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Telfair
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
TELFAIR.
Telfair was formed from Wilkinson in 1807, and named for Edward
Telfair. We have, in our account of Montgomery county, drawn a picture
of Telfair.
In all this region known as the pine-barrens there was so much general
resemblance, that the impression that there was no difference in land
where pine trees grew was a common one with those who did not know
better; but this was quite an error. The great pine belt was in that
geological formation known as Quaternary, and a small part in what was
known in Georgia as the rotten limestone country and by the old
geologists as the Tertiary, where there are many fossils. Much of the
pine land near the coast consisted of barren sand dunes, and is now,
and probably always will be, worthless, and much that might have
produced well is too flat for drainage; but in Montgomery and Telfair
and the adjoining counties there is a large body of pine land high and
dry, with a good foundation of yellow clay, where the water is pure and
free from lime. This land is not naturally fertile, and when manured
does not hold its fertility; but by liberal fertilizing it can be made
to produce largely.
The Scotch immigrants of America (Scotchmen from North Carolina) saw
the worth of these lands, and, as they cost but a trifle, they secured
large bodies of them and built up good homes. Much of this land,
however, was not taken up by home-seekers, but by speculators who
secured the titles to it for a very small price. It was thought to be
worthless; and many of those who drew lots would not pay the
five-dollar fee demanded for a plot and grant. The speculators took
this reverted land for the price of the warrant, and secured the title.
They then put the lands on the market. There were not a few lots which
were held under forged deeds, and innocent people were inveigled into
the purchase of lands which were worthless, or for which the seller had
no title.
A company of Maine lumbermen, who thought they saw large possibilities
in lumbering in Georgia and in working up the pine forests of the
South, bought from the real owners who had bought them from the State,
for an insignificant sum, many thousand acres of land in Telfair and
the adjoining counties. They paid for the land, and received good
titles to it. They built large sawmills on the Ocmulgee river, and
founded a city which was called Lumber City. The venture was not
successful, and they abandoned the country. They held to their deeds,
however, and paid the trifling taxes which were demanded. The mills
rotted down. The lands were unoccupied, and were taken possession of,
in many cases, by land thieves. They sold the lots to bona-fide
purchasers and gave bogus titles. In some cases the lots were sold for
taxes and bought in good faith; and, in blissful ignorance that the
Maine company existed, these simple-hearted purchasers took possession
of the lands and improved them. They never dreamed that the Maine
company had any successor or representatives. For decades of years
matters went on in this way, until after the war, when the great lumber
firm of W.E. Dodge & Co. titles appeared on the scene and presented
to the land, which were recognized as good, and presented tax receipts
which showed that the tax sales had been illegal. They demanded that
the owners should vacate their holdings. There was much litigation, and
men were ejected from their homes by violence, and in turn there was
murder and lawless proceedings against the agents of strangers. The
courts came in; false titles were exposed, and blood-stained criminals
were punished by lifelong imprisonment in distant prisons. There was,
of course, a great deal of the county not involved in these troubles,
and the railways opened it up; the turpentine and lumber men came in,
and few sections of the State have developed so rapidly as this section
of the once despised pine-barren of Telfair.
The lots of land were large — 490 acres in a lot, and a lot of land was
often sold for twenty dollars. The result was the securing of large
bodies of land by comparatively poor men, who relied upon the wild
pastures for feeding their cattle, and upon a small area of
well-fertilized land for their breadstuffs.
Montgomery, Telfair and Tattnall were all peopled in the main by
thrifty Scotch people, and cattle- and sheep-raising was the great
industry. And in no part of Georgia was there a better type of people
than in these pine forests. These people had the virtues and the vices
of the Scotch. They were clannish and somewhat narrow, and many of them
were too fond of whisky; but they were plain and honest, and shrewd and
religious. The school was found in every section; but the county was
thinly peopled, and kirks of their fatherland were few and often
remote, and so many of the Scotch Presbyterians became Methodists and
Baptists. The Methodists had missionaries and camp-meetings and
organized churches among them at an early day, and built up quite a
church from the descendants of the Highlanders.
