|
|
Photo Gallery: Site of Carmel (Taloney)
Mission Station
The marker sits hidden next to a hillside, pointing south
instead of west. It was moved at one point during work on the highway
passing nearby. The accompanying pictures are of Pickens County at sunset in
the general area of the marker.
Marker text:
Just west of here in 1819 the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions established a mission station to the Cherokee Indians.
Moody Hall and Henry Parker were the first missionaries sent to Carmel
(originally known as the Taloney). March 12, 1831, Rev. Isaac Proctor, then
residing here, was arrested by the Georgia Guard for not complying with the
new state law requiring all white men residing on Cherokee land, now claimed
by Georgia, to apply for licenses to remain and take an oath of allegiance
to the State. Many of the missionaries abstained, feeling that Georgia had
no power to enforce her laws over land rightfully belonging to the
Cherokees. Rev. Daniel S. Butrick, also a missionary at Carmel, away at the
time, escaped arrest. Rev. Proctor and the other missionaries which were
arrested were released very shortly on grounds that they were agents of the
U.S. Government in the educating of the Cherokees. Soon afterwards the issue
again became critical and, rather than take the oath of allegiance, Butrick
and Proctor left Georgia. Rev. Proctor remained in that portion of the
Cherokee Nation now Tennessee and started a new mission. Carmel continued in
existence until 1839.
112-5 Georgia Historical Commission 1962
|
