USA > Georgia > Jones County > History of Jones County, Georgia, for one hundred years, specifically 1807-1907 > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91
Jackson
632
Vanzandt
700
James
634
Williams
701
Jarrells
636
Winship
702
Johnson
641
White
704
Juhan
644
Wood
707
xix
Hunt
625
Hurt
627
Todd
Y
COUNT
M
PUTNA
Y
N
U
O
C
+
ER
+
5
A
1
WHITE
A
ETHRIDGE
MD. 275
-
EAST
JULIETTE
AA
PIEDMONT NATIONAL
WILDLIFE
REFUGE
... .. 305
P
BARRONS
G.M.D.
300
o O
--
TO MILLEDGE-
+
×
C
FITOIN GRAY -- -
PIEDMONT
NATIONAL
WILDLIFE
REFUGE
C
FGMD
450
Z
FINNEY
AD 299
DAVIDSON
GM.D. 450
Y
AO
+
HAWKINS
GMD
36i
ROFERTS
CMD 204
c ....
5
T. Springs
B
AMD. 359
B
+
....
--- -
-
Mc Willeme
COUNTY
TO MACON
GS
-
C
0
U
N
T
....
MAP OF
JONES COUNTY IN THE HEART OF GEORGIA (Courtesy of the State Highway Board)
TO CAPONE
T
TO MONTICELLO
P
8
2.
M& G.M.D. C6.
.AMALLA
STER
HAMMOCK
G.M.D. 377
E
ATIONAL
FORESP
...... ..
FT
+
Created
......
BURDEN ..
....
..
w
-----
1
0 0-
O
ILLUSTRATIONS
Map of Jones County
The Author
Reubin Stewart House
Dennis Greene House
211
John C. Greene House
Comer House
William Moughon House 221
White House
219
Map of Blounston (Gray
1 1 1
264
Brigadier Gen. Alfred Iverson 1
113
Pioneer Citizens Marker (Clinton) 205 1 1 I 1
Day-Barron Place 205 1 I I 1 1
Old Gravestones in Clinton Cemetery 1
355
1 Clower House 203 I 1 1 1 1 I 1
Map of Old Clinton 234
Legend of Map 235
Marquis de Lafayette 75
Twenty Dollar Confederate Bill
123
Cabiness House 213
Hunt House 150
Slave Deed Copy 51
116
Photostatic Copy of Wounded at Sunshine Church
115
The Joseph Glawson House 216
Clinton Methodist Church 327
The Locket Hamilton House
204
1 1 The Spring Near Battle Site 145 1 1 1 1
Peyton Pitts House 212 1 1
1
1
1
I
1
1 1
Whiskey Receipt
xxi
Jane Thigpen House 214
Old Jail Built in 1818 20
The James Ross House 201
Roland Ross 422
Captain F. S. Johnson, Jr. C.S.A. 118
The Gordon-Bowen-Blount House 209 I
The Green Roberts, William Jones and Pope Houses 41 1
Hamilton-Lockett House 198 1
Lowther Hall 226
Blair House, Clinton 1
I 1 1 1 1 196 1 1 1 I 1
Dr. Pallie Stewart I
426
I Masonic Hall, Clinton - 1818 231 1 1 E I 1 1 1 1
Old Clinton Courthouse 19
David W. Lester, Alex Mckay, E. W. Sammons, U. S. Lancaster, W. E. Knox
298
Lancaster House, W. W. Barron House, Tomotavia, And New Salem Baptist Church 223
Mt. Springs Church, Haddock Baptist, Hardy's Chapel, Haddock-Fortville M. Church, Union Hill B. and the Mt. Pleasant Church 322
Home of U. S. Senator and Brig. Gen. Alfred Iverson Sr. and Jr. 200
The Spiral Stairway at the Gordon-Bowen-Blount House 207
Wayside Presbyterian Church, Sunshine II and Pitts Chapel 335
Scenes on the Hunt Plantation 67
Methodist Gray Church, Elam, Plentitude, Gray Baptist 307
Old Clinton Hotel and the Old Johnson Home 215
Wallpaper in Johnson Home in Clinton 224
Pistol Manufactured in Griswoldville in 1861-64 158
Juliette Baptist, Sardis, Bradley, Mt. Zion, New Hope and Bethlehem Church 315
Courthouse at Gray - 1905 561
xxii
1
I
1
1 1
1
1
1 1
I
CHAPTER I.
