There are famous men that everyone knows hail from Georgia: Johnny Mercer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ray Charles, and Jimmy Carter, to name a handful. The EIL staff has learned about other fascinating men from the area, like lighthouse builder James Gould and aviator Paul Redfern while researching local history over the years. While working on a recent story, we came across a reference to a man whose history was unknown to us, but whose exploits were quite legendary. Inspired by that, we decided to share some stories of other noteworthy men with Georgia connections you might not know.
The Legends
Lachlan McIntosh (1727-1806, Darien GA)
Lachlan McIntosh was our inspiration. A Scottish Highlander who arrived in Georgia at the age of eight, McIntosh was the son of John Mor McIntosh, one of the earliest settlers of the colony of Georgia who helped established the town of New Inverness (now Darien) in 1736. Lachlan lived at the Bethesda orphanage near Savannah when his father was captured by the Spanish and imprisoned in 1740. Two years later, he left Bethesda to serve as a cadet in the military regiment at Fort Frederica, under orders from General James Oglethorpe. After his father died, Lachlan and his brother, William, planned to return to Scotland to join the Jacobite rebellion. Fortunately General Oglethorpe stepped in and convinced Lachlan that their future was in Georgia. It’s a good thing he did, because the rebellion did not turn out well for the supporters of “Bonnie Prince Charlie” Stuart.
In 1748, at the age of 21, McIntosh moved to Charleston and became a clerk for merchant Henry
Laurens. He returned to Georgia after marrying and became a prosperous rice planter with property on the Altamaha River delta. He also studied surveying and in 1767 surveyed the town of Darien that had been established 30 years earlier by his father. McIntosh aligned himself with the American independence movement and in 1775 he helped organize delegates to the Provincial Congress from Darien. McIntosh served during the Revolutionary War and by January 1776 he had been appointed colonel and commander of the Georgia Battalion. He organized the defense of Savannah, repelling a British attack during the Battle of the Rice Boats in the Savannah River. Promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Continental army, McIntosh planned the defense of Georgia's southern flank from British incursions from Florida. It was during this time that McIntosh became embroiled in a political dispute with Button Gwinnett.
Resentful of McIntosh’s success and advancement, Gwinnett wanted the command of the Georgia forces. The animosity between them came to a head on May 16, 1777, when a duel took place and both men were wounded. Gwinnett did not recover and died three days later. His allies had McIntosh charged with murder, and although he was acquitted at trial, George Washington feared they would take revenge and ordered McIntosh to report to Continental Army headquarters. McIntosh spent the difficult winter of 1777–1778 in command of several regiments of troops with the Continental Army at Valley Forge. He was then assigned to the important command of the Western Department. With Washington's support, McIntosh was entrusted to lead an expedition against Britain's Indian allies in the Ohio Valley. He established Fort Laurens and Fort McIntosh, which helped solidify American control of the Northwest after the Revolution.
In 1779. Washington ordered McIntosh to return to the South to join General Benjamin Lincoln in Charleston. He marched to Augusta, in command of the Georgia troops, and then proceeded to Savannah, where he commanded the 1st and 5th South Carolina regiments during the siege of Savannah. Following that battle, he retired his troops to Charleston where he remained to defend the city from the British Army. On May 12, 1780, General Lincoln was forced to surrender the city to the British. McIntosh was taken prisoner and remained in captivity until a prisoner exchange on February 9, 1782. The Peace of Paris which recognized American independence and transferred East and West Florida to Spain brought an end to the war in 1783.
When McIntosh returned to his plantation, he discovered it had been ruined by the occupying British. He tried to restore his property and business interests but was met with little success. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1784 and was appointed a commissioner to treat with the southern American Indian tribes the following year. In 1787, his diplomatic skills were called upon to help settle a boundary dispute between Georgia and South Carolina. Four years later he was part of the delegation to officially welcome President George Washington to Georgia. McIntosh died in Savannah on February 20, 1806, just short of his 80th birthday. Scottish immigrant, soldier and commander, war captive, plantation owner, duel survivor, diplomat—he certainly lived a full life.
