USA > Georgia > Wilkinson County > History of Wilkinson County > Part 15
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However, about 1819, the boom began to lessen and prices began to fall. It was during this year that the first steamboat began to ply the Oconee River, and with the growth of Darien into a prominent cotton market coupled with the cheaper transportation by water it was inevitable that the planters here should choose this method of getting their products to market. Cotton could now be shipped to Darien for $1.25 per bale. The advent of the steamboat thus gave to the farmers adjacent to the river great ad- vantages over those less favorably located. This, in a manner, greatly compensated for the falling prices.
The day the first steamboat arrived, hundreds of people flocked to the landings to witness the sight. Recollections handed down to the writer state that Susan Hogan, sister of Elijah Hogan, later wife of William Smith, was present on this occasion and that the name of the first boat was "Lady Washington."
CHAPTER XXVII THE BUILDING OF IRWINTON
TRWINTON, so named in honor of Governor Jared Ir- win, owes its origin as a town to the establishing of the county site here. Being at the crossing of the road leading from Savannah to Fort Hawkins, and that from Milledge- ville to the counties and towns lying to the southeast, to- gether with the principal reason of its being approximately in the geographical center of the county, it was thus logical that it should be placed in this immediate vicinity, as soon as the Twiggs county portion was cut off.
Old hearsays handed down from the earlier settlers tell us that far back in the Indian days, the present site of the courthouse was an Indian trading post: that the Indians throughout middle Georgia flocked here to do their trading: that the monster gullies just east of the courthouse were caused by hundreds of horses of those coming hither to trade being led down the paths to the springs under the hill for water, thus making deep paths which became deeper with every rain.
Information given by J. H. Hoover says that his father, Jack Hoover, came to Irwinton in 1810 and at that time there were only two small cross-road stores here, both of which specialized in groceries, and grog.
For the first few years after the Legislature had desig- nated this immediate vicinity for the county site, the town evidently grew very slowly. No one knew exactly what lot would be chosen. Land values here no doubt grew with leaps and bounds and in all probability one of the reasons for the slowness of the commissioners to act, was the price asked for the land. Another reason affecting the se- lection might have been the war raging. The topography of this entire section, cut up as it was by hills and valleys,
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rendered it impossible to find a lot sufficiently level to be suitable for a town site. Finally, after lengthy delays ac- cording to tradition, the lot owned by W. C. Pearson was selected. When it became known that this lot had been purchased, there was raised such a howl that al- though more than a century has elapsed, yet its echoes still reverberate, and the criticism heaped upon the com- missioners, linger in the traditions of the town.
It seems that no lots had been sold up to 1814 and in the Georgia Journal of March 23, is found an advertise- ment stating the lots would be sold on May 5th, the lots to be of one-half acre in size. The commissioners, after having set aside certain portions for the public buildings, advertised the lots for sale at public outcry. The results of the same seems to have been disappointing. One reason was, probably that the building lots as surveyed were not attractive for residences. Another reason was, that the outcome of the war was extremely in doubt, and the sale came off at a time when it looked as if Georgia was doomed to be overrun by the British. Insuficient funds were derived for the building of the courthouse and jail and neither seems to have been built until after 1818 when a special tax was levied on the property of the county for this purpose.
In the meantime the town was being built largely upon the lot of land lying to the northeast of the lot chosen by the commissioners.
Up to 1816 there was no municipal government at Ir- winton, but in December of that year the Legislature at- tempted to incorporate the town. However, the drafter of the bill overlooked the very material clause designating just how far the limits of the town should extend, and this was amended the following year specifying that the town should extend four hundred yards each way from the courthouse.
The Legislature appointed as Irwinton's first commis-
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sioners : Solomon Worrell, David Rowland, Adam Hun- ter, Peter McArthur, and William Beck. An unusual fea- ture of the authorities granted these commissioners was the power and the duty to improve and repair the springs of the town. For violations of their ordinances, however, they were forbidden to inflict the penalty of corporal pun- ishment except on slaves and persons of color.