INDIANS
For hundreds of years before white men came into Georgia, the Hitchiti Indians seem to have been here. They did not live as nomads but had developed a higher level of civilization. These Indians traveled extensively from the Great Lakes to Georgia. There were many different tribes in the Great Creek Confed- eracy, and the first account we have of these Hitchiti Indians they were speaking the Muscogee dialect. Georgia pre-history and early Colonial history is intimately bound up with the Creek Confederation, which came to occupy fully two-thirds of the State.
Many Indian relics have been found in Jones County and there is definite proof that before Jones County was formed the Indians were here. Even today arrow heads may be found in the woods and fields. At Dames Ferry the Indian arrow-maker lived on the place later owned by the Dame family. Hundreds of arrow heads have been picked up in this vicinity. The trails made by the wild animals later became Indian trails; then the trappers, hunters, traders and settlers used these trails. The western boundary of Jones County is the Ocmulgee river and this was the favorite place for the Indians to live. The river furnished transportation, good fishing, hunting and the rich bottom lands in which they grew corn and vegetables. The banks of the river were high and the land was not flooded so the Creeks lived up and down the lands adjacent to this river for several years after Jones County was organized. Their largest settlement was at Ocmulgee Old Fields (now Bibb Co.). These Indians were not molested for hundreds of years until the Eng- lish came in.
Unlike most Indian tribes the Creek name is of English origin. These Indians were first called Ochese Creeks, and soon this
(1)
2
HISTORY OF JONES COUNTY
was shortened to Creeks. Ocmulgee river was at that time known as Ochese Creek. Southerners may have received their accent from the Creek Indians.
Jones County was criss-crossed with many Indian trails, as the Indians were constantly going to Milledgeville, the capital, in 1807, and before that to Louisville. Indian Springs, a few miles from Jones' borders was a center of the Creek Confederacy and the trails going to many points crossed Jones County. We only know the routes and names of a few of these trails. "Horse- Path," ran the route of the Garrison Road (No. 49) and was used for travel to the south, to Spanish Forts at Tallahassee, St. Marks and Pensacola. Another trail was "Old Indian Path," which came across the Ocmulgee at what is now Juliette and went in the direction of Milledgeville. North and south were two parallel trails a few miles apart known as "Cheehaw Trail" and "Tom's Trail." Tradition has it that "Red Horse Trail" went through Pope's District, Ethridge and on to New Orleans.
The Indians of the southeast, Cherokees and Creeks, had a well developed civilization of their own before the white men came in. They lived on a higher plane morally and were essen- tially a better people than they were centuries after contact with European adventurers, whose baneful influence demoralized them. They were friendly to white men until despoiled by them and as a reward for their friendship they were taught vices of civilization and eventually driven from their homes and hunting grounds to a far country.
Because the Creek Confederation was a powerful influence through this area during the period of colonization we are chiefly concerned with this tribe. The Creek Confederacy con- sisted of several related tribes and each tribe had its Chief or Mico, and over all was the Chief of the Confederacy. The Chiefs all met with the head Chief in May in the principal vil- age to consider all matters of importance. These Chiefs had unlimited power and the Indians who had broken the law suf- fered without murmur; beating, confiscation of property and even death, as penalties.
Milfort's description of a Creek village says in each town was
3
HISTORY OF JONES COUNTY
a public square. In each angle of the square there were three cabins of different sizes forming in all twelve cabins built close together and holding from 40 to 60 persons each. The chief was chosen from a certain clan by issue of the female line, since di- vorce was by mutual consent and few women had more than two children by the same father. The chief controlled the public granaries, named the time for planting and harvesting, declared war, fixed the dates for festivals, made peace and executed sen- tences. Next to this chief was a warrior chief and a chief priest. Together they would meet at forenoon in the council house which was in the center of the public square as were the obelisk poles and slave posts where captives were bound for torture.
