| |
 |
|
|
Our
Small Town History & Heritage section highlights
the integral role that small town America plays in
the fabric of our culture. Our national identity owes
a great deal of its character to the rural community.
The history of the small town is a tangible thing,
filled with everyday occurances at once familiar,
yet unique. Our small town histories provide an overview
of a few of the interesting communities we have come
across in our travels. Building our research around
the existing, often obscure sources of native histories,
we place the story of these communities within the
larger persepective of regional and national events,
training our focus on the formative eras and events
that have helped to shape the unique character of
a unique place ~
Originally Published in the Summer 2001
. . .
The
Beginning
“The almighty had spoken. Time was. Life was.”
So does Arthur Raper begin Tenants of the Almighty,
his 1943 landmark history of Greene County, Georgia.
The region was left well-endowed by these tumultuous
eras of formation. It once overlooked a prehistoric
Atlantic Ocean. The shoreline extended as far north
as the “fall line,” a natural boundary
separating the coastal plains of modern-Georgia
from its piedmont. This shoreline crept up as far
as the southern corner of Greene, and helps to explain
the dramatic difference between the gray, sandy
soil of southern county lands and the rich, red
clay of its northern and western sections; fertile
acreage that was not surprisingly dominated by large
plantations during their day. Through the course
of millions of years the ocean receded, and slowly,
carefully, nature unfolded to resemble what we know
it to be today. Small, swift streams swelled to
form the Oconee, Apalachee and Ogeechee. Pine and
hardwoods spread their canopies over the small arbor,
flowering trees and forest floors thick with ivy,
jasmine and muscadine. Granite outcrops rose up
everywhere, easy ravines and valleys leading to
the knolls, hills and rolling ridges akin to mountainous
thresholds. Wildlife thrived. The waters were alive
with bream and bass, their basins filled with catfish
and mussels. Bear, deer, elk, fox, beaver and rabbits
foraged alongside the quail, doves, turkey and geese.
Great herds of buffalo thundered through the region,
were drawn to the great salt licks naturalist and
explorer William Bartram would find in 1773 on land
east of what is today Union Point.
Then came the first man, settling amongst what Katherine
Walters in Oconee River: Tales to Tell, called
“a veritable Eden.” The original inhabitants
were moundbuilders who built settlements on or near
river plains. Many examples of Mississippian-period
mounds still exist. In 1877, Dr. Charles C. Jones
of the Smithsonian directed an expedition to the
region and its mounds. They uncovered pottery, arrowheads,
bones and burnt cinders. Studies in the 1980s directed
by Mark Williams, a University of Georgia anthropologist,
estimates that these original cultures existed,
to varying degrees, between 1200 and 1500 A.D. The
“Dyar” mound in Greene’s southwestern
corner and the mounds north of Scull Shoals are
glimpses into this archaic way of life. Other significant
mounds were inundated with the damming of the Oconee
in the 1970s and the creation of Lake Oconee.
The Creek .
The sixteenth century saw a new people come to the
region. Whether they were descendents of the moundbuilding
natives or unrelated is not entirely known. Whatever
their lineage, their many tribes branched out along
the waterways of Georgia. Many called the Oconee
River region home. In the 1700s, traders titled
them the “Creek” due to the unwavering
proximity of their villages to water. These tribes
would come together to form the great Creek Confederacy
and would rule over this “Eden” for the
better part of three centuries; an area including
nearly all of modern-day Georgia, east Alabama,
and north Florida. They were devoted and driven.
They were “physically strong, had copper skin,
black hair and a fondness for tattoos,” as
per early resident descriptions. Their devotion
to “Hesaketvmese,” or “the Master
of Life,” was unwavering. They were largely
sedentary, planting crops and farming. Seasonal
crops yielded beans, peas, pumpkins, squash, sweet
potatoes, fruits and their main staple; maize. The
ripening of the corn corresponded with their most
sacred and anticipated holiday; “Busk,”
also called the “Green Corn Ceremony;”
the Creek New Year. The Creek were skilled hunters,
their hunting prowess finding its way into William
Bartram’s journal. They were also feared warriors
and often battled with the powerful Cherokee nation
to the north. Greene County was the northeastern
bounds of Creek land.
In 1540, DeSoto began his heralded exploration of
what is now the southern United States. His expedition
may have passed through Greene. Spanish coins are
amongst the many artifacts that have been unearthed
from Greene County land; though their appearance
is more likely a result of trade than they are proof
of DeSoto. Either way, the Spaniards did not stay.
