Pulaski County GaArchives History .....Surveys and Early settlers Pulaski County 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, 12:24 am


p. 25

Hawkins was most influential in securing important
cessions of lands to Georgia from the Indians. Although
in 1732 King George II had so generously granted vast
lands south of Carolina, and extending "to-the South
(Pacific) Sea," actually the territory was inhabited by
the Indians, whose first official cession to Oglethorpe
in 1733 was of a very small area around Savannah. After
the conference of 1739 at Coweta there was not another
cession until 1763, when lands to the Ogeechee and
Altamaha were secured. In all, thirteen different
grants were made by the Indians, covering a period from
1733 to 1835, before all the territory of Georgia was
actually free of Indian holdings.

The land now embraced within the limits of Pulaski
County was a part of the capital of the Creek
confederacy, 0cmulgee Old Fields, which probably
extended from a point opposite Macon at least as far as
Hartford. In 1802 Georgia had ceded to the United
States her claims to public domain west of the
Chattahoochee, and by the terms of that treaty the
United States Government promised to remove the Indians
from the State of Georgia as fast as it could be done
"peaceably and on reasonable terms." So a definite
cession was made November 3, 1804, at the Creek agency
on the Flint by the chief men of the Creek nation,
treating with Benjamin Hawkins. The grant embraced the
territory on the east of the 0cmulgee River. The treaty
was signed at Washington, December, 1805 and ratified
in June, 1806. A number of chiefs had gone to
Washington to represent the Creeks, and Henry Dearborn,
Secretary of War, signed for the United States in the
presence of President Jefferson. The Creeks also then
agreed to allow "the navigation and fishery of the
Ocmulgee . . . free to the white people, provided they
use no traps for taking fish." A horse path was also to
be kept open through the Creek country, and travelers
were to be given safe passage. In consideration of
these things, the United States agreed to pay to them
annually for eight years, $12,000.00, and smaller
amounts for succeeding years.

As the State of Georgia became possessed of new lands
new counties were rapidly surveyed, and a new land
policy was adopted "to plant men the faster" on the
soil, as Governor Troup declared. The land lottery
system divided the land into parcels of 2021/2 acres,
and these tracts were offered to the public in the form
of a lottery, in which each citizen had one chance; the
head of a family, two.

The progress of settling the State westward was marked
by a series of Indian cessions, territory thus secured
being immediately laid out into counties. From 1800 to
1809 fourteen new counties were erected; from 1809 to
1819, nine counties; 1820 to 1829, twenty-nine
counties. Pulaski County was laid out from Laurens
County in 1808, on the east side of the 0cmulgee River.
with a length of 32 miles, width of 17, and an area of
544 square miles.

p. 26

Laurens County had been laid out in 1807, the lands
included being part of the Creek cession of 1804-05. In
1826 a part of Dooly County was added. The lands of
Pulaski County, lying west of the Ocmulgee, were ceded
to the whites by the Indian Springs treaty of January
8, 1821. It required three later treaties: the Indian
Springs treaty of February 12, 1825, which William
McIntosh signed; the Washington treaty, January 24,
1826; and the treaty signed at the Creek agency,
November 15, 1827, before all Creek lands in Georgia
became the property of the State. Then the Creeks
unwillingly and sadly migrated to reservations west of
the Mississippi leaving Georgia to develop her great
State, forever free of the Indians, first inhabitants
of her fertile lands.

When Pulaski was first laid out, in 1808, the General
Assembly divided Laurens by a north and south line,
running midway between the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers,
and the western part became Pulaski County, named for
that gallant Polish count who gave his life in the
cause of American independence. 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 years all of Pulaski lay
on the east side of the river. On the west side, the
Indians still lived, and trade was brisk with them.

When Houston and Dooly Counties 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. "The Kingdom of
Dooly," as it was called, extended almost into
Hawkinsville. It was not until 1826 that the upper part
of Dooly was added to Pulaski. Then in 1828 the General
Assembly gave to Pulaski a portion of Houston.

Pulaski County thus became a large county; but in 1857
Wilcox was created, and took considerable territory to
the south. Then, when in 1870 Dodge was made, Pulaski
gave up another generous slice of her lands. In 1912,
after a hard fight, the remaining territory was divided
almost in half, and out of the eastern portion Bleckley
County was created.

So, the borders of Pulaski County have undergone
numerous changes since its formation; at present about
two-thirds of the county lies on the west side of the
river which originally marked its western boundary.

Among the original settlers of Pulaski County,
according to White, were: Joseph Reeves, Edmund Hogan,
S. Golson, George Walker, William Hawthorn, J. W.
Taylor, E. Blackshew, and Mark Mason.

p. 27

Among the early settlers were: Jeremiah Coney, James O.
Jelks, Robert A. Ragan, Alexander Ragan, Colonel
Charles T. Lathrop, Curtis Joiner, Robert Anderson, his
son, Capt. R. W. Anderson, Thomas McGriff, his .son, P.
T. McGriff, Mathias McCormick, James L. Walker, J.
Kitchens, Hardy Powers, and I. Pipkin.

Between the date of laying out the county and the
Confederate War, the Blackshears, the Jordans, the
Ryans, the Snells, the Phillips, the Brockwells the
Walkers, the Taylors, the Reeves, the McGriffs, the
Coleys, and others, had opened up plantations between
the river and Allentown, and Longstreet was the name of
a prosperous section where a class of large planters
lived. Further down, on the same side of the river, the
Dykes, Booths, Mullis's, Hollands, Pursers and the
Grahams had opened up lands, and near the river on the
east side the Harrells, Lumpkins, Bohannons, Mitchells,
Carruthers, Gilstraps, Gatlins and McGehees. Around
Hartford had settled the Bembrys, Lancasters, Tooks,
Buchans, DeLamars, and Claytons. A little later than
these, who were among our first white residents, there
were on the west side of the river, the Mayos, Rawls,
Pickets, Jelks, Newmans, Colliers, Polhills,
McCormicks, Loves, Andersons, and St. Georges, who had
their plantations on the west and north of
Hawkinsville, while to the south of Hawkinsville there
came the Duprees, Whitfields, Fulghums, Fountains,
Hendleys, Coneys, Dennards, Bozemans, McLeods,
Dormineys, Reynolds, Finleysons, Lampkins, Andersons,
and Browns and others, who made permanent settlements
and acquired large holdings.

Quite a number of descendants of these, the pioneers of
Pulaski County, are leading and influential citizens
today.


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