WILKES.
Governor Wright in 1773 made a purchase from the Indians of a large
tract of land north of Little river and stretching westward to the
Ogeechee. It was while he was in office known as the ceded lands. By
the Constitution of 1777 all this section was included in one county,
called Wilkes in honor of the reckless John Wilkes, who had
distinguished himself as the friend of the colonies. It was a section
of great fertility and beauty, possessing the features which we have
found in Burke and Columbia counties. The people from the older
colonies speedily found homes in this newly-opened territory and, as we
have seen before, in 1790, when Georgia had in it only eighty-two
thousand people, Wilkes had thirty-six thousand in its boundary. These
people were nearly all native Americans. They came mainly from
Virginia, though there were a number of North Carolinians.
Governor Gilmer gives in his “Georgians” a racy description of some of
the first comers who settled in the county at that time.
He says: “On Long creek and extending southwardly fron Savannah river a
settlement was made before and during the Revolutionary war by the
Clarkes, Doolys, Murrays, Waltons, and others. They were from Bertie
and adjoining counties of North Carolina and were all connected by
blood or intermarriage. These North Carolina settlers lived upon game
and the milk of the cattle they carried with them in their emigration.
Hogs, sheep, and poultry were not to be had except in the fewest
numbers. A sufficient supply of these indispensables for a new country
could only be obtained from South Carolina, whither the people went for
that purpose when they had sufficient money to purchase. Many years
passed before they owned hogs and sheep enough for bacon and clothing.
It was a hard time when the breakfast of a family depended upon
catching an opossum over night or a rabbit in the morning. The range
was so unrestricted that the cows often wandered away beyond returning
or finding, so that the children had no milk to wash down their
otherwise dry bread. The horses that did the plowing had to be turned
on the wild grass to get their food. They strayed away beyond finding
if their legs were not fastened together, so that the art of hobbling
was as important as the black smith’s. Bells were put upon them for the
purpose of indicating their whereabouts, and then the Indians, if on
the frontiers, carried them off. It was difficult to clear of its
timber enough land for corn and tobacco. The term patch was for a long
time used for land sown in wheat, because only a small quantity was
allotted to that grain. Even these patches were not seen for years
after the settlement began, so that flour could not be had for love or
money. It was a long time before the children had more than one biscuit
apiece on Sunday mornings. Traps, snares and other contrivances were
resorted to for catching rabbits, birds and turkeys. There were no
tanneries or well instructed shoemakers. Skins were hung in running
streams till the hair could be slipped off, and then they were tanned
in a trough. Most went without shoes the greater part of the year. The
first houses were log cabins with dirt floors and clapboard coverings.
Toads and serpents were often found crawling over the floors. The
rattle of the rattlesnake and the cry of the panther often sent the
children home in a hurry when hunting the cows. After working all day
they sat around the hearth at night picking the lint from the
cottonseed. Their only fruits were wild haws and grapes.
In speaking of their social pleasures he said: “The great pleasure
indulged in was dancing. The men went to musters, shooting matches and
horse-races. The whisky bottle was always drawn out by the hospitable
settler. The clothing of the girls was provided by their own weaving.
Hollow trees provided cradles for their babies.”
The old governor gives an inventory of some estates, in which we get an
insight into the prices of things and the general condition of the
people just after the Revolution: One negro boy, £50; 1 bed, 7s.;
pail and 1 piggin, 4s.; 1 wash-tub, 2 keelers, 4s.; 1 horse, £24;
1 saddle, 00; 1 razor and 2,000 acres of land in Richmond county, Lao;
old gray horse, 5s.
Another appraisement shows: One sorrel mare, £6; 1 mare, L1; x
horse, £3; horse colt, £4; 6 head cattle, £20; 1
negro boy, £20; 1 negro girl, £30; 1 axe, frying-pan and
pothook, 5s.; 1 linen wheel, 5s.; old pewter, 15s.; butter-tub, as.; 5
old feather beds, £s; 1 pot, 10s
Another estate was: Four negroes, 3 ould basins, 7 plates, 1
frying-pan, 1 pig-gin, 1 earthen plate, 2 chairs, 1 table, 2 sides
leather.
Another was: Thirteen negroes, 6 horses, 7 sheep, 60 hogs, 23 cattle.
And another: Sixty hogs, 8 sheep, 10 cattle, loom, knives and forks,
flax wheel, turkey feather bed, 9 plates.
In 1795 an inventory calls for: Eleven negroes, 29 hogs, 1 still, 30
pounds pewter.