"The Creeks were tall, erect and robust. Their features were regular; their complexion a reddish brown copper; and their hair coarse and black. The Creek women were rather short but well-formed. Before they began trading with white people they wore scanty clothing made mostly of skins. They wore moccasins in winter and went barefoot in summer. The men wore a loin cloth drawn through the belt and hanging down in front and back, half way to the knees. They also wore a cape over their shoulders in winter and went bare in summer. The headbands decorated with beads and feathers were worn on special oc- casions. The women wore a short skirt from the waist to the knees or a diagonal cloak thrown over one shoulder, reaching to the knees and leaving one shoulder bare. Before a woman married she wore her hair long, hanging down her back and after marriage she arranged her hair in a neat knot on her neck. Indian men kept their hair short ecexpt for a single lock in front. Some men and women wore heavy ear spools and were tat- tooed."
(History of Macon, p. 26, by Young, Gholsen and Har- grove. )
Children went naked until about thirteen years of age, but after the settlers came in, they began to dress as they did. The Creek Indians were a proud and haughty race, brave in war, restless, hospitable to strangers, and after foes were well con- quered they were taken into their Confederacy and given full membership.
4
HISTORY OF JONES COUNTY
Bryan says that their farming and gardening were carried on in an interesting manner. A plot was laid out and different families assigned separate plots of ground, however there were no fences, and each family cared for its own plot. The women did most of the agricultural work, using shell, stone and wooden tools until they began trading with the white settlers. Their main crops were corn, beans, squash, pumpkins and tobacco. The white settlers introduced other fruits and vegetables. It was not unusual to see an old squaw chasing a horse out of her garden with a tomahawk. They often had a raised platform in the cen- ter of the garden or field where the squaws would take turns sitting, to keep the crows out of the corn. The Indians' food was quite palatable. They would take corn, grits or meal and bear grease, hickory nuts and potatoes and make a great variety of dishes. The mortars and pestles found through here are sup- posed to have been used for preparing hickory nuts for mixing with bread dough. By use of cold water after pounding, the fibrous part of the nut was washed off and the crushed nuts were as good as any sweet butter. Chestnuts were used in the same way and contrary to most beliefs, the Indian cook was very clean with her cooking and the preparations for it.
"Fighting was more important than farming and most of it was done in the spring and lasted until late summer. The war- riors went through a ritual of fasting and purification before setting off to war. The Creek warrior fought almost naked with half of his face painted red and half black. His chief weapons were bows and arrows, knives, tomahawks and war clubs. The Creeks excelled in the arts of strategy, ambuscade, deception and personal concealment."
(Ibid., p. 26.)
"Next to war, hunting and ball play came second in the esteem of the Creeks. Their games were of a type to develop strength, speed and skill. Many forms of ball were played. In one game they used nets or stricks to pass the ball from one player to another. Another favorite game was 'chunghe' which was played in an area set aside for the purpose. In this game two persons threw a slender stick at a "disc" used as a "taw" and
5
HISTORY OF JONES COUNTY
the winner was the one whose stick fell nearest the "taw." Some- times arrows were used instead of sticks and the spectators en- joyed betting on the results. "Parchesi" and "Hit the Pole" were played by the women and girls."
(Ibid., p. 27.)
Our game of lacrosse came from the Indian game called the two-stick ball game. Match games between villages where ma- terials and possessions were bet, caused roughness and some- times fighting.
