USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 22
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
Clinton was made the county site when the county was first laid out; but it was then known as Albany, and the first deeds from the commissioners were for lots in the town of Albany.
H. M. Comer, Thos. White, Jno. Cook and Wm. Holton were the judges of the inferior court.
The crowd who came rushing into the county was a motley one, and to some extent a lawless one. In the court of 1808 there were seven indictments for assault, one for perjury, one for larceny. This was the first court held after the county was organized. Six years afterward there
277
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1800-1812.]
were thirteen for assaults, two for cattle-stealing, one for murder and six for misdemeanors.
There came into Jones after the beginning of the great cotton industry a large number of the well-to-do planters, and wealth very rapidly increased.
These wealthy planters were mainly from the eastern counties in Georgia, but there were not a few who came from North Carolina and Virginia. After 1820 many of the smaller landholders went west of the Ocmulgee and their farms were merged into great plantations, until for miles along the highway every acre was owned by one man. No county was settled more rapidly, none worn out sooner, and none deserted by its first settlers more completely than Jones.
Much of Jones is, however, still fertile, and many families abide where their grandfathers settled. The county has been immortalized by the musical pen of Sidney Lanier:
" I knew a man and he lived in Jones, Which Jones is a county of red hills and stones, And he lived pretty much by gettin' of loans, And his mules was nothin' but skin and bones, And his hogs were as fat as his corn-bread pones, And he had 'bout a thousand acres of land."
The first settlers, according to White, were Jonathan Par- rish, Peter Clower, Henry Low, Wm. Williams, Wilkins Jackson, Jeremiah Pearson, Major Humphries, James Co- mer, Hugh Comer, Roger McCarthy, Allen Greene, Benj. Tarver, Barley Stewart, James Anthony, George Harper, John Chappel, Jesse M. Pope, Henry Pope, John Bayne, S. Kirk, Wm. Cabiness, P. A. Lewis, James Jones, Wm. Jones, Robert Hutchins, and James Gray. To these might be added George Cabiniss, John Cabiniss, Henry Cabiniss, Robert Ousley, Isaac Moreland, and many others.
The little town of Clinton, before Macon began to be, was a place of much importance, and even after the begin- ning of Macon a place of large trade and famous as being
278
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. VI.
the place in which more cotton-gins were manufactured than anywhere in the South.
Mr. Samuel Griswold, an enterprising Connecticut man, and Mr. Daniel Pratt, from the same section, established their celebrated gin factory in Clinton. Their agents went all through Georgia and Alabama and the more remote Southern States, and great wagon loads of gins were sent out from Clinton before the railways were built. Then Mr. Pratt went to Alabama and founded the famous town of Prattville, and Mr. Griswold founded Griswoldville on the Central railroad. During the war the works at Griswold- ville were burned and never rebuilt.
In the early days of Jones, when the population was large and the white people numerous, there were prosper- ous country churches and good country schools, as well as an academy in Clinton, but with the changes in population, and especially with the growth of Macon, where there were better educational facilities, and to which many Jones county people removed, the high school was given up and the country schools were few and inferior in many parts of the county, and the country churches suffered from the same causes. The rich lands along the river were at one time populous, but the lands were soon worn out and the people crossed the river and went west, and the few who were left were unable to keep up churches and schools, and where there were scores of families there was left a wide waste of worn-out lands.
In Clinton there was almost from its first settlement an excellent class of Methodists who had at an early day a large and, for those days, a handsome church, and in other parts of the county there were flourishing Methodist and Baptist churches. The growth of the plantations led to the abandonment of these houses of worship except in a few neighborhoods, even before the war. After it was over
279
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1800-1812.]
and new railways were built villages began to spring up, and churches and schools followed, and now no county is better supplied with churches and schools than many parts of Jones.
The negroes in the county are still very numerous. They are generally tenants who rent small farms, for the rental of which they pay a few bags of cotton.