Up to this time the only well-furnished house is that of a physician in
Washington, and the only library is that of Mr. Wm. Rogers, a teacher.
The condition of the roads and the difficulty of transportation forbade
anything like the complete furnishing of any home, but, as is seen, a
few years after the Revolution there was a great abundance of the
necessaries of life. These inventories give a better insight into the
domestic affairs of the first settlers than any general description.
They show that the first comers were men of some property, who had but
few comforts and fewer of the luxuries of life. The description of
Governor Gilmer of life among the first North Carolinians who came to
Georgia and settled in Wilkes is borne out by the inventories of the
first estates, but belonged to all the first corners. There was,
however, immediately after the Revolution a large influx of Virginians
who were in better circumstances, and who brought with them in their
large wagons from Virginia a supply of better furniture, and furnished
their tables more bountifully.
As illustrative of this we have the inventory of John Wingfield, or as
he is written, John Winkfield, who died in 1798, and whose inventory is
elaborate and extensive. He had, besides a sufficient supply of plain
household and kitchen furniture, some articles mentioned in no other
inventory up to that time. They were bacon, sugar, turkeys, a
riding-chair, some books, some lard, and some table-cloths. He had
twenty-seven negroes, the largest number reported up to that time. The
land was generally secured by headright, or if pur chased cost about
two shillings per acre for the best quality. These Virginians, who knew
the value of good land, bought large bodies and laid the foundations
for the great estates their children had in after time. There was no
court-house till 1785 and court was held in private houses. The jury
sat on a log and consulted on their verdict. Governor Gilmer says the
jury saw a fleeing Tory and left their log and gave chase. “Prisoners,”
he says, “in the absence of a jail, were bound with hickory withes, and
confined occasionally by putting their heads between the rails of a
fence, and sometimes putting them in pens.” The Tories had little
chance for fair trials. In 1779 seven were condemned at one court. One
man was indicted for treason, hog-stealing, horse-stealing, and other
misdemeanors. While those tried for treason were con victed, I doubt
their being hung, as I find men of the same flame afterward in the
county. If one was acquitted and the mob thought he was guilty his
chance of escape was slim. Even after the war, when a man who was
accused of stealing a horse from General Clarke was acquitted by the
jury, the old soldier arrested him and marched him to a convenient tree
and was about to hang him anyhow, when Nathaniel Pendleton, a
distinguished lawyer, succeeded in begging the poor fellow off.
The old governor gives some extracts from the presentments of the grand
jury, as follows: “We present Hezekiah Wheat for profane swearing, and
Thomas Brooks for profane swearing, also Wm. Vardeman for profane
swearing, also Andrew Frazier, also John Parham, also Thomas Osborn,
also Wm. Osborn, also Moses Harris, also Peter Carnes, also Wm. Moor,
also Jeifry Early, also Wm. Thornton, also Grant Taylor, also Richard
Powell, also Samuel Creswell, also Daniel Young, also Peter
Stubblefield, also Jos. Cook, also James Stewart, also B. Smith, also
Jos. Spradling, also Jno. Bragg for fighting and gambling, Jos. Parham
for gambling, Grant Taylor and Wm. Osborn for fighting, Jos. Ryan for
profane swearing, Daniel Young for gambling and suffering it to be done
in his house, Peter Stubblefield for gambling, Danl Terondit for
gambling, Owen Shannon for swearing, Thos. Shannon for gambling,
Frederick Lipham for suffering gambling to be done in his house. The
magistrates knowingly allow the Sabbath to be broke by merchants
dealing with negroes and others, playing fives and other vices, in
particular the magistrates about town who see it frequently, Micajah
Williamson, Wm. Moor, and Henry Mounger, Esqs.; also that the militia
officers in different districts do not keep up a patrol, from which the
inhabitants suffer great damage by negroes riding horses at night, and
many other mischievous acts; also that people are suffered to gallop
and run horses through the streets of Washington.”
These copious extracts drawn from Governor Gilmer’s invaluable book
give us a little insight into the beginning of the great county of
Wilkes. The most of the earliest comers to every new country are poor.
People in easy circumstances are not willing to endure the privation of
a frontier life, but these first settlers are soon followed by those of
larger means who enter into their labors. And so those who came first,
bringing no property and settling on land granted to them by the State,
who came without slaves or furniture, were soon followed by those who
had both. This immigration of people of means from Virginia and North
Carolina came very rapidly after the Revolution. While, as the census
will show, a very large number had no negroes, there were quite a
number of slaves in this section soon after the war. These slaves and
those of the low-country planters were a very different class. They
were Virginians by birth, though Africans by lineage. The negroes were
not many in any family. In looking over the tax-lists in Wilkes there
is not a slaveholder who has over thirty negroes up to the beginning of
the century, while on the coast there were not a few slaveholders who
had largely over one hundred.