The Indian's superstitutions were numerous. (Debo's Road to Disappearance, p. 238). They believed that a rattlesnake would give good luck if he crawled into camp during a ball game, and that a wolf would punish the irreverent. The Creeks re- spected plants as well as animals. In the fall to prevent colds they used leaf-colored water. "For four mornings in succession they drank the leaf-colored water in four sips, facing the sun, and then dipped in it four times." The Indian Maidens' beauty parlors were vine-covered nooks where they spread their long hair under the dripping sap of grape vines to make their hair luxuriant (Ibid., p. 299). They thought that pointing one's finger at a rainbow would make that finger grow crooked. Blindness and falling teeth were the penalties for not spitting four times when one sees a falling star. They thought that feeding pups wasps for four mornings would make them develop into fierce watch dogs. If an infant ate the tongue of a mockingbird he would grow into a mimic. If someone scratched the baby with quail's toes he would become fast and nimble and if the baby drank water from an old well he would become a great singer.
"The family life of the Creeks was similar to that of other Indian tribes. After marriage a man was taken into his wife's home. The marriage had to be renewed each year to be binding and polygamy was sometimes practiced with the consent of the first wife to whom the others were subordinate. The man usually took the sisters of the first wife for his other wives. When a man died his wife stayed a widow for four years and then her husband's family chose her another husband. The children be- longed to the mother and were reared by her oldest brother
6
HISTORY OF JONES COUNTY
who was responsible for their education. A man had no author- ity in his own home but much in that of his sister. The children were segregated when they were around thirteen years old. The older women controlled the girls and the older men controlled the boys. Each clan had an old and wise man who went from house to house teaching boys and girls to make pottery, baskets, moccasins and tunics."
"The religion of the Creeks centered around the sun, which was regarded as the symbol of power and beneficence of the Great Spirit; and around maize, animals and fire. They erected temples for sun worship and kept the sacred fire eternally burn- ing. They worshipped virtues such as strength, speed and cun- ning and any bird or animal symbolizing these were revered by them and given an important part in their ceremonies. They be- lieved in the immortality of the soul and placed in the grave articles they thought might be useful in the next world. Some tribes even sacrificed their own members upon the death of their chief. They pictured The Happy Hunting Ground as a warm, pleasant country which abounded in rivers, forests and game. Here the Supreme Spirit meted out punishment and rewards." (P. 27, History of Macon. )
"The principal ceremony of the Creeks was the Busk or har- vest feast-, a series of rites and dances, which began in August when the crops of corn had reached maturity and which lasted for seven days. Very important in this festival was the prepar- ing and drinking of the 'Black Drink,' an emetic, which served as a propitiatory purification of the maize deity. Out of the fire in the center of the dance, the women solemly carried a portion of fire to their hearths. For the Creeks this had a deep religious significance, the beginning of a new year when a new season of friendship and peace was begun and hatred forgotten. They re- garded signs and dreams as important." (Ibid., p. 27.)
In White's Collections of Georgia we have found accounts of treaties with the Creeks, covering a period of nearly one hundred years. After the Revolutionary War we were constantly at war with the Indians. We began to acquire land by treaty
7
HISTORY OF JONES COUNTY
after the Oconee wars. The treaty that obtained the counties of Baldwin, Wayne and Wilkinson was between the Federal government and the Creek Confederacy. The treaty was signed by forty chiefs and warriors on June 16, 1802, on the Oconee river at Wilkinson. It was ratified Jan. 11, 1803. At that time the fort was commanded by Major Samuel Beckam. In 1806-07 the garrison was moved to Fort Hawkins in Jones County and Col. Benjamin Hawkins was in command, this in 1807 the very year that Jones County was formed. This site near the Ocmul- gee river had fourteen acres in the stockade where the block- house was built. This was twenty feet square, thirty-four feet high and surrounded by watchtowers and a basement built of stone eighteen inches thick and ten feet high. The second story projected over the first for three feet on all sides. There were holes in the floors in order to shoot any Indians attempting to scale the rock base, to burn the wooden structure above. There were two blockhouses surrounded by a strong stockade. One blockhouse was in the southeastern corner and the other in the northeastern corner. There were four long houses placed along the four sides which formed part of the blockade, and were used for soldiers' quarters, provisions and the factory goods to be sold or bartered to the Indians for peltries. The officers' quarters were in the center surrounded by large oaks. Only trees left for shade were there as the other growth was cleared away. There were 14 acres in the stockade and 96 acres surrounding it. Col. Benjamin Hawkins selected the site for this fort on a command- ing eminence near the Ocmulgee river.
