USA > Georgia > The story of Georgia and the Georgia people, 1732 to 1860 > Part 25
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plan and contrivance, more than his share of good mother- wit and good humor, and was always welcome when he came about.
" Lawyers and doctors and editors, and such gentlemen of leisure who used to, in the good old time, sit around and chat and have a good time, always said, 'Come in, Bill, and take a seat;' and Bill seemed grateful for the compli- ment, and with a conscious humility squatted on about half the chair and waited for questions. The bearing of the man was one of reverence for his superiors and thankful- ness for their notice."
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There were, however, in these new counties not a few who were people of real culture and refinement, and who were led to fix their homes in them by the inducements which new settlements always hold out. They came to these new villages to teach school, practice law or mer- chandize, and oftentimes settled plantations on the rivers and creeks. The section was very rapidly filled up with a hardy, industrious, pushing people, and the county sites soon became thrifty villages.
The lands were very hilly, light and easily washed away, and there was after the period of which we write the usual result of the culture of those times-desolate fields given up to broom-sedge and to scrubby pines; but this did not come until twenty years later.
Those who came at first were generally people of very moderate means, but they were independent from the be- ginning. Religiously they were Baptists, Methodists or Presbyterians in their affiliations. Their creeds were short ones and they believed in them fully. The Bible, as they understood it, was the final arbiter on all questions.
The picture I have given of the Georgia yeoman and the picture drawn by Colonel Smith of the Georgia cracker
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are, I am sure, correct portraitures of the two main classes of settlers in upper Georgia in 1818.
The picture we have had of the pine woods elsewhere belongs to this large section which now comes under sur- vey, and which was at this time opened for settlement, except a part of the county of Early. Great pine forests stretched from the Altamaha to the Chattahoochee, only broken into by a few hammocks and some river and creek swamps. Much of this pine land was too wet for culture, much of it a barren sand bed; but much of it only needed to be manured to make it productive. At that time all was. regarded as hopelessly sterile and as only fitted for grazing land for some small black cattle, such as had been imported from the Highlands. The people who came into these pine. woods in their earlier settlement were mainly from the eastern counties of North Carolina and Georgia and lower South Carolina. The Scotchmen settled in Telfair and Montgomery, but descendants of Americans in Irwin and the counties springing from it. At first the newcomers. were merely ranchmen. They lived at great distances from each other, and lived very plainly. In many respects they were like the better class of monntaineers; but they had fewer hardships to endure, owing to the greater mildness. of the climate. Many of these people were of Scotch or Scotch-Irish ancestry, and many were descended from the Highlanders who came to Georgia near a hundred years before. The settler in the pine woods in 1820 lived almost entirely within himself. He had little to sell, and had far- to go to market; and he knew nothing of foreign luxuries. He made some long-staple cotton; his wife and children picked out the seed with their fingers, and his wife spun it and wove it into cloth. His sheep furnished him with wool, and he made his own leather and his own shoes and his coonskin cap. He had no mill nearer to him, often, than forty miles, and no store nearer than Centerville in
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amden or Hartford in Pulaski; but he had a country here the climate was mild and where he could raise corn nd potatoes and sugar-cane, and where deer and turkeys jere so abundant that no skill was necessary to kill or cap- ure them. He had an abundance of hogs and cattle, and, while it was somewhat difficult to get salt to cure his meat, e had learned the art of jerking beef, and was not too par- cular about a gamy flavor to his meat. He was a great unter. The panther, which he called the "tiger," was till in the swamp, and the bear gave him trouble by seizing is pigs and ravaging his corn patches. The isolation and liscomforts of this life, and the apparent sterility of the ountry, did not invite immigrants, and for years after this ime the country was very sparsely settled.
In this new country, though they had few schools and hurches, yet the traditions of a religious people still influ- nced them, and, while they were not intelligently relig- ous, they were not grossly immoral. Unlike their up- country kinsmen, the piny woods "cracker" was not near still, and was a long way from a drinking-shop; and, while he had no more objection to a drop of whisky than he mountaineer, he was less likely to drink to excess. One of the largest of these new counties was called
EMANUEL.