The country in Virginia was much impoverished, and the prospect of
finding good tobacco land in Georgia drew large colonies from all the
central and tide-water counties of that State. The larger part of the
immigration to Georgia had been from Dinwiddie, Prince George, Henrico,
Hanover, Goochland and Halifax, and now there came a large colony from
Albemarle led by Colonel George Mathews, afterward governor. He had
served in Georgia during the Revolution, and had visited the new county
of Wilkes on a prospecting tour. He was delighted with the land, so
like the Piedmont country in which be lived, and finding that he could
buy a large tract of preempted land at a small price, he bought what
was known as the Goose Pond tract in then Wilkes, now Oglethorpe,
county. He persuaded some of his neighbors to return with him to
Georgia and spy out the land. They, too, were delighted, and they
formed a colony known afterward as the Broad river colony, and settled
near together on that river. These Broad river people were well-to-do,
who brought with them from their homes a few negroes and such furniture
as could be brought in wagons, and their live stock. They found
excellent land and a fine range and were soon independent, and many of
them became quite wealthy. They were a people of great worth, and their
descendants have been distinguished for their public services.
Governor Gilmer, in his “Georgians,” enters with interesting
particularity into the family history of this remarkable colony. While
these people preempted the rich valley of the Broad river, there were a
number of other families of the same class who settled on the Little
river. They were originally from Virginia, but some of them came
directly from North Carolina. Among these comers were David Merriwether
and Daniel Grant, and his son Thomas Grant. The Grants had one of the
first mercantile establishments in middle Georgia, and built the first
Methodist church in the State, and the second Methodist conference was
held at their home. Daniel Grant was the first man in the State from
conscientious motives to emancipate his slaves. The country was very
rapidly settled, and in 1790 there was in its then boundaries 24,000
free and 7,268 slaves. In 1810 when the county was divided, 7,603 free
and 7,248 slaves; in 1830, 5,227 free and 8,960 slaves, while in 1850
there were only 3,826 free and 8,261 slaves. The entire population had
declined 3,000 in twenty years.
Washington was selected as the county site. It was Heard’s fort during
the war, and was not laid out till 1783. The lots were to be sold, an
academy and a court-house were to be built. It was the first county
site called Wash ington in the new republic. At Judge Walton’s instance
the name was changed to Georgetown, but it held the name only for a
little while, and the only evidence that it ever bore it is found in
the Georgetown road from Louisville, and a record in Warrenton. It was
soon settled by intelligent and well-to-do people, and was for years
the leading county town west of Augusta. It had large commercial
establishments, branch banks, an academy and handsome residences, but
up to 1822 it had no church, and many of its leading citizens were
noted for their skepticism and immorality. There were some leading
people among them who were Baptists, and some Presbyterians and
Methodists, but they had their membership in the country churches.
In 1822 the Methodists built a church in the village, and soon after
the Baptists and Presbyterians had each a place of worship. Jesse
Mercer, the most progressive and influential Bap-tist in Georgia,
married a lady in Washington and settled in the village in a
comfortable and handsome old-time residence. He here published one of
the first hymn books ever printed in Georgia, “Mercer’s Cluster of
Sacred Songs,” and established one of the first newspapers among the
Baptists in the South, The Christian index.
In the beginning of the century a hymn-book was published in Washington
for the Methodists by Hope Hull, which was the first ever printed in
Georgia.
When the tide of settlement moved westward Washington began to lose its
prominence, and after the railroads were built it became a quiet,
dignified, elegant old town with but little commercial importance, not
even commanding the trade of its own county; but after the war a new
era came and a new prosperity, and it has more than trebled its
population and has become one of the most attractive of central Georgia
towns.
One of the first, if not the first, female academies in Georgia was
established in Washington by Madame Dugas, and it had for a long time
an important male school. In has now a graded school which has a very
handsome house well equipped. The attractive homes and beautiful oaks
and elms make Washington one of the most charming cities in the State.
It was here that the Cabinet of the Confederate States held its last
session, and from this historic town the Presi dent of the Confederacy,
with a few of his Cabinet, rode out to what he hoped would be exile,
but which was to be captivity and a dungeon.
