Here's an extract from "The Story of Washington Wilkes" by the Workers of the Writers' Program of the WPA of GA (Athens, University of Georgia Press , 1941, transcribed by Keith Giddeon and used by permission)

» Pt. I - Settlement
» Pt. II - In the Revolution
» Pt. III - Growth Under the State
» Pt. IV - The Ante-Bellum Period
» Pt. V - War Between the States and Reconstruction
» Pt. VI - Close of the Century
» Pt. VII - The Early Twentieth Century
» Pt. VIII - Modern Times

SETTLEMENT

IT WAS not until after the middle of the eighteenth century that white men began to lay plans for permanent settlement in the part of Georgia that is now Wilkes County. At that time the Cherokee and Creek Indians claimed the land as a hunting ground, and only overgrown clearings indicated that they had once lived here the year round. The Cherokees had moved north into the mountains and the Creeks had gone west into the piedmont region and south into the coastal plain. In 1763 a small band of Englishmen who attempted to come into the Little River valley from their colonies along the Savannah River were vigorously driven out by the Indians. In that year the Colonial governors of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia met with seven hundred Indians in Augusta and signed a treaty fixing the Little River as the northern boundary for white settlement in Georgia. The title of the Indians to their hunting lands was thus legally confirmed.

Since the Indians wished to deal with the white men, the treaty provided that the governor could continue issuing licenses to authorized traders. But the Indians proved to have little commercial acumen and were not able to pay for their purchases with the products of their hunting, fishing, and trapping. The claims of the white men were established at last, therefore, not by force but by trading. The history of land ownership in this period was made by such well-known merchants as JAMES JACKSON and GEORGE GALPHIN. Although some were men of integrity, others were ruthless and deliberately drew the Indians into debt. To appease the white men, who clamored for payment, the Indians offered a cession of land to settle these debts, and, in order that an amicable settlement might be made, Sir JAMES WRIGHT, Georgia's royal governor, called a congress to convene in Augusta on June 1, 1773. JOHN STUART, his majesty's agent and superintendent of Indian affairs in the South, exerted his influence to control this conference of wily traders and suspicious Indians. For their indebtedness of from forty to fifty thousand pounds, the tribal representatives agreed to relinquish to Georgia two great tracts of more than two million acres. One tract, ceded by the Creeks alone, lay between the Ogeechee and Altamaha Rivers; the other, ceded by both the Creeks and the Cherokees, extended from the Little River up the Savannah River beyond the Broad River almost to the junction of the Keowee and Tugaloo Rivers and westward to embrace the expansive territory that later became Wilkes County. From the sale of this land the provincial government would liquidate the claims held against the Indians.

Although the Indians did not always sanction the processes employed—they deemed the compass a devil's instrument to cheat them of their lands—the surveying was continued. GOVERNOR WRIGHT immediately spread news along the Atlantic seaboard that grants in this "New Purchase" area were available for settlement. His proclamation of June 11 stated that the territory would "be parceled out in tracts varying from one to a hundred acres the better to accommodate the buyers." The head of a family would be allowed a hundred acres for himself, fifty for his wife and each child, the same number for each, slave and white male servant, and twenty-five for each female servant between fifteen and forty years. In order to induce settlers to come into the area, he set forth attractive terms of sale, praised the condition of the land, and stated that the fertile soil would be "fit for the production of wheat, indigo, Indian corn, tobacco, hemp, flax, &."

According to the plan of settlement, commissioners were appointed to place a value upon each tract and to negotiate sales, charging not more than five shillings an acre. Five pounds sterling were to be paid as "entrance money for every hundred acres." In order to make settlement easier, land courts were opened in Savannah, Augusta, and also in the ceded lands at the confluence of the Broad and Savannah Rivers, where CAPTAIN THOMAS WATERS and his company were stationed to preserve peace between white men and the Indians. Three years later, WILLIAM BARTRAM, the noted botanist, visited the fort built there and later gave the following description in his Travels: "Towards evening I ... arrived at Fort James, which is a four square stockade, with salient bastions at each angle, mounted with a block-house, where are some swivel guns, one story higher than the curtains, which are pierced with loopholes, breast high, and defended by small arms. The fortification encloses about an acre of ground, where is the governor's or commandant's house, a good building, which is flanked on each side by buildings for the officers and barracks for the garrison, consisting of fifty ranges, including officer's, each having a good house well equipt, a rifle, two dragoon pistols, and a hangar, besides a powder horn, shot pouch, and tomahawk." The point between the two rivers, for a distance of two miles back of the fort, was laid out for a town called Dartmouth in honor of the Earl of Dartmouth, who influenced King George to favor the cession of the newly acquired area. This village was thus the first real settlement made upon the "ceded lands." The Broad River was also named for the distinguished nobleman and for a short time was called the Dart.

When the commissioners opened the land court at Dartmouth on September 27, 1773, a rush for possession began. Court records show that settlers seeking new land came from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. One application came from a distant country, for on November 16, 1773, JAMES GORDON, of Scotland, was given permission to bring from his country within a year a sufficient number of emigrants to settle five thousand acres near the junction of the Broad and South Broad Rivers. According to tradition in Wilkes County, GORDON brought with him sixty or seventy families of Scotch Highlanders who had agreed to serve a five-year apprenticeship to pay for their passage. But this venture was not successful. GORDON, soon frightened by threats of the oncoming revolution, carried his people into South Carolina and sold their indentures. An upper portion of Wilkes County where some of the Scots lived has been called Scotchtown by succeeding generations. An unsubstantiated story has long attributed the settlement to the efforts of LORD GEORGE GORDON, an eccentric English gentleman later involved in anti-Catholic riots in London.

On the last day of December, 1773, a band of Westmoreland County Virginians reached the primeval forest that stood on the present site of Washington, and on New Year's Day they began the arduous work of conquering the wilderness. As a precaution against Indian forays, great trees were felled for a stockaded fortification which was called Fort Heard in honor of one of the Virginia families. The Heards, reputedly descendants of William the Conqueror, had settled in Virginia in 1720 as neighbors of George Washington's family, from whom they had obtained Arabian horses. JOHN HEARD, JR., with his wife and sons, BARNARD, JESSE, and STEPHEN, was included in the group that migrated to Georgia. JESSE remained at Fort Heard, which stood just north of what is now the public square. STEPHEN, who had done military service under GEORGE WASHINGTON, soon left and settled on Fishing Creek, eight miles away, where he built another stockade, this one called Heard's Fort.

GOVERNOR WRIGHT had told the English Board of Trade and his Majesty's Council that he expected the new cession to add ten thousand families to the population of Georgia, to increase the militia roll by fifteen thousand men, and to bring more than £100,000 worth of produce into the market. Promise of speedy development, however, was thwarted early in 1774, when seventeen white persons were murdered by the Creeks at Sherrill's Fort. As, other attacks and skirmishes followed, the new inhabitants left their holdings and settlement was delayed. GOVERNOR WRIGHT and CAPTAIN STUART consequently asked for a conference with the Creeks in Savannah. After a new treaty of peace and amity, signed there on October 18, 1774, by twenty Creek chieftains, white men once more were brave enough to go into the New Purchase territory. With the return of confidence many old settlers returned, and new applicants came in good numbers.

Early migrants, restricted by the Appalachian Highland to the west, usually followed that mountain range southward in search of new land. The first Wilkes County settlers were therefore joined by others from South Carolina, North Carolina, and even from more remote colonies. Few were drawn from GENERAL JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE's coastal communities. Coming on horseback, the children riding with their mothers, these pioneers were able to bring only a very few household articles and domestic animals with them. They hastily felled oak and pine trees from the dense wilderness, constructed log cabins with clapboard coverings, and made crude furniture from axe-hewn planks. Life was hard for these early settlers. After working all day cultivating the fields or hunting rabbits or opossums for food, the men frequently sat around the open hearth at night to tell stories as they picked the lint from cotton seed. The women wove cloth while caring for infants in cradles improvised from hollow logs. The children were often frightened by the cries of panthers when they took the cattle out to graze, and housewives had to be constantly on the alert for snakes that sometimes crawled in through cracks in the walls and made their way across the bare dirt floors. For pleasure there was dancing, and the men and boys went to "musters, shooting-matches, and horse-races." Despite the crudeness of their manner of living, these early settlers were not mere traders and adventurers, for the old land court record (1773-75) reveals that applicants for grants had to show satisfactory character vouchers.

Return to Top of Page

IN THE REVOLUTION

With Indian strife temporarily calmed and with settlers thronging into the rich lands, the section seemed to be ready for prosperous development, but settlement was hardly under way before war broke out. The county came to life amid chaos. Perhaps because they had come from states where the issues of revolution had been much discussed, many of. the early settlers were Whig in sentiment. That others were strongly Tory is due to the partiality shown by GOVERNOR JAMES WRIGHT in granting lands and paying the traders. This royal governor, upon his own responsibility, had initiated a policy of making grants to loyalists and refusing land to those who opposed the oppressive measures of Great Britain. The same method was used in disbursing the money realized from the sale of the New Purchase lands. Men like GEORGE GALPHIN who sympathized with the colonists were refused payment of their legally just debts and were not paid until after Georgia had become a state. Wilkes County was therefore divided in sentiment, and each group opposed the other whenever occasion arose.

In 1776, more than a year before the British soldiers came into Georgia, a constitutional convention met in Savannah and on February 5, 1777, approved a constitution whereby Georgia became a state. The entire portion of the ceded lands north of the Ogeechee River was incorporated, into one county and called Wilkes in honor of JOHN WILKES, who as a member of the British Parliament had opposed the severity meted out to the American Colonies. Therefore, Wilkes County history from 1777 to 1790 also depicts that of Elbert and Lincoln Counties as well as parts of the present Hart, Madison, Oglethorpe, Taliaferro, and Warren Counties.

The constitution authorized the establishment of a superior court in each county; on September 16, 1777, the legislature enacted a law empowering the Superior Court of Wilkes County to lay out and make roads "as may be thought convenient for the inhabitants . . ." The court was also permitted to nominate commissioners and surveyors and to appoint inhabitants along the proposed roads to keep them in good repair. ABSALOM BEDELL, BENJAMIN CATCHINGS, and ROBERT DAY were the commissioners appointed. Since this statute was in force only one year, no action was ever taken under its authority.

Many of the early Wilkes County colonists rendered inestimable service in the American struggle for independence. The handsome and fearless ELIJAH CLARKE, who came from North Carolina in 1774 and settled not far from Washington, became one of Georgia's greatest Revolutionary leaders. His first assignment (1776) was a captaincy in the quartermaster corps, with the responsibility of guarding the army's food supply. When Indians attacked the supply wagons in care of his company, he routed them in confusion. Although the British forces were sometimes double that of his own, it was the fiery charges of his soldiers that won for Wilkes County the name of Hornet's Nest. Fighting side by side with his men and showing no mercy to the enemy, he not only dealt out many a defeat to the British but kept up incessant warfare with the Indians and Tories.

Another of the early Wilkes County citizens whose military skill made history was COLONEL JOHN DOOLY, who settled in what is now Lincoln County at the beginning of the Revolution. During the early months of the fighting in Georgia, he served with Clarke in many skirmishes in his own section and across the Savannah River in South Carolina. Having sworn vengeance upon the Indians for the murder of his brother THOMAS, he constantly spread terror among the tribes.

