Page 60 - Pilgrims in Georgia

V Contributing to Georgia and the New World

The goal of these Puritans “who migrated to the area we now know as Midway in Liberty County Georgia, was to found and
grow a continuation of their “Dorchester Society”, an organization that bound them together in their religious and civil
th,
beliefs. On August 28 1754 they established the Midway Society and Church. The interrelation of religious faith and public
spiritedness, which made church and society almost synonymous, produced outstanding leaders of state and national
importance.” “Characterized by patriotism, public service and industry, the Midway Society and Church were unique in their
influence on Georgia history”. As this amazing quote says, Midway “produced an astonishing number of men in positions of
Public trust”; this included two Signers of the Declaration of Independence, four Governors, six Congressmen, one United
States Minister to a Foreign Country, two Superior Courts Judges, three Solicitors, two Mayors, Two University Chancellors,

Three Presidents of Female Colleges, six College Professors, one Professor in a Medical College, one State Superintendent of
Public Schools, one Superintendent of City schools, one President of a State Normal (Teachers), School, Eighty Two Ministers
of the Gospel , three Professors in Theological Seminaries, six foreign missionaries, three clerks of Presbytery, one clerk of
Synod, one President of the Board of Directors of a Theological Seminary, one Secretary of the Board of Home Missions, six
editors, five authors, one historian, a host of teachers, attorneys, doctors, professional and prominent business men, five
counties named after her prominent men, and her own county re-named to reflect her efforts during the revolutionary
war.” Amazingly, “This was a church of plain country people, located in a sickly and sparsely populated section of the state,
the church building being only forty by sixty feet, with a membership of less than one hundred and fifty members for most
of its one hundred and thirteen years of service, and scarcely doubling that in its latter years.” “When we consider, what it
accomplished and is still doing for the world, we are lost in wonder! Its impress and influence must be beyond human
calculation; eternity alone will be able to reveal the good done by that one church and community”.

Pilgrims at the First Thanksgiving Midway Church and Cemetery / National Register of Historic Places