Gwinnett County, GA County History

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Gwinnett County, GA History

TOWNS AND VILLAGES

AUBURN, a post-town of Gwinnett county, is on the Seaboard Air Line railway about ten miles east of Lawrenceville, and in 1900 reported a population of 161. It is the principal trading center and shipping point in that part of the county, and has good educational and religious advantages. Some skirmishing occurred here on July 18, 1864, as the Federal cavalry, which had raided Roswell, was moving toward Decatur.

BERMUDA, a post hamlet in the southwestern part of Gwinnett county, is not far from the DeKalb county line and four and a half miles from the town of Stone Mountain, which is the nearest railway station.

BRADEN, a post-hamlet in the western part of Gwinnett county, is a station on the line of the Seabord Air Line railway that runs from Atlanta to Athens. The population in 1900 was but 26.

BUFORD, a growing town in the northwestern part of Gwinnett county, was Incorporated in 1872 and is located on the Southern railway, in the center of a prosperous region. It is in the Sugar Hill district, which contains 3,226 inhabitants, of whom 1,352 live in the town of Buford and 211 in West Buford. This busy little town has express and telegraph offices, several good mercantile establishments, a money order postoffie with rural free delivery, a bank, four tanneries, four harness factories employing 575 hands and turning out more than 200 dozen horse collars a day. Good schools and churches add to the advantages.

CARL, a village in the eastern part of Gwinnett county, on the Seaboard Air Line railway, reported a population of 113, in 1900. It has a money order postoffice, some mercantile interests, and is a shipping point for that part of the county.

CRUSE, a post-hamlet of Gwinnett county, reported a population of 44 in 1900. It is eight miles west of Lawrenceville, and three from Duluth, on the Southern railway, which is the nearest station.

DACULA, a village of Gwinnett county, is located six miles east of Lawrenceville on the Seaboard Air Line railway. It has a money order postoffice, from which free delivery routes supply the rural districts, some mercantile interests and in 1900 had a population of 120.

DULUTH, a town on the Southern railway in the northwestern part of Gwinnett county, received its name in commemoration of a speech delivered in congress by Hon. Proctor Knott of Kentucky, ridiculing the suggestion of making an appropriation for the benefit of what at that time was the insignificant town of Duluth, in Minnesota, and which caused much merriment all over the country. The town was incorporated by act of the legislature in 1876, has a money order post-office, with rural free delivery, an express and telegraph office, a branch bank of the Bank of Buford, several successful business houses, schools and churches, and according to the census of 1900, had a population of 336.

[Cyclopedia of Georgia, 1906 - submitted by C. Anthony]

GWINNETT COUNTY

Gwinnett county, named for Button Gwinnett, was laid out in 1818, and its county site was, in honor of the brave sea captain, called Lawrenceville. Like all these up-country counties, it was very rapidly settled. Its population in 1830 was 13,289, and twenty years afterward, in 1850, was only 11,257. There was a considerable part of the county cut off into other counties; but it is evident that the population did not increase after the first few years. The people in those days were very migratory, and the opening of better lands to the west led to quite an emigration from the county. The history of these foot-hill counties is much the same. The settler came, built his cabin, opened some fields, and then, hearing of better lands in Carroll, Campbell, Heard, or in Alabama, he sold his farm at what he thought was a fair price, and went to this new country to begin life again. There were but few of the hardships of the frontier to encounter now in the country to which he was going, and there was little difficulty in moving when all he possessed could be put in an ox-cart; and the prospect of bettering himself by finding a larger range and cheaper land led him to move on. There were some very fertile lands on the river in Gwinnett, especially on the Chattahoochee; but the main body of the land was thin and easily worn out. With the exit from the country of the first proprietors the land was taken up by the large landowners, and the plantations took the place of farms. But a new era came to the country when the railways were made, and along the line of the Southern the flourishing villages of Norcross, Buford and Suwanee sprang up. Cotton was cultivated largely, and the county began to improve rapidly. A railroad was built to Lawrenceville, and when the Seaboard Air Line railroad came through the county it passed through Lawrenceville.

The early settlers of Gwinnett were the Winns, Hutchinses, Baughs, Howells, Stricklands, Simmonses, Anthonys, Baxters, Grahams, and many others. The religious denominations in the county are Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists, and for many years the Methodists have had within three miles of Lawrenceville a camp-ground, where the most distinguished preachers of Methodism have preached.

The style of life among the rural people of Gwinnett has always been a very simple one. There was but little wealth, so there was but little show. The schools were very ordinary affairs, and education out of the village was not at a premium. Industry and close economy were the sterling virtues of the people.

Dr. Jesse Boring, the celebrated Methodist divine, and his brother Isaac began their lives in this county when it was Jackson, and their father, a man of sterling worth, was for a long time representative from it. Samuel Anthony, another distinguished and famous Methodist preacher, spent his boyhood in this county. James P. Simmons, a lawyer and an author, lived in this county; and the Howell family, who have been so prominent as connected with the Atlanta Constitution, came from Gwinnett. The Winn family and the Hutchins family, distinguished as lawyers and judges, lived in Lawrenceville; but no man has cast a greater luster on Gwinnett, the place of his birth, than the Philosopher of the Etowah, Colonel Charles H. Smith, who, under the name of "Bill Arp," has won a high place among literary men as a wise and witty writer, and who has secured the strongest grasp on the hearts of the common people as their adviser and friend. Men everywhere have read with eagerness his letters to the press, in which there is such a wealth of sterling common sense and such a perfect purity of teaching.

[The Story of Georgia and The Georgia People, by George Gilman Smith, 1900 - submitted by C. Anthony]