They went off in search of gold, leaving behind
disease; a harbinger of things to come. Yet it would
not be until the arrival of the English, and their
rebellious American children, that the dominance
of these natives would be challenged. In 1733, James
Oglethorpe landed at the head of a few ships full
of settlers and the “utopian” social experiment
to be called Georgia; in reverence to the then ruling
monarch of the British Empire. But philanthropic,
ecclesiastical ideals quickly gave in before the
greater importance of this outpost’s valuable
raw material. Olgethorpe’s Savannah flourished,
as did the frontier settlement of Augusta. By the
1750s, Georgia was a colony; its scattered, coastal
villages part of a province. Traders began to penetrate
the dark forests of this new land. At first they
were met with skepticism amongst the Creek. But
the Creek were traders themselves. And it soon became
obvious that the white man had things they would
need; the musket, for one. They did not fear the
English, for the English seemed too busy fighting
the Spaniards and the French, and had taken great
care in cultivating a neutral, even friendly standing
with the Confederacy. It wasn’t until the English
began to squabble and fight amongst themselves that
the Creek realized the dark prophecy behind the
coming of the white man. It began with a treaty
in 1773 which was forced on both the Creek and the
Cherokee as reparations for, ironically, debts owed
to colonists through the course of trade. It would
not end until the natives had been driven from the
lands.
The
earliest known plat of downtown Greensboro
~ |
|
Bethesda
Baptist Church, incorporated in the 1780s
~ |
|
The
Oconee River ~ |
Revolution and Settlement .
The American Revolution in Georgia did not unfold
as the glorious deliverance of a tyrannized, freedom-seeking
people. The colony, whether one was for the cause
or not, was weak and underdeveloped. Its remote geographic
location and remote place in the minds of leaders
resulted in a lack of material, fighting men, and
general effort during the duration of the Revolution.
Both sides operated on thin support. E. Merton Coulter
states in his work Georgia, that the state
had “more to gain than to give in entering the
revolution.” Patriotic sentiment was prevalent.
But so was loyalty to the crown; the Tories. The war
would prove to be as much a civil war as it would
a revolution. Georgia did produce noted statesmen
and soldiers. Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall and George
Walton signed the Declaration of Independence. Elijah
Clarke, John Twiggs, John Dooly and Jonas Fauche would
distinguish themselves as fighting patriots. But the
colony was still a frontier. English raiders could
not be contained and campaigns against their bases
in Florida were failures. Savannah was lost and the
attack to take it back failed. Augusta fell into British
hands. The war soon spilled into the frontier. Revolutionary
forces scored a victory at Kettle Creek in 1779, but
as Coulter goes on to relate, “Georgia . . .
swung backward swiftly into a state of nature . .
. the customs of civilized beings disappeared as a
war of extermination began.” It was Tory against
Revolutionary. Neighbor versus neighbor. Patriots
stripped Tories of their property, and forced them
to flee. Disenfranchised English found willing partners
amongst the Creek in opening the war upon Patriot
settlers. Alexander McGillivray proved the most notorious
of these loyalists, and would vent his vengeance at
the head of Creek raids against settlers for more
than a decade. And it was amidst this chaos that the
first settlers staked their claim in what would become
Greene County.
As early as the 1770s, pioneers were carving out humble
plots in what was then Washington County. Unlike the
traders who moved on, though, this hearty, brash set
was moving in. The Creek resented them. The bitter
truce of 1773, which ceded millions of acres to the
land-hungry Georgians, was fresh on the minds of the
Creek living along the Oconee. Another such treaty
in 1783 provoked even more animosity. While the end
of the Revolution in 1782 signified the end of hostilities
between the English and Americans, it signified a
fiery beginning to hostilities with the Creek. William
Bartram’s expedition of 1773 had delivered grand
descriptions of the lands beyond the coast. He described
in detail the bountiful cane and wildlife then thriving
throughout the Oconee River valley. Following the
Revolution, settlers began to pour into Georgia. And
it was obvious to the infant Georgia legislature that
this land of which Bartram talked was where they should
be placed. A large, western portion of Washington
County was surveyed in 1784. By act of legislature,
on February 3rd, 1786, Greene County was formed from
it; Georgia’s eleventh county. It was named for
a patriot and a hero, Nathaniel Greene; Continental
commander of the southern campaign that had led directly
to the capitulation of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781.
But the simple creation of Greene County was overshadowed.
