USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 20
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We shall perhaps get a better idea of the development of Georgia by studying the features belonging to the counties as they come before us one by one.
CLARKE.
Though Clarke was made a county in 1801, it was not then first settled. It was a part of Franklin, then of Jack-
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son, and when the University was established at Athens was made a separate county and called Clarke in honor of Elijah Clarke, of whose distinguished services during the Revolution we have spoken. The county site was Watkins- ville, named in honor of Robert Watkins. The original county of Clarke was a large one, and in 1875, when Athens was a considerable town, it was divided into two counties, one of which was called Oconee, the other Clarke. Wat- kinsville was left as the county site of Oconee, and Athens was made the county site of Clarke.
There was a great deal of first-class land in the undi- vided county, and a limited quantity in what is now Clarke.
Although Clarke could not present the inducements to settlers which Greene and Hancock did, there came to it some of the same class of people at its first settlement; and the position of Athens as an educational center drew to it at a later day a class of most excellent people, who settled in the village and in the country adjoining. Mr. White gives as the first settlers, Thomas Greer, James Greer, Sol. Craig, Charles Dean, F. Roberson, Wm. Clarke, Wm. Williams, Wm. Jones, Francis Oliver, Thomas Wade, Daniel Elder, Zadock Cook, John Jackson, Hugh Niesler, Thomas Mitchell, James Cook, Wyatt Lee, Robert Barber, Hope Hull, A. Briggs, Jesse White, David Meriwether, Joseph Espey, John Espey.
As we have seen, Athens was laid out on seven hundred acres of land purchased by John Milledge, and was made the seat of the University. It was very healthy, and soon drew to it an excellent class of citizens. It had a good country tributary to it, and soon became a place of com- mercial importance. The facilities for manufacturing pro- vided by the fine water-powers on the Oconee river, on which the city of Athens is located, were recognized, and at an early date its citizens began to manufacture; and
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some of the most successful cotton mills and other factories in Georgia have been established near Athens. The Georgia railroad early built a branch road to the city, and when the Air Line railway, from Charlotte to Atlanta, was built, the people of Athens built a line of forty miles to tap it at Lula, and when the S. A. L. line reached Georgia it came directly through Athens, and then the Central bought a line from Macon to the city, and thus gave it the best rail- way privileges, and it has become quite a trade center.
Athens has not only been noted for its culture and refinement, but for the piety of its leading people. Al- though as late as 1825 there was no church in the village, there was regular religious service in the college chapel. In 1825, or near that time, the Presbyterians built a church on the campus. The Baptists built also on the campus, and the Methodists where the First Methodist now stands. The Episcopalians were somewhat later. There have been great revivals of religion in Athens, in which some of the most distinguished men in Georgia have begun a religious life. The country around is well supplied with churches, mainly Methodist and Baptist.
Clarke was formed in 1801, and by 1810 it had 5,034 free and 2,594 slave inhabitants, and in 1830 there were 5,467 free and 4,709 slaves; in 1850 there were 5,330 free and 5,589 slaves. In 1890 the entire population was 15,186. It has now, in 1899, a very much larger popu- lation.
The city of Athens is one of the most attractive and ele- gant cities in the State. It has a fine electric plant, a street railway, well-paved streets, handsome public build- ings, water-works, and all the equipment of a working city. Of the University, with which the history of Athens is so connected, we have spoken elsewhere.
While Athens had always had excellent female schools, and the second distinctively female school in the State was
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in Athens, it had no female collegiate institute until Thos. R. R. Cobb, as a memorial to a child to whom he was de- voted, gave a large donation for a female institute of high grade, which was called the Lucy Cobb Institute in honor of his daughter, and which has held high rank with the best schools for young ladies. The State Normal School is also located here.
In Athens was established the celebrated Southern Mu- tual Insurance Company, which has been the most success- ful purely Mutual Fire Insurance Company in the Southern States, and perhaps in America.
