The Scot who became Georgia’s first U. S. Marshal
The song, from Dylan’s 1975 Blood On The Tracks album, actually mentions Delacroix, in the state of Louisiana, just south of New Orleans.
It is known as Delacroix Island, although it isn’t really an island, rather an inland area surrounded by marsh and bayous.
Delacroix was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The entire area was flooded, and the majority of buildings destroyed.
However, much of the area has been rebuilt, with most of the new construction elevated high on piers. I HAVE a cousin who lives in America.
He has just moved from New York to a new job in Atlanta, Georgia, where he began chatting with his neighbour, a police officer.
When the neighbour heard my cousin’s Scottish accent, he told him Georgia’s first Marshal was a Scot. Can you tell me about him? – R. Robert Forsyth was born in Scotland in 1754 and emigrated to America with his family as a teenager.
After fighting in the Revolutionary War, he was appointed the first Marshal of the state of Georgia in 1789 by America’s first president, George Washington.
The United States Marshals Service is the oldest federal law enforcement agency in the US and is the enforcement arm of the federal courts.
As part of his duties, on the first day of 1794, Forsyth attempted to serve a civil court process on two brothers, Beverly and William Allen.
Beverly Allen, a former Methodist minister, hid in a room on the second floor of their house.
When Forsyth knocked on the door of the room, Allen fired his pistol at the direction of the knocking. The ball hit Forsyth in the head, killing him instantly.
Allen was arrested and held in prison, but a mob of 200 locals stormed the jail and released him. He was never recaptured and lived for another 50 years.
Forsyth left a widow and two sons. One of the boys, John, later became Governor of Georgia.