Daniel French’s famous sculpture of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. There is a bit of irony in the fact that the marble for the statue came from the quarry near Tate, Georgia. This cover from an old promotional brochure published by the Georgia Marble Company suggests that there was reason to be proud of this contribution to the artistic history of Lincoln and the Civil War. Photo by Joe Kitchens.

Often on winter nights, I am awakened by the sound of the blasting at the marble quarry, which is only a mile or so from my home in Tate, Georgia. The sound travels well when the leaves are off the trees. The distant rumble is a reminder that it was from this ground that the marble for many famous architectural and artistic works originated in the red clay hills of the upper Piedmont. Most famous among these creators is sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), a self-taught, boy prodigy who became the best-known sculptor of memorial statues America has ever produced. Although of radically different temperaments, French was a friend and professional colleague of St. Gaudin, whose work I linked in my last post to the 54th “Colored Infantry Regiment” (as the Black units were officially labeled), the Shaw Memorial on Boston Common and that unit’s role in the Civil War in Georgia.

Daile Chester French was prolific to say the least and his career was a long one. His studio, located near Stockbridge in the Berkshires was undergoing restoration when we were there several years ago. The museum or gallery (above) was filled with his work. Notice that there is a small-scale reproduction of the Lincoln memorial statue in the most distant glass case beneath the large photograph of the same statue. The original (not pictured) is larger, sculpted in clay, and is just under life-size. It was more difficult to photograph. Photo by Joe Kitchens.

French shared with St. Gaudin the market for memorial statuary that was so popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among French’s “patrons” was the city of Savannah, which commissioned him to produce a sculpture of Georgia’s founder, General James Oglethorpe. Many places in Georgia are named for this great humanitarian-and perhaps more should be. And, there are other memorials to Oglethorpe, including the monument, once located atop Mount Oglethorpe near Jasper, Georgia (and visible from Tate as well). Constructed of marble from the Tate Quarry, the monument was moved to Jasper after vandals marred it some years ago. (It is located near the wooden bridge just north of the downtown.)

French’s sculpture of Oglethorpe in Savannah’s Chippewa Square is cast bronze. The base was designed by Henry Bacon, architect of the Lincoln memorial in Washington, DC. Photo from Wikepedia.

Conveniently forgotten for a couple of centuries is the fact that Oglethorpe in founding Georgia sought to avoid those things which flourished in neighboring South Carolina: lawyers, aristocratic planters and slaves. All were prohibited. This last of the English colonies was to be a refuge for the poor. Oglethorpe lost a close friend to the odious practice of imprisoning those who could not pay their debts in “debtors’ prisons.” He was never able to get prisoners released for settlement in Georgia, so the notion of Georgia being settled by convicts is not true. Many of the earlier colonies had been forced to accept convicts placed as indentured servants, a way to provide free labor to the struggling landowners. I am not alone in believing that Oglethorpe’s effort was the greatest humanitarian undertaking of his age. Tragically, Oglethorpe left Georgia in 1743 and the colony came under direct royal control. In the years that followed, the crown abandoned Oglethorpe’s prohibitions and Georgia followed South Carolina’s example, becoming a land of large-scale plantations manned by African slaves.

French’s statue of Ogelthorpe is arguably the finest memorial statuary in the state. But, French’s first statue is far more well known: it is of the “Minuteman” at the Concord Bridge. French won the commission in a contest at the young age of twenty-three..

The Tate Quarry continues to supply the demand for high quality marble. It is a hard and durable material and was used in restoring the White House and to carve the great memorial at the Alamo site. Because it is a hard marble, it is still often used for architectural applications. Because it is a hard marble, it was not used to build Georgia’s new state capitol building when the capital was moved from Milledgeville following the Civil War. It’s hardness made it expensive to quarry, so much so that less expensive Vermont marble won out as the material of choice. History is irony.

To view the page on St. Gauden and the connection to Darien, Georgia, go to

https://longleafjournal.com/historical-links-darien-georgia-the-civil-war-and-sculptor-augustus-st-gaudens/.