|
Wilkes 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
WILKES.
Governor Wright in 1773 made a purchase from the Indians of a large tract of land north of Little river and stretching
westward to the Ogeechee. It was while he was in office known as the ceded lands. By the Constitution of 1777 all
this section was included in one county, called Wilkes in honor of the reckless John Wilkes, who had distinguished
himself as the friend of the colonies. It was a section of great fertility and beauty, possessing the features
which we have found in Burke and Columbia counties. The people from the older colonies speedily found homes in
this newly-opened territory and, as we have seen before, in 1790, when Georgia had in it only eighty-two thousand
people, Wilkes had thirty-six thousand in its boundary. These people were nearly all native Americans. They came
mainly from Virginia, though there were a number of North Carolinians.
Governor Gilmer gives in his “Georgians” a racy description of some of the first comers who settled in the county
at that time.
He says: “On Long creek and extending southwardly fron Sa vannah river a settlement was made before and during
the Revolutionary war by the Clarkes, Doolys, Murrays, Waltons, and others. They were from Bertie and adjoining
counties of North Carolina and were all connected by blood or intermarriage. These North Carolina settlers lived
upon game and the milk of the cattle they carried with them in their emigration. Hogs, sheep, and poultry were
not to be had except in the fewest numbers. A sufficient supply of these indispensables for a new country could
only be obtained from South Carolina, whither the people went for that purpose when they had sufficient money to
purchase. Many years passed before they owned hogs and sheep enough for bacon and clothing. It was a hard time
when the breakfast of a family depended upon catching an opossum over night or a rabbit in the morning. The range
was so unrestricted that the cows often wandered away beyond returning or finding, so that the children had no
milk to wash down their otherwise dry bread. The horses that did the plowing had to be turned on the wild grass
to get their food. They strayed away beyond finding if their legs were not fastened together, so that the art of
hobbling was as important as the black smith’s. Bells were put upon them for the purpose of indicating their whereabouts,
and then the Indians, if on the frontiers, carried them off. It was difficult to clear of its timber enough land
for corn and tobacco. The term patch was for a long time used for land sown in wheat, because only a small quantity
was allotted to that grain. Even these patches were not seen for years after the settlement began, so that flour
could not be had for love or money. It was a long time before the children had more than one biscuit apiece on
Sunday mornings. Traps, snares and other contrivances were resorted to for catching rabbits, birds and turkeys.
There were no tanneries or well instructed shoemakers. Skins were hung in running streams till the hair could be
slipped off, and then they were tanned in a trough. Most went without shoes the greater part of the year. The first
houses were log cabins with dirt floors and clapboard coverings. Toads and serpents were often found crawling over
the floors. The rattle of the rattlesnake and the cry of the panther often sent the children home in a hurry when
hunting the cows. After working all day they sat around the hearth at night picking the lint from the cottonseed.
Their only fruits were wild haws and grapes.
In speaking of their social pleasures he said: “The great pleasure indulged in was dancing. The men went to musters,
shooting matches and horse-races. The whisky bottle was always drawn out by the hospitable settler. The clothing
of the girls was provided by their own weaving. Hollow trees provided cradles for their babies.”
The old governor gives an inventory of some estates, in which we get an insight into the prices of things and the
general condition of the people just after the Revolution: One negro boy, £50; 1 bed, 7s.; pail and 1 piggin,
4s.; 1 wash-tub, 2 keelers, 4s.; 1 horse, £24; 1 saddle, 00; 1 razor and 2,000 acres of land in Richmond
county, Lao; old gray horse, 5s.
Another appraisement shows: One sorrel mare, £6; 1 mare, L1; x horse, £3; horse colt, £4; 6 head
cattle, £20; 1 negro boy, £20; 1 negro girl, £30; 1 axe, frying-pan and pothook, 5s.; 1 linen
wheel, 5s.; old pewter, 15s.; butter-tub, as.; 5 old feather beds, £s; 1 pot, 10s
Another estate was: Four negroes, 3 ould basins, 7 plates, 1 frying-pan, 1 pig-gin, 1 earthen plate, 2 chairs,
1 table, 2 sides leather.
Another was: Thirteen negroes, 6 horses, 7 sheep, 60 hogs, 23 cattle.
And another: Sixty hogs, 8 sheep, 10 cattle, loom, knives and forks, flax wheel, turkey feather bed, 9 plates.
In 1795 an inventory calls for: Eleven negroes, 29 hogs, 1 still, 30 pounds pewter.
