those hardy pioneers felled the forests and
made the virgin soil tributary to the axe, the plow, the hoe. This was
in the Long Ago--the "auldlang syne" of the county--and, although
three-fourths of a century has been added to the bygone years, "Old
Columbia" to-day with her gullied red spots and silver grey hills
dapplings the earth, and with most of her early settlers returned to
their original dust, will respond generously to practical and 
scientific cultivation. Like those good old songs, "Old Hundred", Auld 
Land Syne" and "Home Sweet Home" sweet though they were to our 
ancestors, are full of music and pathos and have a charm and sweetness 
for our ears which the many new and popular songs of the present have 
failed to obliterate, or make stale. They are as fresh to us to-day as 
they were in the Long Ago. 

'Tis good ol Columbia to-day-the "Home Sweet Home" to most, if not
all of her citizens. We love her old red hills, her sandy plains, her
honest yielding soil; her memories, her legends, her history, her Long
Ago. And those of her citizens yet active cling with strong attachments
to their native or adopted homes.

But there is a short period in her history over which I would gladly
draw the veil of oblivion. I allude of course to the brief reign of
Radicalism when under protest and duress, her citizens were forced to
yield to a horde of base and ignorant conspirators. But it can be said
that only two or three of her white citizens aided in this disloyal
crusade; and it can be fursaid to the credit of the county, that she 
did not permit this political fraud to stain her bright escutcheon but 
for a short time when rising in her might see soon calmed the storm of
Radicalism and put her own intelligent and honest citizens in power. 
Columbia, I believe was the very first county in the State to throw off
the yoke of Radical oppression.

The old Basil Neal farm joins on its western border the lands of old
Elias Welborne, another of Columbia's honored citizens. Most of this
farm is visible from the public road, leading from Augusta to
Washington. I propose to take this Welborne tract as a test of
endurance of Columbia county lands. It has been in cultivation for
nearly one hundred years, and I can truthfully say and have often heard
the remark corroborated by others, that this old place seems to have
taken on a new lease of life and put on a robe of immortality so to
speak and a garniture of yearly productiveness which pays well its
present cultivator.