Kirbys Augusta: General Oglethorpe, the Story Behind the Leader

It would be easy to dismiss James Edward Oglethorpe as a fop. Look at the statue. Short pants. Too many buttons. And he's wearing a wig, for god's sake. And what looks like a woman's hairstyle, at that. But history tells us that James Edward Oglethorpe, the man who founded both Georgia and Augusta, was more than a man of his times. Born in England in 1696, Oglethope lost his father when he was 5. His mother, Eleanor, was Irish, had a temper and was as politically active as a woman could be in the early 1700s. Oglethorpe dropped out of school, but his social efforts at British prison reform earned him a degree from Oxford. Although his family had a long and painful history as supporters of the Stuart line of kings, Oglethorpe surprised everyone for his first run at Parliament by essentially switching parties and supporting King George. James Oglethorpe was not a man to mess with. During his military duty in Europe, a German general once splashed wine in a young Oglethorpe's face and laughed. Oglethorpe laughed, too, then took his own wine goblet and hurled it back into the general's face, saying: "We do that in England, too, only harder." • After winning a seat Parliament, he ran into some political opponents in a tavern. A brawl broke out, and Oglethorpe killed a man with his sword. . • While in Georgia, Oglethorpe spent more than 100,000 pounds (about half a million dollars) to wage a war on Spain. No one knows where he got the money. • He was not above altering maps to increase his colony's territory. Georgia's English trustees placed restrictions on owning land in the colony. Oglethorpe quietly acquired about 40,000 acres across the river in South Carolina. • He was a religious man, but he didn't like going to church. • He was a lady's man, too, and as he got older, he got more attention. Women half his age boasted about flirting with him. One, Hannah More, called him "perhaps the most remarkable man of his time ... heroic, romantic and full of the old gallantry." As the American Revolution loomed, the normally vocal Oglethorpe remained silent on the issue, other than to suggest concessions be made for the Colonies. When the fighting began, he kept quiet. He's still quiet today, but the work of the extraordinary man who founded both Augusta and Georgia continues to speak for him centuries later.