It was made in 1812, and named in honor of that staunch Maryland Whig, David Emanuel. It comprised a large body of almost exclusively pine woods. There were a num- ber of streams running through it: the Ohoopee, the Canoo- chee and Ogeechee rivers and a number of large creeks. Though there were large swamps, the lands bordering the rivers were not arable, and there was no attention paid to agriculture. The one industry of the country when it was first settled was stock-raising. On account of its large size it was called the State of Emanuel. The first settlers were
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generally poor, but were able to make a good living, and were independent. They were of that class of piny woods people which occupied nearly all this section of the State, and whom we have so often described.
The first settlers were, according to White: James Moon, Wm. Stephens, Henry Darden, George Roundtree, Richard Edinfield, M. Thigpen, A. Gardner, N. Rowland, E. Swain, James Tapley, John Small, James Hicks, Wm. Phillips, I. Sutton, E. Lane, B. Johnson, John Wiggins, P. Newton, Wm. Rowland, Wm. Norris, I. Norris, Wm. Douglas, S. Powell, John Rhiner, M. Curl, S. Kennedy, E. Coleman, D. E. Rich, E. Wilkes, S. Williamson, B. Keys, J. C. Sum- ner.
There was much about Emanuel and all these pine-barren counties to attract men of small property who loved a free and independent life. The first settlers were mainly cattle- rangers. In the latter days they were timber-rangers, send- ing their fine timber to the Savannah market. They spent the summer in hewing logs for their rafts, and in the winter floated them to the Ogeechee canal and to Savannah. They had few wants, and the money they received for their timber was, much of it, laid aside for future use. Next to timber the main resource was cattle- and sheep-raising. There were a little corn and sugar-cane and some oats raised; but the agricultural value of the lands was overlooked until the war ended and the commercial fertilizers were found suited to the land and cotton was cultivated to profit. The rail- roads penetrated the county in search of timber for the mills, and the turpentine farmer leased the land and bled the trees and set up his still. Emanuel then began to improve in every way, and has gone steadily forward until there are several flourishing towns in the county.
For many years the only denominations of Christians were the Methodists and Primitive Baptists.
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Swainsboro and Stillmore and Adrian are thriving towns with good churches and good schools.
IRWIN.
The story of Emanuel is the story of Irwin, which was laid off in 1818, and named in honor of Governor Jared Irwin. It was an immense county.
The first settlers were:
John Dormany, R. H. Dickson, M. McDuffee, L. Mob- ley, John Henderson, Thos. Bradford, Lott. Whiddon, Redding Hunter, John Joyce, Wm. Bradford, S. Griffin, James Wallace, James Allen, John Ford, Saul Story, Thos. Gibbes, John Gibbes, Wm. Frissell, J. C. Sumner.
These first settlers were scattered over an immense area and the homes were far apart. As late as 1866 the writer, passing through this county, rode seventeen miles on the public road without seeing a single house.
There were in 1820 only four hundred and eleven people in all this county, which then included Wilcox, Lowndes, Brooks, Thomas, Colquitt and Worth counties. The social condition of the people was for many years such as we have presented as that of the pine woods frontiersman.
The railroads, however, passed through the county. Tur- pentine farms were opened, lumber mills erected and vil- lages sprang up, and in 1895 a large colony of Northern people, drawn by the climate and the possibilities of the county, founded a city called Fitzgerald in the heart of the pine-barrens. Farms were opened, railroads were built, manufactures started, and the young city is being peopled with a good class of settlers from the northwest and other parts of the country.
The county was so thinly settled that for many years schools and churches were very few and the people were quite illiterate. They were, however, people of great sim- 21
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plicity of character and were sterling in their integrity. Few sections have developed more rapidly than Irwin and. few give promise of greater development.
APPLING.
The county of Appling which, when laid out, included in its boundary several very large counties, was laid out in 1818, and was named in honor of Colonel Daniel Appling, a worthy citizen of Columbia county.
