Butts-Richmond-Greene County GaArchives History .....ROBERT GRIER 
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Don Bankston digitialdog1@juno.com October 9, 2005, 1:31 am

Book Title: 

Author, Scientist, Teacher, Farmer, Butts Countian

During most of the 1800’s and the early part of the 20th Century, a familiar 
sight in practically every southern household was a copy of the  “Grier;s 
Almanac” hanging from a peg by the fireplace for convenient reference.

“For the States of North Carolina, south Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, 
Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas”

That was (and is) the inscription on the cover of the almanac, and by the 
advice and predictions of its creator and publisher, Robert Grier, farmers 
through out these states have relied on Grier’s Almanac for planting their 
gardens and crops and directing other work on their farms and plantations.

The words and wisdom of Grier, native Georgian, have reached millions of 
readers for 170 years, making his almanac the most famous in the South and the 
second oldest in the country.

It has even been said that, in the old days, a copy of Grier’s Almanac was used 
to swear witnesses to tell the truth, in the absence of a Bible.

Though he was a resident of Butts County the latter part of his life, Grier was 
born in Columbia County, Georgia in 1780.

Of  Scottish ancestry, Grier’s grandparents left Scotland during the reign of 
Mary and went to Northern Ireland.   Then they emigrated to America before the 
American Revolution and settled in Pennsylvania.  Around 1773, the Griers came 
to Georgia and settled in the area near Augusta where Robert Grier was born.

Grier attended school at Union Academy in Greensboro, Georgia and was an 
exceptionally intelligent student, excelling particularly in mathematics and 
the sciences.

In the mid 1820’s Grier married his first cousin Elizabeth and they had one 
child, a son, Algernon Sidney.

Sometimes between 1827 and 1830, Robert and Elizabeth Grier moved to Butts 
County, which had been formed in 1825 from portions of Henry and Monroe 
Counties, making the Griers one of the first families to settle in the new 
county.

It is speculated the Grier family may have moved to Butts County hoping the 
sulphur water at Indian Springs would benefit their son who had poor health.

The house Grier built in Butts county is in the Stark Community, six miles 
north of Jackson.  Though it is in ruins, the house is still standing, making 
it one of the oldest houses in Georgia, around 145 years old.

The house was a big rambling farmhouse surrounded by 1400 acres of orchards, 
crops and forest.   The plantation also ad its slave quarters and at one time 
Grier owned more than 100 slaves.

In fact, Grier specified in his will that his wife receive “my Negro man Sam 
and Negro woman Ann and her child Mary and a Negro girl named Leif.”  He also 
stipulated that his wife receive an annuity of $100 a year and left the bulk of 
his property to his son.

A short distance from the house is a large boulder on which, it was said Grier 
would lie on clear nights and study the stars.

However, his relatives have maintained this “tale” is not true and that being 
an expert mathematician, Grier would make his predictions on sunrise and sunset 
by mathematical calculations.  Grier was once offered the chair of mathematics 
at the University of Georgia, but he turned it down.

When the first Grier Almanac appeared in 1807, it was called “The Georgia and 
South Carolina Almanack” and was published in Augusta.   A copy of the 1807 
edition is part of the Derenne Collection and is kept at the University of 
Georgia.

Published for many years in different locations, the Grier Almanac was bought 
by an Atlanta firm in 1894.  It is still published in Atlanta and has a current 
circulation of around three million.

Through his publication the reputation and character of Grier grew and 
prospered.  His many friends admired his tremendous intellectual capacity and 
were rather lavish n their descriptions of him.

(In Grier)  “causality is beautifully developed.  He loves to know the why and 
wherefore of every cause.  This faculty disposes him to reflect a great deal on 
the nature of things a man of strong intellectual power.  He remembers with 
distinctness every spot he has been during his life.   He remembers dates and 
chronological epochs better than most men…..”

Grier also possessed a sense of humor, however obscure it might have been.  

According to a 1908 edition of the Butts County Progress Grier was asked about 
his prediction of snow on a certain day.   Grier was in Jackson the date named, 
it was not snowing, and one of his neighbors asked him about the snow.

His answer was - - - “it is cold enough and cloudy enough and if it doesn’t 
snow, I can’t make it”.  But it snowed before night.

One of Grier’s closest admirers and relatives was his famous nephew, Alexander 
Stephens of Georgia who served as Vice President of the Confederate States of 
America.   Stephens was a frequent visitor to the Grier home in Butts County.

Before the Confederacy was formed, Stephens who was a member of the U. S. House 
of Representatives introduced a bill, which resulted in the establishment of 
the U. S. Weather Bureau.  It is believed Grier may have influenced Stephens’ 
introducing of the bill.  Grier died at his home in Butts County in 1848, and 
at the time of his death, Grier’s estate was valued at just under $20,000.

The Grier house, which was inhabited as recently as the early 1960’s, has been 
listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U. S. Department of 
the Interior.

However, according to Grier’s nearest surviving relative in Butts County, 
Richard Watkins of Jackson, the listing is virtually meaningless in terms of 
preserving the house and property.  Watkins is the great, great, great grandson 
of Grier.

The present owners of the property on which the Grier house is located are the 
relatives of John Billy Mays, Sr. formerly of Jackson.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

With the article is a picture of the house with the caption below:
Grier House.  This picture of the Robert Grier house in the Stark Community was 
taken in 1959 when the house was still inhabited.  Thought it has been listed 
on the National Register of Historic places, the house today is in an extreme 
state of disrepair.

Jackson Progress Argus







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