John Henry “Doc” Holliday (1851-1887, Griffin GA)
Doc Holliday is another man who lived a life full of adventure. Known best for his role in the legendary shootout at the O.K. Corral, few people probably realize he was from Georgia. Holliday was born on August 14, 1851 to druggist Henry Burroughs Holliday and his wife Alice Jane in the cotton town of Griffin, GA. He required corrective surgery for a cleft palate and his mother spent endless hours working with him to correct his speech. The Southern etiquette and manners she imparted to him were something distinct in his demeanor throughout his entire life. Holliday poured himself into his studies following his mother’s death of tuberculosis in 1866 and moved toPhiladelphia to attend dental school, graduating in 1872.
Holliday only returned to the South for a short time when he began his dental career. He abruptly
moved to Dallas, Texas at the age of 23, perhaps because he too had contracted tuberculosis and thought he’d fare better with the drier air. In Dallas, Holliday’s dental career fell by the wayside as he developed a reputation for drinking, card playing, and fighting. After escaping a charge of murder in Dallas, Holliday moved from city to city before settling down in Dodge City, Kansas. This hot spot for gunfighters was where he befriended Wyatt Earp. He later followed Earp to Tombstone, Arizona, a mining and frontier town near the Mexican border.
It was in Tombstone, on October 26, 1881, that Holliday and the Earps engaged in an intense firefight with cowboys Ike and Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury and his brother Tom. This 30 second battle became known as “the shootout at the O.K. Corral.” More than 30 shots were fired in the exchange and three men died. Several others, including Holliday, were wounded. It’s arguably the most legendary gunfight ever fought in the American West. Both Holliday and Earp were arrested for murder but were quickly released. When his brother Morgan was killed following the fight, Earp went on a vendetta ride accompanied by Holliday, which lasted well into 1882.
Holliday later split from Earp and moved to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where his health continued to deteriorate. When he died of tuberculosis at the Hotel Glenwood on November 8, 1887, his death reverberated around the country. The Denver Republican wrote, “Few men have been better known to a certain class of sporting people, and few men of his character had more friends or stronger companions. He represented a class of men who are disappearing in the new West. He had the reputation of being a bunco man, desperado, and bad-man generally, yet he was a very mild-mannered man, was genial and companiable, and had many excellent qualities.” One could argue that this demonstrates the value of a good Southern upbringing.
The Sports Superstars
Jackie Robinson (1919-1972, Cairo GA)
Born in Cairo, Georgia in 1919 to a family of sharecroppers, Jack Roosevelt Robinson would become the first baseball player to break the Major League Baseball color barrier that segregated the sport for more than 50 years. Jackie and his four siblings were raised by their mother, Mallie, and were a close-knit family. They encountered prejudice regularly as the only black family on their block.
Jackie excelled early at all sports and learned to make his own way in life. Jackie attended UCLA and became the first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football and track. He was named to the All-American football team in 1941. He had to leave college due to financial difficulties and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Jackie’s army career was cut short when he was court-martialed because of his objections to incidents of racial discrimination. In the end, Robinson left the Army with an honorable discharge.
In 1945, Robinson played a season with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Baseball
League, traveling all over the Midwest. He was approached by Branch Rickey, president of the Major League team Brooklyn Dodgers, about joining the Dodgers in 1947. No African-American players had played in the Major Leagues since baseball became segregated in 1889. Jackie became a pioneer of the integration of professional athletics in the U.S. By breaking the color barrier in baseball, the nation’s preeminent sport, he bravely challenged the deep-rooted custom of racial segregation that existed in both the North and South.
Jackie became National League Rookie of the Year with 12 homers, a league-leading 29 steals, and a .297 average. In 1949, he was selected as the National League’s Most Valuable player of the Year and also won the batting title with a .342 average. Robinson once told Hank Aaron that "the game of baseball is great, but the greatest thing is what you do after your career is over." Suffering physical ailments, Robinson retired from baseball at age 37 on January 5, 1957. Later that year he was diagnosed with diabetes and his physical condition continued to deteriorate. In Robinson’s first year of eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, he encouraged voters to consider only his on-field qualifications, rather than his cultural impact on the game. He was selected on the first ballot, becoming the first black player inducted into the museum in Cooperstown.
Jackie Robinson’s life and legacy has a very important place in American history and were a defining step in the civil rights revolution. Robinson's breaking of the baseball color line and his professional success symbolized broader changes in the world and demonstrated that the fight for equality was more than simply a political matter. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Robinson "a legend and a symbol in his own time” and said that he "challenged the dark skies of intolerance and frustration." One historian noted that Robinson’s accomplishments “allowed black and white Americans to be more respectful and open to one another and more appreciative of everyone's abilities."
