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Lincoln County, Georgia History
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
LINCOLN.
When Oglethorpe was cut off from Elbert on the north and Wilkes on the west, a narrow strip was taken from it on
the east, and in honor of General Lincoln, of the Revolutionary army, the county was called Lincoln. It was not
a large county, but was in the main a county of most ex cellent land. The Broad river was on the north, the Savannah
river on the east, and the Little river on the south. Much of the land was rich red land, much of it fertile river
and creek bottoms. It was very thickly peopled before the Revolutionary war.
Mr. White gives as the first settlers:
John Lamar, Peter Lamar, John Dooly, Thomas Dooly, Thomas Murray, John Lockhart, B. Lockhart, Thomas Mitchell,
Sterne Simmons, J. Stovall, Stephen Handspiker. M. Henly, Robert Flemming.
Those who are familiar with the names of Scotch-Irish people will see how many of these first families of Lincoln
were of that stock, who came to Wilkes immediately from North Carolina, but more remotely from Pennsylvania and
Ireland.
There was a part of this county which was very sterile, but the lands along the rivers and creeks were soon taken
up by large plantations.
Lincoln was admirably suited to tobacco culture, and the wealthy slaveholders from Virginia came into it at an
early day, and in 1810 there were 2,443 whites and 2,212 negroes in the county. In 1830 there were 2,869 whites
and 3,276 negroes; in 1850 2,218 whites and 3,780 slaves. In 1890 the population was only 6,146.
Much of what is written of Wilkes refers to that part of Lincoln which was in Wilkes up to 1796, and many of the
celebrated Kiokee settlers had their homes in Lincoln.
The county was abandoned by many of its best people as soon as the lands in the western counties were opened. The
fields grew up in forests, and owing to the distance of the county from markets it has rallied slowly.
Lincolnton was never a large town and is but little changed now from what it was sixty years ago. Goshen was once
a place of some importance, but has long since ceased to exist.
The county was the hotbed of Whiggism during the Revolution. Jno. Dooly, the father of Judge Dooly, was a Whig
colonel. He was the terror of the Tories and was cruelly murdered by them. His son, Judge Dooly, was famous as
a brilliant lawyer and an honored judge, but, alas! as famous for the gross irregularities of his life. The worn-out
stories of his coarse wit have been a staple with all writers on early Georgia.
The nearness of the Kiokee church to Lincoln and the influence of Daniel Marshall in this county has made Lincoln
largely a Baptist county, and there are some very solid and prosperous churches of that denomination in it now.
The Methodists, the only other denomination in the county, have a good following, and it is perhaps somewhat remarkable
that the oldest Sunday-school which has had a continuous life in Georgia is in a country church in Lincoln, where
for over eighty years a Sunday-school has been held every Sunday.
Judge Longstreet located the scene of the celebrated occurrence when the man was seeing how he “could a fout” in
the Dark Corner of Lincoln; but I have been unable to find any part of Lincoln which would consent to acknowledge
that it was the part alluded to.
©2007 Genealogy Trails
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