Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-02-17
Georgia's 15O Years.

our contemporaries throughout the
country, and particularly in our Eastern
seabOard cities, have kindly adverted
either before or after it's celebration, to
Georgia's Sesqui-C From the
many comments upon the celebration we
quote the following:
Baltimore Day: yesterday Georgia
celebrated her Sesqui-CentenniaI. One
hundred and fifty years ago Gen. Ogle-
thorpe left South Carolina with band of
devoted followers and penetrated into
Georgia with the purpose of settling it.
The good stuff he took with him is shown
to-day in their descendants. Georgia is
now the foremost Southern State. The
enterprise of her citizens has succeeded
in rebuilding out of the ruins left by the
civil war prosperous and thrifty COM
monwealth. That she may continue in
the path of progress and prosperity, and,
above all, that she may be initiated by
her sister Southern States, is our sincere
wish"
Philadelphia Record. 'sTO-day the
good people of Savannah celebrate the
ne-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of
its founding. The manner of the settle
ment of Georgia justifes the pride which
is felt in the event. In its inception the
colony was Intended as refuge for the
victims of political prosecutions and re-
ligiOus bigotry, and from that day to this
it has never failed in carrying into effect
the charitable purpose Of its founder.
The city of Savannah was laid out by
General Oglethorpe, the founder of the
colony of Georgia, upon land purchased
of the Indian owners, and it has been
built upon as he planned it. The celebra-
tiOn OF to-day will be participated in by
all the dignitaries of the State Govern
ment, the population of the city and the
surrounding country, and by thousands
of visiting strangers, with such process
sions, pageant, marching, cOuntermarch-
ing, OratiOns and fireworks as the en-
thusiastic people of Savannah may de-
wise. A poem is to be recited by Paul II.
Hayne. At this distance we can only
send up a petition for fair weather at
Savannah, and for prOpitious and pleas
ant commemoration of a most interesting
event."
New York EceRing Post: ''The celebra-
tion of the 150th anniversary of Georgia,
which began yesterday at Savannah,
would be interesting merely as the
cOmmemOratiOn of an historical
event, but is far more so from the
fact that during the latter part of the third
half century since her birth Georgia has
undergone what might be described as a
second birth. In no part of the South
were the results of the war more promptly
and heartily acquiesced in. Nowhere
were more intelligent and earnest efforts
made to repair its material waste. No
where have the people more successfully
adapted themselves to the new order of
things, and nowhere are the signs Of an
awakening of the commercial and indus
trial energies more abundant and gratify-
ing, Perhaps it would not be eXtravagant
to say that Georgia has done more to de-
velOp the resources which are the founda-
oR OkoN L.
eighteen years than in all the remainder
of the one hundred and fifty years which
she is now celebrating. To-day there is
trades display which will illustrate the
recent and rapid growth of the State.
Georgia has gone on so far and so favor
ably that her people may fairly be trusted
to determine at the beginning of the last
half of her second century to take the
further steps which may be necessary to
remove all hindrances to her prosperous
advancement which yet remain.''
Boston AdUertiSer. ''That a prosperous
future opens before Savannah no one can
doubt who reflects for moment ON the
widespread region whose products natu-
rally find an outlet at that point. Boston
has always had more or less commercial
intercourse with Savannah; and with the
weekly line of fine steamers which now
ply between the two ports there must be'a
community will more heartily rejoice in
the prosperity of Savannah than will Bos-
ton.
''The Youngest of the thirteen colonies
whose united action alone made American
independence possible, no other State has
owed more to the Union than Georgia.
Settled but little more than forty years
before the skirmish at Lexington, she has
already outstripped all of that early sis
terhOOd except New York, Pennsylvania
and Massachusetts. Her early settlers
were not of the classes from which such
results might have been naturally antici-
pated; nor were the aims and objects with
which Georgia was cOlOnized of more
promising character. 1t has been well
pointed out by the most accomplished of
her historians, writing many years ago
under the patronage of her own State
Government, that those objects and
aims were essentially different from the
motives which led to the settlement of the
other North American colonies. However
noble those objects were-and no one will
withhold his admiration of them-they are
not such as ordinarily lead to visible sue
cess. The early history of Georgia, con
nected as il is with the names of Ogle-
thorpe, Wesley and Whitefeld, must al
ways be an interesting study for the phi
lanthropist, and her later history will not
less reward the investigations of the
statesman and the economist. Philosophy,
teaching by example has no more impress
siye lessons than may. be drawn from the
story of the hundred and fifty years whose
close Savannah is now celebrating.