Another more localized treaty had stirred the Creek
into a fury. In 1786, the Treaty of Shoulderbone Creek,
a swift tributary feeding the Oconee in lower Greene,
was signed in which a number of Creek chiefs ceded
another large portion of land to the Georgians. The
Creek contested the treaty, claiming a few minor chiefs
had represented the interests of the whole. In like
representation, they took their case to the fledgling
United States. Not looking for a war with the Creek,
Congress voided the treaty. This enraged the frontier
Greene Countians, and would prove one of the first
steps in placing the loyalties of these southerners
with their own rights over the rights of the nation.
Most every settler ignored the rulings; the rulings
proving virtually unenforceable at that. For a wave
of migrants was descending upon Georgia.
This flood of settlers into Georgia was the result
of the system of “head-right” grants. Any
veteran of the Continental armies was provided 287
1/2 acres of land as compensation for his service;
50 additional acres for every family member, or slave
if they owned them. The treasury of the U.S. was broke
after fighting the long war. All the country had was
land; massive tracts of land. In 1788, Georgia ratified
the Constitution; was the fourth state admitted. It
also had little to offer economically. But it had
land. And on the impetus of the land grants, veterans
poured into Greene County. Most were from Virginia
and the Carolinas, bringing their hardscrabble ways
and their religions with them. Thaddeus Brockett Rice,
celebrated historian of Greene County, described the
original settlers as possessing “little sophistication
. . . sturdy, virile, and easy to anger”; advantageous
traits for the hard life they would lead. Until the
1800s, Greene County would be the edge of civilization
in Georgia.
Life on the Frontier .
The headwaters of the Ogeechee River appear near the
eastern edge of Greene County. It was here that the
first settlement in Greene arose. It was called Bethany,
and was soon after joined by a small settlement along
the Oconee River to the north and west named Scull
Shoals. These were the outposts of America in the
1780s. Most settlers lived in rough-hewn log cabins.
They set to the laborious clearing of land and grew
corn, wheat, and marketable crops such as tobacco,
indigo and cotton, which they used as barter for tools
and material. They raised livestock which roamed free.
Larger landholders marked their cattle with a registered
brand. The pioneers hunted the plentiful valleys and
forests, augmenting the hunt with the yield of the
county’s waterways. And all the while, muskets
were kept close at hand; resting against a tree at
the edge of the field, or dragged laboriously, row
by row as one worked. It was a state of alert anxiety.
For the growl of a dog, even the most remote suspicion
had settlers dropping their plows and axes and cocking
the hammer of their flintlocks to fend off a potential
raiding party. It is said that a particular Creek
village located between Scull Shoals and current-day
Greensboro on the west side of the Oconee was the
source of most of the raids. More often than not the
Creek were provoked by settlers “squatting”
on their lands or stealing their livestock. Offenses
were made by both groups. Be it Creek against settler
or settler against Creek, both retaliated with violence.
Until the 1790s, it was wilderness war.
In the late-summer of 1787, a Creek raiding-party
fell upon Greenesborough. Laid out on land originally
surveyed to house the state university, Greenesborough
had quickly developed into a thriving settlement.
Many settlers, Issac Stocks, David Gresham and Andrew
Armour to name a few, built private stockades to protect
their families. Greenesborough had a formidable one
as well. But it was not enough on this day. The village
was razed by the marauding Creek. Over 30 settlers
were killed and many were wounded. Many more were
taken captive. Reaction on the part of the settlers
was immediate. Counter-raids were demanded, and carried
out. Many Creek were pursued and killed. Governor
George Mathews, appealing to the U.S. government for
retaliatory action declared, “(we) can never
have a secure and lasting peace with that perfidious
Nation until they have felt the effects of war.”
The local settlers organized their own force. Jonas
Fauche, a distinguished patriot, was chosen to lead
the local militia. No able-bodied man was exempt.
Most were busy defending their own land, anyway. The
raids would continue. A figure given totals 82 killed,
29 wounded, 146 captured and 89 houses burned amongst
the settlers of the Oconee River frontier between
1787 and 1789. There is no record of the Creek’s
casualties.
Yet despite this normalcy of frontier violence, Greene
County was beginning to grow. Signs of civilization
were penetrating this outlying collection of pioneers.
Bethesda Baptist was founded in 1785. The Methodists
and Presbyterians soon had places of worship. No frontier
settlement existed for long without the binding salve
of religion. Nor did it last without the necessity
of education. The first school of record was the Union
Academy in Greenesborough, it dating to 1786. The
early 1790s saw this “sophistication” expand.
Still, most schooling of the era was provided at home.
Greene was made part of the upper congressional district.
