USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 21
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None of these new counties, of which Putnam was one, could be said to have had any first settlers. They came in droves, and those mentioned are a few of many. These first people were mainly Georgians, the land being given away to Georgians by lottery. The lots were two hundred and two and one half acres in size, and when Putnam was first settled it was dotted all over with small farms.
Provisions were the only products. Tobacco was not raised and cotton was not as yet planted. Corn, hogs and cattle there were in great abundance. The people were not many of them people of means, and the luxuries en- joyed by the planters of Columbia and Burke were not during this decade found in this new county.
The first people came not only from the older counties of Georgia, but from North Carolina, Virginia and Mary- land. There was little to distinguish them from those we have pictured as living in Hancock and Greene. They were much the same, and, as in Greene, the still-house was not far from the church, and in the inventory of estates the psalm-book and the Bible are put close beside the thirty-gallon still.
After the war of 1812, and the wonderful impetus given to cotton production, the people of Putnam increased their wealth very rapidly. Lands were fresh and rich, cotton was high, negroes were comparatively cheap and increased rapidly, and those who settled with a few slaves in the county in 1803 found themselves the owners of a hundred
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by 1830. There was little elegance but much solid com- fort in the county until about 1845, when a number of handsome homes were erected on the plantations or in Eatonton. These mansions, with generally eight large rooms twenty feet square, with broad galleries and wide halls, were handsomely furnished, and the hospitality dis- pensed was generous. There were fine carriage horses, coachmen, footmen, maid servants and men servants, and there was nowhere a more elegant and luxurious life than was found in many of the families of Putnam.
The population of the county in 1810 was 6,809 whites and 3,220 slaves; in 1830 there were 5,554 whites and 7,707 slaves; in 1850 the free population had been reduced to 3,326 whites, and there were 7,468 slaves.
These figures tell the story of the great changes which passed over this magnificent country. The necessity of providing for so many dependents left the slaveholder but little time to improve his plantation, and when he wore out his lands he opened new forests, until he had laid the whole wood low. He found himself at the end of the war be- tween the States with a yard full of negroes, a sadly im- poverished plantation and a heavy debt.
The railroad reached Eatonton as a branch of the Central soon after the Milledgeville branch was completed. It was finally extended to Covington, so that the city of Eatonton has now good railroad facilities.
Putnam early had academies, and the academy at Eaton- ton was a famous school taught by Alonzo Church, after- ward president of the State University. There were some county academies in addition to the central academy, and quite a number of private schools. A famous academy was known as Union academy, near where Philadelphia church now is. Here William H. Seward, a young New Yorker, taught a country school. He afterward returned to New York, became its governer, and was in after time
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secretary of state. Near this same church Jos. A. Turner, an eccentric, gifted man, published the Countryman, and in his country office Joel Chandler Harris learned his trade as a printer and began his career as a writer for the press.
The Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians came with the first settlers into the county, and there were organiza- tions of these churches before the county was separated from Baldwin.
The first Baptist church was Harmony, which was organ- ized in 1806. The first Methodist church building was Vic- tory, built before 1812. The first Presbyterian church was built near the same time.
Up to 1819 there was no church in Eatonton. The pop- ulation of the village was small and the church people held their connection with country churches. Then, largely through the influence of Rev. Coleman Pendleton, the ordi- nary, a union church was built. William Arnold and John Collinsworth, two famous Methodist preachers, lived near Eatonton.
Dr. Henry Branham, a man of large intelligence and wisdom, was a prominent man in Putnam. He was the father of the beloved and gifted Walter R. Branham, who was born in this county, and who was for many years a prominent Methodist preacher in Georgia.
Judge James Meriwether was a scion of that distinguished family which has been so noted for public services in Virginia and Georgia. He was a judge of the superior court, a member of Congress and speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives.
Irby H. Hudson, for years speaker of the House, also lived here.
The Rev. John W. Knight, one of the most gifted and worthy Methodist preachers, whose praise is in all the churches, lived in this county for years, and died while re- siding in it.
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Judge David Rosser Adams, one of the worthiest of men, long lived here.
