Elbert County GaArchives History - Books .....Petersburg 1878
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 6, 2007, 2:22 pm

Book Title: Dead Towns Of Georgia

VI.
PETERSBURG, JACKSONBOROUGH, FRANCISVILLE, &C., &C.

  Near the close of a spring day in 1776 Mr. William Bartram, who, at the
request of Dr. Fothergill, of London, had been for some time carefully studying
the flora of Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, forded Broad river just above its
confluence with the Savannah, and became the guest of the commanding officer at
Fort James. This fort,-which he describes as "a four-square stockade with
saliant bastions at each angle, mounted with a block-house, where are some
swivel guns, one story higher than the curtains which are pierced with
loop-holes, breast-high, and defended by small arms,"-was situated on an
eminence in the forks of the Savannah and Broad, equidistant from those rivers
and from the extreme point of land formed by their union.

  Fort Charlotta was located about a mile below on the left bank of the Savannah.

  The stockade of Fort James was an acre in extent. Within this enclosure were a
substantial house for the commandant, officers' quarters, and barracks for the
garrison, consisting of fifty rangers well mounted, and armed each with a rifle,
two dragoon pistols, a hanger, a powder horn, a shot pouch, and a tomahawk.[1]

  For a distance of two miles the peninsula above the fort was laid out for a
town called Dartmouth in honor of the Earl who had exerted his influence in
procuring from the King a grant and special privileges in favor of the Indian
Trading Company of Georgia. For the defense of the territory known as the New
Purchase, had this fort been erected and maintained.

  Dartmouth never realized the expectations which, in its infancy, had been
formed for it. After a short and feeble existence it gave place to Petersburg
which, during the tobacco culture in Georgia, attracted to itself a considerable
population and was regarded as a place of no little commercial importance.

  For the convenience of the early settlers of Eastern-Middle Georgia, Dionysius
Oliver was, on the 3rd of February, 1786, authorized by the Legislature [2] to
erect a warehouse on his land, lying in the fork between the Savannah and Broad
rivers, for the inspection and storage of tobacco. With the location of this
warehouse dates the commencement of the town of PETERSBURG.

  The cultivation of tobacco was then enlisting the attention of many planters.
In the lower counties of the State the production of silk had ceased to be
remunerative, and the tillage and manipulation of indigo had not yielded the
profits anticipated.

  Cotton was little grown. Many of the early inhabitants of the present counties
of Elbert, Lincoln, Wilkes, and Oglethorpe, came from Virginia and brought with
them not only a love for the weed, but a high appreciation of tobacco as an
article of prime commercial value. The virgin lands of this region were found
well adapted to its cultivation: and, as a consequence, this plant grew rapidly
into general favor and proved the staple commodity or market crop of the
farmers. As the existing laws of the State forbade its exportation without
previous inspection and the payment of specified fees, it became necessary to
establish public warehouses at convenient points where the inspection and
storage of this article could be had. No hogshead or cask of tobacco could be
shipped which did not bear the stamp of some "lawful inspector." [3] These
inspectors were required to give bond for the faithful performance of their
duties, and it was made obligatory upon them to attend continuously at their
respective warehouses from the first of October to the first of August in each
year. It was their duty carefully to inspect, weigh, receipt for, and stamp each
hogshead delivered at the warehouse. The hogshead or cask was "not to exceed
forty-nine inches in length, and thirty-one inches in the raising head." Its
weight, when packed, was to be not less than nine hundred and fifty pounds nett.
It was not customary in those primitive days to transport these hogsheads upon
wagons. Vehicles of all sorts were scarce. The hogshead or cask being made
strong and tight, and having been stoutly coopered, was furnished with a
temporary axle and shaft, to which a horse was attached. By this means was it
trundled to market or to the public warehouse. Water courses also were freely
taken advantage of for the conveyance of tobacco. The location of this public
warehouse at the confluence of the Broad and Savannah rivers proved most
acceptable to the tillers of the soil in this rich region, and speedily
attracted merchants who, there fixing their homes, became purchasers of the
tobacco when inspected, and in return sold to the planters such supplies as they
needed.

  Petersburg soon assumed the proportions of a respectable village. It was
regularly laid off in town lots, with convenient streets intersecting each other
at right angles. The tobacco warehouses and shops were located as near the point
formed by the confluence of the rivers as the nature of the ground and the
liability to overflow would permit. The residences were situated above, and
occupied lots, each about three quarters of an acre in extent.