Up to this time the only well-furnished house is that of a physician in Washington, and the only library is that
of Mr. Wm. Rogers, a teacher. The condition of the roads and the difficulty of transportation forbade anything
like the complete furnishing of any home, but, as is seen, a few years after the Revolution there was a great abundance
of the necessaries of life. These inventories give a better insight into the domestic affairs of the first settlers
than any general description. They show that the first comers were men of some property, who had but few comforts
and fewer of the luxuries of life. The description of Governor Gilmer of life among the first North Carolinians
who came to Georgia and settled in Wilkes is borne out by the inventories of the first estates, but belonged to
all the first corners. There was, however, immediately after the Revolution a large influx of Virginians who were
in better circumstances, and who brought with them in their large wagons from Virginia a supply of better furniture,
and furnished their tables more bountifully.
As illustrative of this we have the inventory of John Wingfield, or as he is written, John Winkfield, who died
in 1798, and whose inventory is elaborate and extensive. He had, besides a sufficient supply of plain household
and kitchen furniture, some articles mentioned in no other inventory up to that time. They were bacon, sugar, turkeys,
a riding-chair, some books, some lard, and some table-cloths. He had twenty-seven negroes, the largest number reported
up to that time. The land was generally secured by headright, or if pur chased cost about two shillings per acre
for the best quality. These Virginians, who knew the value of good land, bought large bodies and laid the foundations
for the great est-ates their children had in after time. There was no court-house till 1785 and court was held
in private houses. The jury sat on a log and consulted on their verdict. Governor Gilmer says the jury saw a fleeing
Tory and left their log and gave chase. “Prisoners,” he says, “in the absence of a jail, were bound with hickory
withes, and confined occasionally by putting their heads between the rails of a fence, and sometimes putting them
in pens.” The Tories had little chance for fair trials. In 1779 seven were condemned at one court. One man was
indicted for treason, hog-stealing, horse-stealing, and other misdemeanors. While those tried for treason were
con victed, I doubt their being hung, as I find men of the same flame afterward in the county. If one was acquitted
and the mob thought he was guilty his chance of escape was slim. Even after the war, when a man who was accused
of stealing a horse from General Clarke was acquitted by the jury, the old soldier arrested him and marched him
to a convenient tree and was about to hang him anyhow, when Nathaniel Pendleton, a distinguished lawyer, succeeded
in begging the poor fellow off.
The old governor gives some extracts from the presentments of the grand jury, as follows: “We present Hezekiah
Wheat for profane swearing, and Thomas Brooks for profane swearing, also Wm. Vardeman for profane swearing, also
Andrew Frazier, also John Parham, also Thomas Osborn, also Wm. Osborn, also Moses Harris, also Peter Carnes, also
Wm. Moor, also Jeifry Early, also Wm. Thornton, also Grant Taylor, also Richard Powell, also Samuel Creswell, also
Daniel Young, also Peter Stubblefield, also Jos. Cook, also James Stewart, also B. Smith, also Jos. Spradling,
also Jno. Bragg for fighting and gambling, Jos. Parham for gambling, Grant Taylor and Wm. Osborn for fighting,
Jos. Ryan for profane swearing, Daniel Young for gambling and suffering it to be done in his house, Peter Stubblefield
for gambling, Danl Terondit for gambling, Owen Shannon for swearing, Thos. Shannon for gambling, Frederick Lipham
for suffering gambling to be done in his house. The magistrates knowingly allow the Sabbath to be broke by merchants
dealing with negroes and others, playing fives and other vices, in particular the magistrates about town who see
it frequently, Micajah Williamson, Wm. Moor, and Henry Mounger, Esqs.; also that the militia officers in different
districts do not keep up a patrol, from which the inhabitants suffer great damage by negroes riding horses at night,
and many other mischievous acts; also that people are suffered to gallop and run horses through the streets of
Washington.”
These copious extracts drawn from Governor Gilmer’s invaluable book give us a little insight into the beginning
of the great county of Wilkes. The most of the earliest comers to every new country are poor. People in easy circumstances
are not willing to endure the privation of a frontier life, but these first settlers are soon followed by those
of larger means who enter into their labors. And so those who came first, bringing no property and settling on
land granted to them by the State, who came without slaves or furniture, were soon followed by those who had both.
