In all of Georgia, there is only one County named after a woman, Hart County
in Northeast Georgia. It is named after Nancy Hart, a legendary woman who lived
and fought during the Revolutionary War. She was a mother, a farm wife, and
according to some, a patriot, and a warrior in the fight against the British.
This was a woman you didn't want to fool around with. The story goes that she was six
feet tall, cross-eyed, had fiery red hair, used bad
language and a bad temper. It seems that one day, while her daughter is churning
butter, a patrol of Tories comes sneaking up to the cabin. These are the bad guys,
British sympathizers who fought against the American patriots.
Woman! We've been riding all day long and we mighty hungry. So you go cook us up a meal.
You just get on out of here! I ain't aiming on feeding no Kings man! I ain't got nothing but a
turkey gobbler left! Tory's done took every one of my chickens and all my pigs.
Now get on out of here!
Not leaving is a big mistake but of course they won't
listen. So they all come into the cabin and tell Nancy Hart to prepare a meal
using her last turkey gobbler.
Well she really got her steamed up then but she
developed this plan in her head. So all of a sudden she becomes very friendly
and she starts joking with them, talking with them, even even sampled their fine
whiskey, you know, just to get along with them and they began to think oh maybe
these stories about this war woman are not right.
Maybe she's pretty good lady here. They had a fine time with her and she was a
smart person, truly she was.
Y'all drink up.
These poor Tories don't know it but they
have more than met their match in Nancy Hart. Turns out she is pretty smart, in
fact she devises a devilish scheme. First get the men their drinks and then send
her daughter Sookie down to the creek.
Where do you think you're going child?
She's just going down to the spring to fetch some water
for your meal if that's all right with you.
Well. go on then. Be quick about it.
The unsuspecting clods,
don't they realize this is all part of her plan? So they just keep
on drinking, enjoying their whiskey, and the next thing you know...
*Conch Shell Horn*
What was that?
It was just Sookie, down at the spring , blowing a conch shell, scaring off the engines.
We ain't seen no engines.
Of course you ain't seen no engines, thats on account of Sookie blowing the conch shell.
*Laughter*
*Drunken singing*
Little by little, that brave sneaky woman starts slipping the Tory muskets outside.
She's stealing our guns!
If you take one step closer to me,
you freeze in your track, I ain't afraid to shoot you!
Get over there!
She can't see straight, much less shoot straight!
*Laughter*
The story goes that Nancy had two eyes that went in separate directions but
about that there is some debate.
She was not cross eyed, that that was a nasty Tory
story. They told that story to justify how she could hold those six Tories
captive that long. Her victims didn't tell the story but people who heard
about it, she bragged pretty wicked bit, they made up this story said the only
way she could have held him was for them to say, okay she's looking this way, no
she's lookin that way, you go, no she's looking that way, she was not cross-eyed.
At least we know she could see well enough to shoot straight.
*Gun fire and screaming*
That is for killing John Dooly!
And this is for you being so dog gone ugly!
It seems that being ugly was once a crime in this state,
ah but this is the moment history remembers, one woman, two dead Tories and
because her daughter had snuck out to blow the conch shell, it isn't long
before Nancy's husband shows up to help.
Gadzooks! Are you alright?
Of course we are alright! As soon as we get this here vermin out of here!
I'll just take them out and finish shooting them!
We ain't shooting them, shootings too good for them. Them's the ones who killed John Dooly! and I'm the one that
captured them and I am the one that's hanging them, now get!
So they took the Tories to the apple orchard and hanged all of them and The
Legend of Nancy Hart was born. Of course you might ask how much of this story is
true? For example some say she wasn't
red-haired or cross-eyed, others say she was. By some accounts five soldiers came
to her house, not six. Some say she shot two men, others say she killed one man,
wounded another. One historian says she never shot anybody. So,
One last question,
how much of this whole thing is true?
You figure.
There's some basis of truth, who
knows how much of its been embellished through time, you know as you read three
or four different histories, you'll hear three or four different accountings but
there is certainly some basis for truth.
Supposedly this is a photograph of Nancy
Hart from the historical collection of the Georgia chapter of the Daughters of
the American Revolution. There's only one problem,
it shows Nancy in the year 1765, a half-century before photography was even invented.
*End Screen Music*
There are still lots of places I'd like you to see in this state, there
are still a lot of people I'd like you to meet. This is Georgia stories, I'm
Colin Sidor, thanks.