The map of the town with the names of the streets seems to have been lost. But an old advertisement in the Georgia Journal gives the names of two of the streets and indicates that the street leading east, towards Balls Ferry was Washington street and the one leading southeast by the courthouse towards old Sumpterville in Laurens county was Sumpter street.
CHAPTER XXVIII POLITICS, 1812 TO 1860
W ILKINSON County seems to have been so busy with other matters for a few years following the war that she had little time to devote to politics. Party lines were not so tightly drawn. However, in 1819, and following that year as the quarrels of the Clark and Troupe factions grew in virulence throughout the State, Wilkinson promptly lined up with John Clark and few counties in the State were more loyal to him than Wilkinson. Although there were quite a few Virginians in the county and practically all the lawyers of the county took sides with Troupe and in addition to that, the proximity of Troupe's home a comparatively short distance southeast of this county in what was then Montgomery, yet, the Clark faction dom- inated the politics of the county at all elections. We are able to get a picture of the political situation here in 1825, the year the Governor of Georgia was first elected by popular vote. The returns of this election gave Clark the overwhelming majority of 716 as against 116 for Troupe.
For several years thereafter whenever any test of strength came between these parties, Wilkinson was found in the Clark column. In the 1828 presidential elec- tion, Major John Hatcher, political leader and a staunch Clark supporter, threw the weight of his political strength in favor of Andrew Jackson, and Major Hatcher was chosen as one of Jackson's electors. In the 1829 guber- natorial race, the Clark faction had no candidate, while the Troupe faction had two, Gilmer and Crawford, thus giving the Clark faction the balance of power. This was thrown to Gilmer, giving him 480 and Crawford only 65. However, in the election held in 1831 Gilmer was
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opposed by Lumpkin, and Wilkinson polled the handsome vote of 696 for Lumpkin and only 119 for Gilmer. (It will be noted that John Clark having left the State, there was a change in the names of the parties, the Union party taking the place of the Clark party and Lumpkin ran on the Union ticket. The States Right Party now began to take the place of the Troupe party-the same parties under different names.)
Among the strong supporters of the States Rights party we find W. F. Bond, Isaac Hall, and Charles C. Beall, being chosen to represent Wilkinson County in the State convention to nominate a candidate for Governor.
The election for 1833 in Wilkinson was another victory for the Clarkites or Union party, although in the county offices there was no such issue made. The poll for Gov- ernor gave Lumpkin 686 and Crawford 172.
As an indication of Wilkinson County's rule to vote for the best qualified men regardless of party, in spite of the fact that Wilkinson voters were predominantly Clark- ites, yet all through these years we constantly find Samuel Beall, an ardent Troupeite and States Right advocate, being elected to the highest offices that the county could offer.
THE KING-TROUPE SENATORIAL RACE OF 1844
In 1844, the system of electing Senators was changed from one to a county, which had been the rule heretofore, so that Wilkinson and Laurens counties formed the 10th Senatorial district. Wesley King, of Wilkinson, nominee of the Whigs, was opposed by a son of Governor Troupe, nominee of the Democrats, from Laurens. The battle of Clark against Troupe now for the first time in a local office seems to have been waged. Although the leavening influence of strong States Right Democrats in Wilkinson had been winning large numbers of converts to this party, Beall having been elected to the Senate in 1841 running
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on a States Right platform, and Irwinton under the po- litical leadership of Samuel Beall having become a verit- able Democratic hot-bed, yet, when the real contest between the two old parties of Clark and Troupe was revived, the old Clark element rallied to the aid of King. Some of the echoes of this struggle are yet handed down. Many of the old Troupe adherents espoused the cause of Troupe. A strong element in the southern part of the county, the Carswells, the Stanleys, the Burkes, and others, swept that entire section for King. Though such a strong Democrat, yet Samuel Beall forgot party lines and in this contest took the field for his friend Wesley King, who was elected. (Accounts given the writer by I. S. King, a son of Wesley King) .
During the Forties the Whig party had many supporters in Wilkinson County. Joel Rivers seems to have been for a time the leader of the Whigs. Other leading Whigs were Alexander Nesbit, Josiah Whitehurst, Sr., Dave Pool, Tom Connelly, Jack Lavender, Sr., W. M. White- hurst, Joel Deese, and James Jackson. However, the county as a whole ordinarily leaned strongly to the Demo- cratic party. The American or Know Nothing party seems never to have gained extensive headway.