This county was famous for the scene of the Bunkley trial. Jesse Bunkley, a profligate young man of large prop- erty, disappeared from Jones and went no one knew where, and for years he was never heard of. At last the convic- tion became fixed that he was dead and his estate was di- vided among his relatives. Long after this division was made a man who bore a striking resemblance to him ap- peared and declared that he was Jesse Bunkley. Many who had known Bunkley swore to their belief that he was not speaking falsely, and many refused to admit his claim. It was finally charged that the alleged Bunkley was a man named Barber, and on the prosecution of Barber as a swin- dler the case was brought before a jury. It was proven to its satisfaction that he was Elisha Barber, an impostor, and he was sent to the State prison; but many clung to their be- lief that he was Jesse Bunkley, whose only crime was that he sought to recover property in the hands of others.
The population of Jones in 1810 was 6,000 free and 2,587 slaves; in 1830, 6,516 free and 6,829 slaves; in 1850, only 3,945 free and 6,279 slaves. The relative proportion between the two races has undergone some change since the war, but there are many more negroes than whites still in the county.
The construction of railways to Savannah, Athens and Augusta, all of which pass through Jones, has given the county the best railway facilities, and a number of stations, Griswoldville, James, Haddock, Gray, Round Oak, Brad-
280
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. VI.
ley and Roberts, have sprung up on the lines of railway and do a thrifty business.
There has been quite an exodus from the country to these villages, in which there have been established good schools and churches.
Jones has been more famous for its successful planters than for its distinguished public men, but it has been the birthplace of not a few distinguished in the various walks of life.
The celebrated Judge Robert V. Hardeman lived and died in Jones.
The celebrated Judge Henry G. Lamar, commissioner to the Creeks and a prominent jurist, was a native of Jones.
H. M. Comer, the celebrated railroad magnate, was born in this county.
WILKINSON.
The lands purchased in 1802 were divided in 1803, as has been already stated, into three counties, Baldwin, Wil- kinson and Wayne. Out of each of these many other coun- ties were carved, until each of them was reduced to a small area. Wilkinson is now a county of moderate size and of limited resources. It is named Wilkinson in honor of the general of that name who served in the southwest, and the county site, Irwinton, is named for Governor Irwin. The Central railroad passes through its upper border, and it has two or three small villages along its line. The first settlers, according to Mr. White, were: Chas. C. Beall, S. B. Mur- phey, J. Hoover, J. Meredith, Abner Hicks, A. Passmore, John Freeman, Joel Rivers, Samuel Bragg, John Lavender, Isaac Hull.
The population of Wilkinson in 1810 was 1,836 whites and only 318 slaves. In 1830, when it was much reduced in size, there were 5,591 whites and 1,922 slaves; and in 1850 there were 5,467 whites and 2,745 slaves. In 1890
281
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1800-1812.]
there were, in all, 10,781. The county is not a fertile one, and has not been thickly settled, and its religious and edu- cational advantages have not been of the best. There has, however, been a good academy at the county site for many years, and the county has shared in the advantages of the public school system. The Methodists and Baptists have provided the people with what religious instruction they received, and there are churches of these denominations in all parts of the county.
The county has been almost purely an agricultural one, and there has not been a single manufactory in its borders. Much of the land is quite poor and inhabited by poor people who furnish to the Macon cotton mills a large part of their operatives. There is little to distinguish Wilkinson from the other counties that have been classified with it, and it is at present less important as a county than it was sixty years ago.
TWIGGS.
Twiggs was formed from Wilkinson, and is directly west of it, and it has the same features as the county from which it was made. The Ocmulgee is on its western bor- der, and some very large creeks flow through it. Much of the land is a poor flat woods, but much of it near the creeks is of a very superior grade. The rich land was bought up by large planters; some of whom owned thou- sands of acres and had hundreds of negroes.
The county was largely peopled by immigrants from the eastern counties, but drew some of its wealthiest settlers from eastern Virginia. Its first settlers, according to Mr. White, were : (Arthur Fort,/Ezekiel Wimberly, Wm. Perry, Wm. Crocker, Ira Peck, Henry Wall, General Tarver, John Everett, D. Williams, Joel Denson, S. Jones, Willis Hodg- ins, Milton Wilder, Josiah Murphy, D. Lowrey, C. Johnson, C. A. Tharpe, John Davis, C. W. Milton, B. Ray, S. Har- rell, T. Harrington, H. Sullivan, Colonel Hughes; and the
282
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. VI.
first grand jury, which was drawn at the superior court in 18II, was, according to the same careful authority : Frances Powell, M. Buzby, A. Wood, Wm. Ford, I. Wilkinson, T. C. Heidelburger, B. Joiner, S. Barnabee, W. Herrishell, T. Pearce, Wm. Carr, W. Grimes, Robin Andrews, Wm. Cloud, John Matthews, John Young, Arthur Fort, Jr., John Hawthorne, Ashley Wood, S. Belk, John Evans.