The location of the University in Athens has made it famous for its public men. Among the most valuable of the early settlers in the county was Hope Hull, whom we have seen as a young Methodist preacher in Wilkes county in 1788. He had a home near Washington, and established ten years before Athens was founded or the University began its work a classical school and employed teachers to teach it. He was among the heartiest supporters of the proposed college in Athens and was a member of its first board of trustees, and as long as he lived he never lost his interest in it. His two sons, Asbury Hull and Dr. Henry Hull, were like himself men of great worth and public spirit.
Asbury Hull was for several years speaker of the House of Representatives in the Georgia Legislature, a leading banker and capitalist in Athens. Dr. Henry Hull, his ex- cellent brother, once a professor in the State University, spent his long life in Athens.
John A. Cobb settled in a part of Athens which he called Cobham, and here he lived and educated his two sons Howell and Thomas R. R. Cobb, whose fame as soldiers and statesmen is so widely extended.
The celebrated Moses Waddell spent his last days here as president of the State University.
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Dr. A. A. Lipscomb, the philosopher and sage, lived here in a charming cottage after he had retired from the presidency of the University.
Young L. G. Harris, famous as a financier and as a phi- lanthropist, lived and died here.
Ferdinand Phinizy, one of the most distinguished cap- italists in Georgia, had his home here.
It was in Athens that Dr. Crawford Long used ether as an anesthetic before it had ever been so used by any other person.
Here Dr. Patrick H. Mell, one of the best of teachers and the purest of men, spent his last years as president of the University.
The celebrated Stephen Olin, the peerless preacher, spent several years here as professor of English literature.
Here Dr. Nathan Hoyt, the famous Presbyterian preacher, and Dr. Chas. Lane, who came after him, ended their useful lives, and here Dr. Eustace W. Speer, after having been several times pastor of the church and at one time professor in the University, fixed his home and ended his days; and in this town Henry W. Grady was born, edu- cated and married.
To catalogue the men of distinction who have been con- nected with Athens would take far more space than I can possibly devote to this famous city.
Clarke was, like all the hill counties, settled by people of moderate means, who raised chiefly corn and other food products. It had in it many stills and made much brandy and whisky, which it sent to the Augusta market, and the records of the county show that the inhabitants were by no means total abstainers; but there is one record on the county books different from any other in Georgia: A man, anticipating that he would be assassinated, made a will, in which he recited his apprehension, and made a bequest to pay the cost of prosecuting the murderer, and suggesting
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who he would be and how he might be convicted. He was killed. The murderer was arrested and was convicted and hung.
The grand jury in 1806 says: "The college is now opened, and is ready to teach boys from their A, B, C's, up."
MADISON.
Madison was laid out from Oglethorpe, Clarke, Franklin and Elbert in 1811. It is not a large or fertile county, and. in very few respects differs from the counties from which it was taken.
There are two forks of the Broad river in the county, and in the fork near to Elbert, in what was then Wilkes- county, at the home of James Marks, the first Methodist Conference in Georgia was probably held.
The first settlers as given by White were, Samuel Long, Jacob Eberhart, Samuel Wood, Stephen Groves and Gen- eral Daniel.
The county site, Danielsville, is a very small village in a. hill country. There was for many years no railroad in the county, but the building of the Seaboard Air Line railroad has brought the best part of the county on Broad river into. connection with the outer world.
The people of Madison have been a very plain, sober, religious and well-to-do people, and while much of the county is badly worn and washed, there is some good land. and many very worthy people in the county.
BALDWIN.
In 1803 Baldwin was laid out from the new territory. It. was a very large county when first made, but has been so- cut down by forming new counties that it is now quite small. The upper part of the present county, bordering ons Putnam and Jones, was the highly-valued oak and hickory land, as was that part of the county of Hancock beyond.
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the Oconee, which was put into Baldwin when it was formed. It was at once settled by substantial planters, most of them from the older counties of Georgia.
The lower part of the county, away from the river and the creeks, was in the pine belt, and was considered very undesirable, and was for a long time very thinly settled. Much of it was exceedingly sterile. The lands on the Oconee and the upper part of the county were very fine, and the population was very large in those sections.
In 1810 the population was 3,809 whites and 2,250 slaves; in 1830 there were only 2,753 whites and 4,542 slaves; in 1850 there were 3,546 whites and 4,602 slaves.
