Pulaski County GaArchives History .....Historical Sketch 1935 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 July 28, 2004, 10:46 am SKETCH OF PULASKI COUNTY-ORGANIZED 1808 Originally, the Creek Indians were the owners of the land now embraced within the limits of Pulaski County. In fact, the capital of the Creek confederacy-Ocmulgee Old Fields-probably ex-tended from a point opposite Macon, at least as far as the present Old Hartford. Just a few years ago an Indian mound still stood just above Hartford, and six or seven miles to the south is an old clearing, covering several acres, near the river bank, where yet may be found broken pieces of Indian pottery and arrow-heads in abundance. The Indian title to that part of the territory lying on the east side of the Ocmulgee River was extinguished by a treaty negotiated at the Creek agency on the Flint River in 1804, and that portion of the county's domain lying in the west was ceded to the whites by the treaty made at Indian Springs, January 18, 1821. When, by the treaty first above referred to, the Ocmulgee became the western boundary of the white man's dominion, the State laid out new counties in the then frontier. Among those created was Laurens, stretching from the Oconee to the Ocmulgee. This was in 1807. The following year, however, the General Assembly divided Laurens by a north and south line, running midway between the two rivers, and out of the western half creating the County of Pulaski. At that time Wilkinson, embracing what is now Twiggs, extending westward to the Ocmulgee, was the northern boundary, and Telfair, whose limits extended a little north of the present site of Eastman, was the southern. For many years all of Pulaski lay on the east side of the river. Pulaski, as everybody knows, was named after Count Pulaski. Count Pulaski was a native of Poland, and its fall made him a fugitive. He was famous all over Europe for his bravery and his defense of Poland against the combined forces of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Franklin, when minister to Paris, met Pulaski and urged him to come to America. He longed to offer his sword to a people fighting for a cause like his own lost cause-for liberty and freedom from oppression. Washington took a real fancy to the accomplished Polish officer, and gave him a post of honor near himself in the battle of Brandywine. Washington called the attention of Congress to the bravery of this officer, and Congress appointed him to the command of cavalry with rank of brigadier general. Later he raised a corps in 1778 called the Pulaski Legion -a brave command like that of Cobb's Legion in the Confederate service. His legion was ordered to Savannah in 1779 by Washington to defend that city. In the assault upon the city his French p. 51 troops became panic stricken and Pulaski rushed out among them, and, thus exposed, was struck by a cannon ball and died. The story that he died at sea lacks verification. His death occurred at Greenwich, where he was taken from the battlefield, and his body rested in a private burial ground in the same locality until exhumed in the fifties for the purpose of being reinterred under the Pulaski monument in Savannah, erected to his memory, on Bull Street. A liberty-loving patriot was he, and, failing to gain independence for his own oppressed people, he shed his blood and gave his life that the American colonies should achieve that for which he had fought in vain in his own beloved but unfortunate Poland. Of all the historic names given to Georgia towns and counties, there is no prouder name than Pulaski. When Houston and Dooly were created in 1821, Houston extended easterly its entire length to the river and as far south as the land on which Hawkinsville was afterwards located, and the "Kingdom of Dooly," as it was called, came almost into Hawkinsville. In 1826 the upper part of Dooly was added to Pulaski. In 1828 the General Assembly gave to Pulaski a good sized slice of Houston. In 1857 Wilcox was founded and took a considerable part of our territory. In 1870 Dodge was created, and we gave up another large area. In 1912 the remaining territory was divided almost in half, and out of the eastern portion Bleckley was made. So the borders of Pulaski have by no means remained unchanged since its formation. At present about two-thirds of the county lies on the west side of the 0cmulgee river that originally marked its western boundary. The act creating the county declared that until the courthouse shall be erected the elections and courts of inquiry shall be held at the house of Isham Jordan. In 1910 the town of Hartford was established as the site of the public buildings, and George Walker, Jacob Snell, Allen Tooke, William S. Lancaster and Josiah Everett were by the Legislature appointed commissioners for the town and directed to build a court-house and jail. Old residents have pointed out two or three cedar trees now to be seen almost on the right of way of the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad, about three or four hundred yards from the