Josiah Flournoy was in Putnam at its first settlement. He was a pushing planter, an enthusiastic Christian and the first prohibitionist in Georgia. He canvassed the State to secure signers to a petition to abolish the whisky traffic, and made a brave though unsuccessful fight against it. He made a large fortune, gave liberally to all benevolences, and built and endowed a school near Talbotton, which he called in honor of an old friend Collinsworth Institute.
Alexander Reid, famous as an enterprising and public- spirited planter, and as the progenitor of a large and influ- ential family, resided in this county.
These are a few of those worthy people who have made this county famous.
MORGAN.
Immediately northwest of Putnam was Morgan, which was made a county at the same time, 1807, and called Mor- gan in honor of the brave old general, and its county site was called Madison in honor of James Madison.
In its physical features it is almost the exact counterpart of Putnam. The lower part of the county from Madison southward, and for some miles north of it, was that fine red land so much valued by the Georgia cotton-planter. The Little river, Sugar creek, Hard Labor creek, Indian creek, and the Oconee and Apalachee rivers were all in the county, and on each of them were rich bottoms. The land was heavily timbered with a magnificent forest. It was given away by lottery, and many persons who drew lots of land fixed their homes on them. It adjoined Greene, Clarke and Oglethorpe, and was most rapidly settled. The first settlers came from the older counties, and in the main were people of moderate means.
There were 5,951 free people and 2,418 slaves in the
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county in 1810, three years after its settlement; in 1830 there were 5,225 free people and 6,820 slaves, and in 1850 there were only 3,000 free and 6,000 slaves.
These figures show the changes which took place in the county in forty years. The first settlers occupied the rich lands on the rivers and creeks and raised stock. There was very little cotton raised until after the war of 1812. There was one cotton-machine, as the gin was then called, in Madison in 1807, which was owned by Mr. Thomas Jones, who bought the cotton in the seed and shipped it, when ginned, by wagons to Augusta.
The wills made show the people had little property save live stock, but they had a great deal of that. Many of them had a few negroes, though but few of them had more than a half-dozen. Some of the wills are curiosities in the art of wrong spelling. They were evidently written by one acquainted with legal terms, and are prepared in proper form. One of them, made in 1807, reads thus :
"The maker of the will wishes his jeste debtes to be paid, lendes his wife a resenble portien of hogs for family plentee, and towls (tools) suficent to make a crop. Gives his secent child $10, and the value of a negrow gail to be delivered when cold (sold)."
The drinking habits of the people seem to have been very bad, as is evident from the fact that every merchant in the county was presented in one of the courts by the grand jury for selling whisky without a license, and by the number of stills which appear in the appraisements.
The cotton industry received a great impetus after the war of 1812, and men with a large number of negroes be- gan to move in and buy out the small landholders. It is the same story of devastation ; lands were worn out and turned out; people moved away into the new country and their places were taken by negro slaves, until in 1850 there were 3,000 whites and 6,000 slaves, and these whites were
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largely found in the villages and in the thin gray lands of the northern part of the county. The planters lived in elegant homes in Madison, and an overseer took charge of their plantations.
The upper part of the county was more thickly settled with white people, and there were fewer large plantations. The rich planters absorbed the whole of the lower part of the county, and then moved many of their negroes to south- western Georgia and Texas. A few planters owned nearly all the land and overseers took the place of the independent landowner.
Madison was laid out in 1810 and soon became a town of importance. The first court was held at the house off Fields Kennedy, near Madison, and the first grand jury was composed of:
Nipper Adams, James Brannon, David Montgomery, El Townsend, James Mathews, Wm. Noble, Pascal Harrison Godfrey Zimmerman, Wm. Randle, Wm. Brown, Graves Harris, John Wyatt, S. Noble, G. Bond, A. J. Chadox, Jno Fielder, Daniel Bankston, William Swift, S. Walker, O Walker, John Walker, Nathaniel Allen, Thos. Walls, Chas Smith, John Finley, John Cook, Andrew Nutt, Jos. Peeples Wyley Heflin, Thos. Heard.
The first sheriff was Joseph White.
