Dr. George Wymberley Jones DeRenne

https://old.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=82256987

https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/de... - Born into one of Georgia's oldest and wealthiest families as George Frederick Tilghman Jones, George Wymberley Jones (G.W.J.) De Renne legally changed his name in 1866. Though notably proud of his Jones forebears, De Renne chose a new surname that would provide him privacy and distinctiveness at home and abroad. The change solved a long-standing problem of receiving letters meant for his Jones relations (and vice versa), and it also promised singularity in Europe, where he traveled in the late 1860s and where his children were educated.

Distinguished as a bibliophile and historian before he reached twenty-one, De Renne purchased the 1,300-plus volumes of his antebellum library between 1844 and 1861. A manuscript catalog of his books (most of which were destroyed or plundered during the Civil War [1861-65]) shows De Renne's scholarly tastes and varied interests. His section devoted to Georgia history was by 1847 considered superior to all other such private collections. After the Civil War, De Renne assembled another noteworthy Georgia history library.

Historical works made up the majority of the books privately printed by De Renne. Some related specifically to Georgia history, such as a series of newspaper essays (1846-47) written under the nom de plume "Agricola." An extension of these essays was his anonymous, Waspish Observationson Doctor Stevens's History of Georgia (1849). De Renne called four of his publications the "Wormsloe Quartos" in honor of his family's ancestral estate, Wormsloe Plantation, founded by his great-grandfather Noble Jones in the 1730s. The first quarto, Observations upon the Effects of Certain Late Political Suggestions (1847), reprinted a rare pamphlet touching on Georgia during the Revolutionary War. The three others were previously unprinted historical manuscripts: J.G.W. De Brahm's History of the Province of Georgia (1849), the Journal and Letters of Eliza Lucas (1850), and the Diary of Col. Winthrop Sargent (1851).

During the 1870s De Renne served briefly as president of the Georgia Historical Society and brought to print two volumes of its Collections. One of these miscellanies was devoted in large part to the correspondence of General James Oglethorpe; the other featured The Dead Towns of Georgia by Charles C. Jones Jr.

• Reference: FamilySearch Family Tree - SmartCopy: Feb 7 2018, 20:27:11 UTC