On the 50th anniversary of the year Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, all Major League teams across the nation celebrated the milestone occasion of Robinson’s historic debut, honoring the man who stood defiantly against racism and acknowledging the profound influence of Jackie Robinson’s life on the American culture. In 1999, he was named by Time on its list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. That same year he ranked number 44 on the Sporting News list of Baseball's 100 Greatest Players and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team as the top vote-getter among second basemen. Robinson once said, "I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me ... all I ask is that you respect me as a human being." Mission accomplished, sir.
Jim Brown (1936-, St. Simons Island, GA)
Football legend and actor Jim Brown was born right here on St. Simons Island on February 17, 1936, and raised as a child by his great-grandmother. He left the island to live with his mother in New York when he was eight years old. He began making a name for himself on the football field at Manhasset High School, averaging an astonishing 14.9 yards per carry his senior year. This earned the young running back a spot at Syracuse University in New York. In college, Brown dominated his competition not only on the football field, but also on the basketball court. He also was a talented lacrosse player and ran track. Brown himself once said “Lacrosse is probably the best sport I ever played,” and earned All-American honors and a spot in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame due to his achievements in the sport. It was his strong, explosive, dominant play as a running back on the football field, however, that earned him national attention. He left a memorable impression in the final regular-season game of his senior year of college by rushing for 197 yards, scoring six touchdowns and even added seven extra points as a kicker. He finished the year with 14 touchdowns and made First-team All-American. Surprisingly, he only finished 5th in Heisman voting.
Jim Brown
Brown was selected as the sixth overall pick in the 1957 NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns. He led the league in rushing yards in his debut season and earned the league’s Rookie of the Year honors. Over the next seven seasons, Brown set the standard for NFL running backs. At a time when defenses were primarily geared toward stopping the ground game, Brown powered his way past the opposition, posting remarkable season totals: 1,527 yards (1958), 1,329 (1959), 1,257 (1960), 1,408 (1961), 1,863 (1963), 1,446 (1964) and 1,544 (1965). The single season of his career that he failed to lead the league in rushing yards was in 1962, when he rushed for “only” 996 yards. In 1964, when Brown steered Cleveland to the NFL championship, the Browns handily shut out Baltimore to win the title, with Brown running for 114 yards. Brown stunned the sports world by announcing his retirement from football to pursue other goals prior to the start of the 1966 season. Brown was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971.
Brown then turned his focus to a movie career and has appeared in more than 30 films. His credits include The Dirty Dozen, 100 Rifles, Mars Attacks! and Any Given Sunday, in which he played a football coach. Brown also used his fame and influence in the service of African-American causes. He used his voice as a civil rights activist and turned philanthropic efforts toward supporting the black community. In the 1960s, he threw his support behind black-owned businesses by helping to create the Negro Industrial Economic Union. In the late 1980s, he started the Amer-I-Can program, which aimed to turn the lives around of young gang members. Brown served as executive adviser to the Browns from 2005 to 2010, and later was named the club’s special advisor.
In 2016, Brown was honored with a statue outside Cleveland's FirstEnergy Stadium. In 2002, The Sporting News named Jim Brown the greatest football player ever. In January of this year, Brown was recognized as the top college football player of all time during the halftime ceremony of the college football National Championship game. He was also ranked as the top running back and number four player overall on the NFL’s top 100 players of all time list. These rankings probably don’t mean much to Brown, however, as he has said, "I don't teach kids to be number one. Organizations and people that tell you you have to be number one; that's not it. You don't have to be number one. What I teach is to be as good as you can be. Use what you have and be as good as you can be. That's all you can do, anyway." Jim Brown did exactly that—and he was GOOD!
Bobby Jones (1902-1971, Atlanta, GA)
As we live on a little drinking island with a golf problem, we can’t discuss Georgia men who’ve made an impact in sports without acknowledging Bobby Jones. Unquestionably Jones was the most successful amateur golfer ever to compete at a national and international level. From 1923 to 1930, his peak years, he dominated top-level amateur competition, and competed very successfully against the world's best professional golfers.
