Elijah Clarke, Wilson Lumpkin, William Harris Crawford and David Crenshaw Barrow have last names most Oglethorpe and Athens-Clarke County residents recognize.
That’s because “it almost always leads back to Oglethorpe County,” Tom Gresham said.
Linda Bishop, the evening’s presenter, discussed the county’s specific contributions to events and moments in Georgia history at this year’s final Historic Oglethorpe meeting at the library.
“My goal was to show that Oglethorpe did play a large role in the development of Georgia, where people think nowadays, ‘it’s just big towns and counties,’ but (Oglethorpe County) really produced a lot of influential people,” Bishop said.
She’s been working on local research for the Digital Atlas project, alongside Gresham, Ashley Simpson and others.
For example, Elijah Clarke, Athens-Clarke County’s namesake, established many settlements around Oglethorpe County.
Wilson Lumpkin, for which Lumpkin Street is named, first moved to Oglethorpe County and became Georgia’s governor in 1831.
“We have a lot of members of Historic Oglethorpe that travel here from Clarke County when they’re starting to trace their families,” Gresham said. “It was good to see that presented here.”
Historic Oglethorpe’s monthly meetings have been popular this year, according to Kathleen deMarrais, with more than 120 total members and 30-50 regularly attending events.
Bishop said these meetings are good for the community to interact with history.
“I just think you need to know your history,” Bishop said. “And if you don’t know your history, you don’t know where you’re going.”
Historic Oglethorpe meetings will resume on Tuesday, Jan. 28 with a presentation from members Jean and Richard Westmacott, who will share the history of their home, Sugaryoung Farm. It was named in honor of “Shug” Young, who lived on the farm until she died in 1946, at about age 90.
The annual Historic Oglethorpe County’s dinner and awards ceremony will be held Feb. 28.