The first settlers, as given by White, were : Nathan Dean, John Taylor, Henry Taylor, Silas O. Quinn, Moses Vick, John Johnston, John Hawkins, J. Smith, D. Redish, D. Summerall, R. Strickland, Samuel Sellars, John Purvis, A. Eason, G. Moody, John Roberson, Jesse Carter, Samuel Carter, Thos. Wood, R. Swilley, S. Swilley, B. Grogan, the Mobleys, Halls, Overstreets, and Wilcoxes.
It was almost an unbroken plain of pine forests. The Altamaha was on its northern and eastern border. There was some good land on this river and some large planta- tions were opened there by large slave-owners at an early day, but much of it was a wide, wild swamp, too low for cultivation, while away from it there was an unbroken pine forest.
There were some large cattle ranches and many sheep, but there was little attention paid to agriculture for many years. The people were sheep-raisers and cattle-men and timber-rangers.
The same story told of Irwin and Emanuel after the war is true of Appling. Railroads came, the lumber mill and turpentine still followed. Handsome towns sprang up and. the population has largely increased. The first settlers in Appling were frontiersmen, and but little attention was paid to schools or churches.
With the first opening of the country the Methodists. sent Missionaries into these wilds and the Baptists came.
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with the first settlers. The churches, however, were few and far apart, and the school advantages for many years exceedingly meager.
The population of this county in 1820 was 1,264; in 1830 there were 1,289 whites and 179 slaves; in 1850 there was a free population of 2,645 and 405 slaves. These slaves were confined to a few plantations on the banks of the Alta- maha. At the time this census was taken Appling covered the ground now occupied by a half-dozen counties.
There was much of the county peopled by North Caro- linians, who were timber-rangers, but after the war a dif- ferent class of North Carolinians came in, who were tur- pentine distillers, and now there are in the county several thrifty towns along the railway.
EARLY.
The other of these counties into which all of southern Georgia was divided in 1818 was called Early in honor of Governor Early. It included a large part of southwestern Georgia, and, though a number of other counties have been carved from it, it is still a large county.
Blakely was made the county site in 1826.
The first settlers were, according to White: Isham Shef- field, Arthur Sheffield, West Sheffield, James Bush, John Hays, Jos. Grinsley, Richard Spain, Fink Porter, Jos. Boles, Jno. Rae, Abner Jones, Nathaniel Weaver, James Jones, S. V. Wilson, Jno. Dill, Alex Watson, James Carr, Jno. Tilley, Wm. Hendricks, John Floyd, D. Roberts, Andrew Bird, B. Collier, J. Fowler, Martin Wood, Geo. Mercier, W. Dixon, A. Hayes, James Brantley, and E. H. Hayes.
These first settlers in Early were scattered over a wide area, which is now in several counties. The county of Early proper was slowly settled.
There was along the banks of the Chattahoochee and its tributary creeks a great deal of rich cotton land of the rot-
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ten limestone formation, with forests of oak and hickory, but it was sickly and hard to open.
The larger part of the county was pine woods, and it was settled by plain, poor people who raised cattle, but to these fine oak and hickory lands some eastern planters, as soon as the Indians were finally removed; came with many slaves. They were people of culture and wealth, and settled large plantations and lived in great elegance. Their homes were not far from the Chattahoochee river, and they had all the luxuries of the cities brought from Columbus and Apa- lachicola by the steamers which came weekly.
The larger part of the population, however, was the same class of pine woods people we have seen elsewhere. Immi- grants came from the eastern counties in Georgia and from South Carolina and North Carolina. The pine lands of Early were more productive than the lands further east and there was more extensive planting.
In the first days of the county the people had access to the outer world by the boats which went up and down the Chattahoochee.
In 1850 there were as many negroes as whites in the county, but the negroes were almost entirely confined to one section of it, to the plantations on the river or on the creeks flowing into it. Some up-country people had their plantations in this county and spent their winters on them, but their homes were far away, but some of the wealthiest of the people lived in the county all the year round.
The educational advantages of the people were not good. The wealthy had their private teachers and their children were taught at home until they were old enough to go from home to school. They were educated in the best schools of the South, and when they returned to their isolated homes they brought with them as visitors their friends and kinspeople and had a society of their own. In the summer-
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time and in the malarial season they sought the up-country or their piny woods retreat.
The lands on the river and the creeks were very fertile, and a bale of cotton per acre was often produced.
