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Walton
County, Georgia
History
Walton County which was
created by the Lottery Act of 1818, was organized in 1819. Georgia's 46th
county was named for George Walton (1749 -
2
Feb 1804) signer of the Declaration of Independence *Continental
Congress (1776-78), Colonel of the First Georgia Militia (1778), served as
Governor of Georgia in 1779-80, U.S. Congress (1780-81), Chief Justice of
Georgia (1783-89), Governor of Georgia (1789-90) and U.S. Senator in
1795. Along with his political career, Walton also served as a
trustee of Richmond Academy and of The University of Georgia. Lastly,
named after him is the highly honored George Walton Academy in Monroe,
Georgia.
Some of the communities in Walton County have very interesting names.
Between was named by a postmaster because it was halfway between Monroe
and Loganville, and Social Circle was possibly named for the first group
of settlers who considered themselves a social circle and often passed
around a "jug" of spirits.
Walton County has an unusually rich assemblage of historic sites and
structures. Near Monroe is Jacks Creek, the site of the massacre by whites
of a large encampment of Creek Indians in 1787. Some other historical
sites worth visiting are the Brodnax House and Thompson's Mill.
Points of Interest
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Old Walton County
Courthouse - Located downtown
Monroe at the corner of Broad and Spring Streets, the Old Walton
County Courthouse was build in 1883 in the Second Empire Victorian
Style. Shortly after Walton
County was created in Dec. 1818, court was held in a cow barn. Other
buildings served as seat of government until the county's first
courthouse was completed in 1823. That building served until 1845,
when another courthouse was built. Walton County's third courthouse
(shown above) was completed in 1884. The original clock tower and dome
were destroyed by a tornado in 1885. The courthouse roof remained flat
until the current tower was added in 1907. The building underwent
major restorations in 1933, 1969, and 1996.
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Jacks Creek - Site
of the Sept 21, 1787 Battle of Jack's Creek massacre of a large
encampment of Creek Indians.
For more Historical
Locations please see Historical
Sites
Notable Citizens
There are several famous
citizens, either through birth or residence, of Walton County including seven other Georgia governors:
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James Stoddard Boynton
(7 May 1833 - 22 Dec 1902) ~ An
American politician and jurist who briefly served as the 51st Governor
of Georgia in 1883 after the death of governor Alexander Stephens. At
the time of Stephens death, Boynton was serving as the president of
Georgia Senate. His addition Boynton serviced as Mayor of Griffin,
Georgia, Spalding County, Georgia Judge and the Flint Circuit Superior
Court.
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Howell Cobb (7 Sep
1815 - 9 Oct 1868) ~ A 5
term member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Speaker of the
House from 1849 to 51, Cobb served as Secretary of Treasury under
President James Buchanon from 1857 - 60 and was the 40th Governor of
Georgia from 1851 to 53. Cobb was also the publisher of "A
Scriptural Examinatiojn of the Institution of Slavery" in 1856.
Cobb is best known as
one of the founders of the Confederate States of America, having served
as the Speaker of the Provisional Confederate Congress, when delegates
of the secessionist states issued creation of the Confederacy. After
obtaining his law degree from University of Georgia and being admitted
to the bar in 1836, Cobb became solicitor general of the western
judicial circuit of Georgia. Though
Cobb was a advocate of slavery, when the Compromise of 1850 had been
agreed upon he became its staunch supporter as a Union Democrat. Cobb
was elected governor of Georgia by a large majority. In 1860, Cobb
ceased to be a Unionist and became a leader of the secession movement
and served as Speaker and as President Po Tempore of the Confederate
Provisional Congress, until he resigned to join the military when the
Civil War erupted. Cobb
began the campaign to construct a POW camp in southern Georgia, a
location thought to be safe from Union invaders, this lead to the
creation of Andersonville prison. During Sherman's March to the Sea,
Sherman confiscated Cobb's property and leveled the plantation upon
discovering it was Cobb's plantation he was to stay in for the
night.