One of the most interesting characters of the Revolution was AUSTIN DABNEY, a free-born mulatto who fought with ELIJAH CLARKE. DABNEY had been enlisted as a substitute for his master, who was afraid to fight. After being seriously wounded at the Battle of Kettle Creek, he was cared for by one of the numerous HARRIS families of Wilkes County. In order to show his appreciation he lived frugally and saved enough money to send his benefactor's oldest son to the University of Georgia. Later acquiring money through a public land lottery and a Federal pension, he continued to serve his protege. GOVERNOR GEORGE GILMER in his book Sketches tells that on one of DABNEY's annual visits to Savannah to collect his pension, the Negro accompanied COLONEL WILEY POPE. Upon being warned of the prejudices that forbade a white man from associating with a Negro in urban society. DABNEY fell behind at the city limits. In Savannah, however, GOVERNOR JAMES JACKSON watched Pope ride past his house without recognition but ran into the street to welcome DABNEY with a warm handshake.

Except for skirmishes with Indians incited by the British, Wilkes County was undisturbed by actual warfare until after the fall of Augusta in January, 1779, a year after royal forces had entered the state. As soon as the rebels of Wilkes learned that the British had captured Augusta, they began to move their families into South Carolina. A few remained to till their farms, and others sought refuge in pioneer forts. Since there was then no important post in Georgia held by Americans, the enemy considered themselves in possession of the state. COLONEL HAMILTON, appointed to administer the British oath of allegiance to the inhabitants remaining in Wilkes County, burned many of the houses of those who had left.

Many Georgia and Wilkes County patriots rallied around COLONEL JOHN DOOLY on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River and soon, attempted to come back into Georgia. Trying to cross the river just below Dartmouth, they were so closely pressed by COLONEL HAMILTON that they fled back into the adjacent state. Having been joined by 250 men under COLONEL ANDREW PICKENS, they again planned to attack Hamilton, who was encamped on CAPTAIN THOMAS WATER's plantation near the mouth of the Broad River. On February 10 the combined forces of DOOLY and PICKENS came into Wilkes prepared for an attack but found that HAMILTON hud gone on an expedition to administer oaths of allegiance.

HAMILTON's goal was Carr's Fort, one of the numerous blockhouses of Wilkes County. PICKENS, foreseeing HAMILTON's line of march, sent a subordinate ahead to arrange for defense of this fort, a refuge of women and children, Finding it protected by a few old patriots, the officer deemed defense impracticable and allowed the British to take possession; but the enemy were so closely pushed by the American forces under DOOLY and PICKENS that they were forced to leave their horses and baggage outside the stockade. Although there was little shooting during this encounter because of the women and children inside the fort, nine British and five Americans were killed while three loyalists and seven patriots were wounded. PICKENS hurriedly sent men to take possession of a log house, from which the patriots could command the only effective, source of water, and planned to starve the British into surrender. Soon, however, he received news that COLONEL JOHN BOYD, a notorious Tory, with eight hundred loyalists was moving toward Georgia from South Carolina. The American patriots hastened across the Savannah to meet BOYD, and COLONEL HAMILTON retreated to Wrightsboro, in a neighboring county.

Before leaving for South Carolina, PICKENS and DOOLY called for reinforcements under CAPTAIN ANDERSON to patrol the Savannah in order to hold back the loyalist forces whenever they should attempt a crossing. BOYD changed his course of march, failed to encounter PICKENS, and attempted to cross into Wilkes at Cherokee Ford, which he found protected by a blockhouse. He consequently went five miles up the river and effected a crossing by dividing his men into small groups and sending them across on rafts. Passage was hotly contested by a small force of a hundred Americans, and BOYD lost a hundred men, killed, wounded, and missing. Sixteen Americans were killed and wounded and an equal number were taken prisoners.

PICKENS and DOOLY, hastening back into Georgia, were reinforced by CAPTAIN ANDERSON with his remaining troops and by COLONEL ELIJAH CLARKE with a hundred dragoons. After assembling on the Broad River, the combined forces, informed by couriers as to the movements of the enemy, hastened southward after BOYD, who was seeking to join COLONEL DANIEL MCGIRTH and his five hundred men on the Little River about six miles from Kettle Creek. Although the skirmishes had cost him men and horses, BOYD still had seven hundred soldiers and was confident of supremacy. Near Kettle Creek at a spot twelve miles from Washington he halted his men for a breakfast of parched corn and fresh beef. But, unknown to him, CLARKE, DOOLY, and PICKENS, were close on his trail. On the night before, the five hundred Americans had encamped on a creek within four miles of the enemy. Among the soldiers was CLARKE's son JOHN, a lad of thirteen.

Early in the morning of February 14 they began a march to overtake BOYD's forces. Soon they heard drums in the enemy's camp, halted, and sent a young officer to reconnoiter and ascertain the position of the British. Upon learning that the time was propitious, the Americans advanced, with PICKENS commanding the center, DOOLY the right wing, and CLARKE the left. BOYD's pickets, catching sight of the advance guard, fired and thus gave alarm. Though taken by surprise, BOYD went into immediate action. Deploying his men into battle formation, he advanced with a hundred soldiers, using fallen timber and an old fence to break the range of flying bullets.

Soon the American charges drove them back from the valley and across the creek, causing them to abandon their horses and equipment. BOYD fell, mortally wounded. CLARKE shrewdly surmised that the retreat was a strategic maneuver to gain the vantage point of the hill beyond. To frustrate this plan, he decided to plunge ahead. As he gave the command to charge, his horse was shot from under him, but quickly mounting another he led his men forward. At the foot of the elevation, now known as War Hill, the noise of a sharp encounter soon drew the forces of PICKENS and DOOLY to his aid. In less than two hours the patriots had won a great victory, losing only nine men to BOYD's seventy. Twenty American soldiers were wounded and ninety-five British. After the battle, CLARKE pushed on after the retreating enemy, leaving two soldiers with the dying BOYD to attend his last needs.

One of the decisive battles of the Revolution, the encounter of Kettle Creek was important not only to the citizens of Wilkes County but also to those of the state. From this engagement and the preliminary skirmishes the Americans gained a quantity of much-needed munitions and six hundred horses. BOYD's forces were scattered, some to the British in Augusta, where MCGIRTH's reinforcements had already retreated. These men never again assembled as a fighting unit, and except for pillaging by raiders Wilkes County was not again invaded. This victory broke the hold of the British in Georgia and led to COLONEL ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL's decision, to abandon Augusta for a while. Although there was much fighting in the state throughout the following year, Georgia was no longer completely in the hands of the British.

The citizens who had fled into South Carolina returned to their cabin homes and made preparations for their spring crops. It was not long, however, before they needed protection from the Indians, incited by the half-breed ALEXANDER MCGILLIVRAY and a British agent named TATE. In March, CLARKE and PICKENS called to arms all the remaining male citizens over sixteen, routed a band of eight hundred Creeks, and again restored peace to Wilkes County.

Defeat of the enemy enheartened the stricken people to undertake again the formation of their government. Obeying an order of the state executive council, they held their first session of court on August 25, 1779, in the house of JACOB MCLENDON about ten miles north of Fort Heard. ABSALOM BEDELL, BENJAMIN CATCHINGS, and WILLIAM DOWNS were the justices, and COLONEL JOHN DOOLY was attorney for the state. HENRY MONADUE was appointed, clerk and JOSEPH SCOTT RIDEN sheriff. Embittered by the cruelty of the enemy and their sympathizers, this bar of justice showed little mercy to Wilkes County Tories. The grand jury, which assembled at the same time, made presentments against twenty-six Tories and recommended that they be arrested and tried for assisting "the British troops and the avowed enemies of the United States of America." No further records remain to show what happened to these, but it is known that the court tried nine others and found them guilty, recommending five to mercy. But clemency was not in the hearts of the jurors, for all nine were sentenced to be hanged. JOSHUA RIALS, one of them, was tried for treason against the state and of acting "in conjunction with TATE and the Creek Indians." In order to insure evidence sufficient for conviction, the court tried another, JAMES MOBLEY, not only for high treason but for "horse stealing, hogg stealing, and other misdemeanors,"

This first session of the court was called a "court of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery," but the following year the tribunal came to he known simply as the Superior Court, In the absence of a courthouse the first sessions were held in private residences, and the jury sat outside on a log for consultation. Since there was no jail, prisoners were confined in pens, frequently bound with hickory twigs, and often put into stocks that were merely two heavy rails of a wooden fence.

Throughout the period of British occupation of Georgia the state capital had been shifted between Savannah and Augusta. When Savannah was occupied by the British and Augusta was considered unsafe, the members of the General Assembly who met in Augusta on January 4, 1780, designated Heard's Fort as a meeting place in the event of attacks. On February 5 the assembly adjourned in order to reconvene at Heard's Fort, which thus became the temporary capital of Georgia. GOVERNOR RICHARD HOWLEY, who was attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, had left the affairs of the state in the hands of GEORGE WELLS, president of the council. Upon the death of WELLS on February 18, STEPHEN HEARD was elected president of the council and thereby became the acting governor of Georgia. HEARD received this recognition while occupying the fort that bore his name, and this post remained the seat of government for the greater part of the year.

On January 23, 1780, seven years after the coming of the first settlers, the legislature appointed WILLIAM DOWNS, BARNARD HEARD, JOHN GRAHAM, DAVID COLEMAN, and JOHN DOOLY, or any three, to form a board of commissioners. These men were empowered to lay out a hundred acres into a common and town, "which shall be called Washington," the site to be that appointed for holding court. The money derived from the sale of acre lots was to be used for building a jail, a school, and a cemetery. Although the latter conditions were not carried into effect, a town was soon begun at Fort Heard. Evidence of this is found in a legislative act of 1783 which states that a town had been ordered and "actually laid out in the County of Wilkes at a place called Washington ..." Thus Washington was the first of many towns to be named in honor of the great American general. The site probably bore the name before it was officially recognized, for certain unauthentic sources indicate that Fort Heard previously was called Fort Washington.

The new legislature, wishing to invite immigration, continued the policy of granting unapportioned Wilkes County lands. It established a headright system whereby every free white person was entitled to two hundred acres of land, fifty for each member of his family, and fifty for each slave up to ten. He was required to settle on his grant within six months, to pay a quit rent of two shillings, and to take care of the expense of surveying. But men were too busy with Revolutionary matters to take advantage of the moderate terms. Another effort to bring in colonists was made in 1780, when the requirements were made still more lenient. By this provision any citizen of Georgia or any other state was entided Co a grant of land, two hundred acres for the head of the household and fifty acres for each additional member, white or black, provided the total was not more than a thousand acres. In return the applicant was required to move his entire family onto the land and take an oath of allegiance to the state government. He also was required to give assurance that the land would be settled within nine months, a period later extended to twelve. The fee charged for this land was only one shilling (about 24 cents) an acre for the first hundred acres and 6 pence (ahout 12 cents) an acre for the rest. In order that immigration might be hastened, men coming from other states were exempted from military duty for two years. But even the military duty of the older citizens was likely to be fitful and uncertain. With battles occurring intermittently, a man had to keep his farm or store going and at the same time be ready to fight.

Since many of the Indian traders or their heirs had not been paid by the province of Georgia, the state in 1780 also assumed the old claims against the Indian debts. Claimants were asked to submit proof of their rights of compensation to the legislature, which subsequently authorized payment in treasury certificates bearing 6 per cent interest.

After the British recaptured Augusta in the spring of 1780, they made no attempt to occupy Wilkes County. They were satisfied by sending raiders to subdue the rebel Whigs and to warn them that submission was expected. One of these bands forced itself into the house of the patriot JOHN DOOLY and brutally killed him in the presence of his family. Part of this same band, pillaging and stealing, made their way to the log cabin of NANCY HART and accused her of hiding a rebel from the King's men. This redheaded giantess boasted that she had aided an American soldier to escape into the swamp behind her house by directing his pursuers in the opposite direction. The angry Tories thereupon shot her one remaining gobbler and ordered her to cook it for them. While preparing the meal, she bustled about the house, uttering an occasional oath, and managed to slip a pinewood chink from between two logs. As she passed back and forth between the men and their muskets, she began to slip their guns through the hole she had made. When the soldiers detected her in putting out the third, they quickly rose to their feet, but NANCY brought the piece to her shoulder and declared she would kill the first man who approached. When one started toward her, NANCY shot him and hastily seized another musket. Meanwhile NANCY's daughter SUKEY, who had been sent to the spring for water, had summoned her father by blowing a conch shell. When SUKEY returned to the cabin, saying "Daddy and them will soon be here," the soldiers made a rush toward NANCY, who fired and killed another. At the point of a gun NANCY held the others until her husband and some neighbors came from the fields. When they were about to shoot, NANCY protested that shooting was too good for Tories, whereupon the survivors were bound and hanged to a tree.

