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Putnam County, Georgia History
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
PUTNAM.
Putnam was laid off from Baldwin in 1807. It was named in honor of the
brave old general, and its county site for General Eaton, who had
distinguished himself in the war with Tripoli. It had been on the
eastern border of the Creek Nation for over twenty-five years.
Hancock, which was originally Greene, had been settled since 1785, and
was just across the river, and while the Whites had made no permanent
settlements in the Nation on the west side of the river, many of them
had their cattle ranches, and perhaps not a few had opened farms in the
unceded country before the purchase was made in 1803.
When the land was distributed by lottery the popu lation in the eastern
counties was already considerable, and especially on the good lands in
Hancock there were thick settlements. As soon as the new purchase was
opened the restless people of the counties near by pressed into it.
Other immigrants joined them, many of them from Virginia and a larger
number from the eastern counties of the State.
The county was one of the fairest in middle Georgia In the descriptions
of the eastern counties we have described this charming country. Grand
forests covered the hills, limpid streams made their way through great
brakes of cane. The Oconee bordered the county on one side, and Little
river made its way entirely through it. Bold brooks and large creeks
were in all parts of it. Much of the land was the rich mulatto land,
esteemed by the old planters as the best in the world; much of it was
in rich valleys on the sides of creeks and rivers, and much of it a
less fertile but more easily cultivated gray land. There was but little
really sterile land in the county, and none of it was waste. It was not
to be wondered at that so fair a land was at once peopled, and it was
only a few months after the whites were permitted to settle before the
country was teeming with inhabitants and the smoke rose from hundreds
of camp-fires before the one-roomed cabin was built. The ferries were
kept going night and day and immigrants came rushing in.
The first settlers were: Wm. Wilkins, Benj. Williamson, John Lamar,
John Buckner, Elias S. Shorter, Stephen Marshall, John McBride, Captain
Vesey, James Hightower, John Trippe, Isaac More land, John White, Benj.
Whitefield, Jos. Cooper, Josiah Flournoy, M. Ponder, Ward Hill, Rev. R.
Pace, Rev. John Collinsworth, R. Bledsoe, Wm. Turner, Wylie Roberts,
Mark Jackson, Peter Flournoy, Thos. Park, Raleigh Holt, A. Richardson,
Tarpley Holt, James Kendrick, Reuben Herndon, T. Woodbridge, Joseph
Turner, Warren Jackson, Edward Traylor, Samuel M. Echols, James Echols,
E. Abercrombie, Matthew Gage, Thomas Napier, Wm. Jackson, Simon Holt.
None of these new counties, of which Putnam was one, could be said to
have had any first settlers. They came in droves, and those mentioned
are a few of many. These first people were mainly Georgians, the land
being given away to Georgians by lottery. The lots were two hundred and
two and one half acres in size, and when Putnam was first settled it
was dotted all over with small farms.
Provisions were the only products. Tobacco was not raised and cotton
was not as yet planted. Corn, hogs and cattle there were in great
abundance. The people were not many of them people of means, and the
luxuries enjoyed by the planters of Columbia and Burke were not during
this decade found in this new county.
The first people came not only from the older counties of Georgia, but
from North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. There was little to
distinguish them from those we have pictured as living in Hancock and
Greene. They were much the same, and, as in Greene, the still-house was
not far from the church, and in the inventory of estates the psalm-book
and the Bible are put close beside the thirty-gallon still.
After the war of 1812, and the wonderful impetus given to cotton
production, the people of Putnam increased their wealth very rapidly.
Lands were fresh and rich, cotton was high, negroes were comparatively
cheap and increased rapidly, and those who settled with a few slaves in
the County in 1803 found themselves the owners of a hundred by 1830.
There was little elegance but much solid com fort in the county until
about 1845, when a number of handsome homes were erected on the
plantations or in Eatonton. These mansions, with generally eight large
rooms twenty feet square, with broad galleries and wide halls, were
handsomely furnished, and the hospitality dispensed was generous. There
were fine carriage horses, coachmen, footmen, maid servants and men
servants, and there was nowhere a more elegant and luxurious life than
was found in many of the families of Putnam.
The population of the county in 1810 was 6,809 whites and 3,220 slaves;
in 1830 there were 5,554 whites and 7,707 slaves; in 1850 the free
population had been reduced to 3,326 whites, and there were 7,468
slaves.
These figures tell the story of the great changes which passed over
this magnificent country. The necessity of providing for so many
dependents left the slaveholder but little time to improve his
plantation, and when he wore out his lands he opened new forests, until
he had laid the whole wood low. He found himself at the end of the war
between the States with a yard full of negroes, a sadly impoverished
plantation and a heavy debt.
The railroad reached Eatonton as a branch of the Central soon after the
Milledgeville branch was completed. It was finally extended to
Covington, so that the city of Eatonton has now good railroad
facilities.
Putnam early had academies, and the academy at Eatonton was a famous
school taught by Alonzo Church, afterward president of the State
University. There were some county academies in addition to the central
academy, and quite a number of private schools. A famous academy was
known as Union academy, near where Philadelphia church now is. Here
William H. Seward, a young New Yorker, taught a country school. He
afterward returned to New York, became its governer, and was in after
time secretary of state. Near this same church Jos. A. Turner, an
eccentric, gifted man, published the Countryman, and in his country
office Joel Chandler Harris learned his trade as a printer and began
his career as a writer for the press.
The Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians came with the first settlers
into the county, and there were organizations of these churches before
the county was separated from Baldwin.
The first Baptist church was Harmony, which was organized in 1806 The
first Methodist church building was Victory, built before 1812. The
first Presbyterian church was built near the same time.
Up to 1819 there was no church in Eatonton. The population of the
village was small and the church people held their connection with
country churches. Then, largely through the influence of Rev. Coleman
Pendleton, the ordinary, a union church was built. William Arnold and
John Collinsworth, two famous Methodist preachers, lived near Eatonton.
Dr. Henry Branham, a man of large intelligence and wisdom, was a
prominent man in Putnam. He was the father of the beloved and gifted
Walter R. Branham, who was born in this county, and who was for many
years a prominent Methodist preacher in Georgia.
Judge James Meriwether was a scion of that distinguished family which
has been so noted for public services in Virginia and Georgia. He was a
judge of the superior court, a member of Congress and speaker of the
Georgia House of Representatives.
Irby H. Hudson, for years speaker of the House, also lived here.
The Rev. John W. Knight, one of the most gifted and worthy Methodist
preachers, whose praise is in all the Churches, lived in this county
for years, and died while residing in it.
Judge David Rosser Adams, one of the worthiest of men, long lived here.
Josiah Flournoy was in Putnam at its first settlement. He was a pushing
planter, an enthusiastic Christian and the first prohibitionist in
Georgia. He canvassed the State to secure signers to a petition to
abolish the whisky traffic, and made a brave though unsuccessful fight
against it. He made a large fortune, gave liberally to all
benevolences, and built and endowed a school near Talbotton, which he
called in honor of an old friend Collinsworth Institute.
Alexander Reid, famous as an enterprising and public-spirited planter,
and as the progenitor of a large and influential family, resided in
this county.
These are a few of those worthy people who have made this county famous.
Towns, Hamlets and Villages
Meda, a post-hamlet of
Putnam county, is on the Covington & Milledgeville division of the
Central of Georgia railway, about five miles south of Eatonton.
(Source: Georgia Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and
Persons, VOL II, by Candler & Evans, Publ. 1906. Transcribed by Kim
Mohler)
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