The first store in the county was that of Thomas Jones where Madison is now located.
The first settlers, according to White, were Bedney Frank lin, Wm. Brown, Chas. Mathews, Dr. Johnson, Lancelo Johnson, Adam Saffold, R. Mann, and Dr. Wingfield.
To this list might be added a great many more, for i could be said of Morgan, as of Putnam, it never had an infancy. In a few short months after it was settled ther . were thousands of people building their cabins on its hills It never had many of the features of pioneer life. Green
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was just across the river, and Clarke, which had been peo- pled nearly twenty years, just north of it.
People of moderate means came into it at first, and the returns from their labors were almost immediate. The hogs and cattle multiplied with great rapidity, and up to 1812 there was almost an excess of the means of support. Good board was only four dollars per month, corn was thirty cents and wheat was seventy-five cents per bushel. Madison was one hundred miles from Augusta, which was the market for all upper Georgia, and became a place of considerable commercial importance early in its history, and when the Georgia railroad reached it, which it did in the early forties, it was for some time the leading cotton market for upper Georgia.
The early citizens of Madison were most of them people of wealth, who had large plantations or remunerative pro- fessions or profitable mercantile establishments, and fine iving and high living was a mark of the people, but they were not famed for their piety. In 1827 there was no church in the village. There was occasional preaching in the court-house, but the village was destitute of a church building. The Legislature allowed the inferior court to make a gift to the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches of an acre of ground each, and in 1827 the Meth- odist church was built. The Baptist church was built soon after on the lot now occupied by the Baptist church for the colored people, and the Presbyterian somewhat later. The bulk of the population was in the rural districts, and before Morgan was a county there was preaching in the county by the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians. In 1806 a Baptist church, known as Holland Spring, was built on Hard Labor creek, and another by 1807 on Sugar creek. The Methodists had preaching in private homes, and a strong circuit was formed in which Morgan was included. The first deed of property to them I find was in 1811. Har-
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mony, near what is now Rutledge, Buckhead and Rehoboth are all old churches. There was a camp-meeting in Morgan for a number of years, and in 1827 a grand revival, which resulted in the building of the church at Madison.
Madison early became noted for its elegance and refine- ment as well as for its wealth, and took great interest in education. The Methodists and Baptists built each a female college, which were prosperous up to the war. The war brought great changes to Morgan. For years the profit of cotton-planting had been diminishing, and in slave times the expense of any kind of large farming in Morgan was greater than its profits, and this fact and the lavish living of planters involved many of them in debt, and when the war ended and their negroes were freed many of them were hopelessly insolvent.
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The railroad carried away much of the trade which for- merly belonged to the town, and for some time the town and county were in a sadly depressed condition, but a change for the better has passed over it. The building of the Macon and Northern road brought Madison in closer contact with Savannah and opened a new country to it .. The building of various factories, and especially the over- throw of the whisky traffic, has given it a new life. One of the handsomest graded school buildings in a town of its size is in Madison. There are four churches for white people and two good brick churches for colored people, and good schools for all classes. The upper part of the county has greatly improved. The lower part is still largely tenanted by negroes.
There are several sprightly villages in the county-Rut- ledge, Buckhead, Rehoboth, Godfrey and Apalachee.
Morgan has been the home of many noble and worthy men.
Adam Saffold was among her earliest lawyers, as his brother Reuben was one of her earliest physicians. Com.
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ing from Washington county in his youth, he lived and died in Morgan. He was a man of pure character, large wealth and great intelligence.
Joshua Hill, who was long a representative in Congress and a senator, who refused to accept the doctrine of a State's right to secede, and remained a Union man to the last, had his home here.
John B. Walker, a great planter, one of the most public- spirited and generous of men, who lived to see his immense estate pass from his hands, and to bear himself with as much cheerfulness and dignity in his poverty as had marked him when he owned five hundred slaves, spent his life here.