Few parts of the State were settled more rapidly and with a better class of people, and none of the middle Georgia counties were more rapidly worn out and sooner abandoned by the large planters. The lands were very rolling and very friable, and under the system of culture then adopted the surface soil was soon washed away.
The first settlers in the oak and hickory lands of Baldwin were many of them people of some means from the older counties. Many of them had their plantations in the county and fixed their homes in Milledgeville. The rapidity with which the county was settled is seen in the first census in 1810, from which it appears that there were three hundred more white people in the county in 1810 than in 1850.
The first settlers were the Howards, Devereaux, Lamars, Bosticks, Sanfords, Joneses, Pierces, Scotts, Hammonds, Kenans, Battles, Holts, Claytons, Byrds, Malones, Napiers and Flukers.
Three thousand two hundred and forty acres were appro- priated to the city. John Rutherford, Littleberry Bostick, A. M. Devereaux, Geo. M. Troup, John Harbert and Oliver Porter were the commissioners. Fishing creek, then a bold and limpid stream, made its way to the river along its eastern border. The forests on the hills and along.
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the river were magnificent. Gushing springs and crystal brooks were found in different parts of the tract. The city was carefully laid out and a great square was designated for the capitol. A handsome hilltop was reserved for the governor's mansion, a tract was reserved for a State prison, and the lots were put on the market. After all this was done the county was organized.
The part of Baldwin which lies beyond the Oconee river was in Hancock, and was thickly settled before Baldwin was laid out. Before Milledgeville was located a town called Montpelier was projected on quite a considerable scale; lots were sold, and a few people settled in it. It was located about where the Montpelier Methodist church is now. Another small town named Salem, nearer the river, was also on the east side of the river.
At this time the Oconee was navigated by flatboats, and most of the produce of this part of the county was boated down to Darien, and goods were brought up the river by the same process.
While the pine lands were considered worthless for farm- ing purposes, they were recognized as very healthy, and as Milledgeville at its first settlement was quite sickly, a re- sort called Scottsboro, on the edge of the oak and hickory woods among the pines, was chosen as a sanatorium, and the people of Milledgeville had their summer homes there, and some of them had permanent residences on these sand hills. There were for many years but few inhabitants of the pine woods, and most of these were very poor and illiterate.
The land in this section was heavily timbered, but was very sterile. When the Central railway built a branch road to Milledgeville sawmills were built along the line to cut the pine timber. Thos. Stephens, a sturdy Englishman, planted a large mill ten miles from Milledgeville, and after he had exhausted the timber resources he began another
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ATLANTA ENG. CO
MAIN BUILDING GEORGIA SANITARIUM, NEAR MILLEDGEVILLE.
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industry which has done much for that part of the county. He found an inexhaustible supply of most excellent clay suitable for making fire-brick and sewer-pipe and other kinds of terra-cotta products, and he and his sons have built up one of the largest manufactories of these products in the South.
These pine lands have been improved by modern culture, but their chief wealth is in the strata of clay beneath the surface. The history of the cotton belt, as told before, is the story of Baldwin. The stock-raiser, the small farmer, the large planter, the worn-out fields, and the emigration westward, until in 1850 the white population had been re- duced from what it was forty years before, and the negroes were twice as many as they were then.
The Legislature, when it decided on making the new city of Milledgeville, as we have seen, laid out three thousand two hundred and forty acres in city lots, and a modest State- house costing, when completed, sixty thousand dollars was built. It was added to at different times until it received its finishing touch in 1837, and presented the appearance which it presents as the Middle Georgia College. The man- sion was built during the incumbency of Governor Clarke, and is a very handsome building on a high hill, now occu- pied by the president of the Industrial College.
The penitentiary was established in 1803, and after the removal of the capital to Atlanta was demolished, and the site is now occupied by the Normal College.
Milledgeville, as the capital city, was, in days gone by, the scene of much gayety and much dissipation, and has witnessed not a few tragedies. There have been several fatal duels arranged for and many bloody street brawls. The fortunes of the little city have been varied, and the num- ber of its population fluctuating.