The population of Twiggs in 1810 was 2,763 free and 642 slave; in 1830 it was 4,524 free and 2,507 slave; and in 1850, 3,559 free and 4,620 slave. This slave population was, as in the counties of Laurens and Pulaski, not gener- ally distributed, but confined to one section of the county; and while many people had no negroes, others had a large number; and while the white population was increasing in some parts of the county, it was growing less in other sec- tions. The rich lands of Twiggs were settled very soon after they were opened by a sturdy people of small means; but they soon gave way, and the great plantation, as usual, absorbed the farms.
The town of Marion, which was the county site for years, was a bustling, stirring place, with its lawyers and its mer- chants; but, as Macon grew, Marion lost its importance as a trading point, and the county site was changed to Jeffer- sonville, and nothing now remains to mark the place where it stood.
The planters of Twiggs were men of broad views, who conducted great planting interests and gave their families all the advantages that wealth could procure. They were generally men of intelligence and enterprise, while their fellow countymen living on the poor ridges and in the flat woods, tilling their own farms, were poor and illiterate.
There were but few schools in the county, and the plant- ers congregated at Jeffersonville, where they could keep up a good school. In all the county, in 1850, there were only seven schools, with 309 pupils. There was a great deal of
-
283
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1800-1812.]
wealth in some parts of the county, and near the great plan- tations there were rich churches well supplied with an intel- ligent ministry; but in the poorer sections the churches were very poor. The Baptists were a very wealthy and strong denomination in Twiggs, and the celebrated Charles D. Mallary resided on a large plantation in Twiggs for several years, and preached in the county to a Baptist con- gregation of remarkable intelligence and large wealth. The Methodists shared with the Baptists in the religious care of the people, and had several churches and a camp-ground in Twiggs in the days of its prosperity. They still keep up a circuit in that county.
The building of the railway to Dublin has brought a new era into the county, and while there are many abandoned plantations where once there was great fertility, in other sections of the county, where there was but little prosperity in days gone by, there is a great change for the better.
LAURENS.
Laurens was laid off from Wilkinson in 1807 and named Laurens in honor of Lieutenant-Colonel Laurens, the gal- lant South Carolinian who was killed in one of the last skirmishes of the Revolution.
The first court was held at the house of Peter Thomas, not far from Dublin.
The place selected as a county site in 1809 was called Sumterville, and was between Rocky and Turkey creeks, in the most thickly settled part of the county. There was a considerable settlement in this oak and hickory part of the county.
The first grand jury was: John Speight, Benj. Adams, Andrew Hampton, Leonard Green, Jesse Wiggins, Benj. Brown, Chas. Stringer, Nathan Weaver, Wm. Yarbrough, Wm. Boykin, Jno. Gilbert, Jos. Yarborough, James Sartin, Wm. McCall, Edward Hagan, Jno. Stringer, Simon Fowler,
284
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. VI.
Jesse Stephens, Henry Fulgham, Thomas Gilbert, Robert Daniel, Chas. Higdon, Sam'l Stanley, Sam'l Sparks, Joseph Vickers, Mark May, George Tarvin, David Watson, Joseph Denson, Geo. Martin, Gideon Mays, Ben. Dorsey.
In 1809 a part of the county was added to the new county of Pulaski, and a part of Washington and Mont- gomery was added to Laurens. No public buildings had been erected at Sumterville, and when this new addition was made to the county it was decided to put the county site at a point nearer the river, and an Irishman who had a sawmill offered land for the public buildings, provided he was permitted to give the county site a name. This was agreed to, and with the remembrance of his native isle present, he called the coming village Dublin.
The county after the addition was made to it was very large and thinly settled. There was some very fertile land in the western part of the county and along the river and in the Buckeye section, which was soon taken up by planters from the other parts of the State and by immi- grants from North Carolina and Virginia. The larger part of the population consisted of poor people, who bought their lots of land in the pine woods for a song, or simply squatted upon them. There were thus two widely divided classes at the first opening of the county.