This immigration of people of means from Virginia and North Carolina came very rapidly after the Revolution. While,
as the census will show, a very large number had no negroes, there were quite a number of slaves in this section
soon after the war. These slaves and those of the low-country planters were a very different class. They were Virginians
by birth, though Africans by lineage. The negroes were not many in any family. In looking over the tax-lists in
Wilkes there is not a slaveholder who has over thirty negroes up to the beginning of the century, while on the
coast there were not a few slaveholders who had largely over one hundred.
The country in Virginia was much impoverished, and the prospect of finding good tobacco land in Georgia drew large
colonies from all the central and tide-water counties of that State. The larger part of the immigration to Georgia
had been from Dinwiddie, Prince George, Henrico, Hanover, Goochland and Halifax, and now there came a large colony
from Albemarle led by Colonel George Mathews, afterward governor. He had served in Georgia during the Revolution,
and had visited the new county of Wilkes on a prospecting tour. He was delighted with the land, so like the Piedmont
country in which be lived, and finding that he could buy a large tract of preempted land at a small price, he bought
what was known as the Goose Pond tract in then Wilkes, now Oglethorpe, county. He persuaded some of his neighbors
to return with him to Georgia and spy out the land. They, too, were delighted, and they formed a colony known afterward
as the Broad river colony, and settled near together on that river. These Broad river people were well-to-do, who
brought with them from their homes a few negroes and such furniture as could be brought in wagons, and their live
stock. They found excellent land and a fine range and were soon independent, and many of them became quite wealthy.
They were a people of great worth, and their descendants have been distinguished for their public services.
Governor Gilmer, in his “Georgians,” enters with interesting particularity into the family history of this remarkable
colony. While these people preempted the rich valley of the Broad river, there were a number of other families
of the same class who settled on the Little river. They were originally from Virginia, but some of them came directly
from North Carolina. Among these comers were David Merriwether and Daniel Grant, and his son Thomas Grant. The
Grants had one of the first mercantile establishments in middle Georgia, and built the first Methodist church in
the State, and the second Methodist conference was held at their home. Daniel Grant was the first man in the State
from conscientious motives to emancipate his slaves. The country was very rapidly settled, and in 1790 there was
in its then boundaries 24,000 free and 7,268 slaves. In 1810 when the county was divided, 7,603 free and 7,248
slaves; in 1830, 5,227 free and 8,960 slaves, while in 1850 there were only 3,826 free and 8,261 slaves. The entire
population had declined 3,000 in twenty years.
Washington was selected as the county site. It was Heard’s fort during the war, and was not laid out till 1783.
The lots were to be sold, an academy and a court-house were to be built. It was the first county site called Wash
ington in the new republic. At Judge Walton’s instance the name was changed to Georgetown, but it held the name
only for a little while, and the only evidence that it ever bore it is found in the Georgetown road from Louisville,
and a record in Warrenton. It was soon settled by intelligent and well-to-do people, and was for years the leading
county town west of Augusta. It had large commercial establishments, branch banks, an academy and handsome residences,
but up to 1822 it had no church, and many of its leading citizens were noted for their skepticism and immorality.
There were some leading people among them who were Baptists, and some Presbyterians and Methodists, but they had
their membership in the country churches.
In 1822 the Methodists built a church in the village, and soon after the Baptists and Presbyterians had each a
place of worship. Jesse Mercer, the most progressive and influential Bap-tist in Georgia, married a lady in Washington
and settled in the village in a comfortable and handsome old-time residence. He here published one of the first
hymn books ever printed in Georgia, “Mercer’s Cluster of Sacred Songs,” and established one of the first newspapers
among the Baptists in the South, The Christian index.
In the beginning of the century a hymn-book was published in Washington for the Methodists by Hope Hull, which
was the first ever printed in Georgia.
When the tide of settlement moved westward Washington began to lose its prominence, and after the railroads were
built it became a quiet, dignified, elegant old town with but little commercial importance, not even commanding
the trade of its own county; but after the war a new era came and a new prosperity, and it has more than trebled
its population and has become one of the most attractive of central Georgia towns.
One of the first, if not the first, female academies in Georgia was established in Washington by Madame Dugas,
and it had for a long time an important male school. In has now a graded school which has a very handsome house
well equipped. The attractive homes and beautiful oaks and elms make Washington one of the most charming cities
in the State. It was here that the Cabinet of the Confederate States held its last session, and from this historic
town the Presi dent of the Confederacy, with a few of his Cabinet, rode out to what he hoped would be exile, but
which was to be captivity and a dungeon.
Wilkes had at the beginning of the century a newspaper published by David Hillhouse. He not only published a newspaper,
but had the first job printing-office in the then interior of Georgia. He was an enterprising and successful northerner.