About thirty miles west of Jones county at Indian Springs, the site of the Confederacy of the Creeks, on Feb. 12, 1825 while Jones County was eighteen years old, Chief William McIntosh signed a treaty giving the United States government all lands west of the Flint river. For signing away the Creeks' lands this handsome son of a full-blooded Scotchman and a pure Indian mother was cruelly murdered by his own people.
The Creek nation step by step finally yielded to the encroach- ment by the white man, and by treaties dimly understood, gave up their beloved hunting grounds. By 1837 they would soon be beyond the Chattahoochee river.
8
HISTORY OF JONES COUNTY
More than 14,000 Indians left on Sept. 14, 1837 for the Indian territory. It was a sad time for them. The Creek officials walked single file carrying the sacred plates, another tribe carried conch shells which they had used during the Green Corn Festival. One group guarded the sacred fire so as to keep it burning until they reached their new home. The Indian girls looked back at their beautiful hills and valleys, the streams falling over the rocks, the trysting places of lovers, and had a last look at the paths and trails worn smooth by their leather moccasins. Most pitiful were the old people. Some begged to die on their hunting grounds and one old squaw hanged herself to keep from leaving her home.
"It was the irony of fate that the Indians who had aided the struggling colony and probably saved it from destruction in the long and bloody contest between the English and the Spanish for possession of Georgia soil, were later denied citizenship and driven out of their happy hunting grounds by the children of those colonists. The forcible removal of the Indians from Geor- gia by the U. S. Army was in compliance with the Federal gov- ernment's agreement in 1802 when Georgia ceded lands (now Alabama and Mississippi) to the U. S. government and the gov- ernment agreed to acquire for Georgia the title to all Indian lands in the state. That agreement was in violation of a previous treaty guaranteeing the Indians in perpetuity their title to the land they occupied in Georgia. Now this could be only justified by purchase and the consent of the Indians. The U.S.A. claimed to have purchased and secured by treaty in 1835 these lands but Indian leaders declared that only a small minority approved, and that the means were unfair."
Four thousand of these Indians died on the long 700 mile journey West. This speech was made by the son of a white man and an Indian squaw at the end of the 19th century. Standing before a Senate committee in 1906, Pleasant Porter gave this farewell message. (Road to Disappearance," by Debo lines 16- 17, p. 377 from Creek tribal records 35644; 59 Cong. Sen. Rep. No. 5013 1 627f.)
"The vitality of our race still persists. We have not lived for naught. We are the original discoverers of this continent, and
9
HISTORY OF JONES COUNTY
the conquerors of it from the animal kingdom, and on it, first taught the arts of peace and war, and first planted the institu- tions of virtue, truth and liberty. The European nations found us here and were made aware that it was possible for men to exist and subsist here. We have given to the European people on this continent our thought forces-the best blood of our an- cestors, having intermingled with that of their best statesmen and leading citizens. We have made ourselves an indestructible element in their natural history. We have shown that what they believed were arid and desert places were habitable and capable of sustaining millions of people. We have led the vanguard of civilization in our conflict with them for tribal existence from ocean to ocean. The race that has rendered this service to the other nations of mankind cannot utterly perish."
The following record was found in the Ordinary's office at Gray, Jones County, and is probably the only record of its kind, in the original cramped writing. This shows that in 1818, eleven years after Jones County was settled, we were still having deal- ings with the Indians.
Jones County, Georgia, 1818.
Thomas tolls a strawberry roan horse about thirteen years old, four feet two inches high, branded on the right buttock thus; 8, considerably marked by the saddle, a star in his fore- head, a small bell on, confined by a raw hide string. Appraised by Thomas Morris and William Simmons to twenty dollars, on 22nd of June 1818.
Levi Mobley, J.P.