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With the impoverishment of the land near the city, the planters moved to the newer counties, and few of their de- scendants remained in the county. The capital of the State was for many years a slow-moving and by no means prosperous town. The court-house of the county was burned and many of the early records were lost. The rec- ords of the court of ordinary were preserved, however, and an insight into the almost forgotten history of the early settlers is to be found in them. A very handsome court- house has been erected on the old lot.
The first Methodist church was built in 1807; the first. Methodist Sunday-school was established in Milledgeville- in 18II, when S. M. Meek was preacher in charge. The present Methodist church was built in 1827. It was built. on a lot granted by the State on the public square. The Presbyterians, Baptists and Episcopalians had each a lot. granted by the State on the same square. The Baptist. church having been burned, it was decided not to rebuild on the lot it had, and the church was built on Wayne street. The Roman Catholics built a neat brick house on Jefferson. street.
The want of a sufficient supply of water free from calca- reous admixture led to the establishment of a system of water-works by which the waters of Fishing creek were utilized.
Near Milledgeville, in Midway, the Oglethorpe Univer- sity was located. It was a Presbyterian college, of which we speak more at length in our chapter on Georgia colleges. It was nominally removed to Atlanta after the war; but, as. it had neither buildings nor endowment, it was never rees- tablished.
The Georgia Lunatic Asylum was originated in 1837, through the influence of a stranger from New York, who. succeeded in getting the first bill passed for its establish- ment. Dr. Cooper was its first superintendent, but the-
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asylum was really not an institution until Dr. Green took charge of it. He was superintendent for many years, and died in the office, and was succeeded by Dr. Powell, who has for the twenty years since Dr. Green died been super- intendent. It is now the largest and best equipped State asylum of the entire South.
The city of Milledgeville has grown rapidly since the war, and its healthfulness is greatly improved in these late years.
There was an academy in Milledgeville as soon as it was settled, and there have been famous schools in the city and county since that time. There were two incorporated acad- emies in the county which I am unable to locate. Their names were Corinth and Leonora. Dr. Brown established a famous high school for young ladies at Scottsboro, which had quite a patronage for some years. After the war the old capitol was turned over to the trustees of the Middle Georgia College, and a military school was established on the old grounds. Young people of both sexes, however, were admitted to its halls. A few years since the State decided to establish an industrial and normal school for young women, and Milledgeville secured its location in its midst, and the grounds formerly used by the State prison were chosen as a site, and very handsome buildings erected at the expense of the State. The institution has been very popular and largely patronized.
To merely mention a small number of the distinguished people who have resided in this county would take more space than can be given to any one county. The fact that Milledgeville was the capital, as well as the fact that the larger part of the county was exceptionally fertile, led many of the best people from the older counties to make Milledgeville their home. Some of them have been already spoken of. Among them was Dr. Thompson Bird, who was a physician, born in Delaware. He had married Miss
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Williamson, a sister of Mrs. Governor Clark, in Washington. He was a very intelligent, public-spirited man. He was the father of Mrs. L. Q. C. Lamar, Sr., and the grandfather of the distinguished Mississippi senator. Colonel Jack Howard, a prominent and influential and enterprising man, who had been a soldier in the Revolution, located in Mil- ledgeville when it was first settled, and removed from there to Columbus. Myles Green, one of the most saintly and devout of Christian men, was clerk of the county courts. Seaton Grantland, who came to Baldwin a poor printer and left behind him a princely estate and a highly honored name, spent the whole of his active life here. Dr. B. A. White, a man famous for his intelligence and his broad views, died in Milledgeville, and was succeeded by his gifted son, Dr. Samuel G. White. Miller Grieve, a sturdy Scotchman, came to the county a youth, and died in it at an honored old age. He was a man of great worth and of strong mind-a Whig of the olden time, when the Recorder and the Federal Union were the rival political papers of the State. Colonel Richard M. Orme, his associate editor of the Recorder, was noted for the sterling excellencies of his moral character as well as for his honesty as a politician. Dr. W. H. Hall, a physician of rare ability and a gentle- man of great culture and refinement, was born in this city, and died in it. Nathan C. Barnett, who was Secretary of State for a longer time than any man who ever lived in Georgia, and who was recognized by all as one of the most upright of men, long lived in Milledgeville. Lucius Q. C. Lamar, the father of the governor whose early and sad death deprived Georgia of one of her most gifted and up- right men, had his home here. John Hammond, for long years the efficient, careful, trustworthy steward of the Lunatic Asylum, whose name was a synonym for probity, had his home in Midway. Dr. Stephen K. Talmage, one of the distinguished family of that name, who came from New
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Jersey to Georgia, and was for many years the president of Oglethorpe University, which, while he lived, was a leading institution among the Presbyterians, lived and died in Mid- way.