**Image provided by
Wikimedia**
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Alfred
Holt Colquitt (20 Apr 1824 - 26 Mar 1894) ~ Born
in Monroe, Georgia Colquitt was a lawyer, preacher, soldier, 49th
Governor of Georgia in 1876 (defeating Republican candidate Jonathan
Norcross) and two term U.S. Senator from Georgia where he died in
office. Son of Walter T. Colquitt, a U.S. Representative and Senator
from Georgia, Colquitt graduated from Princeton College in 1844,
studied law and passed his bar examination in 1846 and began
practicing law in Monroe, Georgia.
During the
Mexican-American War, Colquitt served in the U.S. Army at the rank of
major. After the war, Colquitt was elected as a member of the U.S. House
of Representatives from 1853 - 55. He then served in the Georgia state
legislature. In 1862, he was a delegate to the state secession
convention.
At the beginning of the
Civil War, he was appointed captain in the 6th Georgia Infantry,
fighting in the Peninsula Campaign, The Seven Days Battles, Battle of
South Mountain, Battle of Antietam, Battle of Fredericksburg and the
Battle of Chancellorsville under Stonewall Jackson. He rose through the
ranks to become a brigadier general in 1862. In 1865, Colquitt
surrendered in North Carolina.
Reelected in 1880 to
serve two years under the new state constitution, debt was reduced and
he was opposed to reconstruction. In 1883, he was elected as a Democrat
to the U.S. Senate. He was reelected in 1888 and served until his death
in Washington D.C. in 1894.
**Image provided by
Wikimedia**
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Wilson Lumpkin
(14 Jan 1783 - 28 Dec 1870) ~ Lumpkin
was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from 1804 to
1812, and was elected as a Representative to the Fourteenth United
States Congress, serving from March 4, 1815 to March 3, 1817. He was
an unsuccessful candidate for reelection, and was the State Indian
Commissioner. He was elected to the Twentieth, Twenty-first, and
Twenty-second Congresses and served from March 4, 1827, until his
resignation in 1831 before the convening of the Twenty-second Congress
to run for the governorship; he was also commissioner on the
Georgia-Florida boundary line commission, and was Governor of Georgia
from 1831 to 1835. In 1835, he was appointed commissioner under the
Cherokee treaty in 1835. He was elected to the U.S. Senate to fill the
vacancy caused by the resignation of John P. King and served from
November 22, 1837, to March 3, 1841; while in the Senate, he was
chairman of the Committee on Manufactures (Twenty-sixth Congress).
Lumpkin was a member of the State board of public works, and died in
Athens in 1870; interment was in Oconee Cemetery. Husband of Annis Hopson
Lumpkin and father of Martha Lumpkin Compton who is the honoree of
Atlanta's original name "Marthasville".
**Image provided by
Wikimedia**
Born to
Ira McDaniel, one of the first professors of Mercer University,
McDaniel graduated at the head of his class in law at Mercer and
established a practice in his home town. He was the youngest delegate
to Georgia's succession convention in 1861 and later served in the
Confederate Army. He first attracted attention during the Civil War
for taking command of the 11th Georgia Infantry after the death of his
officers at the Battle of Gettysburg. Eight days after the battle, he
was shot by a Union Soldier at Funkstown, Maryland and spent the rest
of the war in a POW camp.
He
was a member of the Democratic Party and after the war entered Georgia
state politics, serving in its House and Senate, ultimately becoming
governor at the death of Alexander Stephens in 1883. McDaniel served
out Stephens' term and won a two year term of his own in 1884. During
this administration, he established the Georgia Institute of
Technology and began construction of the new State Capitol.
After
his political career, he returned to Monroe to practice law. His home,
the McDaniel-Tichenor House, was listed with the National Register of
Historic Places in 1980.
**Image provided by
Wikimedia**
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Clifford
Walker (4 Jul 1877 - 9 Nov 1954) ~ Born
in Monroe, Georgia to Billington Sanders Walker and Alice Mitchell.
Walker served as Georgia's 61st Governor from 1923 - 27. Holding
office during a period of transition in Georgia politics. Walker
accomplished little of a note legislatively during his
administration and is best remembered for his ties to the Ku Klux
Klan.