The churches were not many and were far apart, and for many years the ministers were poorly supported and were of inferior grade. After the war railroads were made, and the changes brought about were very marked in church and school matters.
The wealthy planter whose great plantation was on the river had put all his earnings into young negroes whom he had brought up, and he had no money laid away. When his negroes were freed the bulk of his estate was gone. The plantation negroes were not willing to remain longer in the swamps, and left the plantation for the towns and for their old homes in the up-country and Carolina. The old planter found himself unable to cope with his difficulties, and abandoned his plantation and sought another home, or else, trying to recruit his shattered fortune, he mortgaged his land, bought mules and supplies on a credit, and when disaster to his crop came, as it did, he found himself a bankrupt.
In the picture of the southwest Georgia planting country, which is found in the future chapters, the condition of things in that part of Early in which the planters made their homes is given.
WALTON.
When the first effort was made to settle the Cherokee country in 1802 a new county was projected to be called Walton, and a bill was passed to lay it out. The act was never carried into effect, but in 1818 a new county bearing the same name was provided for, and it was organized.
White gives as the first settlers in this county : Charles Smith, R. M. Echols, P. Stroud, Jno. Dickerson, Warren J.
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Hill, Jesse Arnold, Walter T. Colquitt, Jonas Hale, V. Haralson, J. M. Well, A. W. Wright, C. D. Davis, W. Bris- coe, R. Briscoe, R. Milligan and J. Richardson.
The county was a very large one, and, in the main, not a fertile one. The larger part of the land was a light gray soil, moderately productive at first but soon exhausted. There were, however, some bottoms on the creeks and rivers which were very fertile. The climate was good, the coun- try healthy, the land cheap, and there soon came into this section a very large number of immigrants. Many of them had been the fortunate drawers of the lots of two hundred and fifty and one-half acres and were from other parts of Georgia, and many of them were from the upper part of South Carolina.
So rapidly was the county peopled that in twelve years after it was opened for settlement there were nearly ten thousand people living in it.
Land was sold in lots of two hundred and fifty acres and generally brought about one hundred dollars per lot, or less than fifty cents per acre. A lot sold at sheriff's sale brought five dollars and a quarter, another brought twenty-five dollars, but land on the rivers even as early as 1821 brought seven dollars per acre.
The first place at which court was held was the Cowpen, which was two miles from Monroe.
Judge John M. Dooly held the court. As was universally the case in new counties the larger number of cases was for assaults. There were, however, bills for hog-stealing, per jury, adultery and mayhem, and a group of men were charged with gambling at seven-up, three-up and faro.
There was loud complaint against illicit liquor-selling where men sold less than a quart without license.
One man was presented and finally punished for cruelly whipping his slave, and one was condemned to be hung for murder. He was, however, pardoned.
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While there were few people among the first settlers of Walton who were wealthy, and many quite poor, there was a large number of well-to-do people with from five to ten negroes and an abundance of cheap but productive land. To illustrate the general condition of the well-to-do people one estate shows: 10 negroes, 33 hogs, 17 cattle, kitchen and household furniture, and, what was rare, forty-five dol- lars' worth of books, while some of the estates indicate abundant means. Theophilus Hill had 42 negroes, 22 sheep, 350 barrels of corn, 12 beds and bedsteads, $100 worth of hogs, 2 cotton-gins, etc.
The bulk of the people had only their land and a small number of cattle, horses, hogs, and a scant supply of fur- niture. There was but little cotton and very little of any- thing was made for sale. Corn, hogs and cattle, as in all the new counties, were the products. The coming of new settlers into the county provided a market for the surplus the farmers might have.
Monroe was selected as the county site, and named Mon- roe after the then president. It soon became a prominent up-country town and the center of quite a coterie of promi- nent men.
Walter T. Colquitt, then a young lawyer, settled in this little village and made his first reputation as a brilliant law- yer in the courts of this new country.
Judge James Jackson, so famous for the purity of his life and his ability as a jurist, and Judge Junius Hillyer, a prom- inent lawyer and a member of Congress, were among its citizens.