Living in that part of Wilkes County that has since become Hart [County], NANCY HART is said to have acted as a spy for CLARKE and to have taken part in several pitched battles, including the Battle of Kettle Creek. During the British occupation of Augusta, she volunteered to obtain some much desired information for CLARKE. Entering the British lines disguised as a backwoodsman with eggs to sell, she spent several days there unmolested and discovered all their secret plans.

COLONEL CLARKE, who meanwhile was fighting in South Carolina, returned to Georgia to help in an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Augusta. Planning to return to the neighboring state he ordered his Wilkes County volunteers to assemble at Dennis Mills on the Little River. There in September, 1780, he found four hundred women and children, who, unable to cultivate their fields and persecuted by the enemy, asked to he allowed Co follow the army to safety. Escorted by CLARKE and his three hundred men, this group bravely tramped for eleven days to the security of the Watauga Valley in North Carolina. While in that state the Wilkes County men fought in the Battle of King's Mountain.

Although there was little fighting at home during the following year, Wilkes County men distinguished themselves in battles in other states. They fought not only at King's Mountain but at several sites in South Carolina, including Blackstock's Plantation, Cowpens, and Long Cane Creek, where CLARKE was critically wounded. CLARKE's intrepid wife Hannah followed him to the army camp and nursed him, as she did whenever he was sick or wounded.

In 1781 CLARKE, now a brigadier general, felt that a return to Georgia was necessary. With permission from his commander, GENERAL NATHANAEL GREENE, he divided his men into small groups and dispersed them throughout Wilkes County to care for the women and children and to ascertain the situation in the Hornet's Nest. In no other Georgia section had the pioneer families suffered more brutalities at the hands of the Tories than in Wilkes County. Many older men had been killed or put into foul prisons to the of disease. Many women and children had been robbed and so insulted that they had sought refuge in temporary huts more resembling a savage camp than a civilized abode.

Among those who had been tortured by the loyalists during the Revolution was Stephen Heard's wife and child, who were driven out into a snowstorm. Their cabin was burned, and both died of exposure. HANNAH CLARKE, with her children, was also driven from her home, and while she was making her way to relatives in North Carolina, her horse was stolen and she was forced to walk through the mud arid rain, carrying one child and leading another. SARAH GILLIAM WILLIAMSON, wife of the gallant soldier MICAIJAH WILLIAMSON, was forced to look on at the hanging of her eldest son.

Little aid could be given to this ravaged land, for it was soon necessary for CLARKE to aid in a second siege of Augusta. When his men again assembled at Dennis Mill, in April, 1781, he had smallpox. LIEUTENANT MICAIJAH WILLIAMSON led the soldiers to Augusta, and CLARKE, as soon as he was well, joined him with a hundred more Wilkes County men. After a hard fight in July Augusta was again in possession of the Americans. CAPTAIN SAMUEL ALEXANDER and STEPHEN HEARD found their old fathers in Augusta prisons where they had been held tor ransom by the Tory COLONELS BROWNE and GRIERSON. Except for Indian raids which were quickly quelled under PICKENS and CLARKE, this was the last time that Wilkes County troops assembled for action. On July 11, 1782, the British evacuated Savannah and in November of that year peace was declared.

Return to Top of Page

GROWTH UNDER THE STATE

Wilkes County began to prosper almost as soon as the Revolution was over. The peaceful era that followed was important not only because of the rapid acquisition of wealth through the development of the land's resources but also because of the promotion of social, political, educational, and religious enterprises. When soldiers returned to their farms and stores, commerce began to stir. The population grew rapidly with, the coming of wealthy planters who, encouraged by the reports of. their predecessors on the fertility of the soil, came south seeking new lands. Many, like those before the war, were from Virginia and the Carolinas, while others were from more distant states, such as Maryland, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. The great body of immigrants was of Scotch-Irish extraction, but a few were of English cavalier and French Huguenot stock. Often the men brought their families in great wagons loaded with fine possessions—mahogany, pewter, brass, and silver, of which many pieces are still used by Washington and Wilkes housewives.

During the Revolution Dartmouth had struggled hard for existence, but afterward it took on new life as settlers, seeking new land, crossed the Savannah River by means of THOMAS CARTER's ferry into Wilkes County. By 1786 the citizens were prosperous, but they still remembered the devastation wrought by the English during the Revolution. Like other Georgians, they felt an aversion to English names and voted to call their town Petersburg after the Russian capital. A town across the Broad River was called Lisbon, and one across the Savannah in South Carolina was named Vienna. In that year Dionysius Oliver erected in Petersburg a warehouse for the storage of tobacco. This act seems to have given an incentive to tobacco culture, for it was not long before other warehouses were built and tobacco inspectors, appointed by the inferior court, were coming from Washington- Wilkes. In 1790 Petersburg was cut off from Wilkes and made a part of Elbert County, It continued to prosper until well within the nineteenth century, when cotton, which needed no inspection, became the leading crop. The town then began to dwindle, and this decline was hastened by a yellow fever epidemic and the call of new land to the west.

In this same prosperous era there was a thriving settlement on the Goosepond Tract about ten miles up the Broad River from Petersburg. When COLONEL GEORGE MATHEWS was serving as colonel of the Virginia troops in South Carolina with ELIJAH CLARKE, he came into Wilkes County, saw the productive land, and took an option on a vast area. Back in Virginia, he induced many of his friends, restless and impoverished because the English tobacco markets were closed to them, to come with him to Georgia. These men, including FRANCIS MERIWETHER, BENJAMIN TALIAFERRO, and THOMAS GILMER, lived on widely separated plantations but formed an intimate society based on personal co-operation.

Energetic, high-tempered, and amusingly conceited, GEORGE MATHEWS perpetually sang his own praises in a high-pitched voice and acknowledged no superior but GENERAL WASHINGTON, with whom he had served. His political activities in Georgia at once brought him into prominence. Although he did not move to Georgia until 1784, he was elected governor in 1787 and again served in this capacity from 1793 until 1796. Barely literate, he wrote the word coffee as kaughphy but, conscious of his failing, he sent important messages during his terms as governor to a schoolmaster to be "turned into good grammar." MATHEWS was also prominent in the early educational life of the county. A clerk's record states that as a commissioner of Wilkes County he bought "forty Latten books and eight copperplates" for the academy.

Like the county, Washington was slow in getting a start during the Revolution but began to grow rapidly now that fighting had ceased. Because the first commissioners had failed to comply with certain restrictions, the legislature in 1783 declared that the town grant should revert to the state. Consequently the legislature appointed STEPHEN HEARD, MICAIJAH WILLIAMSON, ROBERT HARPER, DANIEL COLEMAN, and ZACHARIAH LAMAR as commissioners to see that the acre lots be sold, that a building be erected in town to serve as a free school for the county, and that the surplus money be used to erect a church. During the same year the section of Washington known as Old Town was divided into forty- eight lots forming a rectangle, but the surrounding common brought the shape of the town into a square. As the town grew, there was need of additional lots and also of additional funds for the maintenance of Wilkes County Academy; so in 1793 the commissioners received authorization from, the state legislature to divide the common into lots and sixty-eight new sites for homes were thereby created.

The legislative act of 1783, which authorized the organization of a school, also permitted the governor to grant a thousand acres to Wilkes County, the income from this area to be used for the maintenance of the institution. Thus the Wilkes County, or Washington Academy was one of the first three public schools lo be chartered by the state and one of the first to receive such a grant. The board of commissioners met in 1784 to consider their problems, but it was not until January 1, 1786, that the school was opened. Both boys and girls of all ages were offered a traditional academic education, with strong emphasis on Latin and Greek for the older students. This school, like the other state academies, was never able to function as a "free school" but was forced to charge tuition, small at first and later raised. The pupils during the first few years paid the equivalent of $2 a quarter for spelling, reading, and writing; $4 for English grammar and arithmetic; and $6 for "Latin grammar and forwards." The first teacher was SAMUEL BLACKBURN, an Irishman, who was furnished with a rented room and paid £150 a year. His keen wit, fine voice, and forcible language made a strong impression on his pupils. After teaching three years, BLACKBURN married ANNE, the daughter of GEORGE MATHEWS, and undertook the practice of law in Elbert County.

Classes were held in rented houses until 1797, when a dignified red brick building of two stories was erected on Mercer Hill outside the city limits. The ten-acre campus was given by ELIJAH CLARKE's son-in-law, BENAIJAH SMITH, and funds for construction were raised by popular subscription, the largest donation being $532. For a few years the academy flourished, but in 1805 the trustees were in need of financial assistance and appealed to the state legislature. Since the state had made no provision for the support of its academies except for the initial endowment, the assembly was helpless and decided to let the Wilkes County people help themselves. A Washington Academy Lottery was authorized during the year, but the drawing did not occur until 1807. Four thousand tickets were sold at $4 each, of which 1,354 called for prizes, the highest $1,000 and the lowest $5. The academy continued to increase its attendance, but the town grew in the opposite direction; so in 1824 the trustees sold the property and moved the school nearer the center of community activity.

Increased educational opportunities were afforded by the opening of private and denominational schools in rural Wilkes County. HOPE HULL, a Methodist divine, and BISHOP ASBURY induced the Georgia Methodist Conference in 1789 to agree to open the state's first denominational school in Wilkes County. The plan to purchase 500 acres of land and erect large buildings for an institution to be known as the Wesley and Whitfield School proved to be too great an undertaking for HULL and his friends; so HULL later settled in Wilkes and built a modest brick building on land donated by GENERAL DAVID MERIWETHER about three miles from Washington. This school, known as Succoth Academy, educated many pupils who later became distinguished men until HULL moved to Athens in 1803. The REVEREND JOHN SPRINGER, the first Presbyterian minister to be ordained in Georgia, opened a school at his home Walnut Hill soon after he came to Georgia in 1788. His academy, offering a sound classical education, was successful until the death of SPRINGER eight years later. JOHN FORSYTH and NICHOLAS WARE, later United States Senators, and JESSE MERCER, benefactor of Mercer University, were educated at this school. SILAS MERCER, a well-known Baptist preacher, secured the services of JAMES ARMOR as teacher in 1793 and opened a school at Salem, his residence nine miles south of Washington. After MERCER's death in 1796 the school was continued for a while by his son JESSE but was soon closed for lack of support.

While plans for the first schools were being discussed, settlers throughout the county were rapidly putting up log meeting house, where they listened to long sermons seated on uncomfortable backless pews. Washington, except for well-attended services conducted by visiting ministers in the courthouse and later the academy, was dependent on rural churches for religious worship. Although the law of 1783 authorized the building of a religious edifice from the surplus money after the academy was constructed, no church was built from the fund, for the commissioners became involved in financial difficulties. The problem was at last solved by so constructing the academy building that it could be used both as a school and a church. Meanwhile the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians were rapidly spreading their doctrines throughout the area and forming the first organizations of these religious bodies in the state. To a less degree the Roman Catholics were also busy.