CUMMING-CARSWELL SENATORIAL RACE
The law in regard to the Senatorial districts of the State having been changed so that Wilkinson County elected her own Senator during the years following 1852, there arose a hot political race in 1854 between the Whigs and the Democrats. Eli Cumming was nominated by the Demo- crats. At first two candidates were opposing him, N. A. Carswell and James G. Ockington, all three leading at- torneys of Irwinton. With both these opponents in the race it soon appeared that Cumming would have an easy vic- tory. Ockington seems not to have had the extensive family connections that Carswell had, for the latter, in addition
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to his political strength at Irwinton and in the other sec- tions of the county could especially count upon his kins- men in Turkey Creek and High Hill Districts to carry that entire section almost unanimously for him. Therefore Ockington withdrew, throwing his strength to Carswell.
A battle royal was now on. The Burkes, Carswells, Stanleys, Wesley King of the districts south of Big Sandy, Joel Deese of Lords, James Jackson of Passmore, the whole Rivers generation of Ramah, and other prominent Whigs arrayed their forces on the side of Carswell.
On the other hand Samuel Beall, Ordinary of the County, now getting on in years sounded the political warwhoop of the Democrats and rallied them to the aid of Cumming. I. S. King, the son of Wesley King, a youth not yet in his teens but who was already a staunch Whig and a strong supporter of Carswell, volunteered his serv- ices in the campaign. To him was dedicated the duty of "getting Sam Beall's goat." The following song was memorized by him and he would stand near the Ordinary's office each day while Beall was in and sing :
"Carswell ate the watermelon ; Cumming ate the rind : Carswell went to Milledgeville And left Cumming behind."
The result of the election, however, was in favor of Cumming.
(Account given the writer by I. S. King) .
The storm over the Slavery question which was agi- tating the nation during the Fifties found its counterpart in Wilkinson County. There was a large portion of its citizens who owned no slaves and who were frequently ir- ritated by slave-owners, who were continuously enlarging their estates. Samuel Beall was still the veteran leader of the States Rights Democrats and under his leadership the
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small minority of those voting the Troupe ticket in former years were now frequently dominating the elections of the county.
While the States Rights question was agitating the State, a convention was thus called at Irwinton in April, 1851, which was destined to be of state-wide interest. The reso- lutions prepared by the committee and adopted by the Convention so forcibly set forth the contentions of the party that when they were published county after county convention seized upon and adopted these resolutions. "The Wilkinson Resolutions" became the Battle-cry of the Democratic party of Georgia.
THE WILKINSON RESOLUTIONS
"As meetings are now being held for the appointment of delegates to the Convention on the 20th of May, we again lay before our readers, and commend to notice, the resolutions adopted in Wilkinson :
'Resolved, That in the present eventful crisis of our country's history, when all the tendencies of the Government are to the con- solidation of its powers, that it is essential to the preservation of the Constitution in its purity, and of the liberties it was designed to secure, that those great fundamental republican principles should be cherished and sustained which have conducted our country to the proud elevation which she now enjoys among the nations of the earth.
'Resolved, That among these great fundamental republican principles we recognize as cardinal and paramount that the Fed- eral Government is a Government of limited powers, having no control over the States or the people thereof, except that expressly conceded, or that necessary to carry into effect conceded powers ; that, as a necessary consequence, the States are sovereign as regards all the rights not there conceded ; and that it becomes the people thereof at all hazards as they love the Constitution and the Union, vigilantly to guard and protect themselves against all encroachments upon those rights reserved to the States.
'Resolved, That these doctrines, taught and illustrated by Jef-
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ferson and Madison-doctrines which gloriously triumphed in 1800-have ever been recognized and adopted by all real repub- licans ; and that they are doctrines concerning which Troup men and Clark men, Union men and States Rights men, in Georgia, never heretofore differed.