He died in 1804 and his wife took charge of his newspaper and job office and successfully conducted them. Once
she published the laws of Georgia, being the first and only woman who was ever State printer.
The county of Wilkes is most of it very hilly, with many streams and narrow valleys. It was a fine stock-raising
country, and was admirably adapted to tobacco and cotton. Up to 1800 no cotton was grown for market. After that
the planting of cotton became a prominent industry, and as new lands opened for the stockmen the farms were sold
and great plantations absorbed them.
It was not in Wilkes as in Burke that the planter was nearly always forced to employ some one to see after his
interests while he fled from the malaria to a piny woods village. The Wilkes planters lived on their plantations
and the country homes were commodious and elegant, but as in Burke the plantations absorbed the farms, and the
war found Wilkes with but few white people in the country sections. The land was wretchedly worn, the homes in
many cases dilapidated, and the yard full of little negroes. The result was as in Burke, but perhaps in no other
middle Georgia county was a the recovery from the evil effects of the war more rapid.
The negroes were freed, but the planter found it cheaper to pay them wages than to hold them as slaves and support
their dependents. The negroes clung to their old homes, and often to their old masters. The old fields which had
grown up in second-growth timber and Bermuda grass were brought into cultivation. Pastures were made where the
Bermuda grass had grown at will, and while there were sad reverses, perhaps the general prosperity of the county
is beyond that of any period in the last fifty years.
The people of Wilkes have always been noted for their high religious character. While it could not be claimed for
the early corner that as a rule he was very moral, it is certain he had great respect for religion and his house
was open to the preachers. He was ready at any time to fight for the church, and there were prosperous churches
in the county from the earliest settlement. The Baptists were in the adjoining county before Wilkes was settled,
and as soon as it was laid out they had an organization in it. Many of the early comers were Presbyterians from
North Carolina, and some of the earliest teachers were Presbyterian minis ters. The first presbytery in Georgia
was organized under an oak in the town of Washington. The Methodists, as we have seen, came in 1786, and the Roman
Catholics came in 1794. The first Catholic church organized in a rural part of Georgia was in Wilkes, the first
Methodist song-book in Georgia was published in Wilkes, and the first Baptist song-book and Baptist newspaper were
published in Wilkes.
The county of Wilkes during the Revolution and for some years afterward was on the frontier, and while what is
now Wilkes was protected to some degree by the cordon of settlers who were nearer the Oconee, it was always in
danger of Indian raids until the Creeks were at last subdued. To merely mention the men of distinction who have
come from this famous old county would take much more space than we can give to any one county.
Here Elijah Clarke, who shared with Twiggs the place of highest honor as a partizan chief, had his home, and here
John Clarke, his famous son, who was afterward twice governor, was brought up. Matthew Talbott, for so many terms
a member of the Georgia Legislature, and governor during one term, lived here. Peter Early, the distinguished judge,
and afterward gov ernor, who died in Greene, began the practice of law in this county when he came from Virginia.
The celebrated Nathaniel Pendleton once lived in Washington, and Peter Van Allen*, who was killed by W. H. Crawford
in a duel, lived in this county. David Meriwether, the sterling Virginia soldier and Georgia statesman, lived here.
Duncan G. Campbell, one of the most gifted and astute of early Georgia politicians, and his gifted son, John A.
Campbell, long judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, lived here. Robert Toombs was born in this county
and lived in it all his life, and died in the home of his youth in Washington. Jesse Mercer, the wise philanthropist,
was born in this county and died in it. Hope Hull, one of the most valuable men of early Georgia, as we have seen,
had his home near Washington. The famous Bishop James O. Andrew was born in this county. Daniel Grant and his son
Thomas, noted for their advanced views, large wealth, and philanthropy, lived in this county.
[AUTHOR'S NOTE.—I have given much more attention to Wilkes than I can give to any other county of middle Georgia,
but it was a parent county, and in giving its story I have told the story of others in this part of the State.
I am very much indebted to that enthusiastic antiquarian, Miss Eliza Bowen, whose careful researches into the early
history of the county ought to be carefully preserved and pub lished. I have had furnished me by her the newspaper
clippings from which I have gathered much information.]
*Van Allen married a sister of Lorenzo Dow. See Dow’s Journal. * See chapter XIV., Religion in Georgia.
* The court-house in Burke has been burned and all the records which antedated the war are destroyed, but in the
Appendix may be found a list of the first comers to the county.
©2007 Genealogy Trails
|