In 1783 the Baptist denomination, led by the REVEREND SANDERS WALKER from Kiokee Church in Columbia County, organized Fishing Creek Church, the oldest congregation in Wilkes County. The Upton Creek Church, later called Greenwood, followed in 1784 and Phillips Mill in 1785. The founder of this latter church was SILAS MERCER, who during the previous year had been most influential in organizing the Georgia Baptist Association, the first of the religious groups that later formed the Georgia Baptist Convention. After serving as pastor for a few years, MERCER was succeeded by his son JESSE, who preached there for thirty-seven years. Another church was organized in 1786, when ELIJAH CLARKE deeded "out of good will and with desire that religion may be promoted in the settlement" one acre of land "including spring and spring house" to the Georgia Baptist Association for a meeting house. This church, built two years later, is still prominent in community affairs and is now known as Clarke's Station. Other churches of this denomination created in the county during this period were Ebenezer (1788), Sardis (1788), and Danburg (1795).

Records and stories of the time show that the war had left memories that could not be softened even by religion. One such story tells how JOEL PHILLIPS, donor of Phillip's Mill Church, saw a Tory who had come in for his Sunday devotions, ousted him with a mighty kick, and returned to join heartily in the services. Another anecdote relates how a Tory, falling under the conviction of his sins, begged a good Whig brother to pray for him. The honest old Whig, who had suffered outrages at Tory hands, could not bring himself to pray but offered to ask a devout friend to perform this unpleasant duty.

The Methodists followed closely behind the Baptists in preaching the gospel and establishing churches in the new territory. In 1785 the REVEREND BEVERLY ALLEN was sent as a missionary into Wilkes County by the General Conference. After remaining about a year he was followed by two other evangelists who were successful not only in organizing the Methodists within the county but in converting many other men to their faith. Two of these new members, DANIEL GRANT and his son THOMAS, permitted services to be held in their home, which became known as Grant's Meeting House. A permanent congregation, organized there in 1787, grew so rapidly that about three years later the Grants erected a church for the members near their house and store, about five miles from Washington. This was the first Methodist Church to be built in Georgia. Another early congregation convened at Scott's Meeting House on the Augusta Road, where a chapel was constructed soon afterward.

The stirring sermons of the early Methodist preachers gained so many new members for Methodism that in 1788 Wilkes County contained more than two-thirds of the sixteen hundred Methodists in the state. Consequently, the first annual convention of the Methodist Church held in Georgia met during that year at GENERAL DAVID MERIWETHER's home on the Broad River; the following two assembled at Grant's Meeting House, the fourth at Scott's Meeting House, and the fifth in the courthouse at Washington. Much of the early success of Methodism in Wilkes County was no doubt due to the religious strategy of BISHOP FRANCIS ASBURY, who visited WilKes County on almost every one of his seventeen trips to Georgia.

The early Presbyterian congregations in Wilkes County were under the supervision of the Presbytery of South Carolina. There is doubt as to whether they had church buildings at the time, but in 1788 several congregations petitioned the officials of their presbytery for supplies, among them the congregations of Falling Creek and Bethlehem. Another early group was that of Liberty Church, organized soon after the Revolution by a few devout Presbyterians under the guidance of the REVEREND DANIEL THATCHER. The members later erected a chapel near the Kettle Creek battleground and in the following century changed the name of their church to Salem. In 1790 the REVEREND JOHN SPRINGER was called to Smyrna Church, which served the Presbyterians of Providence and Washington as well as its own congregation. As the number of churches in the county increased, it became necessary for them to be set off into the Presbytery of Hopewell. On March 16, 1797, this organization held its first meeting at Liberty Church.

In the 1790's a group of Roman Catholics from Maryland founded a church at Locust Grove, now Sharon, in a part of Wilkes that later became Taliaferro County. The earnest priests also established a good school, where ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS received a part of his early education. After flourishing for more than half a century, the church was abandoned because the Catholics were attracted to newer lands farther west.

The life of the region was sustained by extensive agricultural development. The men who returned from fighting to farming again planted corn, flax, and indigo as well as large crops of tobacco, of which the county exported three thousand hogsheads in 1790. During the first decade after the Revolution, cotton was cultivated in quantities sufficient only to supply clothing for the families and their slaves, but after 1795, when ELI WHITNEY perfected his cotton gin invention in Wilkes County, thousands of acres were cleared for this crop. During every autumn of the years that followed, heavily loaded flatboats floated down the Broad and Little Rivers into the Savannah River, while wagons drawn by four or six horses traveled the post roads to Augusta, the nearest cotton market. Planters on horseback accompanied these caravans and returned later with household purchases for the winter. The trip to Augusta was the greatest pleasure of the year, for the men stopped at wayside inns to meet old friends and exchange the news.

The growth in population and prosperity engendered a parallel need for a more complex structure of government. On December 4, 1784, a plea for prompt payment of taxes to the Superior Court of Wilkes County was made by CHIEF JUSTICE GEORGE WALTON. This able jurist, one of Georgia's three signers of the Declaration of Independence, pointed out that a county so rich in men and resources must produce its share of the public revenues. In the following year a courthouse was built in Washington. WILLIAM STITH, chief justice of the first court held in the structure, proclaimed that all barristers should wear robes and that the sheriff, also robed, should carry his badge of office, perhaps a drawn sword. After a few years this English custom was abandoned as traditions of Colonial days were forgotten. Soon the county government had been welded into a strong unit and assumed its place in state affairs. In 1785 the grand jury presented a protest to the state legislature for negligence in collecting taxes on state imports; in 1788 Wilkes County sent GEORGE MATHEWS, FLORENCE SULLIVAN, and JOHN KING as delegates to the convention in Augusta for the ratification of the new Federal Constitution.

One of the state's shrewdest lawyers was the younger JOHN DOOLY, admitted to the bar in Washington in 1789. "A sallow, piney-woods-looking lad" who seldom went out in the daytime because his clothes were shabby, he rose so rapidly by sharp natural wit that he soon occupied the superior court bench. A story relates that one evening DOOLY, having dealt severely with some professional gamblers on trial, returned to his hotel room only to have his rest disturbed by the same men in a noisy faro game in the next room. Joining the group, he remarked that since he had failed to break their bad habits by one method he would try another. He thereupon entered the game and "broke the bank," gravely warning them on his departure against disturbing the dignity of the court.

Some early records of the court show the energetic hopefulness of the people in building roads and bridges for the new county; but other documents show the grim side of this period when debtors were imprisoned and criminals were flogged, fastened in stocks, branded, and publicly hanged. When the courthouse was accepted from the contractor in 1785, directions were given that the northeast corner of the lot should be reserved for the stocks, then seemingly indispensible instruments of punishment. There too, after receiving a stated number of lashes, criminals were stood in a pillory as subjects of public scorn. Those convicted of manslaughter were branded on the right thumb with the letter M in the presence of the court, and thieves received the letter R on their shoulders. It was not until 1796 that the Inferior Court received bids for a permanent jail. When completed two years later, this structure had two rooms, one reserved for convicts and the other for debtors.

Among other curious early documents found in the ordinary's office are orders and bonds relating to marriage, which apparently was accompanied by involved legal procedure at that time. Apparently many young ladies of the eighteenth century were wed before they had reached the age when permission was no longer necessary. The order was always from the father of a young lady, stating that he permitted a specified young man to have a license to wed his daughter. In lieu of written permission a prospective bridegroom was required to post bond, usually for £500, "to indemnify the . . . register" if he should be prosecuted for issuing the license. Thus the officer protected himself. Perhaps many young men gave bond rather than ask for written permission to obtain the license and admit lack of cash or credit.

The census of 1790 showed that of the 82,548 people then living in Georgia, more than one-third lived in Wilkes County. Stagecoach lines were operating from Augusta by way of Washington into the North, and the town was a thriving village of thirty-four dwellings, a courthouse, a temporary jail, and an academy, maintained in a rented house. Four years previously JOSEPH WILSON and MICAIJAH WILLIAMSON had opened taverns to be operated "according to the law," which rigorously specified rates. Charges for meals ranged from one shilling sixpence for a hot dinner down to eightpence for a cold breakfast or supper. A night's lodging was fourpence, horses were stabled and fed for one shilling, and good pasturage cost eightpence for twenty-four hours. The prices for liquors were also unmistakably set forth. WILLIAMSON's hostelry was opened by the ageing Revolutionary soldier on the present site of the Wilkes County Courthouse. Two log cabins were joined by an open hallway, and a large picture of GEORGE WASHINGTON was hung in front. Politicians foregathered here, and before the courthouse was built one of the rooms was used for holding court. In fair weather the jury pondered its verdicts seated outside on logs; on one occasion a Tory passed and all the jurors sprang up to give chase.

Intermittent Indian outbreaks called for constant military vigilance. In 1791 two militia battalions were organized, and apparently they were needed, for in 1794 the grand jury complained that at the time when tax returns should have been made "a number of the respectable inhabitants" had been called out to defend the frontiers. Contests in marksmanship, rough games, and fist fights frequently followed the periodic drills of the militia bodies.

Business and even industry began to appear, WILLIAM HAY opened an office in the town for the purpose of selling land and also offered his services as surveyor at a dollar a day. A commission of 2 ½ per cent was charged on all sales of land made through his office. Records also show that there was a small ironworks in the county.

Social life was hearty and hospitable, with plenty of visiting and much outdoor play, especially among the younger men. The pleasures of hunting and fishing were equalled only by those of horse racing. The Washington Jockey Club was organized in 1798; two years later it was announced that races would be held for the third time. Eligibles included horses, mares, and geldings. The first day's purse for three-mile heats was $250, the second day's purse for two-mile heats was at least $250, and the entrance money was the prize for the third day.

Picnicking was enjoyed at the Mineral Springs on what is now South Spring Street, The curative power of the water is described in The American Geography (published in 1789) written by JEDIDIAH MORSE, who had served for five months as pastor of the Midway Church in South Georgia. The springs were given to the town in 1787 by NATHANIEL COATS with the proviso that he be made one of the town commissioners and that the waters should never be sold. Chantilly, a fine hotel, was built near-by in the early 1800's by SAMUEL GOODE to accommodate those seeking health and entertainment. The site of the Mineral Springs, which has now for many years been neglected, is still owned by the city.

In January, 1797, the crowded, eventful life of ELIJAH CLARKE came to an end. GENERAL JAMES JACKSON said: "When Georgia and South Carolina were evacuated by their governments and the forces of the United States were withdrawn from them, CLARKE alone kept the field, and his name spread terror through the whole line of British posts, from the Catawba to the Creek nation. . . The United States by the death of CLARKE has lost a brave and meritorious officer, and the State of Georgia in gratitude to her departed hero ought to perpetuate his name by some public art."

Return to Top of Page

THE ANTE-BELLUM PERIOD

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the census of Wilkes County showed a population of 13,103. Wilkes, known as the mother county of upper Georgia, covered a great tract that ten years previously had held more than a third of the state's inhabitants. From this land was made the entire areas of the present Elbert (1790) and Lincoln (1796) Counties as well as parts of Oglethorpe (1793), Warren (1793), Taliaferro (1825-28), Madison (1811), and Hart (1853). In 1802 Greene received a part of Wilkes that was later transferred to Taliaferro. Wilkes County thus lost many fine lands and settlers but finally retained 293,120 acres and an energetic people from whose numbers there frequently arose citizens of distinction.

Although Washington had been founded hardly a quarter of a century earlier, it had its charter amended in 1804. In clearing lots the citizens, whenever possible, left intact the fine old native trees for shade. Later the newly imported chinaberry trees were brought up from Savannah, but soon it was found that views and sunlight were cut off by the thickly massed branches. The next ornamental plantings were locusts and shade mulberries. At last oaks and elms were decided upon as most satisfactory and were planted profusely along the narrow streets.