  In 1797 William Watkins secured from the Legislature [4] the right to
establish upon his lots,-35 and 37,-in the town of Petersburg, an extensive
warehouse for the inspection and storage of tobacco.

  By an act [5] of the General Assembly assented to November 26th, 1802,
eighteen of the principal citizens of the town were incorporated into a society
"under the name and style of the Petersburg Union Society." The avowed objects
of this association were the diffusion of knowledge and the alleviation of want.
It maintained an active existence for some years and exerted a marked influence
for good.

  On the first of December, 1802, [6] Robert Thompson, Leroy Pope, Richard
Easter, Samuel Watkins, and John Ragland were appointed Commissioners of the
town of Petersburg, and were charged with its "better regulation and
government." They were to hold office until the first Monday in January, 1804.
Then, and on the first Monday in every January thereafter, the citizens entitled
to vote for members of the General Assembly were required to choose by ballot
five persons to act as Commissioners of the town. These Commissioners were
invested "with full power and authority to make such by-laws and regulations,
and to inflict or impose such pains, penalties, and forfeitures as in their
judgment should be conducive to the good order and government of the said town
of Petersburg:" provided such by-laws and regulations were not repugnant to the
constitution and laws of Georgia, and that the pains and penalties contemplated
did not extend to life or member.

  Two years afterwards [7] the powers of these Commissioners were materially
enlarged, and they were directed to have a correct plat of the town and commons
made by the County Surveyor and recorded in the office of the Clerk of the
Superior Court of Elbert County.

  Speaking of Petersburg, in 1800, Mr. George Sibbald says: [8] "In point of
situation and commercial consequence it is second only to Augusta.  *  *  It is
a handsome, well built Town, and presents to the view of the astonished
traveller, a Town which has risen out of the Woods in a few years as if by
enchantment: It has two Warehouses for the Inspection of Tobacco."

  So long as the cultivation of tobacco engrossed the attention of the planters
in the circumjacent region, Petersburg continued to be a place of considerable
commercial importance. In the zenith of its prosperity it contained a
distributing post-office, a market place, a town-hall, several churches, and not
less than forty stores and warehouses. Its population then has been estimated at
between seven and eight hundred souls. During the early part of the present
century its trade was greater than that of Augusta. It is claimed that goods of
a superior quality were then there sold, and in greater quantities, and at
cheaper rates. A large and lucrative business was transacted by the Petersburg
boats, which, along the line of the Savannah river, constituted the favorite
common carriers of passengers and goods. The existence of the town was due to
the concentration at this point of the tobacco crop of a considerable area. The
necessity for a rigid inspection of this product forced the planters to bring it
here. With Petersburg the presence of this plant was emphatically the cause of
population and the parent of trade. After inspection, most of it was purchased
on the spot by merchants and speculators, who, from their full stores, supplied
every need of the producers. Thence was it shipped to Augusta and Savannah. So
soon, however, as the cotton plant began to assert its ascendency, the fortunes
of the town commenced to wane. Requiring no inspection, and capable of easy
shipment from any convenient point, the cotton bales were sent to various bluffs
along the river for transmission to the coast; and thus it came to pass that
with the discontinuance of the tobacco culture Petersburg dwindled away and
died. Sickness, and the attractions of new and fertile fields in Alabama
hastened its ruin:-and now sunken wells and the mounds of fallen chimneys are
all that attest the former existence of the town. Its corporate limits are
wholly included within the confines of one well-ordered plantation; and
extensive fields of corn 'Und cotton have obliterated all traces of warehouse,
shop, town-hall, church, and dwelling.

  Beneath the conserving shadows of tall trees which mark the outlines of the
old cemetery on the left bank of Broad river may still be seen numerous graves,
fresh and green when the town was replete with life, but neglected and overgrown
with brambles now that the village too is dead.

ENDNOTES

[1] Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, &c., pp. 321, 322.
London, 1792. 

[2] Watkins' Digest, p. 325.

[3] See Watkins' Digest, p. 444.

[4] Watkins' Digest, p. 658.

[5] Clayton's Digest, p. 58.

[6] Clayton's Digest, p. 92.

[7] Clayton's Digest, p. 182.

[8] Notes and Observations on the Pine Lands of Georgia," &c., pp. 62, 63. 
Augusta, 1801.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

THE DEAD TOWNS OF GEORGIA;
BY
CHARLES C. JONES, JR.

FOR HERE WE HAVE NO CONTINUING CITY.
Heb.: xiii. 14

SAVANNAH:
MORNING NEWS STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. 
1878.

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