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Baldwin County, Georgia History
from: The Story of Georgia and the Georgia People 1732 to 1860
by George Gillman Smith, D.D.
Originally published c. 1901
Submitted by K. Torp, ©2007
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 on
Putnam and Jones, was the highly-valued oak and hickory land, as was that part of the county of Hancock beyond
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 appropriated 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 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 farming 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 sanitarium, and H 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. Henry Stephens, a sturdy Englishman,
planted a large mill ten miles from Milledgeville, and after he had exhausted the timber resources he began another
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 reduced 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 mansion was built during the incumbency of Governor Clarke, and is a very handsome building
on a high hill, now occupied 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 number of its population fluctuating.
With the impoverishment of the land near the city, the planters moved to the newer counties, and few of their descendants
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 records 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 1811, 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 calcareous 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 University 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 reestablished.
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 establishment. Dr. Cooper was its first superintendent, but the 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 superintendent.
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 academies 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 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 Milledgeville 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 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 federal Union newspaper, was a man of fine mind and strong convictions,
and exerted a great influence in Georgia politics.
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.
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