CONNECTING CAPITALS, COLUMNS AND CULTURE WITH GEOLOGY IN MODERN DAY MILLEDGEVILLE

Milledgeville was the antebellum capital of Georgia until Sherman occupied the Governor’s Mansion during his “march to the sea”. But Sherman was not the only famous visitor to “occupy” the mansion. Charles Lyell was a guest at the mansion and in 1846 examined a 20-year-old gully in Milledgeville. The gully, known as “Lyell’s Gully”, is a classic example of just one of the hundreds of observable geomorphological features tied with forest clearance and plantation agriculture. Some of the best examples of erosional features can be seen at Andalusia, the home of Milledgeville’s most acclaimed resident, Flannery O’Connor. O’Connor wrote her best known stories while living at Andalusia and described daily life on the property, which her mother Regina O’Connor operated as a diary farm, in her published letters. Although O’Connor may not be known for her geological background (she did refer to quartz in her works and had a rock serve as a murder weapon in one of her stories), the property is a rich source of potential projects integrating geology with both her work and the history of land use of Andalusia. The first documented owners of the property were Joseph and Mary Pleasant “Polly” Stovall and the Stovall Plantation consisted of 1,519 acres lying on Tobler Creek, three miles north of Milledgeville. The property later was obtained by Nathan Hawkins. The Hawkins family was one of four households in 1860 in Baldwin County that owned more than 100 slaves. Today, the gullying surrounding Tobler Creek, an incised stream, serve as evidence for a large scale plantation on the site. We are just beginning to explore the geological connections of Andalusia, as well as the influence of geology in O’Connor’s work. In particular, these kinds of studies connecting culture, local history and regional geology are ideal projects for both undergraduate research and a new Georgia College & State University course entitled “Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia”.