Turner County GaArchives History .....History of Turner County, Chapt 1 1933
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CHAPTER I.
TURNER COUNTY. AS THE HOME OF THE INDIANS.

   Turner County was once the undisputed property of the red man, the happy
hunting ground of the Seminoles, Creeks and Cherokees,-flowing streams, emerald
meadows and forest clad hills, the home of the deer, the bear and the turkey.
Was it not enough to fill the savage heart with delight? There were but few
Indian towns in the territory of what is now Turner County. It was mainly a
hunting and camping ground between larger Indian towns. There was an Indian
highway through this section from Pindertown on the Flint River to some town on
the Ocmulgee River. This trail crossed Deep Creek about two miles south of Amboy
and crossed the Alapaha River about three miles south of Rebecca and was known
to the early settlers as the Ten Mile Trail.

   The Cherokee and Seminole nations were connected by a well beaten Indian
trail that followed the "water divide" ridge, from Atlanta to Florida, and
really crossed no streams of any size. The trail began on Etowah River, near
Rome, came by Atlanta where it was known as the Peachtree Road, and is now
Peachtree Street, in our thriving capital city. The trail passed near where the
city of Macon is now, by Vienna, Cordele, west of Ashburn and Tifton, and on
down into the Seminole nation.

   Another trail crossed from East to West from near Savannah to a point near
Columbus, by Rebecca, north of Amboy, by Dakota on to Pindertown. This Indian
trail from Bowen's Mill to Pindertown was afterwards known as the Union Road.
  Another trail crossed the Ocmulgee at or near Abbeville and joined the Union
Road not far from Amboy.

   The Seminole and Cherokee highway has been known for years as, or parallel to
the Thigpen Trail. Mr. Billy Whiddon said that an officer in General Jackson's
army, named Thigpen, travelled this Indian trail in 1818, carrying recruits and
supplies to Gen. Jackson's headquarters near Apalachicola from Fort Hawkins, on
the Ocmulgee. Mr. Whiddon said as late as 1903 stumps were still standing in the
road and blazes on the trees were still visible at that time.

   There is a wide margin for speculation in its tradition and history, but the
more reasonable view is accepted.

   General Blackshear, with a portion of Jackson's army, left Fort Hawkins,
which was built about twelve years before, and travelled down the east side of
the Ocmulgee River, until he came to Old Hartford, on the east side of the river
from where Hawkinsville is today. Here he crossed the river, and about twelve
miles further on his army was divided and one division went westward to Fort
Early, near the Flint River and one to Fort Gaines. This road is known today as
the Blackshear Trail.

   The other division came on down through Wilcox, Turner and Tift Counties and
on to Troupville. Nearly all of this road is still used and was known as the
Troupville Road, but later, perhaps during the Indian campaign of 1837-1842, a
connecting link from near Cordele to Sycamore was cut out and from Sycamore on
down it became known as the Union Road. This road was afterwards used as a dray
line from Macon and Montezuma to Valdosta, according to tradition. This army was
on its way to quell the Seminole uprising at Fowltown and other places near the
Florida line in Georgia.

HERNANDO DESOTO.

   Everyone is familiar with the story of the explorer Desoto, but would you be
more interested, if you knew that he passed where your home stands or near that
spot? If you are familiar with the Indian villages and trails, where they are
located on the map, you will see that every indication is that he traversed the
Indian highways which crossed Turner County.

   It is more than probable that he came up the old Seminole and Cherokee
highway till he reached the Indian highway from near Columbus to a point in
South Carolina, near Savannah. If so, he crossed the Ocmulgee near Abbeville,
where there is a trail through the swamp, travelled by pioneer fishermen, and to
them and the Indians known as the "Desoto Trail." In Jones' History of Georgia,
he said there was proof that Desoto camped in Irwin County.

   Desoto had hardly begun his march when a white man named Juan Ortez, who had
been a captive among the Indians for ten years and knew all the Indian trails in
Florida and South Georgia, became his guide and interpreter.

INDIAN TRAILS.

