|
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.
Town and City Sketches
Meriwether,
a post-town of Baldwin county, is eight miles northwest of
Milledgeville, on the Central of Georgia railroad. It is the principal
trading center for that part of the county and has important shipping
interests. The population in 1900 was 127.
[Source: Georgia Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and Persons, Vol 2, Publ 1906. Transcribed by Tracy
McAllister]
Milledgeville, the county seat of Baldwin county and former capital of
the state, was named in honor of John Milledge, who served as governor
from 1802 to 1806. It was during his administration that the town was
laid out and the seat of government removed from Louisville. When the
capital became permanently established at Atlanta in 1877 the old
state-house was turned over to the cause of education and in 1880 the
Middle Georgia military and agricultural college was opened within its
walls. The Georgia normal and industrial college for girls is also at
Milledgeville and the city has a fine system of public schools. Not
only is it an educational center, but it is likewise of considerable
importance in commercial circles. Being situated at the junction of two
main divisions of the Central of Georgia and Georgia railways, it is a
good shipping point and there are several manufacturing enterprises,
among which are an oil mill, a large flour mill and railroad shops. The
city has three banks, a money order postoffice with rural free delivery
routes emanating from it, express and telegraph service, an electric
light plant, and an electric railway connects it with Midway, where the
State Sanitarium is located, and which before the war was the site of
Oglethorpe university. Several denominations have churches and in 1900
the population was 4,219.
[Source: Georgia Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and Persons, Vol 2, Publ 1906. Transcribed by Tracy
McAllister]
©2007 Genealogy
Trails
|