Among its other public men were: Thomas J. Burney, the worthy custodian of the funds of Mercer University, whose judgment was as good as his honor was spotless; David E. Butler, the genial and gifted Baptist preacher and lawyer, who was as zealous in his ministry and his devotion to the interests of his church as though State affairs had never engaged him; Samuel A. Burney, whose saintly life was a benediction to the community; John A. Porter, the arge-hearted, upright, hospitable friend of all men, whose devotion to the Methodist Church was lifelong, and whose services for its benefit untiring; Wilds Kolb, whose benevo- lence toward the church is still seen in the returns from his bequests for its benefit. These are some of those who have done much for the county of their residence.
JASPER.
Jasper county was originally called Randolph in honor of John Randolph, who was a great favorite in Georgia because of his denunciation of the Yazoo fraud, as he delighted in calling it; but when Mr. Randolph opposed the war of 1812, and severely denounced Mr. Jefferson, who was immensely popular in Georgia, the Legislature changed the name of the county and called it Jasper, after Sergeant
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Jasper. It would be but repeating the description given of Putnam and Morgan if Jasper should be described as it was at its settlement. The same kind of country, the same class of settlers and much the same history marked all these counties which I have joined together as Middle Georgia.
Jasper, like its sister counties, had been rapidly peopled, and mainly by Georgians who moved from the older coun- ties. As was the case in Morgan, they were generally poor people, without culture and with few slaves. The land was very rich, and, as they were an industrious, thrifty people who lived closely and worked hard, they were at once inde- pendent, and many made fortunes. The names of the first grand jury, which met in 1808, will give an idea of some of the more important of the early settlers: Jether Mobley, Bolling Smith, Richard Carter, Stephen Lacy, Jesse Evans, Jordan Baker, Henry Haynes, John Morgan, Adam Gla- zier, Sol Stricklin, Wm. Pate, Spencer Lamb, Micajah Fret- well, Thomas Ramsey, Joshua Hagerty, John H. Whatley, Thomas Gammage, Solomon Patrick, William Lord, Thos. Hooks, Saul Townsend, George Morgan.
The population in 1810 was: Free 5,752, slave 1,821; in 1830, 6,809 free, 6,332 slave; and in 1850, 4,352 free, 7,134 slave. These figures tell the same story as those of Put- num and Morgan. The white people who came in great numbers and opened up the country; who raised hogs and corn; who had few or no slaves, first occupied the land; but when the new purchase across the Ocmulgee was made. they vacated their places and went into the new counties, and their farms were bought by the wealthy slave-owners Where there was in 1810 a dozen prosperous farmers with an abundance of all necessaries around them, there was, ir 1850, only one large planter.
The thrifty village of Hillsboro, near which the cele brated Benjamin H. Hill was born, was in the center of the richest part of Jasper, and there was at one time a thickly
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settled country around it. It had an academy and a church and quite a number of inhabitants; but the farmers moved west, and the little village sank almost out of sight. It was, however, revived by the coming of the railway.
The Jasper people, like those of the other counties of this section, were mostly eastern Georgians, though some came from Virginia and North Carolina. They were people of very simple lives, and many of them of very primitive man- ners. The celebrated "horse swap," in which "Yaller Blossom of Jasper" so distinguished himself, had its scene laid in this county, and the actual scene was doubtless before the eye of Judge Longstreet when he came from Augusta to manage a case before the superior court of Jasper county. The people, while not generally educated, put a high estimate on education, and at one time, in the early years of the century, there were five chartered acade- mies in the county. The county underwent rapid changes, and the white population rapidly diminished after cotton- planting began on an extensive scale.
The lower part of Jasper, and much of the eastern part, was remarkably fertile and offered great temptation to the wealthy slave-owners of Wilkes and Hancock to buy lands and remove; and they often bought a half-dozen farms to make one plantation, and thus diminished the white popu- lation and increased that of the slaves. This was true of the lands on the rivers and creeks; but the plateaus of thin gray land near to Morgan and Newton were taken by people of moderate means who had small farms and few slaves. As this land did not invite the large slave-owner, it fell into the hands of white people, and the bulk of the whites were in this section. After the war it was the most desirable part of the county.