   An Indian trail crossed Alapaha one mile above Rebecca bridge on lot of land
number two hundred and forty-six and between lots numbers two hundred and
forty-four and two hundred and forty-seven on by Amboy and Dakota, and crossed
Flint River on the shoals above the new power dam where the Indians built
stepping stones on the shoals to cross without getting wet. They also crossed
Ocmulgee River two miles south of Abbeville at the Statham shoals where stepping
stones were built for crossing. This part was known to the Indians and old
settlers as Desoto's Trail.

   Another Indian trail crossed the national highway two miles north of Arabi
and entered Turner and crossed lots 220, 215, 201, 187, 186, 180, 155, 152, 153
and 105 in 2nd Land District of original Irwin now Turner County, and rambled on
towards the Okefenokee Swamp.

INDIAN RELICS, CAMPS AND FIELDS.

   About one-quarter of a mile above where the Ten Mile Trail crossed Deep
Creek, near a living spring, beneath towering magnolias, was an Indian camping
ground. About thirty-five years ago there were still visible signs of stakes
driven in trees for the poles of their teepes to rest on. About fifty years ago
a gentleman plowed up an Indian tomahawk of steel, whether made by French,
English or Spaniards is not known, but which was lost by a camping party at
least fifty years before. About one-half mile north was another spring and
scattered around were broken pieces of Indian pottery.

   In one place there was revealed by the abrasion of the soil six arrow points
or heads made of flint, buried about eight inches deep, nicely placed one above
the other. This unknown Indian warrior either forgot where his treasures were
hidden, or else was killed in battle before they were used.

   About two miles below this ford on Deep Creek, were numbers of Indian fields
and large islands in the creek, where crops of maize were raised to serve them
on their hunting tours as food would otherwise have to be carried and it was the
work of women, for all Indian warriors were too proud to work with their own
hands, or to show any affection for wives or children.

   He was the monarch of the forest chase, the fleet footed hunter, the warrior
who feared neither man nor beast, and would neither beg for life, liberty or mercy.

FIRST WHITE MEN IN TURNER COUNTY.

   Prior to 1815, no white men had lived in this immediate section, but in the
fall one division of Gen. Andrew Jackson's army marched through this section
from Hawkinsville, via Amboy and Sycamore, and on through South Georgia. This
army was filled with red blooded sons of Revolutionary heroes.

   The country was crowned with autumnal vesture. Herds of deer were browsing on
many meadows. The creeks and valleys abounded with game. They feasted upon the
choicest viands that the forests and streams afforded. Those young Virginians,
Carolinians and Tennesseeans had a taste for lovely scenery. No wonder they
should afterwards follow the old army road and be the first settlers of our
territory. Think of this section one hundred years ago and then today; what a
transformation!

   No longer beautiful forests of primeval pines, with summer zephyrs singing in
their boughs; no longer the home of the antlered stag; no more shall wild
turkeys fleck its swamps and hills; no more shall savage wigwams be built, nor
their camp fires brighten the night. Oh, sad savage, you have been weighed in
the scales of Jehovah and found wanting, you shall be driven away from the land
of your forefathers, for the Anglo-Saxon blood shall triumph. The pale face is
in the saddle, the reins are in his hands and he shall ride to victory and
success. Fields of waving green, shall yet greet the eye, the pale face's
mansion shall deck the hills and dales and the red man will wander in idleness
till the end of time.

ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY.

   In 1814, General Andrew Jackson had conquered and almost destroyed the Creek
Indians of Western Georgia and Eastern Alabama and according to the historian
Parton, the remaining Creeks only desired peace and to be allowed to remain
among the settlers. The settlers of South Georgia were complaining to the
government at Washington that the Indians of Florida were stealing their cattle
and slaves in great numbers, but according to Gifford's History of the Indians,
white guerrilla bands, painted and disguised as Indians, were the guilty outlaws
and were themselves doing most of the stealing.

FOWLTOWN.

  In 1814, General Jackson captured and destroyed the Indians of Fowltown in
South Georgia and recovered a large number of stolen cattle. At one place in
Florida he found one thousand head of cattle in one herd with South Georgia
owners' brands on them. (Parton's History of Jackson.)

SUWANEETOWN.