'Resolved, That these are now, as they have ever been, the doc- trines of the Democratic party ; and we still hold their maintenance essential to the preservation of the Constitution, the Union, and the liberties bequeathed to us by our fathers; and that inasmuch as the States of the Southern section of this Union are in a doomed mi- nority and vitally interested in an institution secured by the Con- stitution, it is suicidal, especially on their part, not pertinaciously to adhere to it as the sheet-anchor of their safety.
'Resolved, That upon the agitating question which now divides the North and the South, Georgia, in her sovereign capacity, by her Convention in December last, defined her position; that, as Geor- gians Loyal to the Expressed Will of the People, we acquiesce in that position, and pledge ourselves to sustain it, and to do all that we can to see that Georgia 'takes no step backward.'
'Resolved, That we approve of the convention proposed to be held in Milledgeville by the friends of republican principles, of democracy, and of the rights of the States, which can be no other than the friends of Southern Rights, for the purpose of nominating a candidate for Governor, and earnestly but respectfully suggest that the convention assemble on the last Wednesday in May next."
(Bench and Bar of Ga. p. 288-9).
SLAVERY AND PLANTATIONS IN WILKINSON
To a large extent slavery was responsible for the rapid development of Wilkinson's agricultural industry. The vast yellow pine forests, which would now be worth untold riches were ruthlessly slaughtered to make way for the crops of cotton. The swamps were cleared and ditched for other crops all of which required much manual labor. Then, too, the cultivation, picking and preparing of cotton for market demanded more labor than the white popu- lation could furnish, in spite of the prolific families which were customary in those days.
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While there were a number of planters in the county with large holdings of lands and slaves yet there were many small slave-owners with one or two slaves and own- ing comparatively small farms. There were many others who owned no slaves at all but cultivated their farms with their own labor or hired others to assist them. There were others who owned nothing, wanted nothing above a bare living who eked out their existence by occasionally grudgingly performing some task for their neighbors. It was this latter class which was called the "poor white trash."
As good times came, the slave-owning class rapidly grew larger especially among those with initiative. The need for more land among the plantation owners fre- quently caused friction, as the lands increased in value. Quarrels over boundaries would result and tradition says that frequently when some big slave-owner desired a farm owned by a less fortunate neighbor who possessed no slaves or few of them and who refused to sell his lands, the large planter would instruct his slaves to make life miserable for his neighbor. And whenever his neighbor should leave home for a short while, he would invariably return to find his hogs or cows had gotten out and were devouring his choicest crops. Other methods were some- times used to make him sell. Thus many were forced to sell and move away to other counties. The tendency was for the plantations to increase in size. Especially was this noticeable in the sections of the county where the soil was well adapted to cotton growing, as cotton could be raised by slave labor much more profitaby than other crops. In the sections where the soil was mostly sandy or other- wise unsuitable for cotton, the small land owners were allowed to own their land in peace.
The large acreage of such soil in the county were mainly responsible for the slave population not increasing more rapidly. In 1830, the census showed 5,144 whites and
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blacks or a little less than one slave to every two and one- half white persons. In 1854 there were only 374 slave- owners in the whole county divided.as follows :
Irwinton District, 55 ; Bloodworth, 37; Passmore, 22; Lord's, 52 ; Ramah, 64 ; Griffin, 31 ; High Hill, 75 ; Turkey Creek, 38.