Wilkes County began to receive its share of the wealth that came to Georgia as a result of ELI WHITNEY's invention, and planters greatly increased their cotton acreage. The production for the state had been only 1,000 bales in 1790, but it reached 20,000 in 1801, went up to 90,000 in 1821, and skyrocketed to 561,472 in 1859. This enormous yield was made possible by the use of slaves, who by 1802 numbered 5,039 in the county. A few of them had been brought by early settlers from Virginia and the Carolinas, but most of them had been bought in Georgia. Newspaper notices of 1807 show that L. PRUDHOMME, JR., a refugee from the revolution in Santo Domingo, conducted a remunerative slavetrading business in Washington. Wilkes County men never owned as many Negroes as some of the planters of the coastal region, but the average holding for the county steadily increased throughout the ante-bellum period. In 1820, 1,057 farmers owned 8,921 slaves. After this many plantations were increased in size, as the less successful farmers sold their estates and moved to new acres in the western part of Georgia. Consequently there were only 469 owners in 1857, but they possessed 7,587 slaves, representing an average holding of 16.17 Negroes, as large as that of any county in the state.

Wilkes County planters were usually kind to their slaves, because, if for no other reason, they considered them capital that must be protected. Some were especially concerned with the clothing of their Negroes and bought shoes whenever they could not get cobblers to make them on their plantations. GARNETT ANDREWS gave his slaves "full common overcoats, reaching below the knees, made of common osnaburgs, or Negro shirting, and made impervious to water" for the protection from rain in the field, but he later complained that the "only difficulty was they never had them in the field except in fair weather." Others maintained "sick houses" and had the best doctors for their slaves in times of illness. Unlike planters in some parts of the state, many Wilkes County men encouraged their slaves to attend churches and hold religious gatherings, for they felt that religion would make them more obedient.

With the increase in size of plantations, a few Wilkes County men came to own land not only in Wilkes but in neighboring and even distant counties. GARNETT ANDREWS had a plantation of 1,313 acres in the far-removed Dougherty County, which he offered for sale in 1856. By 1857 LODOWICK MERIWETHER HILL owned 8,229 acres, part in Wilkes and part in adjoining Oglethorpe County. For efficiency the land was divided and operated as two distinct plantations. ALEXANDER POPE, residing in Washington, maintained three widely separated plantations, while ROBERT TOOMBS had a farm in Stewart County and owned land in other sections of£ southwest Georgia.

Cotton, which quickly supplanted tobacco as the leading crop, brought a high price throughout the early part of the nineteenth century, and many Wilkes County planters became wealthy. Except for a short depression caused by the embargo acts at the beginning of the War of 1812, the prices remained good until two years after the national panic of 1837. Then it began to decline and reached a low rate of 5.9 cents a pound in 1844. Many farmers lost money and some even became bankrupt, since the average for the period from 1840 to 1845 was only 7.7 cents. Encouraged by a subsequent rise, they were again disheartened in 1849, when the price fell to 7.55 cents, but in the following year it soared to 13.5 cents and remained high throughout the lavish years that were ended by the War between the States. The farmers once more made money. It is said that ROBERT TOOMBS made as much as $50,000 annually on his plantations.

The fact that cotton could be easily cultivated and sold for cash profits enticed many farmers to abandon all efforts to maintain a well-balanced farm economy. The rapid fluctuation of cotton prices, however, did stimulate a few prudent men to grow diversified food crops. A record of one such attempt was made in 1828, when D. P. HILLHOUSE of Washington published a long account of his experiments in planting sugar cane in Wilkes County. The stalks grew to a height of eight or ten feet but did not mature sufficiently to develop seed cane the second year. The Wilkes County Agricultural Society, incorporated in 1819, made sustained efforts to raise farming standards, and their annual livestock shows, with awards for the best animals, stimulated considerable improvement. Nevertheless, the fertility of the soil was generally wasted by the cultivation of cotton, and many pioneering citizens moved westward with the state frontier to clear new acres. After the livestock exhibit of the society in 1843, the Washington News commented: "It is by such associations . . . that exhausted lands are to be revived, that the disastrous spirit of emigration that has devastated this county is to be checked." But those who remained learned to increase their yield by the use of Peruvian guano, which became extensively used after 1850, when freight rates were lowered and the prices became moderate.

As additional roads were built and progress in transportation was made, Washington became a busy junction for mail and stagecoach routes. An advertisement early in the nineteenth century for bids to carry the mail from Augusta by way of Washington, Greensboro, Lexington, and Georgetown, back to Augusta shows that departures were made from Augusta every other Saturday at six in the morning and that arrivals were made in Washington on the following morning at eleven. The carrier, traveling on horseback, plodded over rough roads hardly more than trails. Later, when he was able to increase his speed and spend the night in Washington before an early morning start for Greensboro, the mail was delivered weekly. A company to operate stages between Augusta and Washington was incorporated in 1804, and it was not long before a line was in operation from Powelton by way of Washington to Petersburg and points in South Carolina. Facilities were improved in 1816, when a new company was chartered to run stagecoaches from Augusta through Washington to Athens, and again the following year, when a company began operation from Washington to Greensboro and Eatonton.

Both the mail carriers and the stagecoach drivers stopped on the south side of the public square at a small hostelry (now the Washington Market), where the mail could be locked overnight in the vault that extends from the basement beneath the sidewalk and where travelers could find accommodations or await another stage. A story is told that the innkeeper once went out to urge the coachman to alight from his box and found that the poor fellow was frozen to death. The well-trained horses had brought the passengers to their destination unguided.

In addition to the stagecoach station. Washington had several other inns. THE WILLIS HOTEL, built in 1802, was perhaps the most fashionable, for it was host to many notable men. In 1824 the old Washington Tavern, formerly operated by MRS. CORBETT, was taken under the management of SAMUEL B. HEARD. The building was near the public square and faced the main road leading through Washington from Augusta to Athens. HEARD announced that his bar was plentifully supplied with choice liquors and that the stables "were under the direction of an experienced ostler." Rice's popular tavern had a "Long Room," where a MR. COLMESNIL held a dancing school.

Washington's high-spirited gentry took their pleasures whenever they could be had. Cock fighting, popular in the 1790's, gave way to theatrical entertainments, and almost from the beginning of the nineteenth century the town had a theater. Most of the dramatic performances consisted of readings and songs, but in 1817 the Thespian Society obtained the professional services of MR. and MRS. DURANG, MISS MOORE, and MISS LETTINE of the Charleston Theater for a series of "theatrical exhibitions." Shortly after this time the old playhouse was converted into quarters for the Washington Female Academy, but another theater was soon built. OTHELLO, a popular Negro entertainer from Monticello, Georgia, came in 1824 to present his "Grand Phantezzine or Norfolk Tragedy."

The town was very gay on May 19, 1819, when PRESIDENT JAMES MONROE stopped there over night. In the presidential party were JOHN C. CALHOUN, then Secretary of War; MAJOR-GENERAL EDMUND GAINES; MR. GOVERNEUR, the president's private secretary; and LIEUTENANT MONROE, a relative. This group was welcomed enthusiastically a few miles out of town by a self-appointed horseback delegation made up of most of the town's citizens, as well as an official committee consisting of MAJOR D. G. CAMPBELL, MAJOR A. H. SNEED, and DR. JOEL ABBOTT, a member of Congress and a personal acquaintance of the President. The party arrived in town at half-past three in the afternoon and went to dinner at one of the taverns, probably the popular WILLIS HOTEL. "At early candlelight the company returned to their homes," and the next morning the distinguished visitor left for Lexington "bearing along with him the sincere blessing of all the Washington citizens."

Except for an occasional ball at the tavern most parties were held in the town and plantation houses. Here young ladies danced the minuet, square dances, reels, and jigs to the accompaniment of fiddles and banjos played by slaves. During the summer months they frequently gathered about a mile from town at Mineral Springs, where a hotel had been built to accommodate families who fled from the malarial fever of the low counties south of Augusta. A popular recreation of the rural districts was the corn-shucking, held often with Negro participants. The occasion was especially enjoyable when there was a good leader for singing; then the shucks flew faster from the ears as the men and women kept time to the music. The following was a popular song:

Late in the 1830's this section began to show interest in the railroad developments that had become prominent throughout the country. Routes were undergoing change as a result of the building of the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to a site that later became Atlanta, and four-horse coaches were running every alternate day from Athens and Gainesville by way of Washington to the end of the forty-two miles of track already laid. On January 1, 1839, the Washington Railroad and Banking Company was authorized to construct a railroad from the town to some convenient point on that line, either in Taliaferro or Warren County. The body incorporate was composed of ALEXANDER POPE, GARNETT ANDREWS, ADAM L. ALEXANDER, CHARLES L. BOLTON, SAMUEL HARRIETT, JOHN F. PELOT, MARK A. LOVE, AARON A. CLEVELAND, JAMES M. SMITH, WILLIAM H. DYSON, EDWARD M. BURTON, JOSEPH W. ROBINSON, and JAMES ALEXANDER. Although these men never built their line, they succeeded in 1847 in inducing the Georgia Railroad itself to build a branch from the main line to Washington. The spur of eighteen miles from Double Wells (Harriett) to the town was at last completed in 1853. Shortly before its completion a prophecy was made that when the "iron horse" was among the Washington people, it would "open an era in the history of venerable old Wilkes, in which we hope to see her regenerated to the unexampled vigor and freshness of her youthful day." The population of Wilkes County decreased from 12,107 in 1850 to 11,420 in 1860, but Washington continued to grow; although the depot was placed a mile from the business section, only a few years passed before the small station was surrounded by the town.

The first half of the nineteenth century was a time of steady commercial expansion despite two destructive fires in the business district, the first in 1837 and the second in 1841, after which a fire engine was purchased and manned by twenty-five volunteers. In 1800 Washington had its first newspaper, the Washington Gazette, founded by ALEXANDER MCMILLAN. The following year the paper became the Monitor and was edited by DAVID HILLHOUSE until his death in 1804, when his widow SARAH HILLHOUSE assumed the management and thus became the first woman newspaper editor in the South. A four-page paper with four columns to the page, the Monitor was clearly printed in old-fashioned hand-set type. A typical copy contained a short, non-controversial editorial on the weather and a long essay on education by the REVEREND MR. MORTON extracted from the minutes of the Sarepta Baptist Association. The principal item of domestic news, copied from an Augusta paper, described the depredations of a band of mounted bandits who were terrorizing north Georgia. The principal foreign event related was the coronation of Napoleon and and Josephine, which had taken place more than two months previously. MRS. HILLHOUSE, who also printed reports for the state legislature, published the paper until 1820, when it was purchased by a man named GIEU and rechristened the Washington News. Seven years later it came under the editorship of a MR. PASTEUR.

In 1833 JESSE MERCER brought the Christian Index to Washington from Philadelphia, where it had been founded in 1821. He published it until 1840, when he presented it to the Baptist Church as its official organ. That organization continued its publication in Washington until the presses were worn out; then in 1857 the publication was transferred to Macon. A new journal, The Spy, first published in 1834 by MICHAEL J. KAPPEL and edited by JAMES T. HAY, JR., was described as "beautifully executed ... and the purity of its principals corresponds with its outward appearance." Despite these attributes, The Spy soon ceased to operate. An interesting journalistic experiment of this decade was The Medical Reformer, published semi-monthly at Washington by JAMES PRICE.

The Wilkes Manufacturing Company was chartered in 1810 for "manufacturing cotton and woolen goods by machinery," with MATTHEW TALBOT, BOLLING ANTHONY, BENJAMIN SHERROD, JOHN BOLTON, FREDERICK BALL, GILBERT HAY, and JOEL ABBOTT as managers. Capital stock was initially $10,000 with provision for expansion to 550,000. A mill called Bolton's Factory was established on Upton Creek, but after a few years it proved unprofitable. This, the first of the cotton mills in the South, led to the establishment of others in Georgia and thereby stimulated the growth of cotton.

