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RICHMOND COUNTY HISTORY
from the "The Story of Georgia and The Georgia People"
1732 to 1860
by George Gillman Smith
©1901
Transcribed by K. Torp, ©2007
RICHMOND.
Richmond was named in honor of the Duke of Richmond. It was originally St. Paul s parish, and when it was made
in 1777 it included all of Columbia and parts of McDuffie, Warren and Jefferson counties. As these counties will
come under our survey in the proper time, it will only be necessary now to give attention to Richmond as it stands.
In the early parts of this history and in the chapter on Augusta nearly everything of interest connected with this
county, up to the Revolution, has been narrated, and in the history of Augusta much of the after revolutionary
history is given. Richmond is in the main a county of rather sterile pine woods, save on some of the creeks and
on the river, where the land is a rich alluvial which at one time was very productive. Before the lands on the
river above Augusta were cleared of their forests the river-bed was deeper and the stream more rapid than it is
at this day, and the freshets which come now almost tannually were infrequent a hundred and twenty years ago. Then
these lands were considered very valua ble, and wealthy planters had large plantations in the swamps which brought
a rich return. They are now turned largely into hay farms and are still valuable. The pine lands were for a long
time esteemed only for their timber and as a range for cattle. There was some of this land, however, which had
a good subsoil of clay which was, when manured, quite productive, and while it was not esteemed as first-class
land, it repaid the tiller s toil, and even much of the land which was very sterile when well fertilized produced
fine crops of melons and vegetables. The rural population of Richmond, save on the river and on Rae s creek, were
plain, poor people who ran smalI farms. There was quite a settlement of well-to-do Virginians some distance north
of Augusta which was called Bedford, probably after the Virginia county from which they emigrated, and quite a
settlement of Burke county planters in the healthy pine woods near what is now Hephzibah. A college was projected
in the early part of the century, called Mt. Enon, which was to be located in the southern part of this county
and opened as a Baptist college; but a charter was refused and it became the first Baptist high school in Georgia.
There was a fine water-power on the creeks, which, rising in the pine hills, ran into the river; and one of the
most successful country factories was built on Spirit creek long before the war, and another known as Schley s,
at Bellevue, where the shrewd old governor had his country home. The building of the railway from Augusta to Sandersville
opened up the lower part of the county, and there is a considerable village known as Hephzibah, where the Baptists
have a school. The county had been well supplied with Methodist and Baptist churches, and the school facilities
had been mod erately good; but the establishment of the public school system after the war provided all classes
with excellent educational advantages. Among the oldest Methodist and Baptist churches in upper Georgia are the
Baptist church at Hephzibah, formerly Mt. Enon, and the Methodist church at Liberty, which an tedate the beginning
of this century. Among the industries which have made the county famous the celebrated nurseries of the Berckmans
are very notable. Dr. Berckmans, an intelligent German, was struck with the great advantages of the climate and
soil near Augusta for the raising of fruit trees and flowers, and he began his nurseries on a very extensive scale
over forty years ago, and from them the most beautiful flowers and the finest fruits have been distributed throughout
the land. The fine climate of the Sand Hills, which stretch through the northwest part of the county, has invited
summer residents, who have beautiful homes, chiefly at Grovetown, sixteen miles from the city. The county is so
linked with the city that it is not possible to separate them, and I shall in a future chapter devote a considerable
space to Augusta, and as Columbia county includes much of what was historic Richmond, it is not needful to say
more of the county as it is at present.
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