The demand for more and more slaves caused the prices for them to be raised by slave dealers. In the earlier years after the county was settled slaves would frequently run away and join the negro towns in Florida where they found refuge and protection among the Seminole Indians. Many lost their slaves in this manner. The ever-receding boun- dary line separating the Indians from Georgia helped solve this problem, and likewise the acquisition of Florida by the United States. There was another factor that af- fected the slave-owners here in a vast slave-thieving or- ganization known as Murrel's Band with its ramifications extending into several states. Slaves would be stolen in one State and carried hundreds of miles to another and sold. An instance of this was Old Betty, who made her home on the lands of James T. Davidson, after emancipation. She would often recount how she had been stolen while a child by a robber band in Virginia and brought to Geor- gia and sold. Frequently slaves would be stolen here and carried away elsewhere. Near Pleasant Plains Church is an old cave which tradition whispers was used by a black sheep member of a prominent family in Wilkinson to con- ceal a slave he had stolen until he could have time to spirit him away. Another such member of a prominent family in Bloodworth district got a slave and trained him, according to the story, he would carry his slave to some distant town and sell him to some person and collect, after directing his slave how to escape and to rejoin him in some other distant place. The slave was loyal and would always follow his master's instructions, while his purchaser would mourn the loss of a prize slave. The process of sale and delivery would
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be repeated in some other town and another purchaser would mourn. The slave was proving a veritable gold mine until heavy drinking caused his trainer to talk too much, and the trickster had to shift his operations. This time his own father began to lose negroes and suspicion was cast on a neighbor who was indicted and brought to trial in the Superior Court of Wilkinson County. The State in- troduced a part of its witnesses but soon the evidence took an astounding turn. It began to be forcibly brought out that the man indicted was innocent but that there were strong reasons to believe the guilty man was none other than the slave-owner's son. At the request of the father a verdict of not guilty was returned against the indicted man and it required much effort on his part to prevent the conviction of his own son.
As a rule the slaves were treated with great considera- tion in this county. Occasionally a master would punish his slaves brutally but public opinion always frowned upon it with such force that the man who mistreated his slaves continuously was practically ostracised by his neighbors.
It was nothing uncommon for a slave-owner to desire that at his death for his slaves be set free. The laws of Georgia, however, discouraged the freeing of slaves on account of the fact that so many were unable to make their own living, and their upkeep would constitute a problem for the State and county to solve. In 182 1, Zadock Simmons in his will provided that his executors should transport his slaves to the Coast of Africa and there set them free.
Slaves as a rule were not regarded by their owners as mere chattels but as human beings. Those who manifested religious tendencies were permitted to attend and join their master's churches. Slave galleries were built in many houses of worship among these being Big Sandy and Irwin- ton churches. The Irwinton slave gallery is still to be seen.
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Separate churches for the two races were unknown until after emancipation.
Visiting of slaves belonging to neighboring plantations was not prohibited. It was no uncommon occurrence for some dark swain to become smitten by the charms of some dusky damsel. He then had two problems on his hand; first, to win the coy maiden's heart; second, to sing her praises to his master so incessantly as to induce him to purchase her. He would tell his master how hard he would work to help make money to pay for her; how hard she would also work. He would appeal to his master's cupidity by picturing to him a yard full of little slaves.
Sometimes, however, there would be insurmountable obstacles that prevented the union of both husband and wife on one plantation. An instance of this occurred when Bennett Whipple's Buck was surreptitiously wedded to Allen Davidson's cook, Hannah. For some reason the couple could not be united. Buck, however, solved the problem. He knew of a gully on the Davidson plantation near Hannah's cabin. One night he slipped away from the Whipple plantation carrying with him a hoe. At the head of the gully he digged a cave in such a manner that it could not be detected. Here for weeks he made his home, Hannah providing him with food purloined from her master's table. Finally the secret leaked out and Hannah's master learning of Buck's whereabouts sent him back home.
The growing number of slaves in the county was an increasing problem to the citizens. It was necessary to have patrols in every militia district. The great responsi- bility resting on the patrol commissioners caused the Grand Jury of 1855 to ask "such citizens may be selected as we have reason to believe feel the responsibility of the trust and will try to execute it faithfully." Slaves were forbidden to be abroad at night without a pass and those caught without one were subject to be whipped.
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The following persons were appointed Commissioners of Patrols for the year 1856:
Dr. Flemister, J. R. Bragg, V. W. Tharp, Ramah Dis- trict; G. B. Burney, J. C. Brown, E. Cumming, Irwinton District; J. R. Billue, E. Green, Wiley Fordham, Griffin District; W. Dickson, James Lord, Allen Chambers, Lord's District; W. W. Lee, Nimrod Burke, Wyatt Me- redith, Turkey Creek District; L. Clay, James Jackson, S. J. Stubbs, Fork District; I. T. Hughs, D. W. Smith, L. Asbell, High Hill District; W. L. John, John Eady, G. Jones, Bloodworth District.
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