The evolution of the Colonial settlement into a modern town is shown, by the coming of new business enterprises. One of these even suggests the modern chain store, for CHARLES COX, who came to Washington in 1823 as a house and sign painter and paper hanger, was already operating a similar establishment in Greensboro. Another new venture was the "dying and scouring business" conducted by WILLIAM MCNEAL, who "scoured men's clothes in the neatest style, extracting spots of paint, grease, ink, pitch, or tar." WILLIAM WOODLY, who had established himself here as "friseur, coiffeur, etc," after long experience in "convoluting, pirilating, bruturating, and carburating hair," offered to the ladies and gentlemen at slight expense "ringlets, patent twister, Circassian, or Georgian convolution." He claimed to have power to "bestow upon his customers whatever degree of grace or beauty their modesty or deficiencies in those particulars may require." Business houses rapidly replaced the few remaining residences around the public square, each selling a variety of articles at high prices. Calico was $1 a yard, a nutmeg 25 cents, pins $2 a pound, and handkerchiefs ranged in price from 56 cents to $1.75 each.

In professional circles, R. W. WORSHAM was willing to attend any call in the practice of medicine. RICHARD H. LONG and JOHN RAY, associated in the practice of law, agreed to attend any session of the inferior court or superior courts in Wilkes County or on the northern circuit. The early doctors and lawyers were hardy men who traveled the rough county roads on horseback, carrying their medicine and books in saddlebags. For short trips they used the two-wheeled gigs, locally made vehicles called "riding chairs."

In 1820 a branch of the Georgia State Bank, the first financial house to be opened in north Georgia, was established in the town. The handsome three-story brick building which was erected served also as the cashier's residence. It was used as a bank until the time of the War between the States, after which it became only a dwelling. A statement of revenue in 1824 for the town of Washington listed $164.44 as received in taxes, $30.37 collected for licenses, and a balance of $69.62 carried over from the previous year. A man named BRUCKES was paid $70 for keeping the clock, a town well was dug for $125, the sum of $2.87 was expended on bridges, $15.25 was paid to the town marshal, and sundry expense was listed as $18.87. The treasurer thus had a balance of $32.44. Taxes were levied against all vehicles, the rate being determined by whether the conveyance had two or four wheels.

During 1815-17 a red brick courthouse was built in the center of the public square to replace the smaller wooden structure, and in the tower was placed a bell and also a clock that cost the citizens the seemingly enormous sum of $1,000. Annual financial statements show that the man hired to set the clock and to keep it running also rang a curfew for slaves each evening at nine and that he was paid at first $30 and later $70 a year.

After the building of this second courthouse, political life grew more lively. Once the people became aroused to participation in factional politics, Washington was an arena for battles of words and bloody fist fights. The region produced two of Georgia's leading public men of the early nineteenth century: JOHN CLARK of Wilkes County and WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD of neighboring Oglethorpe County. CLARK was the son of ELIJAH CLARKE, but he had dropped the final e from his name because he considered the simpler form more democratic. So bitter was the enmity between the two men that it is even believed that in 1802 CLARK's adherents organized a plot to kill CRAWFORD, for young PETER VAN ALLEN, an Elberton lawyer and a friend of CLARK, met CRAWFORD in the WILLIS HOTEL and goaded the man into challenging him to a duel. In the subsequent exchange, however, it was VAN ALLEN who was killed. In 1806 CLARK himself challenged CRAWFORD and succeeded in shattering his wrist by a shot from the designated duello distance of ten paces.

CRAWFORD's part in local politics became less prominent with his election to the United States Senate in 1807, after which CLARK's chief opponent was GEORGE M. TROUP. The conflict reached intense heat when these two were opposing candidates in the gubernatorial race of 1819. CLARK won this contest and that of 1821 by narrow margins, but when he supported MATTHEW TALBOT against TROUP in 1823, his party was defeated. Although a second defeat two years later caused his withdrawal from active political life, the followers of both CLARK and TROUP continued their antagonism for many years. The CLARK faction called themselves the Union Party and later was absorbed by the Democrats; the TROUP adherents became known as the States Rights Party and later were aligned with the Whigs.

JOHN A. CAMPBELL and ROBERT TOOMBS, two Washington men who later became nationally celebrated, began their careers here in 1829. In that year both were admitted to the bar, the admission having been gained by legislative act since both men were too young to enter by the regular procedure. CAMPBELL, appointed an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1853, and TOOMBS, who later became Secretary of State of the Confederacy, furthered the tradition of Wilkes County men in public service. During the first seventy-five years after the establishment of Wilkes County, nine men who had lived within its area served as governors of the state: STEPHEN HEARD (1780), GEORGE MATHEWS (1787 and 1793-96), PETER EARLY (1813-15), WILLIAM RABUN (1817-19), MATTHEW TALBOT (1819), JOHN CLARK (1819-23), JOHN FORSYTH (1827-29), WILSON LUMPKIN (1831-35) and GEORGE WASHINGTON TOWNE (1847-51). Most of these men also served terms in Congress, either as senators or as members of the House of Representatives.

When the Constitutional Union Party of Wilkes County met in the courthouse in June, 1833, ROBERT TOOMBS, GARNETT ANDREWS, A. POPE, JR., and ISAIAH T. IRVIN, were chosen to represent the county at the state convention at Milledgeville. The delegates were instructed to support FRANKLIN PIERCE for President instead of his opponent, GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT.

ROBERT TOOMBS spoke on slavery before a large audience in Boston on January 4, 1856. Boston papers noted that, although there was little applause, "his style at times was fervid, rarely colloquial, but uniformly in good Caste," An oratorical contest that has been termed the most brilliant in Georgia history was held in a large oak grove in Washington in 1856, with TOOMBS and BENJAMIN H. HILL as speakers. By breakfast time throngs had gathered and the roads into town were crowded with wagons bringing farm families to hear their distinguished fellow townsman and the talented young speaker from LaGrange debate on current topics. HILL opened the debate with witty remarks on the inconsistencies of public servants, confronting TOOMBS with his change from Whig to Democrat. When he stated that TOOMBS had slept over the people's rights in Congress, his opponent shouted back, "I have been protecting your rights and your children's rights in spite of yourselves."

In 1857, when ISAIAH T. IRVIN, of Washington, led a nominating committee to select a compromise gubernatorial candidate, he appeared before the Democratic Convention and named JOSEPH E. BROWN of Cherokee County. Two years later IRVIN and A. POPE, JR., went to Milledgeville as the Wilkes County representatives at the convention of the Union Party, and IRVIN was elected a delegate to the national convention at Baltimore.

Early in the century, the town and county began to take increased interest in the education of girls. In 1805 MADAME MARY PAULINE DUGAS, who had come to America as a refugee from the French Revolution, opened a private school for girls in Washington. The institution was so successful that after five years it was removed to the larger city of Augusta. Considering access to the Washington Academy on Mercer Hill too difficult for girls and wishing to give them a more genteel school, the trustees decided to divide the school into the Washington Male and Female Academies. They inserted the following advertisement in newspapers on June 16, 1814: "Washington Female Academy. A seminary is opened by MR. BOWEN, under the immediate commissioners of the Washington Academy, where will be taught every branch of useful and ornamental education, with unremitting attention. Every effort will be made to introduce the pupils gradually to an acquaintance with those accomplishments that are sought after as indispensable requisites, with sedulous care in forming the manners and polishing and proportioning instruction to the abilities and temper of the pupil." Board and tuition, were $100, payable quarterly in advance; music, French and drawing were extra; and a charge of $11 a year was made for washing. Patrons were evidently pleased with the new venture, for in 1820 the theater was purchased for the school. One of the early principals of the Female Academy was DUNCAN G. CAMPBELL, father of the well-known United States Supreme Court JUSTICE JOHN A. CAMPBELL. In 1822, as the Wilkes County representative in the state legislature, he introduced a bill to provide collegiate training for women. Although the measure was defeated by reactionary opponents, CAMPBELL's zeal was widely effective in arousing sentiment for this cause.

Private schools both for boys and girls became so numerous that the academies began to lose pupils to a serious extent. ELISHA W. CHESTER, with a recommendation from Middlebury College in Vermont, opened an academy in 1819, and nine years later T. P. CLEVELAND opened his select English school for young persons of both sexes. To meet this competition the Washington Academy improved its faculty, opening the 1828 term with the REVEREND E. S. HOPPING conducting the male school and MRS. ALEXANDER WEBSTER, widow of the first pastor of the Washington Presbyterian Church, supervising the girls' academy with the assistance of MISS MARGARET MCKENZIE, the piano instructor. The cottage in which MARY MINTON conducted a select school for small children for many years following 1840 is now used as a storeroom and garage.

After the division of the Washington Academy similar schools were established throughout the county: Mallorysville (chartered in 1821), South Liberty (1833), Rehoboth (1837), Danburg (1838), Rocky Mount (1838), and Washington Female Seminary (1838). These institutions, like all academies receiving aid from the state-appropriated academic fund, were considered members of the University of Georgia and made annual reports to the Senatus Academicus, me university board of trustees. Since the state appropriation was not sufficient for maintenance, they too were forced to charge tuition. Two of these academies, sponsored by local churches, were opened in Washington, Rehoboth under the direction of the local Baptist board of trustees, and Washington Female Seminary under that of the Presbyterians. The principals of the schools were called rectors and, like the earliest teachers in the county, were often ministers of the gospel.

The most influential of these academies was Washington Female Seminary, which was opened soon after its incorporation on December 31, 1838. The trustees secured the services of SARAH BRACKETT, who had come from East Hampton, Massachusetts, in 1835 to tutor the children of ADAM ALEXANDER. Under her administration the school prospered and received pupils not only from cities of Georgia, but from those of neighboring states. The second annual catalogue (1840) listed a wide variety of courses ranging from the study of PETER PALEY's Geography to that of Wilkin's Astronomy and Homer's Odyssey. The fees were low, running from $24 to $48 a year, but the extras were higher. Music was $60 a year and French $20.

The academies received small appropriations indeed from the state academic fund; in 1829 Wilkes County's portion was only $778.30. In addition, however, the county obtained an appropriation of $1,875.13 from the state poor school fund. Since Georgia's schools were operating principally as private institutions, charging tuition, this latter fund was for the purpose of providing an elementary education for children whose parents were unable to pay the fees. The school period for these unfortunate children was at times limited to three years, and the term frequently to four months. Since those who received aid from the appropriation were permitted to go to any school that would receive them for the small allowance, many enrolled in the county academies. One educator, unable to find a record of any expenditure of the fund in 1829, expressed a hope that "the enlightened County of Wilkes had not forgotten the children of the poor." The following year the county received and expended $1,074.91 as its share of the poor school allotment.

Meanwhile it had become evident that the churches intended to participate vigorously in movements for higher education. When Washington again entertained the Georgia Methodist Conference in 1834, "UNCLE ALLEN" TURNER opposed a resolution that the convention contribute to the support of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia and insisted in an eloquent speech that Georgia Methodists should have a college of their own. His sentiments were repeated on later occasions by IGNATIUS FEW, who became the first president of the Methodist college opened at Oxford in 1838 and later expanded into Emory University. In 1835 the Presbyterians made an effort to have Oglethorpe University located in Washington. The school was opened near Milledgeville, but the effort strongly impressed JESSE MERCER, who immediately set out to found a Baptist school in Washington to be called the Southern Baptist College. By April 1, 1837, forty thousand dollars had been subscribed, and on April 16 an Athens newspaper quoted the Washington Spy as stating that the proposed Baptist college would be built in Wilkes County and that more than $100,000 had been subscribed toward the building fund. Financial difficulties, however, proved to be too great; so the Georgia Baptist Convention procured a transfer of the donations to Mercer Institute, which was rechartered as Mercer University.