Colonel Broughton, who edited for many years the Fed- eral Union newspaper, was a man of fine mind and strong convictions, and exerted a great influence in Georgia pol- itics.
Perhaps no man of his time did more service to his State than Dr. T. F. Green, who for years was superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum. This great charity which has done so much for unhappy invalids, if it did not originate with him, reached its stable place as an institution through his influence and care. He was of Irish lineage. His father was an exile of 1798, who was a professor in the State University. Dr. Green was a physician of fine parts, who gave himself for life to the work of curing lunatics. He had wonderful skill in managing men, and succeeded with all the odds against him.
Judge Iverson L. Harris, a distinguished jurist, whose wealth of intelligence and purity of character and strength of mind made up one of the most valued of men, lived here. These men and such as these, who have all passed away, have made the little county of Baldwin famous in the State for its men of character and gifts.
PUTNAM.
Putnam was laid off from Baldwin in 1807. It was named in honor of the brave old general, and its county site for General Eaton, who had distinguished himself in the war with Tripoli. It had been on the eastern border of the Creek Nation for over twenty-five years.
Hancock, which was originally Greene, had been settled since 1785, and was just across the river, and while the whites had made no permanent settlements in the Nation
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on the west side of the river, many of them had their cattle ranches, and perhaps not a few had opened farms in the unceded country before the purchase was made in 1803. When the land was distributed by lottery the popu- lation in the eastern counties was already considerable, and especially on the good lands in Hancock there were thick settlements. ' As soon as the new purchase was opened the restless people of the counties near by pressed into it. Other immigrants joined them, many of them from Vir- ginia and a larger number from the eastern counties of the State.
The county was one of the fairest in middle Georgia. In the descriptions of the eastern counties we have de- scribed this charming country. Grand forests covered the hills, limpid streams made their way through great brakes of cane. The Oconee bordered the county on one side, and Little river made its way entirely through it. Bold brooks and large creeks were in all parts of it. Much of the land was the rich mulatto land, esteemed by the old planters as the best in the world ; much of it was in rich valleys on the sides of creeks and rivers, and much of it a less fertile but more easily cultivated gray land. There was but little really sterile land in the county, and none of it was waste. It was not to be wondered at that so fair a land was at once peopled, and it was only a few months after the whites were permitted to settle before the country was teeming with inhabitants and the smoke rose from hundreds of camp-fires before the one-roomed cabin was built. The ferries were kept going night and day and im- migrants came rushing in.
The first settlers were:
Wm. Wilkins, Benj. Williamson, John Lamar, John Buckner, Elias S. Shorter, Stephen Marshall, John McBride, Captain Vesey, James Hightower, John Trippe, Isaac More- land, John White, Benj. Whitefield, Jos. Cooper, Josiah
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Flournoy, M. Ponder, Ward Hill, Rev. R. Pace, Rev. John Collinsworth, R. Bledsoe, Wm. Turner, Wylie Roberts, Mark Jackson, Peter Flournoy, Thos. Park, Raleigh Holt, A. Richardson, Tarpley Holt, James Kendrick, Reuben Herndon, T. Woodbridge, Joseph Turner, Warren Jackson, Edward Traylor, Samuel M. Echols, James Echols, E. Abercrombie, Matthew Gage, Thomas Napier, Wm. Jack- son, Simon Holt.
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