Butts County GaArchives News.....HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF JACKSON AND BUTTS COUNTY October 1908
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Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 May 10, 2011, 1:14 pm

Butts County Progress October 1908
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF JACKSON AND BUTTS COUNTY

THE ONLY TWO POSSIBILITIES THAT OCUD PREVENT JACKSON FORM GROWING AND 
EVENTUALLY OVERSHADOWING ANY CITY IN THIS SECTION OF GEORGIA ARE NOTLIKELY TO 
OCCUR.  ONE OF THESE ISTHAT HER LEADINGMEN SHOULD IGNORE ALTRUISM AND EMBRACE 
EGOISM AND THE OTHER IS JUDGEMENT DAY.

In the year of our Lord 1825, Butts county was born.  Previous to that date 
the territory lying between Fulton and Bibb was known as either Henry or 
Monroe.

There lived in this section then substantial citizens who were unknown to the 
county authorities at McDonough as they had never seen their own courthouse, 
marketing their crops in Macon and Augusta by wagon road.

The formation of a new county was a necessity, and our grandfathers carved the 
garden spot of the world out of Henry and Monroe and named it Butts, in honor 
of Captain Samuel Butts, who was killed in a fight with the Creek Indians on 
January 27, 1814.

Among the names of the early settlers of the county, we find McCord, Harkness, 
Foster, Bankston, Thaxton, Robinson, Giles McMichael, Henderson and Lindsey.

The county site was named in honor of Andrew Jackson.  The historical, George 
White, whose book was published in 1849, states that Jackson contained at that 
time, a courthouse, jail, two churches, one Academy for males and one for 
females, one tavern (the Hitchens carriage factory which was recently moved 
from the lot on which now stands the Jackson Nation Bank) and three stores.  
The population of the city was 300.

The same author, in commenting on the healthfulness of the climate of Butts 
county remarks that a Mrs. McMichael died at 100 years of age, Mr. Buttrill, 
over 80, E. Price 79, and Robert Grier, 80.  Many years after this, a Mr. John 
Phillips died at the age of 104 years, and Mrs. Martha Respass who is now 
living is 92 years old.  The above named Robert Grier was the originator of 
the famous Grier’s Almanac, and made his observations from and calculations in 
the ante-bellum old residence, a picture of which is in this issue, situated 
near Stark about six miles north-east of Jackson.  Lucian Knight, in his 
recently published “Reminiscences of famous Georgians,” remarks: “This Almanac 
once shared honors with the family Bible in almost every Southern homestead”  
Robert Grier was an uncle of Alexander H. Stephens, but not of the almost as 
famous Linton Stephens, a half brother of Alexander.

Tradition says Mr. Grier predicted snow upon a certain day.  He was in Jackson 
the date named, and it was not snowing, and one of his neighbors asked him 
what about the snow.  His answer was: “It is cold enough and cloudy enough, if 
it doesn’t snow I can’t make it.”  But it snowed before night.   Another 
tradition is that Mr. Grier had a son who was not a Solomon, but who was 
witty.  When someone asked him when it would rain, he answered:  “I don’t lack 
but one day being as smart as my Dad.  He can tell the day before when it will 
rain and I can tell the day after.”  Indian Spring, four miles south of 
Jackson in Butts County, is mentioned early in the history of Georgia.   A 
treaty was made then with the Creek Indians in 1818, and later in 1825 the 
famous treaty was signed by Chief McIntosh and U.S. commissioners, Campbell 
and Meriweather.  This resulted in the murder of McIntosh by members of his 
tribe, and caused a clash between Governor Troupe and President J. Q. Adams. 

Butts county has shown a slow but steady growth in population.  In 1830 there 
was less than 5,000 inhabitants.  In 1850 there were 6,000; in 1890, 10565; in 
1900, 12,085.  The city of Jackson has increased from 800 in1849, to over 
2,000 in 1908.  Mr. White’s history placed in 1849 the cotton production of 
Butts at “about 5,000 bags” (200-pound round bags, packed with a crow bar.)  
He also remarks:” The cotton is said to be of a very superior description.”  
The U.S. Census of 1900, gave the number of bales ginner in Butts county at 
14,415.  These were square bales weighing 500 pounds.  Cotton receipts at 
Jackson amounted to 13,000 bales of which 3,500 were consumed by local mills.

Farm lands have increased in value fifty fold, city property a thousand fold.  
In about 1858, the lot of land on which Jenkinsburg is located, was sold for 
an Indian pony and a Flint and a steel rifle.  It couldn’t be bought now, 50 
years later after, for 24000 dollars.

Jackson has more than quadrupled since the Southern Railway was built in 
1882.  It has grown more this year than in any previous five years.  It has an 
electric and water plant, owned by the city, a $40,,000 courthouse and a 
$5,000 jail. It has two buggy factories, five cotton warehouses, three banks, 
four guano factories, one oil mill, three excellent ginneries, two planning 
mills, one cotton factory, and a number of smaller enterprises and live 
merchants.  It has three white and three colored churches, a free school 
system.  Its altitude of 729 feet insuring its healthfulness.

A five million dollar development concern has harnessed the Towaliga river on 
the West, and a ten million dollar concern has harnessed the Ocmulgee on our 
East.  The latter company is now surveying a trolley car route through 
Jackson, which, when completed, will connect three great trunk lines of 
railroads.  The only two possibilities that could prevent Jackson from growing 
and eventually overshadowing any city in this section of Georgia is not likely 
to occur.  One of these is that her leading men should ignore altruism and 
embrace egoism, and the other is judgment day

Butts County Progress
Week of October 9, 1908


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