The statement that Washington had a theater before it had a church, though literally true, is misleading as to the attitude of the sincerely devout citizens. Religious services were held frequently in the courthouse and later in the academy on Mercer Hill. Worship was conducted by many noted visitors, including BISHOP ASBURY and LORENZO DOW, the eccentric Methodist evangelist who traveled about the eastern half of the United States proclaiming dire threats of hell and eternal hopes of paradise. A deep sense of personal sin led him to work not only for his own salvation but for that of the people of any community where he could find a hearing. On his visit to Georgia early in 1802, he came to Wilkes County to visit HOPE HULL, by whom he had been converted in his native Connecticut. Disheveled and with long hair and beard, this young minister preached in Washington first on February 16 and then on several later dates. Witnesses have told how on one occasion he came into town without speaking to anyone, delivered an eloquent sermon in the courthouse, and silently left, looking straight ahead with spiritual intensity.

DOW's fervor led to strong religious activity among all church members, who long remembered the years 1802, 1803, and 1809 for their vigorous evangelistic meetings. Such revivals later stirred the community after periods of sorrow and disaster; especially noteworthy were those that followed the fever epidemic and other illnesses of 1825, still known as the "sickly year." Early in the century the Presbyterians inaugurated the custom of holding camp meetings; other denominations followed their example; and soon the county was dotted with "arbors," where both town and rural people, white and black, could meet their friends for a few days of intensive religious zeal. At these meetings and in the houses of worship hymns were sung from manuals prepared by HOPE HULL and JESSE MERCER, for hymn books were expensive and difficult to obtain. HULL's book, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, was published in Washington in 1803 and came to be widely used by Methodists throughout Georgia. Still more successful was MERCER's Cluster of Sacred Songs first printed in Augusta and later by a Philadelphia publisher. The first of three Philadelphia editions was in 1817, the last in 1835.

As the century advanced, the churches succeeded in establishing themselves more firmly. In 1823 the Methodist congregation, which had been holding services for many years in the courthouse or academy building, erected its own church, the first within the town limits. In 1938 the members celebrated their sesquicentennial anniversary, for they date their origin from the organization of the Grant's Meeting House congregation. At first this church, with its gallery for slaves, was used not only by the Methodists for regular services but by other denominations on special occasions. In 1827 the Washington Presbyterian congregation was incorporated, with ANDREW G. SEMMES, THOMAS TERRELL, SAMUEL BARNETT, JOSEPH W. ROBINSON, FELIX G. HAY, JAMES WINGFIELD, and DUNCAN G. CAMPBELL as trustees. The Baptist church was incorporated the same year, JESSE MERCER, JAMES ARMSTRONG, WILLIAM G. GILBERT, JOHN W. BUTLER, and OSBORNE STONE being named as executive officers.

Religion continued to play an important part in the life of the ordinary man, but when restrictions became severe they sometimes met with sharp resistance from pleasure-loving members. A high church official, summoned to explain why he had taken his children to the circus, stoutly answered that he had taken them for his own enjoyment and was not in the least sorry. When his nonplussed cross-examiner, unwilling to antagonise so generous a contributor, begged him at least to be sorry for the escapade, he gayly promised to try and retained his high position.

Many of the ardently religious people of Wilkes County abstained from spirituous liquors, but many others made their own wines and beers. Liquor stores and bars were dependent chiefly on transient business for their support. At first, licenses not to exceed $500 a year in cost were granted by the state, and not until 1821 was Washington permitted to grant its own licenses for the sale of alcoholic beverages.

Although Indians had long ceased to give trouble, Washington retained its old military organizations to provide a colorful parade now and then. Muster days brought out the full splendor of brass-buttoned coats and blue and buff breeches. The Wilkes Dragoons, the best known of these organizations, assembled on its parade ground at ten o'clock each Saturday morning, fully armed and equipped with six rounds of blank cartridges, and a crowd usually gathered to watch the drill.

Despite the impoverishment of the county's fertile soil by injudicious planting and a consequent fall in population, this section shared in the wealth that made this era the heyday of the South. Especially was this true of the 1850-60 decade, when cotton prices went skyrocketing and many of Washington's columned houses were built. But dark threats of secession hovered close and filled the wiser citizens with fear. ROBERT TOOMBS' impassioned speeches on the issues of the day were but a small part of the great national frenzy that was drawing the country into war.

Return to Top of Page

WAR BETWEEN THE STATES AND RECONSTRUCTION

With the rest of the South, Washington was being swept toward war. The town in 1860 was the center of a plantation section that had grown prosperous through tobacco and cotton. About two-thirds of its 2,200 inhabitants were Negroes. In such a community it was natural that slavery and secession should be stirring issues, and the town went wild on the night of January 19, 1861, when messengers brought the news of Georgia's secession. Bells were rung, guns were fired, and the singing, shouting throngs pressed about the courthouse to raise a new Confederate emblem, a blue flag with a single five-pointed star.

In The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, ELIZA FRANCES ANDREWS describes how this flag was made by her and her sister-in-law, secretly because her father, JUDGE GARNETT ANDREWS, was an unflinching upholder of the Union. Later, when a flag had been selected to represent all the Confederate states. MISS ANDREWS' flag was used to line a blanket for a soldier.

Months before secession the local military units had begun to prepare for fighting. One troop was reorganized in 1860 into the IRVIN GUARDS, named for its captain, ISAIAH TUCKER IRVIN, who was killed the same year in a steamboat explosion off the Texas coast. This unit left Washington in June, 1861, to be mustered into service at Richmond as COMPANY A, 9TH GEORGIA REGIMENT, GENERAL BARTON's Brigade. During the entire war these men fought under three successive leaders, GIDEON G. NORMAN, JOHN LANE, and JOHN T. WINGFIELD. After the Battle of Manassas the company was transferred to the artillery and became known as IRVIN ARTILLERY, or COMPANY C, CUTT'S BATTALION. When GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, the IRVIN ARTILLERY was ordered to bury its large guns and report to GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON at Lincolnton, North Carolina. Although these instructions were carefully followed, the men of this company maintained that they never actually surrendered.

As in the Revolution, there was sharp conflict with established ties on the question of breaking with the Union. GARNETT ANDREWS, JR., the son of a steadfast Unionist, was the first man in Wilkes County to enter the Confederate army. Serving for the full duration of the war, he was wounded while campaigning in North Carolina. PORTER ALEXANDER, who resigned his commission in the United States Army, had a distinguished career with the Confederate signal service and later became brigadier general of artillery.

ROBERT TOOMBS was led by his secessionist convictions to sacrifice a still more distinguished position—that of United States Senator. When the Convention of Southern States at Montgomery, Alabama, failed to elect him to the Presidency, he reluctantly accepted the post of Secretary of State under JEFFERSON DAVIS. During his brief period of service he differed so strongly with his superior on financial matters that he soon resigned and requested military assignment. As a brigadier general he distinguished himself at Antietam, Virginia, but when his service did not result in promotion he resigned and returned to his home in Washington, where he continued to utter forcible objections to DAVIS' policies.

A number of Washington men served with GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON's Raccoon Roughs. A story is told of T. W. BELL, a wiry, red-haired young man of Wilkes County who acted as one of GORDON's scouts. Going out one day to reconnoitre, he discovered nine Union soldiers in a field. The young man, keeping himself well hidden by bushes, sharply commanded them to halt, moving at intervals to different positions and changing his voice each time. The nine men, thinking themselves outnumbered, gave up their arms, and Bell led them into camp, explaining laconically, "I surrounded 'em."

No battles were fought within a hundred miles of Washington, but the distress of war-time was felt to the fullest by the non- combatants who stayed at home. At the time of Sherman's march through Georgia many Wilkes County citizens hid their silver, and those from neighboring counties drove their cattle for refuge into the thick forests along Kettle Creek. Food, clothing, and articles of all kinds became very scarce. The old Wilkes Republican, which became the Washington Independent in 1860, had barely enough newsprint folio to publish a small edition. Somehow, though, it was maintained throughout the war, and only in 1865 did the paper go out of business and then because former readers could not afford to keep up their subscriptions. Ingenious makeshifts were substituted for commonly used articles. Cane syrup granules were used for sugar, parched wheat and ground sweet potatoes for coffee, sassafras brew for tea, and various herbs and roots for medicines. The dirt beneath old smokehouses was dug up and leached to extract the old salt. Despite these hardships, life frequently went on at a merry pace, for the town was periodically filled with refugees whom their hosts valiantly entertained even though party refreshments were almost unprocurable.

After the surrender of GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE on April 9 and that of GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON on April 26, Wilkes County became a thoroughfare for returning soldiers, ragged and starving. Because of the mountain barrier to the west and because many of the railroads had been destroyed, the men from the Southeastern and South Central States were forced to follow the old post roads established by the early settlers in Colonial days. First came some of the Confederate officers with their staffs, then many paroled Confederate soldiers, then the Federal soldiers to take possession of the state, and finally the sick and wounded from the hospitals and prisons. Many tramped over the hot and dusty roads, while others came on horseback. At Washington those who could afford railroad fare were able to obtain transportation on the Georgia Branch Railroad. The train on this short line kept no schedule during these confused days but continually shuttled back and forth between Washington and Barnett, where connection was made with the main system. Horses, which during the war had been at a premium, were no longer needed, and their value rapidly declined. These animals were sold for as little as $2.50 and sometimes for even less.

Near the beginning of this long procession just before the dissolution of the Confederate States of America came MRS. JEFFERSON DAVIS, who stopped for a few days with her children before going farther south. The Confederate President himself arrived on May 4, preceded by scouts who were watchful for pursuing Federal troops. By this time the President's cabinet had begun to break up. JUDAH P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of State, had left DAVIS only a short time before the party reached Washington, and upon arrival STEPHEN R. MALLORY, Secretary of the Navy, took leave to attend the wants of his family after depositing his official papers with JUDGE GARNETT ANDREWS, the Union sympathizer.

Accompanying the President from Richmond were not only the members of his cabinet but also a bodyguard, a brigade of GENERAL JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE, Secretary of War, and a store of gold and silver specie and gold bullion. This treasure, packed in money belts, shot bags, and castiron chests and guarded by two hundred men, consisted of $300,000 belonging to the Confedcrate Treasury and about an equal amount owned by Virginia and Louisiana banks. After crossing the Savannah River into Georgia the procession halted a few miles from Washington. DAVIS commanded GENERAL BRECKINRIDGE to remain there and pay his soldiers with the silver specie; so late into the night, soldiers crowded around a camp fire to get their share of the treasure. Between $108,000 and $110,000 was disbursed, each man receiving about $32. GENERAL BASIL W. DUKE, charged with guarding the money, has told in his account of this long trek that the residue of the treasure was taken into Washington the following day and delivered to M. H. CLARK, acting Confederate Treasurer.

During his brief visit DAVIS and most of his cabinet members were lodged in the old Georgia Branch Bank Building, and here on May 5 they convened for their last conference. Among the fourteen officials in attendance were GENERAL BRAXTON BRAGG, military adviser; C. E. THORNBURN, naval purchasing agent; I. M. ST. JOHN, commissary general; A. R. LAWTON, quartermaster general; JOHN H. REAGAN, postmaster general; and BURTON HARRISON, the President's private secretary. At this meeting the last Confederate papers were signed and the government was officially dissolved. The final official act, drawn by Breckinridge and signed by ST. JOHN, ordered MAJOR RAPHAEL J. MOSES, of the commissary department, to arrange with some Federal official to provide Confederate troops and hospitals with necessary food and medicine. BRECKINRIDGE, by this time in Washington, ordered the treasurer to give him $30,000 for this purpose and $10,000 for the quartermaster's department. The last official writing was an order for Moses to pay this latter appropriation and a receipt for the amount.