   Jackson captured and destroyed Suwaneetown. The Indians swam across the
Suwanee River and with Bowlegs as their chief fled into the recesses of the
Okefenokee Swamp. The first Seminole war was over, the Georgia troops were
marched home and disbanded and the Indians forced to sign the treaty of 1814.

TREATY OF 1818.

   This treaty (with the treaty of 1814) gave to us all of original Irwin
County, which was in 1819 laid off into four hundred and ninety acre lots. The
surveyor was Daniel McBride.

   In 1811, we obtained all of original Dooly, which was surveyed and laid off
into two hundred two and one-half acre lots. The surveyor was William Oliver.
This vast territory was then open for settlers.

BATTLE OF BREAKFAST BRANCH IN 1818.

   In 1884, Wash Graham, an aged mail carrier from Abbeville via Ashley, Grover
and on to Wolf Creek, related the following story:

   About 1818, Joseph Burch was building a house near Poor Robin Spring. He was
killed and one son lay perfectly still and let the Indians scalp him. The young
man recovered, and Mr. Graham afterwards saw and talked with him about the
massacre and his escape. The white people came over from Telfair County and
encountered the Indians at Breakfast Branch below Abbeville to punish them for
their crime.

   The white people were terribly and quickly routed by the numerical strength
of the Indian band of marauders and murderers. Before the battle Capt. Mark
Wilcox and Mr. Nat Statham had been carrying guns for each other. In the retreat
Mr. Statham came across his deadly enemy wounded and being left for the torture
of the Indians. Uncle Nat, a powerful man, threw his old enemy across his
shoulder and carried him to a place of safety.

   One of the party was shot through the knee and knowing he could not outrun
the Indians, ran into an old cypress pond, got behind a log against which the
trash had lodged and was all under the water but his nose and although they
hunted the pond over carefully they failed to get his scalp. In the race for the
boats in the river, the faster runners got to the river first and carried all
the boats across, leaving the bravest to swim, drown or be killed by the Indians.

OLD PIONEERS WHO CAME TO STAY.

  Think very kindly of the old pioneer,-the bravest of the brave-unafraid amid
the perils of the almost pathless forest, who con-tended against the terrible
savage and his scalping knife and from the waste of the wilderness, hewed out a
civilization. From the Ocmulgee to the Oconee and beyond, the old pioneer with
his family, slaves, servants, cattle, horses and sheep,-and he was numbered by
scores and hundreds, lay waiting and watching with wistful eyes, cast across the
red wavelets of the Ocmulgee, to a land 150 miles from north to south and fifty
miles wide from east to west at the northern end one hundred and seventy-five
miles across at the southern end, awaiting the word of the government, "Go ye
and possess the land."

   What a rush! Onward the pioneers came, by the dozens, scores and hundreds, to
claim, to own, and to replenish the newly measured acres of old Irwin and Dooly
Counties.

   The song of the cross-cut saw could be heard, timed by the music of the axe,
accompanied by the lowing of the kine and the bleating of sheep. Rude huts were
quickly built, lands were cleared and fields were fenced and a civilization had
begun for the old pioneer had come to stay. Bears, panthers, wolves, and
rattlesnakes had to flee the march of civilization.

   Hundreds of pioneers came, but the territory was of such vast dimensions that
settlements were often unmeasured miles apart.

   The old pioneers would frequently race their horses, drink their whisky and
some of them would use profane language when angry, and sometimes they fought,
for fighting was a game that only men could successfully play. But after all
there were no professional gamblers, no drunkards, no thieves, for it was
re-served for the days to come, when screaming locomotives were rushing through,
turpentine stills steaming, and saw mills buzzing, that sin became an ararat,
upon whose crest no ark of safety could rest, while poisonous whisky flooded the
country.

   The land was the game reserve region of the Indians and the game was
plentiful and every pioneer a great hunter, but the deep bay of the deer hounds
is music which we will hear no more; the hunter's guns are but rusty relics; and
the old pioneers have moulded to dust.


Additional Comments:
From 

HISTORY
TURNER COUNTY

By
JOHN BEN PATE
Author of The American Genealogy of the Pate Family
AMBOY, GA.
1933
STEIN PRINTING CO.
STATE PRINTERS
ATLANTA, GA.


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