Colquitt County

We have seen that the counties of Lowndes and Thomas were created in 1825 from portions of Decatur and Irwin counties; that the 8th Land District of originally Irwin was finally made a part of Thomas County; and that the 9th Land District of Irwin became a part of Lowndes.

We have also seen that the County of Colquitt, created February 25, 1856, was given the whole of the said 8th Land District of originally Irwin, then Thomas County, along with "all that portion of originally Irwin, then Lowndes County, lying west of Little River to where the river crosses the dividing line between lots of land Nos. 443 and 444, both in the 9th District, thence south to the district line between the 9th and the 12th Districts."

It is extremely difficult to obtain accurate statistics as to the first settlers of this territory comprising the present territory of Colquitt, all of which is included in the cession of land exacted from the Creek and Seminole Indians, in period covered by the years 1814 to 1818, inclusive, which cession, as we have seen was made to the State of Georgia. However, a list of the heads of families in Lowndes County, taken from the U. S. Census of 1830 (see Appendix) contains several names of citizens of that part of Lowndes County that was, twenty-six years later, incorporated into the new County of Colquitt. Some are recognizable as such. For instance the name of Randall Folsom is there; and a matter of three years ago, a Randall Folsom, at the age of ninety, passed away in that portion of Colquitt that was taken from Lowndes by the Colquitt Act of 1856.

Also, in this list of the heads of Lowndes families, made in 1830, appears the name of James M. Norman. We know that the name of this pioneer appears as a Justice of the Peace, in the Lowndes part of Colquitt's territory, as early as 1849. This indicates that he may have resided in the Colquitt part of Lowndes as early as 1830; or it could indicate that, in 1830, he lived in some other part of Lowndes, and, by 1849, had moved to the Colquitt part of Lowndes. In fact, there is a tradition around Nashville, Ga., that Jas. M. Norman moved from Liberty County, Ga., to a farm near Nashville, before 1830, lived there for some time, and then crossed over Little River into the part of Lowndes that came into Colquitt. It is to be remembered that the whole of Berrien County was a part of Lowndes in 1830, and for some years afterwards. All this may be said of Thomas Selph, another name on this 1830 list, as well as of the three listed Tillmans—John, Jeremiah and Joshua.

Finally, there appears in the 1830 list the name of "Henry Tucker," and we think it is entirely likely that this is the same as Colquitt's pioneer, Elder Henry Crawford Tucker, shown by his gravestone, now standing in the graveyard of Bridge Creek Primitive Baptist Church, eight miles west of Moultrie, and on the banks of Bridge Creek, to have been twenty-five years old, when the census of 1830 was taken.

In the Appendix to this book will be found a list of all the heads of families in Thomas County, as they existed in 1840, the list being separated into militia districts, existing at that date. Reference to this shows that Hilery Murphy (Hillary) and David Murphy, headed families in the Thomasville district, in 1840. These men pioneered from North Carolina to Thomas County, between 1830 and 1840, according to family tradition preserved by their descendants now residing in Colquitt County. These two men settled on the line separating the Thomasville district of Thomas County from the 8th District of the same county, both finally getting over into the 8th, where they continued to reside until the 8th District was incorporated into Colquitt County. The list of heads of fam-ilies in the 8th District of Thomas County (Colquitt County, since 1856) will have special interest for the student of Colquitt County's history. In addition to the Gregorys, the Hancocks, the Laniers, the Sloans, the Vicks, the Halls and the Stricklands, all of which names are now known or easily remembered by the average citizen of Colquitt, notice will be had of Henry Murphy, the great-great-uncle of the brothers Henry and Aaron Murphy, at present prominent citizens of Moultrie. We also note that the Henry Tucker appearing in the list of heads of families in Lowndes County in 1830, is listed in 1840 among the heads of families of the 8th Land District of Thomas County, as Henry C. Tucker. Doubtless both are aliases of Elder Henry Crawford Tucker, the Colquitt County patriarch.

In studying the lists of heads of families set out in the 8th Land District of Colquitt County division, we find that James M. Norman has moved, since 1830, from the 9th Land District of Lowndes to the 8th Land District of Thomas. There is no doubt about this, family tradition assures us. It is the same James Mitchell Norman, who lived from about 1845 to 1854 on land lot......in the 8th Land District of Colquitt, with his wife, Ruth Tillman Norman, the pair becoming the founders of the county's most noted family.

In the list of heads of families of Thomas County in 1840 will be noticed the name of Artaxerxcs B. Norman, a full brother of James M. Norman, both having sprung from North Carolina stock and migrated to Georgia about 1820. It is thought that wrhen the parents of this baby named him after the Persian king, he became the only person in the world called "Artaxerxes." This man had a son named David, whose tombstone is in the Sardis Primitive Baptist Cemetery, who had sons as follows, all of whom have lived in Colquitt: Philip, Moses Xerxes and Virgil, the last two of whom are still alive. A copy of "Plutarch's Lives" must have been lying around two or three generations of this branch of the Norman tribe.

Source: Covington, W. A.. History of Colquitt County. Atlanta, Ga.: Foote and Davies Co., 1937.

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