History

The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Georgia was chartered by the General Society on 1 November 1896 and held its first meeting the following month in Savannah. Meetings have been held regularly ever since.

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John Avery Gere Carson was instrumental not only in founding the Georgia Society but also having it headquartered in Savannah, the first English settlement in the thirteenth colony. In March of 1896 Mr. Carson was urged by a Maryland friend to interest “nine or ten of your citizens of unquestioned social standing and eligibility to join the Maryland Society, and then later form the Georgia Society.” Following this friendly advice, Mr. Carson became a member of the Maryland Society later persuading five Savannah friends and neighbors to join with him. Almost simultaneously a group of ten gentlemen in Atlanta, unaware of the activity in Savannah, petitioned the Secretary General, Howland Fell, for a state society charter. In the ensuing weeks each group learned of the other’s intentions. Atlanta invited Savannah to join with them in their petition with Savannah issuing a like invitation to the Atlanta group. Mr. Carson in a letter to the Secretary General argued Savannah’s case by pointing out that its petition was signed by six members of the Society whereas Atlanta’s signatories were only prospective members. He further emphasized that Savannah was an historic city, state headquarters for the Colonial Dames and the Sons of the Revolution and that the city’s society was “on a firm and well established basis.” In the end, the Secretary General was not called upon to render a difficult decision as Atlanta resolved the problem by graciously withdrawing its petition and signing with Savannah.

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The heraldic seal adopted by the Georgia Society contains characters symbolic of those areas of western Europe that furnished immigrants to the colony. These include England, Scotland, Ireland, and duchies now a part of Germany. The seal also includes three boars’ heads from the coat-of-arms of Georgia’s founder, James Edward Oglethorpe. The bylaws of the society require that two courts, or meetings, of the general membership be held each year. One on, or near, the seventeenth of November to commemorate the sailing of Oglethorpe and the first colonists from England and the other on, or near, February twelfth, the date of their landing in the new world. Council meetings are called as often as necessary. The courts are traditionally black-tie dinners with members only in attendance. Almost every year since x923 a boat ride or picnic is held in the spring with ladies and other guests attending.

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As noted earlier, society members residing in the Atlanta area took an interest in the society from the beginning, but the distance between them and Savannah was an obstacle to active participation. To alleviate this frustration and to encourage the recruiting of more warriors in the populous Atlanta area, the society’s by-laws were amended to provide for chapters of the state society. By the fall of 1961 an Atlanta chapter was organized and held its first meeting in the prestigious Piedmont Driving Club with eighteen warriors in attendance. The principal officer of the chapter is also a deputy governor of the state society. At the end of 1990 over ninety state society members were affiliated with the Atlanta chapter, a number larger than many state societies. Atlanta continues to have dinner meetings twice yearly in the Piedmont Driving Club.

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The Georgia Society has been host for the General Society’s annual meeting on four occasions, viz., 1924, 1946, 1960, and 1982. Two past governors of the Georgia Society have brought honor to the state by being elected Governor General of the General Society, Robert ‘Walker Groves in 1963 and Robert Vincent Martin, Jr., in 1981.

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In 1977 on the recommendation of Chancellor and Past Governor Thomas Heyward Gignilliat, the Georgia Society was incorporated to protect members and officers from the ever increasing litigious mood of the American public, not that any litigation was then pending or anticipated, but as a precautionary measure.

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Throughout its history the society has either singly or in conjunction with other patriotic societies contributed to monuments and events commemorating the colonial period. One of the most significant having been its participation in the erection of a stone and bronze marker at the site of the battle of Bloody Marsh. This skirmish fought in 1740 close by the present-day resort of Sea

Island between the Spanish and a group of colonists and Indians led by Oglethorpe is little noted in history books but of great significance as it ended forever the Spanish threat against Georgia and the Carolinas. The society also participated in erecting the Daniel Chester French bronze sculpture of Oglethorpe in a Savannah park. Perhaps the society’s greatest skirmish, and victory, was its successfully blocking a project to exhume the remains of Oglethorpe from St. Anne’s Church, Cranham, Essex, to be reinterred on the campus of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta.