238 ELBERT COUNTY. 



the house ; the wounded Tory and the others were bound, 

 taken out beyond the bars, and hung ! The tree upon which 

 they were swung was pointed out in 1838, by one who Uved 

 in those bloody times, and who also showed the spot once oc- 

 cupied by Mrs. Hart's cabin, accompanying the designation 

 with this emphatic remark : " Poor Nancy ! she was a honey 

 of a patriot, but the devil of a wife !" 



Name. — The following sketch was furnished by Dr. John- 

 son, of Charleston, S. C, who says : For the particulars in the 

 subjoined notice of General Elbert, I am wholly indebted to 

 the friendly researches of Mr. 1. K. Teft, of Savannah. The 

 parents of Samuel Elbert were both natives of England, and 

 his father a Baptist minister in Prince William parish, South 

 Carolina, in which settlement their son Samuel was born in the 

 year 1740. At an early age he became an orphan, and went 

 to Savannah to seek employment and earn his subsistence. 

 Here he engaged in mercantile pursuits, and continued to be 

 so engaged until the commencement of the American Revolu- 

 tion ; here also he married Miss Elizabeth Rae, daughter of a 

 planter in the vicinity of Savannah. 



The first evidence that we find of Elbert's partaking in* the 

 all-absorbing incidents of the Revolution, is his signature to a 

 document pledging his allegiance to the King of Great Britain, 

 dated the 4th of June, 1774, thus : "Samuel Elbert, Captain 

 of the Grenadier Company.''* A Council of Safety was ap- 

 pointed on the 22d of June, 1775, of which he was elected a 

 member. The General Assembly of Georgia passed a resolu- 

 tion to raise a battalion of continental troops ; and on the 4th 

 of February, 1776, the following field officers were ap- 

 pointed : Lachlan Mcintosh, Colonel ; Samuel Elbert, Lieu- 

 tenant Colonel ; Joseph Habersham, Major. 



* It may be said that this was nothing more than a qualitication or pre- 

 liminary to the holding of that commission required by Governor Wright. It 

 is remarkable that Elbert and Joseph Habersham signed the pledge on the 

 same day, and are commissioned on the same day in the same company, di- 

 rectly after the news was received of the despotic measures enforced against 

 Boston, under the well-known Boston Port Bill. The address from Boston to 

 the other provinces, was dated the 13th of May, 1774, and sent by express. 

 This paper was signed three weeks after that date. 