Governor Troup, whose ancestral domain was on the river, had two large plantations in Laurens, and General Blackshear, whose home was taken into Laurens from Washington, had a princely estate. The lands were cheap the best selling at two dollars per acre, and the pine land at from ten dollars to one hundred and fifty for a lot of two hundred and two and one half acres. These piny woods settlers were many of them very illiterate and rude in thei: manners.
Peter Early, the judge, was a courtly old Virginian, and when his court held at a private house, being disturbed by a
285
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1800-1812.]
drunken man, he ordered the sheriff to put the fellow in the fence, by which he meant to put his neck between the rails of a high fence and confine it there. The sentence was carried out, much to the displeasure of the man's neigh- bors. Another man who had sworn profanely in the judge's presence was sent to jail in Sandersville for three months. Another who had stolen some cattle was sen- tenced to be forthwith tied to a tree and given thirty-nine lashes on his bare back for three days in succession, and then branded with the letter "R," and after he paid the costs to be discharged.
Of the first twenty-five persons signing deeds and other instruments in the county, only five were able to write their names.
There were but few negroes except on the large planta- tions, and up to 1820 nothing was produced in the county for market except horses, cattle, hogs and whisky. The remoteness of the county from market and the ease with which stock was raised made it a great stock-raising county.
After 1820 the cotton production on the oak and hickory lands was very great, and negroes were brought into this section in large numbers. The Savannah market was reached after 1840 by the Central railway, which the Lau- rens planters tapped at Tennille, and cotton was largely grown by the wealthy planters; but for many years the pine woods farmer continued to raise sheep, goats and cattle almost entirely.
No county has undergone greater changes or has im- proved more rapidly than Laurens since the war. A rail- road has been constructed from Dublin to Tennille, one from Macon to Dublin, and one from Hawkinsville to Dublin, and the village has become a handsome city. The court-house is an elegant building, the churches are neat and commodious; there are banks, storehouses, warehouses
286
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. VI.
and handsome residences. There are excellent schools in the city and its vicinity, and the moral tone of the county is of the best type.
For many years there was but little attention given to re- ligion or education in the county. The rich planters sent their children abroad for an education, and the children of the poor had no school privileges. Churches were scat- tered and congregations were small, but a great change has passed over the county.
Laurens has had her share of distinguished citizens. Governor Troup had his home here. He had two large plantations in this county, on one of which he lived. He called it "Valdosta," another he called "Vallambrosa." He lived a right lonely life, seeing few people and spending his time in his unpretentious home with his books, or in fishing and hunting.
General David Blackshear, who came from North Caro- lina and settled on a grant of land he received for his ser- vices as a young soldier in the Revolution, was one of the first settlers in this county. He was, according to his biog- rapher, the accurate Colonel Miller, a descendant of those Germans who came with Baron de Graffenreid to North Carolina. While a boy he served in the Revolutionary army, and when it was over he came to Georgia and re- ceived a soldier's warrant for a lot of land in Washington county. In 1802, when the country west of the Oconee was purchased, he went as a surveyor into the woods, and not only surveyed the land but succeeded in securing a large body of it. He was a man of unusual sagacity and of great energy, and soon became a very wealthy and prominent man. He was made a brigadier-general in the war of 1812 and put in command of a department. He occupied high positions in the State and was a man of great worth.
The Guyton family was a prominent one in Laurens.
287
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
800-1812.]
They were of Huguenot ancestry, who came first to South Carolina and settled on the Santee in 1662. Some of them come to Georgia when Laurens was a young county and purchased large holdings in the Buckeye neighborhood. Colonel Charles Guyton, one of this family, reached dis- inction during the war between the States, and was for a humber of sessions in the Legislature.
Many of the first immigrants to Laurens came from North Carolina and settled in a colony, and when Early county was settled, drawn by the rich promise of the new and, they formed another colony which settled in that sec- tion, and when Early was divided and Thomas was made he Laurens colony was quite a large factor in its popula- tion.
In 1810 the population of Laurens was 1,725 free and 185 slaves; in 1830, 3,214 free and 2,375 slaves; in 1850, 3,468 free and 2,974 slaves.
PULASKI.