Wilkes had at the beginning of the century a newspaper published by
David Hillhouse. He not only published a newspaper, but had the first
job printing-office in the then interior of Georgia. He was an
enterprising and successful northerner. He died in 1804 and his wife
took charge of his newspaper and job office and successfully conducted
them. Once she published the laws of Georgia, being the first and only
woman who was ever State printer.
The county of Wilkes is most of it very hilly, with many streams and
narrow valleys. It was a fine stock-raising country, and was admirably
adapted to tobacco and cotton. Up to 1800 no cotton was grown for
market. After that the planting of cotton became a prominent industry,
and as new lands opened for the stockmen the farms were sold and great
plantations absorbed them.
It was not in Wilkes as in Burke that the planter was nearly always
forced to employ some one to see after his interests while he fled from
the malaria to a piny woods village. The Wilkes planters lived on their
plantations and the country homes were commodious and elegant, but as
in Burke the plantations absorbed the farms, and the war found Wilkes
with but few white people in the country sections. The land was
wretchedly worn, the homes in many cases dilapidated, and the yard full
of little negroes. The result was as in Burke, but perhaps in no other
middle Georgia county was a the recovery from the evil effects of the
war more rapid.
The negroes were freed, but the planter found it cheaper to pay them
wages than to hold them as slaves and support their dependents. The
negroes clung to their old homes, and often to their old masters. The
old fields which had grown up in second-growth timber and Bermuda grass
were brought into cultivation. Pastures were made where the Bermuda
grass had grown at will, and while there were sad reverses, perhaps the
general prosperity of the county is beyond that of any period in the
last fifty years.
The people of Wilkes have always been noted for their high religious
character. While it could not be claimed for the early corner that as a
rule he was very moral, it is certain he had great respect for religion
and his house was open to the preachers. He was ready at any time to
fight for the church, and there were prosperous churches in the county
from the earliest settlement. The Baptists were in the adjoining county
before Wilkes was settled, and as soon as it was laid out they had an
organization in it. Many of the early comers were Presbyterians from
North Carolina, and some of the earliest teachers were Presbyterian
minis ters. The first presbytery in Georgia was organized under an oak
in the town of Washington. The Methodists, as we have seen, came in
1786, and the Roman Catholics came in 1794. The first Catholic church
organized in a rural part of Georgia was in Wilkes, the first Methodist
song-book in Georgia was published in Wilkes, and the first Baptist
song-book and Baptist newspaper were published in Wilkes.
The county of Wilkes during the Revolution and for some years afterward
was on the frontier, and while what is now Wilkes was protected to some
degree by the cordon of settlers who were nearer the Oconee, it was
always in danger of Indian raids until the Creeks were at last subdued.
To merely mention the men of distinction who have come from this famous
old county would take much more space than we can give to any one
county.
Here Elijah Clarke, who shared with Twiggs the place of highest honor
as a partizan chief, had his home, and here John Clarke, his famous
son, who was afterward twice governor, was brought up. Matthew Talbott,
for so many terms a member of the Georgia Legislature, and governor
during one term, lived here. Peter Early, the distinguished judge, and
afterward gov ernor, who died in Greene, began the practice of law in
this county when he came from Virginia. The celebrated Nathaniel
Pendleton once lived in Washington, and Peter Van Allen*, who was
killed by W. H. Crawford in a duel, lived in this county. David
Meriwether, the sterling Virginia soldier and Georgia statesman, lived
here. Duncan G. Campbell, one of the most gifted and astute of early
Georgia politicians, and his gifted son, John A. Campbell, long judge
of the Supreme Court of the United States, lived here. Robert Toombs
was born in this county and lived in it all his life, and died in the
home of his youth in Washington. Jesse Mercer, the wise philanthropist,
was born in this county and died in it. Hope Hull, one of the most
valuable men of early Georgia, as we have seen, had his home near
Washington. The famous Bishop James O. Andrew was born in this county.
Daniel Grant and his son Thomas, noted for their advanced views, large
wealth, and philanthropy, lived in this county.
[AUTHOR'S NOTE.—I have given much more attention to Wilkes than I can
give to any other county of middle Georgia, but it was a parent county,
and in giving its story I have told the story of others in this part of
the State. I am very much indebted to that enthusiastic antiquarian,
Miss Eliza Bowen, whose careful researches into the early history of
the county ought to be carefully preserved and pub lished. I have had
furnished me by her the newspaper clippings from which I have gathered
much information.]
*Van Allen married a sister of Lorenzo Dow. See Dow’s Journal. * See
chapter XIV., Religion in Georgia.
* The court-house in Burke has been burned and all the records which
antedated the war are destroyed, but in the Appendix may be found a
list of the first comers to the county.