Jones did not make a living at golf, however; he was a practicing attorney, and only competed as an amateur, mostly part-time. He chose to retire from competition in 1930 at the age of 28. Jones explained his decision by saying, "It [championship golf] is something like a cage. First you are expected to get into it and then you are expected to stay there. But of course, nobody can stay there." As a player, Jones is best known for his unique "Grand Slam," consisting of his victory in all four major golf tournaments of his era (the open and amateur championships in both the U.S. & the U.K.) in a single calendar year (1930). In his entire career, Jones played in 31 majors, with 13 wins and 27 top ten finishes. He is consistently ranked among the top 10 golfers of all time by golf publications and media.
Following Jones’ retirement, and even in the years leading up to that, Jones had become one of the most famous sports figures in the world, and was recognized virtually everywhere he went in public. While appreciative of the adulation and media coverage, Jones lost his personal privacy in golf circles and it became his desire to create a private golf club where he and his friends could play golf in peace and quiet. Thus, in 1933, Jones founded and helped design the Augusta National Golf Club. He also co-founded the Masters Tournament, which has been staged by the club annually since 1934 (except for 1943–45 due to WWII, and this year, due to COVID-19). The tournament, originally known as the Augusta National Invitational, was an immediate success, and attracted most of the world's top players from the beginning and has evolved into one of golf's four major championships. Jones came out of retirement to play in the Masters on an exhibition basis through 1948. The innovations that Jones introduced at the Masters have been copied by virtually every professional golf tournament in the world. Jones died in 1971, but his legacy lives on amongst the azaleas and in every swing taken at Augusta National.
The Cosmic Cowboys
DeForest Kelley (1920-1999, Toccoa, GA)
While many of us remember actor DeForest Kelley as “Bones” McCoy from Star Trek, this Toccoa, Georgia native spent his early days in film playing cowboys and villains in Westerns, including three different roles that portrayed the gunfight at the OK Corral in which our previously mentioned Georgia-born outlaw, Doc Holliday, was a main figure.
Kelley’s father was a Baptist minister with a church in Conyers, Georgia and DeForest regularly used his musical talents by singing solo in the morning services. He also began singing on local radio shows and won an engagement with Lew Forbes and his orchestra at the Paramount Theater. Prior to WWII, Kelley made his film debut in 1940’s New Moon and nearly scored the lead of This Gun for Hire. In 1943, Kelley enlisted in the US Army Air Force, and served with the First Motion Picture Unit until 1946. After an extended stay in Long Beach, California, Kelley
decided to pursue an acting career and relocate to Southern California permanently. It was there he was spotted by a Paramount Pictures scout while doing a US Navy training film. The 1947 low-budget feature film Fear in the Night brought Kelley to the attention of a national audience. His next role, in Variety Girl, established him as a leading actor, however he did not find status as leading man and moved to New York City with his wife to pursue work on stage and on live television. They returned to Hollywood three years later, where he landed a wide variety of episodic television roles and movie offers. Of particular note to Golden Islanders, he appeared in a small role in The View from Pompey's Head.
In 1964, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first offered Kelley the role of Spock, but he refused it. Instead taking on the role of the show’s doctor, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, in 1966. He appeared on the series through 1969 and reprised the character in a voice-over role in Star Trek: The Animated Series, and the first six Star Trek motion pictures. In 1987, he made a cameo appearance as Admiral Leonard McCoy, Starfleet Surgeon General Emeritus in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In 1991, Kelley received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Deforest Kelley Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
Kelley once joked in an interview that one of his biggest fears was that the words etched on his gravestone would be "He's dead, Jim". Though not on his grave, the obituary Newsweek published about Kelley’s death in 1999 did indeed began: "We're not even going to try to resist: He's dead, Jim.” Kelley claimed his legacy would be the many people McCoy had inspired to become doctors."That's something that very few people can say they've done. I'm proud to say that I have.” Before his death in 1999, Kelley was remembered as a cowboy, however, and received a Golden Boot Award for his contribution to the genre of Western television and movies.