Governor Henry D. McDaniel, famous as being one of the best governors Georgia has ever had, began his profes - sional life in Monroe, and after his term was over returned there to spend his last years.
Monroe was long a secluded country village with small trade and a small population, but since it has been reached
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by the railway has become quite a thrifty town, with a fine court-house, a good graded school and some prosperous cotton mills. Social Circle, on the Georgia railway, is a
WALTON COUNTY COURT- HOUSE.
sprightly and enterprising village; and Logansville, in the northwestern part of the county, is a village of considerable trade. Bethlehem is a small hamlet north of Monroe.
The educational advantages of the county for many years
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were quite poor, but they are better now than they ever were.
The people who came into Walton were mainly Metho- dists and Baptists, and the Walton circuit of the Methodist preacher was a very large and important one in the early days of the county's settlement. In 1827 there was a great revival in Monroe, at which Walter Colquitt, a young law- yer, was converted; and a number of years afterward, in the same village, young James Jackson, afterward judge of the superior court and member of Congress, and finally chief justice of the State, was converted and became a lay preacher.
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The Baptists were among the first Christian workers in the county, and perhaps the oldest church in the county is a Primitive Baptist Church.
GWINNETT.
Gwinnett county, named for Button Gwinnett, was laid out in 1818, and its county site was, in honor of the brave sea captain, called Lawrenceville. Like all these up-country counties, it was very rapidly settled. Its population in 1830 was 13,289, and twenty years afterward, in 1850, was only 11,257. There was a considerable part of the county cut off into other counties; but it is evident that the population did not increase after the first few years. The people in those days were very migratory, and the opening of better lands to the west led to quite an emigration from the county. The history of these foot-hill counties is much the same. The settler came, built his cabin, opened some fields, and then, hearing of better lands in Carroll, Camp- bell, Heard, or in Alabama, he sold his farm at what he thought was a fair price, and went to this new country to begin life again. There were but few of the hardships of the frontier to encounter now in the country to which he was going, and there was little difficulty in moving when
3
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all he possessed could be put in an ox-cart; and the pros- pect of bettering himself by finding a larger range and cheaper land led him to move on. There were some very fertile lands on the river in Gwinnett, especially on the Chattahoochee; but the main body of the land was thin and easily worn out. With the exit from the country of the first proprietors the land was taken up by the large land- owners, and the plantations took the place of farms. But a new era came to the country when the railways were made, and along the line of the Southern the flourishing villages of Norcross, Buford and Suwanee sprang up. Cotton was cultivated largely, and the county began to improve rap- idly. A railroad was built to Lawrenceville, and when the Seaboard Air Line railroad came through the county it passed through Lawrenceville.
The early settlers of Gwinnett were the Winns, Hutch- inses, Baughs, Howells, Stricklands, Simmonses, Anthonys, Baxters, Grahams, and many others.
The religious denominations in the county are Presbyte- rians, Baptists and Methodists, and for many years the Methodists have had within three miles of Lawrenceville a camp-ground, where the most distinguished preachers of; Methodism have preached.
The style of life among the rural people of Gwinnett has always been a very simple one. There was but little wealth, so there was but little show. The schools were very ordi- nary affairs, and education out of the village was not at a premium. Industry and close economy were the sterling virtues of the people.
Dr. Jesse Boring, the celebrated Methodist divine, and his brother Isaac began their lives in this county when it was Jackson, and their father, a man of sterling worth, was for a long time representative from it. Samuel Anthony, another distinguished and famous Methodist preacher spent his boyhood in this county. James P. Simmons, a
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lawyer and an author, lived in this county; and the Howell family, who have been so prominent as connected with the Atlanta Constitution, came from Gwinnett. The Winn family and the Hutchins family, distinguished as lawyers and judges, lived in Lawrenceville; but no man has cast a greater luster on Gwinnett, the place of his birth, than the Philosopher of the Etowah, Colonel Charles H. Smith, who, under the name of " Bill Arp," has won a high place among literary men as a wise and witty writer, and who has secured the strongest grasp on the hearts of the common people as their adviser and friend. Men everywhere have read with eagerness his letters to the press, in which there is such a wealth of sterling common sense and such a perfect purity of teaching.
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