The population of Telfair in 1810 was only 526 whites and 288 slaves;
in 1820 it was 1,571 whites and 561 slaves. Twenty years later it was
2,396 whites and 831 slaves. These slaves were almost entirely confined
to a few planta tions on the river, where there was sometimes a large
num ber, amounting to scores, on a plantation. The first settlers were:
Jos. Williams, A. Graham, D. Graham, John Wilcox, Thos. Wilcox, G.
Mizell, A. McLeod, Robert Boyd, Moses Rountree, James Mooney, Wright
Ryall, McDuffie, J. A. Rogers, N. Ashley, C. Ashley, John Coffee, W.
Ashley, A. Brewer, J. Herbert, S. Herbert, J. MacCrea, Duncan MacCrea,
O. Butler, Lachlin Leslie.
Of these the Ashleys, Coffees, Brewers and Rogers were English, and had
large plantations on the river. The others were pure Scotch.
The Southern railway passes through Telfair and the steamboats ply the
river.
The people of Telfair always valued education, and the country school
was in every neighborhood from the first settlement. They were,
however, a poor, plain people and were content with the elements of an
English education; but as the railroad came the desire for better
culture was developed, and high schools were established, and in McRae
there is a collegiate institute known as the South Georgia College,
which is quite a flourishing school and is doing much for higher
education.
Towns,
Hamlets, and Villages
Helena, a town in the northwestern
part of Telfair county, is about three miles from McRae and at the
junction of the main line of the Southern railway and the Americus
& Savannah division of the Seaboard Air Line. The town was
incorporated by act of the legislature in 1891, and being situated in
the midst of the great pine and turpentine belt, it is quite a busy
place with its saw mills and its shipments of lumber, shingles,
turpentine and rosin. It has express and telegraph offices, a money
order post office, good business houses, good schools and the
additional advantage of proximity to the South Georgia college at
McRae. The Helena district has 975 inhabitants, of whom 604 live in the
town.
(Georgia:
Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and
Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form. VOL III Publ. 1906. Transcribed
by Angelia Carpenter)
Lumber City,
a
town in the eastern part of Telfair county, is on the Ocmulgee river
and the branch of the Southern railway that connects Macon to
Brunswick. It was incorporated by act of the legislature in 1889
and, as its name indicates, has a large lumber business. It ships
large quantities of lumber, turpentine and rosin over the railway and
by steamboats plying the Ocmulgee and the Altamaha rivers, has
telegraph and express offices, a money order postoffice with rural free
delivery, a branch bank of the Baxley Banking Company, several
flourishing mercantile establishments, and both the town and vicinity
are well supplied with schools and churches. By the census of
1900 the population was 760, and in the entire district there were1,326
inhabitants.
(Source: Georgia Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and
Persons, VOL II, by Candler & Evans, Publ. 1906. Transcribed by
Joanne Morgan)
Milan, a village in
Telfair county, is on the Seaboard Air Line railway, about eight miles
west of Helena. It has a money order postoffice, express and telegraph
offices, some mercantile interests, schools, churches, etc., and in
1900 reported a population of 112.
[Source: Georgia
Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and Persons, Vol 2, Publ 1906. Transcribed by Tracy
McAllister]
Banks
Merchants’
Bank, The, of McRae, Telfair county, was organized in 1897, with
a capital stock of $25,000 and with the following corps of officers:
Thomas Eason, president; J.F. Cook, vice-president; L.L. Campbell,
cashier. The bank was incorporated under the laws of the state in 1900,
and its present officers are: H.E. Pritchett, president; E.F. McRae,
vice-president; H.P. Whiddon, cashier; A.V. Whiddon, assistant cashier;
Judge Max L. McRae, attorney. The president is a resident of
Jacksonville, Fla., and the other officers reside in McRae. The bank is
established in a substantial and attractive building of its own, at the
corner of Oak street and Second avenue, and controls a large and
representative business. From the official statement of the bank issued
Jan. 9, 1906, the following items are secured: Time loans against
collateral, $73,205.56; banking house and fixtures, $3,574.14; due from
other banks and bankers, $39,128.61 cash on hand, $2,130.77 real
estate, $4,100. Total, $122,142.08. Capital stock, $15,000; surplus
fund, $10,455.89; dividends unpaid, $1,360 individual deposits subject
to check, $68,525.11 time certificates of deposit, $26,676.10;
cashier’s checks outstanding, $124.98. Total, $122,142.08.
(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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