When the Federal commander, GENERAL EMORY UPTON, passed close by on his way to receive the surrender of the arsenal in Augusta, DAVIS resolved to flee at once. Accompanied by COLONEL F. R. LUBBOCK, COLONEL JOHN TAYLOR WOOD, and COLONEL WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON, several minor officers, and an escort of ten soldiers, he left on horseback shortly after the cabinet meeting. JOHN H. REAGAN, postmaster-general, remained in the city to oversee the further paying off of the troops, but he soon left to overtake DAVIS. Immediately after the departure the greater portion of the soldiers were given a formal discharge.

Many stories have been told as to what happened to the remaining gold of the treasure. One related that the portion belonging to the Virginia banks was packed to be returned to Richmond but that on the way back it was pilfered near the Savannah River by a group of Confederate officers and discharged soldiers. As soon as the officers learned that the treasure was private property, their part was returned to the bank officers who had come with it from the old Confederate capital. The Northern soldiers, sent to take possession of the conquered land, considered it Federal property and on June 4 seized $100,000 of the amount from the Washington bank and arrested the bank officers for misappropriation of funds. While trying to recover the portion stolen by the discharged soldiers, they made many arrests and succeeded in getting only part of the store. For many years Wilkes County citizens talked of buried treasure. The remaining part of that which belonged to the Confederacy was captured with DAVIS on May 10 at Irwinville. During 1866 and 1867 Richmond and New Orleans banks put in a claim to the Federal government for this gold bullion, but since it could not be identified the claims were not recognized. Before the proceedings were over, the gold was made into coins.

ROBERT TOOMBS, who was at home when DAVIS arrived, opened his house to several of the subordinate officials. A few days after the flight of the presidential party, a troop of Federal soldiers was sent to his house to arrest him, but he escaped by way of New Orleans to Havana. His wife and family were turned out of the house by Federal soldiers but later were permitted to return. Afterward MRS. TOOMBS joined her husband in Cuba, and the two left immediately for England.

The hungry, ragged soldiers from the demobilized armies were fed by citizens from their own scanty store. The Federal garrison quartered here aroused such antagonism that clashes with the homecoming men of IRVIN'S ARTILLERY were averted only with difficulty. Public safety fluctuated with the changing command of the Federal garrison, for some of the officers were temperate and just, even when insulted by hot-tempered Confederates, while others were cruelly intent upon heaping humiliation on the helpless people. Some men of the town cut down the flagpole in the square to forestall raising the national emblem, but this move was countered by the placing of a large flag across the street where passersby must go under it. The oath of allegiance to the Union was made a condition of receiving marriage licenses and other official documents.

Emancipated Negroes crowded into town in the hope of receiving aid from the Freedmen's Bureau and listened to the missionaries of that organization who rode about town in carriages with escorts of Negro troops. Under the influence of these men they founded their own society, the Sons of Benevolence, and became so bold that it was dangerous for ladies to go into town. Many Negroes, unable to find houses, lived in tents and under brush arbors, feeding upon supplies stolen from their former masters. Families buried their silver at dead of night; conversation was guarded lest the servants carry tales to the conquerors. When Federal soldiers and Negroes celebrated the Fourth of July together with loud cannon salutes, the Confederates took no part but joined the IRVIN ARTILLERY in a demonstration of their own two days later.

The impoverished condition of Wilkes was shown by the report of the grand jury in September, 1865, that the county treasury contained only $3.85 in worthless Confederate notes. The common school board of the county showed a balance of $481.40 in similar specie. Burdened already with a great debt, the officials borrowed money to meet current bills and repair public buildings.

Private concerns and individuals were in a similar predicament, for creditors began suing and foreclosing.

Racial conflict caused crimes ranging from simple larceny to murder. Washington and Wilkes County citizens pressed the state legislature to pass a concealed weapon measure and a strong prohibition law to curb this lawlessness. A powerful influence toward order was the Ku Klux Klan, which spread terror among the Negroes, with white robes and occasional violent punishments by night. In June, 1868, state-wide interest was aroused by the trial of Robert and Luke Arnold, Negroes, for the murder of Thomas Thaxton. Robert, who confessed to killing him because of the mistaken belief that he was the man who had "ku-kluxed" them, was given the death penalty while his brother was sentenced to life imprisonment. A company of United States infantry came to preserve order at the execution as well as to assist the Negro tax collector in collecting revenues and to investigate reported actions of the Klan. For some months Wilkes County became a military subdistrict with headquarters at Barnett for the trials of suspected persons by a military commission, but the troops finally withdrew when their efforts "failed to unearth a single ku-klux."

By 1868 the white people of Washington were beginning to regain control of local affairs. Although a Negro was elected to the legislature in that year, his companion representative from Wilkes County was RICHARD BRADFORD, a white Democrat. In this year there was a faint stir of educational revival when DR. THOMAS J. BECK opened a new school at Mount Pleasant called Burdett's Academy. Advertisements in the new Washington Gazette showed that commercial enterprises also were awakening. I. D. FLOYD was making mattresses at his cabinet shop, while W. L. KEOHL made coffins and did undertaking in addition to operating a lumber yard in connection with his furniture store. Although livestock shows prior to this time had been held, the custom of having annual county fairs was not begun until 1869.

The outstanding event of this first fair was an address by ROBERT TOOMBS, who had returned two years before, unmolested though he had not signed the oath of allegiance to the United States. In the following year Wilkes County founded the Agricultural Fair Joint Stock Company with a capital of $5,000 and reorganized the Wilkes County Agricultural Club. When the stock company offered for sale fifty shares at a hundred dollars a share TOOMBS immediately purchased eighteen of them.

Despite political discord and military demonstrations, it was evident that business and agricultural conditions were better by 1870, when census figures rated Wilkes County population at 11,796 and Washington residents at 1,506. The number of business firms had increased from 24 to 48 during the past decade, and the capital stock of these enterprises had grown from $41,300 to $58,905. Although wages averaged only $2.92 a week, the earners once more were paid in standard currency. The plantation owners had been unable to maintain their large holdings without slave labor and had found it expedient to break up their land into smaller units. Consequently the number of farms increased from 393 in 1860 to 513 in 1870. It is evident that many of the former slaves found employment on these farms, for in 1870 there were 2,316 hands working in agriculture.

Other evidences of prosperity were the facts that railroads received increased patronage and that many business men and farmers were buying buggies and carriages. Railroads, which had been gaining in popularity, were so well patronized in 1870 that the old stagecoach line from Washington to Abbeville, South Carolina, was abandoned. The two local firms selling vehicles were rushed with business: Lorenzo Smith made carriages, and Bohler and Bigbee, whose advertisements picture a smart phaeton, received orders for various types of conveyances.

Early in the 1870's some of the Washington citizens began to align themselves with the newly formed group that advocated reconciliation with the North and increased industrialism, for their own section. In this agricultural community, however, there was a far greater number who believed that the foremost political necessity was the protection of the farmers' interests, and this group found a ready spokesman in ROBERT TOOMBS, ageing but still dynamic. Although he was in no position to dictate terms, the town and county as a whole supported TOOMBS and his policy of co-operation between Democrats of the South and West. On August 8 he addressed the Georgia State Agricultural Society at Rome on "The Best Policy for Developing the Interests of the State." Other Wilkes County delegates were T. S. HUNTER, JAMES R. DUBOSE, and WILLIAM H. JORDAN. Soon after this meeting the society appointed SAMUEL BARNETT, another Washington man, to make addresses on agricultural subjects in nine other Georgia towns.

Probably it was TOOMBS' stand on the attitude of the South that caused him to be debarred from the benefits of the Amnesty Bill, passed May 28, 1872, which permitted many disfranchised Southerners to hold office. In blistering epithet he expressed his scorn for the Southern men who were reaping benefits from the Northern capital that was pouring into various experimental enterprises in the newly industrialized South. As a result he was almost drawn into a duel with the equally hot-tempered JOSEPH E. BROWN, Georgia's war-time governor. Though legally shut out of political office, TOOMBS seemed to grow even stronger in his influence; he remained to the last a powerful personage to lead the "unreconstructed rebels."

A Unionist of equally sincere convictions was JUDGE GARNETT ANDREWS, who died in 1872. Although he had been aligned with an unpopular minority, he had won universal respect by his unremitting efforts during Reconstruction to make peace between the citizens and their conquerors. Andrews, who had been judge of the superior court for almost a quarter of a century, had also become known as the author of a quaint little book, "Reminiscences of an Old Time Georgia Lawyer."

The State Legislature expanded the banking facilities of Washington by incorporating the Merchants' and Planters' Bank in 1872. Other evidences of recovery were seen in the establishment of a telegraph line from Washington to Barnett. One of the most important occasions of the time was the fourth annual county fair sponsored for the second time by the Wilkes County Farmers' and Mechanics' Club and held for four days early in November, 1872. Public gatherings of these years usually featured the newly formed brass band.

With the rest of the state, the town and county soon began to take a bolder stand against the carpetbaggers who had seized control shortly after the war. On August 24, 1874, a mass meeting in the courthouse expressed its approval of the State Legislature for declaring fraudulent certain bonds that had been issued under the Reconstruction governor, RUFUS B. BULLOCK. The meeting not only recommended non-redemption of these bonds but urged that a new state constitution be drafted on grounds that the document then in use had not been made by representatives of the state's legal voters. By this time the heavy expense of rehabilitating county and municipal affairs had been met and the treasury showed a balance of $1,500.

The Roman Catholic Church was responsible for two of the principal religious and educational advances of the decade; in 1876 the St. Joseph's Home for Boys was founded by FATHER JAMES M. O'BRIEN and in the following year the St. Joseph's Female Academy was established under the direction of the St. Joseph Catholic Sisters. The girls' school was well attended until 1912, when it was burned. The sisters then moved it to Augusta, calling it Mount St. Joseph School for Girls. In 1877 a public library was established, many books were donated, and the services of an efficient librarian, Milton Arnold, were secured. Another cultural asset was a flourishing dramatic club.

The people of Washington-Wilkes had a personal sense of triumph when they received the tidings that the new state constitution, adopted in 1877, had been formulated under the guidance of ROBERT TOOMBS. The doughty old Confederate declared that he had, in effect, "locked the State Treasury and thrown away the key" in order to prevent grafting by scalawags and carpetbaggers. When the State Legislature failed to appropriate sufficient funds to meet expenses of the constitutional convention, Toombs advanced $25,000 of his personal funds and promised to increase this amount to $100,000 if necessary. The people felt that the era of radical rule had ended and that the Democratic Party could now take hold in full power.

Return to Top of Page

CLOSE OF THE CENTURY

During the years that followed Reconstruction, when many Southern towns were becoming industrialized to meet new conditions, Washington definitely aligned itself with the old order.

The planters, unable to maintain their large holdings without slaves, were forced to break them up into small units, leased to white and Negro tenants who generally could not pay a cash rental or meet the cost of production. Some of these planters consequently established business enterprises in order to trade with and help finance these farmers until the time of harvest. Thus the growth that followed was not along new lines but along those formerly laid down; the town remained a market for the farmers of the surrounding region, and its prosperity was largely dependent upon the prices of farm products.

Agricultural reverses in 1881 elicited the comment that in Georgia native "corn (was) scarce, meat scarcer, and money scarcest," for farmers were buying Western corn and Northern hay and planting cotton to the exclusion of food crops. In order to help correct the evils of the one-crop system, twenty-four Wilkes County farmers organized the East Wilkes Club in 1884. The original number of members has been retained and, since it is considered an honor to be on the roll, there is always a long waiting list. Throughout the spring and summer for many years this organization has held all-day meetings at the homes of the members, the host usually serving barbecue. At this time the Farmers' Alliance