AUGUST 21, 1875
Transcribed by Debra Tumlin. We owe her a big thanks for her efforts.
THE RECORD
CEDARTOWN, GA, AUGUST 21, 1875
Early History of Polk County
BY ONE OF THE FIRST SETTLERS
Continued
The summer and fall of 1834 were rather remarkable for the happening of important incidents. The Pony Club was run off from the country; the Democrats were all elected at the fall election; friendship, goodwill, passing and repassing with Cedartown and Cleantown; all parts of the county came together for honesty and good government, each for his respective party--Whig or Democrat. The valley was full of land buyers, and large number of good citizens moved into the county that fall and winter. Among them were John Kearley, who settled near where Alexander Brooks now lives; Wilson Whatly, who settled where Mr. Teawick now lives; John Pollard, who settled near Mr. Young’s; R. W. Pollard, who settled on Tallapoosa, and Augustus Young who remained on the place he settled until his death. But few men in the county but what knew Augustus Young. To know him was to respect him. Perhaps no man in the county knew him better than myself; he was my neighbor and friend, both morally and politically. He, like myself, was a native Georgian. He removed from Dekalb county in the fall of 1834, and accumulated a considerable property, which was distributed among his children with discrete judgment. His love of right and devotion to principle was never questioned. Conceding to all men the full measure of what was their due, he was also punctual in the exaction of what was due to himself. In all those more intimate relations which bound him to his friends, kindred and his servants, he was al that friendship could ask, or affection and kindness claim. While in that higher and more solemn relations which he bore to the author of this all, he was exact in all those duties __. His religious sentiments were peculiar to himself. He was a Universalian from principle, without faltering or doubting, to the day of his death. I was with him, and by his bedside many times during his sickness, and never heard one word fall from his lips that I could detect apart from his principles. I was with him all the day on which he died. Early at night he sat up in the chair and talked more fluent, and his mind seemed to be better than at any time during his sickness, but at the same time I could see indications of deep-seated trouble. His wife, a noble woman, was then a corpse in the house--had died that morning about daylight. He was greatly troubled about is lonely condition, and the manner in which he had made his will, thinking that he would die first, and had impressed it upon her not to live with her children, but to keep house, as he had made ample means in his will for her comfort during her life. But now she was gone and he left alone. Occasionally a tear would trickle down his cheek. He said he could not keep house; that he would have to do what he had charged his wife not to do; he would have to live with his children. He was anxious to have a small alteration in his will, and requested me to come over next morning and fix it up. I told him I would come over in a day or two. “No,” he said, “you must come soon in the morning, (Sunday), for I shall not live but a very short time.” I told him I thought he was better than I had seen him in a month, and that perhaps he would get well. “No, no, no,” shaking his head, “I am going to die very soon; I know it; I can see it; I feel it; and if you don’t come tomorrow you will not see me alive.” About three o’clock in the evening he suddenly became a little hoarse, and remarked that it was a little singular, and that he had not taken cold, and would talk on awhile, and asked me what I thought of that hoarseness, looking wild out of his eyes. I told him I thought he would get over it directly. No, he said, it is not like anything I ever had before, but kept constantly talking about his affairs, requesting me to assist his son in winding up his estate, and not let the lawyers get hold of it, as though he was in a hurry to start on a long journey and was giving direction what to do while he was gone. In the course of a half hour his hoarseness turned to a rattle, and every breath was a rattle in is throat, but kept constantly talking until about half hour before sundown, he became chilly and said he was cold, and had a hard chill. We put him to bed __all we could do we could not get him warm; but finally his chill wore off and after he got warm he became almost a raving maniac, and died about 9 o’clock that night.
Mr. Young was a large, fleshy man about six feet high, and his common weight was about two hundred and twenty five pounds, and was about sixty eight years old when he died. He never had the advantages of a polished education, and while I would claim for him the __ of a Clay or the discrimination of a Calhoun, yet in the various positions he held in life, we __ developed the true elements of moral greatness. His discreet judgment in all matters that he controlled or had knowledge of, could not be surpassed by any one.
His wife, who was a corpse at the same time, and only about fourteen hours between their death, was perhaps one of the noblest specimens of her sex. She was truly a kind and devoted wife, and possessed all the elements of a lady. In his long protracted sickness her devotion to him was __ -- would never suffer any other persons to wait on him; cold or hot she was always ready at his command. She was one or two years his senior, which would make her sixty nine or seventy.
{TO BE CONTINUED}
Faithfully transcribed as printed on July 4, 1999. Debra Tumlin
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