The first deed for a Baptist church was made in 1810, to ten acres of land near Monticello. At a later period the
18
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church was removed to the village. The Methodists had a church in the village as early as 1815, and doubtless one at Hillsboro before that. In 1812, Thomas Grant, one of the first Methodists in Georgia, who, in conjunction with his father, had built the first Methodist church in Georgia, removed to Monticello, to engage in merchandizing. Here he spent the last years of his life. He died in 1827. He was a man of large wealth and of great benevolence, and left a generous bequest to the worn-out preachers of his church.
The remoteness of Jasper from the railway for many years and the exhaustion of its fertility by bad farming led to a large emigration from the county, and the growth of Macon and its proximity to the county were fatal to the commercial prosperity of Monticello; so that, with the exception of a large increase in the negro population and in the fictitious value of the slaves, the county did not get richer, but rather poorer, from 1830 to 1850. It is, how- ever, now in a better condition than it has been for many years past.
Monticello, which was made the county site when the county was laid out, was a thriving county town until the railroads drew off its trade to Macon, Madison and Coving- ton, and it then declined; but it took on new life when the railroad from Macon to Covington and Athens was built; and it is now quite a thriving place, with handsome churches and fine graded schools.
Hillsboro, Machen and Shady Dale are, each of them, neat villages, with good churches and schools.
The county has suffered fearfully from the whisky-mak- ing and whisky-drinking habits of its earlier people, but it is now a prohibition county.
Cotton-planting was in its infancy when Jasper was set- tled, and, as in the neighboring counties, there was but little
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made. There was no market nearer than Augusta and there was but little trade.
The wealth of the county up to 1820 was sheep, goats, hogs and neat cattle; but in no county were there more abundant supplies of these products. There were, alas! a good many still-houses and much whisky made. At that time the morality of whisky- and brandy-making was not recognized as a question, and in an appraisement in Jasper I find, as in other middle Georgia counties, a Bible, a hymn-book, a still and a puncheon of whisky in close: proximity to each other.
JONES.
Jones was named in honor of the Hon. James Jones, a Marylander who came to Georgia to his uncle, Colonel Marbury, when quite young, and was educated in Augusta and settled in Savannah. He was a young senator and died in 1801. (White.)
This county resembles very much the other counties of which we have been speaking, from the pine-belt north- ward; but in the lower part of the county there was a small strip of rather sterile pine forest. This section of the county was very thinly settled for many years. The strong red lands from Clinton northward, stretching out to the river, were soon taken by immigrants who drew the lots and who settled on the land granted to them. There were few farms of over two hundred acres, and as the land was very rich and the range very extensive, there was in a few years after the county was made a very large and prosperous population. The people came from the older counties and brought with them a few slaves and raised supplies for family use. They were over a hundred miles from Augusta and the roads were almost impassable during the winter, and for over ten years after the county was set- tled no man raised ten bales of cotton.
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The wills and estates taken as they come show as the pos- sessions of the people: Cattle, hogs, a few feather-beds, a wagon, a spinning-wheel, some pewter-plates, some kitchen utensils, some horses, a few articles of plain furniture, some sheep, some geese, and a very few books.
The richer planters, who raised cotton and had many negroes, did not come to Jones and the adjoining counties at an early day.
The first grand jury was John Bond, Daniel Hightower, James Jones, John Mitchell, Geo. Ross, Stephen Gafford, Wm. Calwell, Elkannah Sawyer, Nicolas Ferrell, William Monk, Samuel Calwell, Peter Sanders, Philip Catchings, Eph. Ellis, Elijah Turner, Seymour Catchings, Thos. Seals, Zech. Boothe, Jacob Dennis, Ebenezer Moses, John Harvey, Wm. Jackson, Jno. Bond, Jas. McInvail, James Huddleston, Giles Driver, Chas. Gachet, Wm. Perry, Jesse McPope, Jno. Cooke, Green Winne, Thomas Stephens, Wm. Carr.
Those familiar with Georgia people will see how many of these names are found in Greene, Hancock and Wilkes. There were quite a number of people of intelligence, but the larger number of the people were quite plain and igno- rant. Of the thirty-one women who signed deeds before 1818 thirty of them could not write.
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