A chemist, geologist, and instructor, John Ruggles Cotting conducted a significant geological survey of Georgia’s Burke and Richmond counties in 1836. As the first state geologist of Georgia, he completed a study in 1839 of the topography, geology, mineral resources, and soils in more than two dozen counties. Although Cotting diligently performed his duties, a series of obstacles prevented the publication of his work, which remains lost to Georgians today.

A prominent militia leader during the Revolutionary War (1775-83), John Twiggs led Georgia forces against both the British and the Cherokee Indians in the backcountry. After the war he remained active on a variety of political and military fronts, statewide and in and around Augusta, including involvement in the Yazoo land fraud. Twiggs County, created in 1809, was named in his honor. Early Life Twiggs was born on June 5, 1750, in Maryland.

A freezer building for King and Prince Seafood, based in Brunswick, was built in 1987. Founded in 1924 as a seafood wholesaler, the company produces a variety of frozen food products for both the retail and restaurant markets. From The Story of King & Prince Seafood Corporation, by L. Faulkenberry The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print.

Critics have used many labels—”storyteller,” “folk poet,” “troubadour”—in trying to capture the essence of Georgia singer, songwriter, and composer Larry Jon Wilson. Like Wilson himself, his music has defied easy categorization, and such descriptions as country folk, country blues, folk blues, country-narrative folk, and a mixture of soul and country all represent attempts to characterize Wilson’s work. Born on October 7, 1940, in Swainsboro, in Emanuel County, to Louise Phillips and John Tyler Wilson, Larry Jon Wilson was raised in Augusta.

Laura Belle Barnard, a Free Will Baptist missionary, humanitarian, and educator, was born on February 13, 1907, and reared in Glennville. After graduation from high school, she attended South Georgia Teachers College (later Georgia Southern University) in Statesboro, and then transferred to Columbia Bible College in Columbia, South Carolina. She graduated from Columbia in 1932, and shortly thereafter she sensed a call to evangelical mission work. In 1935 Barnard was commissioned for mission work in India by the General Conference of Free Will Baptists of the South.