There are many contradictory reports of who represented
Greene County at the state constitutional convention
in 1795; David Gresham and William Fitzpatrick were
known to be there. Other important men of the time
were Moses Waddel, Oliver Porter, Redmond Thornton,
and distinguished patriot Samuel Whatley. The first
mail service began its run in 1792. Every other Friday,
a resident could send a letter to Augusta to be mailed
on from there. The cost was 10-15¢. Large-scale
road projects improved land transportation. Large
agricultural operations were being developed. Joel
Early oversaw his farm “Fontenoy” at Scull
Shoals, one of the first successful plantations in
Greene County. Tax returns show as many as twelve
men who owned 1,000 acres or more in 1788. By 1795,
this number had doubled. This rate of growth would
continue into the mid-1800s, until Greene could be
counted amongst the wealthiest regions of the south’s
“Black Belt.” It would also maintain the
unrestrained expansion of slavery for another seventy
years. As early as 1730 there had been talk of outlawing
slavery in Georgia. That all changed when the potential
of the then infant colony had been realized. W. J.
Cash, among other noted historians, suggested that
slavery was on the wane – until Eli Whitney patented
the cotton gin. African-Americans would not realize
true freedom in the south for another century and
a half.
As important as any of the “civilizing”
factors then appearing in Greene was the formation
of law-enforcement and the courts. Coulter describes:
“conditions were primitive, and justice was rude
but swift.” True to this thought was the sentence
imposed upon fraudulent tobacco dealers. Tobacco was
considered legal tender; its misrepresentation made
a capital offense. The guilty were “to be hanged
by the neck until dead, and denied the benefit of
clergy.” In 1790, George Walton, signer of the
Declaration, presided over Greene County’s first
superior court. It would be kept busy settling everything
from minor infractions such as “profane swearing”
to higher crimes against the county. In 1793, Hugh
McCall and John Clark, son of Elijah [he removed the
“e” from his last name] and future governor,
were both indicted for starting a drunken riot in
Greenesborough. They were not given special favor.
Another incident involved the capital offense of forgery
involving tobacco and two sons of prominent men. The
sentence read, “You Stephen Heard and William
Heard are both of you to be hung by the neck until
you are dead. And the Lord have mercy on your souls.”
The two, along with two other offenders, were ridden,
on their coffins, out to the gallows and their last
rights delivered – after which they were given
pardons for their offenses. They were then released,
stunned and scared. Fear was a calculated strategy
on the frontier.
With its wealth of land, and even greater wealth of
unclaimed territory to the west, Georgia was rife
with speculation. The fraudulent Yazoo Land Deal was
exposed as a cheap, land-grabbing scheme which involved
the bribing of state legislators. Many prominent Greene
Countians were named amongst the conspirators. Among
them was Jonas Fauche who challenged his accuser to
a duel and killed him. But it was another “land
grab” which caused great problems for settlers
of Greene. In 1794, Elijah Clarke, distinguished patriot
and soldier, defied the national ban against claiming
Creek land, crossed the Oconee with a large party
of soldiers and set up his own nation state, calling
it the Trans-Oconee Republic. This enraged officials
from Georgia to Washington D.C. And worse, it enraged
the already furious Creek. Raids had been a constant
since the first days of settlement. But 1793-1794
were said to be the worst. Though the rogue republic
was subdued and Clarke himself brought back and tried
for treason, this had been the fuel which stoked the
smoldering flame. The Creek fell upon homesteads all
along the Oconee frontier. There were possibly hundreds
of raids; documented and undocumented. Jonas Fauche
himself was burnt out of his home, relocating to Greenesborough
(the house still stands, is the site of McCommon’s
Funeral Home). With the continuance of hostilities,
the call for something to be done became unavoidable.
A string of forts was ordered to be built along the
Oconee. Fauche, still the captain of militia, was
chosen to oversee the construction of the forts. Each
one was built approximately eighteen miles apart.
There were at least four in Greene County alone –
Ft. Clark at Scull Shoals, Ft. Phillips at Carey’s
Station or the confluence of the Apalachee and the
Oconee, Ft. Fabius at Cracker’s Neck, and Ft.
Alexander at the mouth of the Richland Creek. This
line of defense was formidable, and provided for safer
environs than most to that time had been used to.
The population of the county continued to grow. Slowly,
their overwhelming presence pushed the Creek west.
By the turn-of-the-century, their threat was gone.
Development of the county began in earnest. The next
half-century would be called its “golden days.”
As the 1700s gave way to 1800, Greene County, the
one-time frontier outpost of the new world, looked
towards a very bright future.
|
|
Mural depicting the burning of Greenesborough.
The mural is on display in the Greensboro
Post Office. It was commissioned as a part
of the WPA cultural arts program in the
1930s.~
|
Next Page
|
|
|
|
|