Gram Parsons (1946-1973, Waycross, GA)
A different sort of cowboy, Gram Parsons was a pioneer of the country-rock genre and continues to influence artists today. Although he was dubbed the “Waif from Waycross,” Parsons actually began life as Ingram Cecil Connor III in Winter Haven, Florida in 1946. His father was an Air Force major and his mother belonged to a prominent family who made a large fortune in the orange industry. When Parsons was young, the family moved to Waycross, Georgia where hisfather ran the orange crate production plant. Parsons often referred to these years as the happiest of his life, but by the time he graduated from high school, both his father and mother had died.
Parsons sang hymns in church and listened to country radio that was popular in Georgia, as wellas soul and R&B music that he was exposed to through the family’s domestic help. In 1956,
at the age of ten, his musical outlook was rocked when he saw Elvis Presley play at the Waycross City Auditorium. Gram attended Harvard University for a single semester, during which he formed the International Submarine Band. The band moved to Los Angeles, where Parsons quickly connected with the West Coast scene. In 1968, they recorded Safe at Home, a mix of classic country music covers and Parsons originals. Even that early endeavor marked the trademark elements of Parsons’ sound: country, rhythm and blues, soul, gospel, and rock. That same year, Parsons joined the established rock band the Byrds as their piano player. His charismatic personality and musical vision immediately transformed the band and can be heard on Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the album they recorded in Nashville in 1968 with much of the material written by Gram. It received critical acclaim as one of the best records of the year and one of the Byrds' best efforts to date. The Byrds were the first rock-and-roll act to play at the Grand Ol’ Opry. Despite the band's successes, Parsons was fired from the Byrds due to his partying ways.
Undeterred, Parsons immediately formed the Flying Burrito Brothers. They recorded Gilded Palace of Sin in 1969 with more of Parsons’ original material and cover versions of R&B rhythm hits like “Do Right Woman” and "Dark End of the Street.” Eschewing the term “country-rock,”
Parsons called his sound "cosmic American music." While the music has its roots embedded in country and honky-tonk, it embraces rock and a counterculture, psychedelic spirit. This is the very essence of what famous designer Nudie Cohn captured in the distinctive flamboyant sequined suit he made for Gram. A widely country look that had been popularized by Hank Williams and Gene Autry, featuring cacti, lassos, and cowboy hats, Gram’s suit was adorned with marijuana leaves, pills, naked women, and a large cross.
Jim McCrary Redferns
Gram Parsons
Despite a small devoted following, album sales were slow and the band was considered to be too country for rock radio, but too rock for Nashville’s country scene. The Flying Burrito Brothers made one more album with Parsons, Burrito Deluxe, in 1970. It features the first recording of “Wild Horses,” a song Parsons helped the Rolling Stones write. Once again Parsons’ erratic lifestyle and escalating drug use created issues and he left the band.
Gram’s collaboration with Emmylou Harris was nothing short of magical. For his comeback solo record, GP, he enlisted the then-unknown folk singer to accompany him on vocals. The duets were so successful that she would contribute again on his second solo album, Grievous Angel. While Parsons' sound was stripped down and more mature on his solo efforts, they still retained his signature soul and rock elements, and his songwriting had reached new heights. The future looked bright for Parsons’ musical success and word was that he was trying to kick his bad habits. However, on September 19, 1973, Parsons died from an overdose of morphine and tequila while on vacation. What happened next in Joshua Tree is cosmic cowboy legend and a story in itself. Grievous Angel was released posthumously. Parsons’ legacy is still alive and well in Waycross where the Gram Parsons Guitar Pull music festival draws an eager crowd and many talented musicians each year.
**What about Burt Reynolds?
Despite a longstanding myth perpetuated by the man himself, iconic actor Burt Reynolds was NOT born in Waycross, Georgia, but in Lansing, Michigan. “If there's any confusion about my birth place, it's my fault," Reynolds admitted. "I was born in Lansing, Michigan. We moved to Florida when I was five. I grew up a Southern boy who didn't want to be a Yankee." And when asked why he chose Waycross in particular for his claim, Reynolds wrote in his autobiography. "I liked the sound of it." Georgians were happy to claim him as their own, after all, his break-out movie Deliverance was shot primarily in Rabun County and the canoe scenes were filmed in the Tallulah Gorge, southeast of Clayton, and on the Chattooga River. He was close friends with Atlanta-born musician and Smokey and the Bandit co-star Jerry Reed. And most locals can tell you that his opening car chase scene from 1974’s The Longest Yard was filmed on the original Sidney Lanier Bridge.