Book of estrays 1808 Inferior Court Minutes, no page num- ber. Proven away by the Indians.
Creek Agency-29th June, 1808.
"The bearer Jemmittic Feards brig Feards nephew is in search after a small red roan horse that his uncle feared lost down at Milledgeville this spring. Said horse is branded on the cushion, 8, he has heard the horse is in possession of some white men over Ocmulgee that lives on the road leads out to Tom's Ford, Feard begs his friends the white people will give his nephew any information they possess about said horse and anyone that
10
HISTORY OF JONES COUNTY
has him in possession hopes they will from this deliver him to the bearer, his nephew.
Timy Barnard, Asst. Agt. and Interpreter by order of Agt. Col. Hawkins.
Creek Affairs-2
August 3rd, 1808
Received of Enoch Green a stray roan horse belonging to Tuskeegee Tustummeygee by the white people called Feard which I was ordered to receive by Col. Hawkins agent for Indian affairs.
Christian Limbaugh, Asst. Agt. for Indian Affairs.
Creek Agency-July 25, 1808
The within description was read to Tuskeegee Tustummeygee commonly called Feard by me and interpreted by Mr. Barnard the public interpreter, and he says the horse is unquestionably the one he lost, bell and all ... I know he had such a horse when he went to Milledgeville and on his return, reported that he had lost him. Where upon on the 29th of June I ordered Mr. Barnard to the certificate hereunto attached which has produced this report from Mr. Hawkins.
Benjamin Hawkins, Agt. of Indian Agent.
There was an immense traffic in stolen horses. Indians travel- ed so much that they were always in great need of horses. They even went as far as Tennessee and Kentucky to get horses for their use. The white men complained of the Indians stealing their horses, and the Indians would complain of the white men killing their game and trespassing on their land and fishing their streams.
(Indian Affairs Vol. 1, 604-607.)
Indians came into Clinton during the first twelve years of its existence, to exchange skins and furs for goods. They camped outside of the town and stayed several weeks. Some of the people could speak their language. One of these was Dr. Thom- as Hamilton. The Indians were very fond of music so Dr. Ham- ilton, who lived in the big white-columned house in front of the
11
HISTORY OF JONES COUNTY
Johnson home in Clinton, brought twenty Indians to his home to hear his daughter, Frances, play the piano. Dr. Hamilton had brought this piano from Philadelphia and Frances was a gifted pianist. She was so afraid of the Indians that her father stood by her with his hand on her shoulder while she played about all of the pieces that she knew. The Indians were delighted and when leaving, they chatted away to Dr. Hamilton and told him that they like "heap big fiddle music." He let them look inside of the piano, and their surprise and expressions must have been very interesting.
( Clipping from an old paper ; "The Jones County Searchlight")
Because of the fact that Jones County was part of the Oc- mulgee National Monument until Bibb County was cut out in 1822, I shall refer to this briefly. This area was a concentration of Indian villages for the past 10,000 years. At least six suc- cessive occupations by different Indian groups can be recognized. They came here because of the hill, swamp and river food sources, and the rich bottom lands for corn. There were good springs and the place was easily fortified as well as being able to ford the river and to use it for transportation. Because of these same advantages the white settlers came to trade with the Indians and stayed. The Indians are classified as Master Farm- ers, Early Farmers, Shellfish Eaters, Wandering Hunters, and Creeks. They grew the casena leaves and button snakeroot for medicines, also using the bark of the willow tree. The Creeks believed that plants were friendly but that animals caused dis- eases. Their money was deerskins and probably shells, and furs. They used the big conch shells to serve drinks and to eat from, then they made the clay pots and vessels. From 1715 to 1836 the Creeks' Confederation of 50 towns was the most powerful In- dian organization in America. In one year it is said that over 51,000 deerskins were shipped from Charleston. The large mounds of earth on which they erected their temples may still be seen. The Department of Interior has made this into a Na- tional Park and preserved the main mound and put the relics in a museum, which every one should see. Burials of the Indians
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.