Pulaski, as it was first laid out, was on the east side of he Ocmulgee river, and was formed from Laurens. After 1820, when the new lands west of the river were opened to settlement, a considerable body south of what is now Houston was placed in Pulaski. It was named Pulaski in honor of the gallant Pole who fell at the siege of Savannah. The first county site was Hartford, but it proved to be very unhealthy, and a new town named in honor of Colonel Ben- amin Hawkins, the Indian agent, was established on a high bluff on the west side of the river, and in 1836 the court- house was removed to that flourishing young town.
The upper part of Pulaski was broken red land, covered originally with a fine growth of oak and hickory. It was very fertile and was soon settled, as had been Wilkinson, Laurens and Twiggs, with large slave-owners from the
+
288
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. VI.
older counties. The pine lands were settled by poor peo- ple who had their ranches and farms in the wire-grass.
When the new purchase on the west side of the Ocmul- gee was made a part of it was added to Pulaski. It pre- sented the same features as the older territory. The upper part of the county soon became a great body of planta- tions. The cotton was boated to Savannah, and the boats brought the luxuries of the city to the homes of the plant- ers. The planters sent their children away to college in Macon, Oxford, Penfield and Athens, and often fixed their own homes in some of the up-country towns and left their interests in the charge of an overseer.
The piny woods farmer lived in his log cabin on what his fields and flocks furnished him, and went to Hawkins- ville at rare intervals for his few needful supplies. His home was remote from the home of his neighbor, and in such a state of society good schools and good churches were impossible.
With the building of the Macon and Brunswick, now the Southern railroad, a change for the better took place, and this beneficial change became much greater after the war ended. There are now fine schools and good churches and good communities in Pulaski, where a score of years ago there was only a wild unbroken pine forest.
The first settlers of Pulaski were Joseph Reeves, S. Col- son, Edmond Hagan, George Walker, Wm. Hathorn, J. M Taylor, Edmond Blackshear, Mack Mason, Thos. Mitchell Joseph Bryan, John Rawls, the Jordans, Lamars, Phillipses and others.
The population in 1810 was 1,585 whites and 528 slaves These slaves were confined to the richer sections and ir the pine woods there were very few. In 1830 the white population was 3, 141 and the slaves were 1,765; in 1850 the free population was 3,823 and the slaves were 2,804 The slave population increased much more rapidly in pro
289
AND THE GEORGIA PEOPLE.
1800-1812.]
portion than the free, and yet the inhabitants of the pine woods were increasing steadily. While they increased, the whites from the oak and hickory lands were growing fewer.
For nearly twenty years after Pulaski was settled there was a large trade, first at Hartford, and then at Hawkins- ville. These two towns had steamboat connection with Darien, and to these points cotton was brought for ship- ment from the near-by counties. Hawkinsville gradually absorbed Hartford. It had a bank and large warehouses and a Methodist church before it became the county site. It was the point to which the piny woods people of the lower counties brought their hides and other products for sale; and the Hawkinsville merchant did a large business with the planters of Twiggs, Houston and Dooly. With the growth of Macon and the building of the railroads Hawkinsville declined in importance until it became an insignificant hamlet; but after the building of the Macon and Brunswick (afterward the Southern) railway it revived, and is now a much more flourishing town than it ever was. It has now (1898) elegant churches, a very handsome public school building, an excellent court-house, a supply of the purest artesian water, railroad and river communication, and has a very fine trade with the country near by.
WAYNE.
Wayne county, when reduced to its present dimensions, was long regarded as one of the poorest counties in the State. It had neither court-house nor jail in 1850, nor was it able to support a single school .* There were in it at that time, according to White, a few poor people who lived at long distances from each other and raised a few cattle and some sheep, and lived with the aid of their guns and fishing-tackle.
* White.
19
290
THE STORY OF GEORGIA
[CHAP. VI.
In 1810 there were in the then large county 422 free and 554 slaves; in 1830, 687 free and 276 slaves; and in. 1850, 1,093 free and 406 slaves. Since then the county has been reduced in size, but the population in 1890 was 7,485. The railways had then passed through the county,. and mills, turpentine farms and flourishing towns had fol- lowed; and, while for many years there was no part of the. State so destitute of religious or educational advantages, under the new order of things the country became well fur- nished with schools and churches. The new methods of farm culture have developed what was apparently hopeless. sterility into moderate productiveness.
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.