Screven County GaArchives News.....The Curse of Lorenza Dow June 7, 1964 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Jen Darlene Brookins-Brooks brooksdarlene@bellsouth.net or riversrun422@yahoo.com July 14, 2006, 11:14 pm The Augusta Chronicle June 7, 1964 The Augusta Chronicle - Sunday - June 7, 1964. The Curse of Lorenza Dow “If a town receives you not, then shake the dust of that town from your feet, and the fate of that town will be worse than Sodom’s.” Lorenza Dow, the preacher who visited Jacksonborough, Ga., in 1820, surely recalled the verse of scripture, accepted it at face value and explicitly followed its directions. Although Lorenza Dow would spend only a few days in Jacksonborough, Ga his visit, thought by some predestined, would leave until this day a permanent impress on the minds of Screven Countians. Lorenza Dow, a Connecticut-born Revolutionary war baby, must have been born with an element of predestination surrounding him. Dow became one of the most prominent traveling ministers of the post-war period and, according to written accounts, was eccentric, but had many of the elements of greatness. With a raging and passionate soul that led him often into trouble, Dow would visit the bustling, and prosperous town of Jacksonborough, and within 30 years after his visit nothing could be found to prove the stream of life flowed through the city he had tried to ransom for the Lord. One hundred and forty-five years ago Jacksonborough was a boisterous county seat. Situated just a few miles above Sylvania on Beaver Creek Dam, Jacksonborough was 100 miles up-river on the Savannah, it was a pioneer settlement hewn out of a wilderness of virgin pine forests. Thirty years later Jacksonborough was a dead town in Georgia – all of it, that is, except the one dwelling that escaped the curse of Lorenza Dow. On February 1, 1797, an Act passed by the Georgia Legislature provided that “The seat of the public buildings in the county of Scriven (now spelled Screven) so far as related to the court house and jail, shall be in the center of said county, or such other place as may be adjudged most convenient for the citizens.” The Act stated further, “They are herby fully authorized to purchase, or otherwise procure, a title fee simple for such lot of the land as they shall judge most convenient for the seat of the aforesaid buildings, containing not less than five acres nor more than fifty acres – to let the building of a court house and jail thereon to the lowest bidder.” There is little doubt that the Commissioners of Scriven County set to work to procure the land needed for Jacksonborough. On April 29, 1797, Solomon Gross and his wife, Mary Gross, conveyed to the Commissioners of Scriven 50 acres of land on Beaver Dam. Harvested crops and building materials were anxiously received in Savannah in 1820. The brawny men of Jacksonborough nailed slabs of tall pines together and pushed their rafts down river to Savannah, they would unload their cargoes of crops and materials for greedy Savannanians eager to receive them. As Jacksonborough grew and was nurtured by more settlers, most certainly her reputation for rowdiness and “evil ways” grew. Her wickedness is described in White’s Statistics of Georgia, 1849, which says: “The place had formerly a very bad character. It was reported that in the morning, after drunken frolics and frights, you could see children picking up eye balls in tea saucers! There was so much gouging (sic) going on.” Jacksonborough’s “respectable” social life was no doubt confines to gatherings at a meeting house, log rolling, house raising, corn shucking, cane grindings and quilting. If there was a religious life in Jacksonborough, we are not aware of it, since there are no records of church organizations. It was during a transition period, when people were moving from the era of log cabins into the period of slaves and plantations, that Lorenza Dow visited Jacksonborough. Records tell that the people of Jacksonborough possessed a very “rowdy disposition.” Accounts of Jacksonborough tell us that the town had “whiskey stores.” It was into this climate of transition and bursting emotions that Lorenza Dow entered Jacksonborough atop a horse one day in 1820. “Repent, Brethren; Repent! “Yelled the bizarre little hunchback preacher who often harangued from the dusty saddle of his exhausted steed. But Lorenza Dow’s coming was ill-timed, to say the least. Jacksonborough citizens refused to accept him and they refused to listen to his chastising, the rougher element of the town sent a barrage of rotten eggs and tomatoes that threatened to knock him from his horse, their hoots and jeers fairly rent the sky. Lorenza Dow stood his ground. The indomitable little preacher felt that his was a divine calling to the ministry of the Lord. The little man, born in Coventry, Conn., had wandered the length and breadth of the settled portion of the United States, “converting” every soul within his reach. As Jesus had taught his disciples to do Loranza “traveled light.” He carried little more than his Bible and the clothes on his back. He depended completely on the hospitality of the people to whom he ministered for food, shelter, and a steed to ride. Dow, however, occasionally found their hearts to be remarkably hard. He was no doubt a man of his convictions, for it is told that he denounced the institutions of slavery with equal force in Georgia or Connecticut. Dow met a variety of receptions in his various ports of call. In Charleston, he was convicted of libel for attacking a powerful politician. He was jailed for 24 hours and fined. In Louisville, then the state capitol, he preached before the General Assembly and at a camp meeting in Middle East Georgia he preached to 5,000 people. Jacksonborough was not ready for conversion in 1820. The citizens certainly made their displeasure known in many rude ways. Just as the citizens’rage had reached its peak a man named Seaborn Goodall edged his way through the crowd in one of Jacksonborough’s whisky stores. Goodall pleaded for mercy for Lorenza Dow and gave him lodging for the night in the “Goodall House,”set apart from Jacksonborough only by massive oaks laden with Spanish moss. Seaborn Goodall was a Methodist and a Mason and so was Dow. Early the next morning Dow left the shelter of the: Goodall House: and once again encountered his tormentors. The roughnecks forced Dow to the narrow footbridge over Beaver Dam Creek that led out of town. Here on the footbridge, Dow dismounted, turned toward his tomentors, removed both his shoes, and shook the dust from his feet, lifting his face and arms, Dow appealed to Heaven to bring down the curse of Sodom and Gomorrah upon the entire town of Jacksonborough, with the exception of the Goodall House. Within 30 years the town rapidly decayed. Vacant stores and houses were crumbling to the ground. The courthouse and jail which had once symbolized Jacksonborough’s might as the county seat had been removed. One by one, families left Jacksonborough. Unexplained fires swept the town; mysterious winds ripped roofs from houses, flash floods emanated from the usually quiet creek…in a variety of ways the curse was fulfilled. Today the only visible remnant of the town of Jacksonborough is the Seaborn Goodall house. Built in 1815 of materials ferried across the Savannah River, it is occupied today by a Negro family. The massive oak, dripping with the Spanish moss, still shades the side of the house. It was a handsome and pretentious house amid the log cabins and roughly built houses in Jacksonborough. Gen William T. Sherman camped at the forbidding Goodall House on his march from Atlanta to Savannah. Beyond the wide veranda of the Goodall House today stretches the extinct town of Jacksonborough. Jacksonborough was described by Charles C. Jones, Jr. in his 1878 book, “Dead Towns of Georgia”. “…And now a few shreds of common pottery scattered over the surface of the ground are all that is left to remind the visitor that the tide of life was once here. “ As for the Jacksonborough of today – not even the traces of pottery of 1878 remains. 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