February 25, 1729

1729 Haslemere’s member of Parliament, James Edward Oglethorpe, introduced a motion in the House of Commons to investigate the conditions of England’s prisons. The motion passed and Oglethorpe was named chairman of a committee to investigate "the State of the Gaols of this Kingdom."

February 25, 1784

1784 Gov. John Houstoun signed legislation setting aside a total of 40,000 acres from a large area ceded by the Creeks in the Treaty of Augusta (May 31, 1783) and by the Cherokees in a duplicate Treaty of Augusta (Nov. 1, 1783). The land was to be used as "the endowment of a college or seminary of learning," for which the act set up a board of trustees. The legislation also created Franklin County and Washington County respectively as Georgia’s 9th and 10th counties from the 1783 land cessions, with 20,000 acres set aside from each county for the new college. The two new counties were named for Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, respectively.

February 25, 1815

1815 Brigadier general and Confederate Inspector General Robert Hall Chilton was born in Loudoun County, Va. He died in Columbus, Ga. on Feb. 18, 1879. [See Feb. 18 entry for more biographical information.]

February 25, 1833

1833 Confederate general and historian Clement Anselm Evans was born in Stewart County, Georgia. He studied law and was admitted to the bar at age eighteen. He practiced for three years before becoming a judge, then a state senator. Soon after Abraham Lincoln’s election, Evans organized and led a volunteer company. In November 1861, he became a major in the "Bartow Guards," which became 31st Georgia Volunteer Infantry. Evans quickly showed an aptitude for military leadership and was promoted to colonel in April 1862. He participated in the Peninsula campaign and the battles of Seven Days, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. Evans was wounded five times, twice very seriously -- but each time, he recovered to fight again. In May 1864, Evans was promoted to brigadier general and then commanded Gordon’s Division in the II Corps at Petersburg and at the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.

After the war, Evans became a Methodist minister and served in various posts up until 1892, when he retired from the ministry. He was also a founder of the United Confederate Veterans in 1889 and commander of the UCV’s Georgia division for twelve years. In 1895, Evans published a Military History of Georgia, based largely on his memoirs of the Civil War. This work was well received, and Evans subsequently was selected to edit the twelve-volume Confederate Military History, two volumes of which he wrote himself. In 1906, Evans, along with Allen Candler, published the four-volume Cyclopedia of Georgia. Poor health forced him to resign his UCV leadership post in 1910. He died in Atlanta on July 2, 1911.

February 25, 1856

1856 Gov. Herschel Johnson signed legislation creating Colquitt and Berrien counties respectively as Georgia’s 115th and 116th counties. Colquitt County, created from Lowndes and Thomas counties, was named for former U.S. Sen. Walter T. Colquitt (1843-48). Berrien County -- created from portions of Coffee, Irwin, and Lowndes counties -- was named for John MacPherson Berrien, a former U.S. senator (1825-29) and U.S. attorney general under Pres. Andrew Jackson.

February 25, 1856

Georgia cities and towns first incorporated by acts approved by the governor on Feb. 25:

1856 Hillsboro (Floyd County)

February 25, 1864

1864 The first Union prisoners assigned to Camp Sumter Confederate Prison arrived. Still under construction, the facility in Sumter County, Ga. would quickly become known by another name -- Andersonville Prison.

February 25, 1875

1875 Gov. James Smith signed legislation creating Oconee County as Georgia’s 137th county. Created from Clarke County, the new county was named for the Oconee River, which forms part of the county’s eastern boundary with Clarke County.

February 25, 1875

1875 Gov. James Smith signed legislation creating the State Board of Health. Among its duties, the new agency was responsible investigating the causes of disease -- especially epidemics, cooperating with local health agencies to prevent the spread of disease, promoting the health of Georgians, and registering such vital statistics as births, marriages, and deaths.

February 25, 1875

Georgia cities and towns first incorporated by acts approved by the governor on Feb. 25:

1875 Douglasville (Douglas County)

February 25, 1876

1876 Gov. James Smith signed Georgia’s first abortion law defining and providing punishment for feticide and criminal abortion. According to sections II and III of that act:

Sec. II. Be it further enacted, That every person who shall administer to any woman pregnant with a child, any medicine, drug, or substance whatever, or shall use or employ any instrument or other means, with intent thereby to destroy such child, unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such mother, or shall have been advised by two physicians to be necessary for such purpose, shall, in case the death of such child or mother be thereby produced be declared guilty of an assault with intent to murder.

Sec. III. Be it further enacted, That any person who shall wilfully administer to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug or substance, or anything whatever, or shall employ any instrument or means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage or abortion of any such woman, unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such woman, or shall have been advised by two physicians to be necessary for that purpose, shall upon conviction, be punished as prescribed in section 4310 of the Revised Code of Georgia [which covers punishment for misdemeanors].

February 25, 1925

1925 Upset over the lack of progress on completion of the Confederate memorial carving, the Stone Mountain Memorial Association dismissed sculptor Gutzon Borglum. Though the contract with Borglum provided that his working models belonged to the association, the sculptor reacted to his firing by destroying the models. After being indicted by a grand jury, Borglum fled the state. Subsequently, he was replaced by Augustus Lukeman, who blasted the carving of the heads of Lee and Jackson off the face of the mountain.

February 25, 1937

1937 Gov. E.D. Rivers signed a joint resolution of the General Assembly declaring the live oak the official state tree of Georgia.

February 25, 1942

1942 Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker donated a $5,000 initial gift to start a training school fund to train aircraft workers in Cobb County to work at the new Bell Aircraft plant. The Rickenbacker Aircraft Training School opened for classes on November 9, 1942, with an initial class of fifty students and two instructors. Vocational schools, the NYA, and Georgia Tech were also involved in preparing a southern labor force to build airplanes. Other local workers were taken to the Bell company’s Buffalo, N.Y. plant to study the work done there. [Contributed by Dr. Tom Scott, Kennesaw State University]

February 25, 1948

1948 Martin Luther King Jr. was ordained as a Baptist minister.

February 25, 1975

1975 Georgia-born Elijah Muhammed, leader of the Nation of Islam, died at age 77 in Chicago.

February 25, 1999

1999 Two days after winning a nonpartisan election to fill the congressional seat vacated by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Republican Johnny Isakson was sworn in as Georgia’s 6th district congressman. In the November 1998 general election, Gingrich was elected to a new two-year term. Shortly after the election, however, Gingrich announced his intention to resign when his term ended in early January 1999. Previously, Isakson had represented Cobb County in both houses of the Georgia General Assembly. In 1996, Gov. Zell Miller appointed him chairman of the State Board of Education.

February 25, 1999

1999 Atlanta artist/illustrator Harry Rossoll died at age 89. Rossoll, who worked as an illustrator for the U.S. Forest Service from 1937-1971, is best remembered for conceiving the idea and image of Smokey Bear in 1944 as part of a new forest fire prevention promotion. During the following decades, Rossoll also was responsible for over 1,000 Smokey Bear messages.