end of the river bridge as the spot where stood our first courthouse. Running northeast and northwest through the county is an imaginary line which divides the red lands, with an original growth of oak and hickory, from the gray lands, which at first were covered with wiregrass and long-leaf yellow pine. This line runs through Hawkinsville. The early settlers were planters, and, generally speaking, their plantations were in the red lands, though some of p. 52 the older settlements were on the river south of Hartford. It was at a much later day that any considerable portion of the wiregrass lands lying back from the river were cleared and improvements for ideal country life begun in that section and other parts of the county. Originally these were called "pine barrens," and were not thought to be productive. In this earlier period, while north and west of Hawkinsville and northeastward lived the wealthy planters with their broad acres of cotton and corn, the residents of the other portions of the county had only an occasional clearing of a few acres each. On the wiregrass, however, grazed many flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. This natural division of the lands of the county into two different kinds, the one being adapted to agriculture and the other believed to be suited only for pastures, resulted in our having two distinct types of settlers. In the one case, the oak and hickory lands brought a good price and attracted those from the older counties who wanted fresh cotton lands-"more land to grow more cotton to make more money to buy more Negroes to acquire more land to grow more cotton to make , more money to buy more Negroes, etc." Mostly, any broad general statement is subject to exceptions, but it is a fact that generally, at this early date, there were no large planters in the southern part of the county, except occasionally in the river roads leading to the county site. People who had not the means to open up large plantations settled in the wiregrass country where lands were cheap. Commercial fertilizers were then unknown, and nobody thought of opening up in the piney woods section a larger clearing for cotton and corn than could be fertilized with manure from the cattle and other live stock. In those days, the wiregrass lands, out from the river-the backwoods, as it was called-were as a rule sparsely settled by people living in log houses who did their own work, and aside from a small patch or two, subsisted on their cattle and sheep. They got their living from grazing on the wire-grass, and from a hog or two, known as the razor back, that fattened in the fall on acorns. Neighbors were few and far between, and so were the comforts and conveniences of life, as distinguished from those attendant upon the big planters in other parts of the county. After the War Between the States, and commercial fertilizers came into use, the wiregrass lands came to the front, became valuable, and today comprise some of the finest acres we have, and the people who live on them are as advanced in every way as those living on the red lands. In fact, the piney woods lands have become our most profitable ones, and are our more thickly settled farming sections. With the steadily increasing use of farm machinery and labor- p. 53 saving devices for the farm home, improved ideas of home-making obtained through the Woman's Home Demonstration Clubs, and the untiring efforts of county, farm and home economics agents, great progress has been made. No doubt in just a few years a home of the above type will be a thing of the past and be replaced by modern and improved rural homes, where life is satisfying to progressive and intelligent people. The local community with its own school, own church, its own cooperative society, its community house, its social and play life, all of these working for the common good, is the basis for progress in civilization. Rural homes, thus improved, point the way to community progress. Roosevelt said, "Home makes the man, woman, and child, and on them national progress depends." Homes are not only of national concern, but of intense personal interest to every one. Therefore, every farm community needs to interest itself in certain fundamental community enterprises, as the school, the church, the markets, the home paper and recreation. The ultimate aim of all this work is to make conditions right for the higher life of the home. Along these lines of progressive methods Pulaski County is forging ahead. With her homes electrically equipped, and with radios, telephones, automobiles, mail delivery, waterworks, consolidated schools, churches and community centers, country life is made ideal. Additional Comments: Extracted from "HISTORY OF PULASKI COUNTY GEORGIA" OFFICIAL HISTORY COMPILED BY THE HAWKINSVILLE CHAPTER DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION PRESS OF WALTER W. BROWN PUBLISHING COMPANY ATLANTA, GEORGIA File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/pulaski/history/other/gms75historic.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 10.4 Kb