One of 7 children, he
was educated at the Georgia Military Institute and the University of
Georgia. Walker proved to be a gifted student and while at the
University of Georgia he established the Georgian, a literary
magazine. After receiving a degree from University of Georgia in 1897,
Walker returned to Monroe, where he worked for the attorney R. L. Cox.
Walker was admitted to the state bar association in 1898. he married
Rosa Mathewson in 1902 and they had 3 sons.
Walker was elected
mayor of Monroe in 1902 and served that post until 1904. In 1909
Walker became a public official when he began serving as the Western
Circuit solicitor general, a post he held until 1913. In 1915 Walker
was elected Attorney General for Georgia. In 1920 he resigned as
attorney general to run for governor. Walkers opponent, Thomas
Hardwick, recognized the importance of the Ku Klux Klan and praised
the organization, the newly revived Klan, a powerful force in Georgia
politics, shot Hardwicks votes high and Walker was soundly
defeated.
After Hardwick lost
favor with the Klan soon after he took office resulting in Walkers run
for governor again in 1922 and after soliciting Klan support during
the race, easily defeated Hardwick. Unlike his predecessor, Walker
remained loyal to the Klan while in office. He addressed a national Ku
Klux Klan convention, where he promised to meet with the Klan leaders
in the state on policy issues. Walker kept his word and often
consulted Klan leaders on matters regarding state policy.
In 1924, Walker was
reelected to a second term. In the same year Walker was pressured by
journalist Julian Harris to opening admit his membership into the
Klan. In 1926 Walker was replaced in the governors chair by Lamartine
Hardman.
In 1928 Walker moved
from Monroe to Atlanta and entered into private law practice. Five
years later Walker and Joseph B. Kilbride founded the Woodrow Wilson
College of Law, also in Atlanta. He served as general counsel for the
Georgia Department of Labor from 1937 to 1952.
**Image provided by
Wikimedia**
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Richard B.
Hubbard 1836 ~ Born on a
Walton County plantation moved to Texas became governor of TX.
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Moira B. Michael -
(15 Aug 1869 - 10 May 1944) ~
Professor at the University of Georgia and Humanitarian who
conceived the idea of using poppies as a symbol of remembrance for
those who served in World War I. Born in Good Hope, Georgia, Michael
was educated at Lucy Cobb Institute and Georgia State Teachers
College, both located in Athens, Georgia and Columbia University in
New York City.
When the U.S. entered
World War I, Michael took a leave of absence from the University of
Georgia and Volunteered to assist in the New York-based training
headquarters for overseas YMCA workers. She published a poem in
response to John McCrae's battlefront-theme poem "In Flanders
Fields", called "We Shall Keep the Faith". In tribute
to the opening lines of McCrae's poem "In Flanders fields the
poppies blow/ Between the crosses row on row", Michael vowed to
always wear a red poppy as a symbol of remembrance for those who
served in the war.
After the war was
over, Michael returned to the University of Georgia and taught a class
of disabled servicemen. Realizing the need to provide financial
and occupational support for these servicemen, she pursued the idea of
selling silk poppies as a means of raising funds to assist disabled
veterans. In 1921 her efforts resulted in the poppy being adopted as a
symbol of remembrance for war veterans by the American Legion
Auxiliary.
Known as the
"Poppy Lady" for her humanitarian efforts, Michael received
nu8merous awards during her lifetime. In 1948, four years after her
death, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring
her life's achievement. In 1969, the Georgia General Assembly named a
section of U.S. Highway 78 the Moina Michael Highway.
On May 10, 1944,
Michaels was laid to rest at Rest Haven Cemetery in Monroe Walton
County,
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
When the first effort was
made to settle the Cherokee Country in 1802 a new county was projected to
be called Walton, and a bill was passed to lay it out. The act was never
carried into effect, but in 1818 a new county bearing the same name was
provided for, and it was organized.
White gives as the first settlers in this county: Charles Smith, R. M.
Echols, P. Stroud, Jno. Dickerson, Warren J. Hill, Jesse Arnold, Walter T.
Colquitt, Jonas Hale, V. Haralson, J. M. Well, A. W. Wright, C. D. Davis,
W. Briscoe, R. Briscoe, R. Milligan and J. Richardson.
The county was a very large one, and, in the main, not a fertile one. The
larger part of the land was a light gray soil, moderately productive at
first but soon exhausted. There were, however, some bottoms on the creeks
and rivers which were very fertile. The climate was good, the country
healthy, the land cheap, and there soon came into this section a very
large number of immigrants. Many of therm had been the fortunate drawers
of the lots of two hundred and fifty and one-half acres and were from
other parts of Georgia, and many of them were from the upper part of South
Carolina.
So rapidly was the county peopled that in twelve years after it was opened
for settlement there were nearly ten thousand people living in it.
Land was sold in lots of two hundred and fifty acres and generally brought
about one hundred dollars per lot, or less than fifty cents per acre. A
lot sold at sheriff’s sale brought five dollars and a quarter, another
brought twenty-five dollars, but land on the rivers even as early as 1821
brought seven dollars per acre.
The first place at which court was held was the Cowpen, which was two
miles from Monroe.
Judge John M. Dooly held the court. As was universally the case in new
counties the larger number of cases was for assaults. There were, however,
bills for hog-stealing, perjury, adultery and mayhem, and a group of men
were charged with gambling at seven-up, three-up and faro.
There was loud complaint against illicit liquor-selling where men sold
less than a quart without license.
One man was presented and finally punished for cruelly whipping his slave,
and one was condemned to be hung for murder. He was, however, pardoned.
While there were few people among the first settlers of Walton who were
wealthy, and many quite poor, there was a large number of well-to-do
people with from five to ten negroes and an abundance of cheap but
productive land. To illustrate the general condition of the well-to-do
people one estate shows: 10 negroes, 33 hogs, 17 cattle, kitchen and
household furniture, and, what was rare, forty-five dollars’ worth of
books, while some of the estates indicate abundant means. Theophilus Hill
had 42 negroes, 22 sheep, 350 barrels of corn, 12 beds and bedsteads, $100
worth of hogs, 2 cotton-gins, etc.
The bulk of the people had only their land and a small number of cattle,
horses, hogs, and a scant supply of furniture. There was but little cotton
and very little of any thing was made for sale. Corn, hogs and cattle, as
in all the new counties, were the products. The coming of new settlers
into the county provided a market for the surplus the farmers might have.
Monroe was selected as the county site, and named Mon roe after the then
president. It soon became a prominent up-country town and the center of
quite a coterie of prominent men.
Walter T. Colquitt, then a young lawyer, settled in this little village
and made his first reputation as a brilliant lawyer in the courts of this
new country.
Judge James Jackson, so famous for the purity of his life and his ability
as a jurist, and Judge Junius Hillyer, a prominent lawyer and a member of
Congress, were among its citizens.
Governor Henry D. McDaniel, famous as being one of the best governors
Georgia has ever had, began his professional life in Monroe, and after his
term was over returned there to spend his last years.
Monroe was long a secluded country village with small trade and a small
population, but since it has been reached by the railway has become quite
a thrifty town, with a fine court-house, a good graded school and some
prosperous cotton mills. Social Circle, on the Georgia railway, is a
sprightly and enterprising village; and Logansville, in the northwestern
part of the county, is a village of considerable trade. Bethlehem is a
small hamlet north of Monroe.
The educational advantages of the county for many years were quite poor,
but they are better now than they ever were. The people who came into
Walton were mainly Methodists and Baptists, and the Walton circuit of the
Methodist preacher was a very large and important one in the early days of
the county’s settlement. In 1827 there was a great revival in Monroe, at
which Walter Colquitt, a young lawyer, was converted; and a number of
years afterward, in the same village, young James Jackson, afterward judge
of the superior court and member of Congress, and finally chief justice of
the State, was converted and became a lay preacher.
The Baptists were among the first Christian workers in the county, and
perhaps the oldest church in the county is a Primitive Baptist Church.
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