Georgia Natural Wonder #104 - Chickasawhatchee Swamp - Dougherty Co. (Part 1). 1,401

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Chickasawhatchee Swamp - Dougherty County (Part 1)

Georgia’s second-largest swamp is the Chickasawhatchee, a sprawling wetland complex covering more than 30,000 acres along the Flint River Basin, just outside of Albany.



A rich network of forest, creeks and wetlands, the Chickasawhatchee Swamp is an intricate ecosystem that supports an incredible diversity of wildlife, including a thriving alligator population.


Gators in Albany?

It’s also a crucial nesting ground for migratory birds like the wood thrush and prothonotary warbler.


White Ibis.

At the center of this swamp, the Flint River is a broad, meandering river that offers excellent canoeing and fishing for shoal bass, a rare relative of the more common largemouth bass.



Nearly 20,000 acres of the Chickasawhatchee Swamp is protected within Chickasawhatchee Wildlife Management Area, which includes ample fishing and boating access, as well as campsites and trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding. The Wildlife Management Area is also open to hunting, so use caution if you visit during one of Georgia’s hunting seasons.



From The Sherpa Guide

One of the most significant conservation measures ever taken by the state of Georgia was the purchase of a major part of the Chickasawhatchee Swamp.



Few people outside a handful of locals, timber company employees, and hunters have ever heard of or visited the Chickasawhatchee Swamp, yet it is the largest wetland in the Flint River Basin and the second largest deep-water swamp in Georgia. Undoubtedly, more people will soon become aware of this unique ecological region and the many benefits that its acquisition and conservation will bring.



"It is one of the most incredible wetlands systems in Georgia and it was threatened," said Curt Soper, Director of Conservation at The Nature Conservancy. The acquisition, totaling 20,923 acres, was the largest in the history of the Georgia Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation gave $8 million, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation donated $2 million, and the State of Georgia and The Nature Conservancy provided the remaining funds to complete the transaction for $41 million with the St. Joe Company.



The Chickasawhatchee Swamp is a convergence area of drainages in its watershed of approximately 335 square miles. Creeks fed by both surface water and groundwater sources meander around gently rolling hills of upland forest consisting primarily of pine stands. Areas between these uplands and bottomland habitat, or ecotones, are particularly important to the ecosystem because of the exceptionally high diversity of plant and animal life there. A number of rare plant species including the corkwood, needle palm, and green fly orchid, are found in the swamp.



Water from the creeks spreads out and regularly floods vast areas of bottomland hardwood forests. These low-lying areas have a tremendous water-holding capacity and play a major role in flood control for the region. Covered with healthy cypress, tupel, and black gum stands, the large bottomland hardwood forests are typically inundated with water. Here the swamp functions much like a giant tea bag that releases large quantities of nutritious matter from decaying vegetation and stains the water a deep, golden-brown color.


Bald Cypress.

From this interaction of forest, creeks, and wetlands emerges a complex food web, which supports a variety of wildlife. A diverse assemblage of reptiles including many species of turtles and snakes, as well as a large population of alligators thrives in the swamp. The wetland areas are used as rookeries by native wood storks and also serve as nesting areas for neotropical migrants such as the wood thrush and prothonotory warbler, which depend on the unique web of life that begins in the swamp.



The geologic formation directly beneath the swamp is the Ocala Limestone, the major formation of the Upper Floridan aquifer. The lowland areas are massive depressions in the limestone that form through gradual subsidence that occurs as underlying limestone bedrock dissolves and collapses. The relatively direct connection to the aquifer immediately beneath the swamp complex makes the Chickasawhatchee hydrologically distinct from other deepwater swamps.



Because of the connection, rapid exchanges of water between the swamp and the aquifer take place both as aquifer recharge, and as natural discharge to the streams through numerous springs and seeps. During much of the year, the Spring Creek watershed that contributes to the Chickasawhatchee Swamp, receives most of its water as discharge from the Upper Floridan aquifer in an area northwest of the swamp. The creek maintains flow even under extreme drought conditions. During high flow periods, the swamp is a major recharge area of the Upper Floridan aquifer.



Wetlands such as the Chickasawhatchee Swamp are renowned for improving the quality of water by removing manmade chemicals and nutrient pollution through the process of biofiltration. Therefore, the natural value of the Chickasawhatchee Swamp is multiplied because both surface water and groundwater quality are dependent on the system (or on the system's ability to function naturally). The Chickasawhatchee Swamp protects water quality in the Upper Floridan aquifer-an important regional source of drinking water-and improves the health of surface water that passes through it on its way to the lower Flint.



When it purchased the Chickasawhatchee Swamp, the State of Georgia invested in the positive future of its surface and groundwater resources.



Chickasawhatchee Wildlife Management Area is located 12 miles southwest of Albany. This 19,700-acre property boasts the Mike Commander Shooting Range, a managed dove field and campsites for tents and RVs.The property is a managed pine savannah that supports variety of hunting is including deer, turkey, dove, quail, small game, waterfowl, and furbearers. Birding enthusiast can enjoy watching the variety of species supported on the property.



The Mike Commander Shooting Range is located on Chickasawhatchee Wildlife Management Area in Dougherty County.



Found some very interesting history in the swamp so let's go full tangent on what I found.

There is a historical marker located near Newton, Georgia in Baker County.  It is at “the intersection of Georgia Route 37 and Clear Lake Road, on the right when traveling north on State Route 37.” Marker Text: Near here, in Chickasawachee Swamp, a decisive battle of the Southern Indian Wars was fought July 3, 1836. About 300 warriors were entrenched on an island in the swamp, after a raid in which they killed several settlers. A force of militia under command of Col. Thomas Beall followed them into the swamp and a fierce battle was fought. A number of Indians were killed, and 13 soldiers wounded, 1 mortally. A large amount of plunder taken on the raid on Roanoke was recovered here. This battle broke the Indians’ march into Florida, and scattered their main force into small parties.



More research shows that this was part of the Second Creek War (1836-1837), also called the Creek War of 1836. It was a conflict between the U.S. Army and Alabama and Georgia militias and a faction of the Creek Nation seeking redress for long-standing grievances in Alabama and Georgia. In the decades prior to the conflict, the Creeks and the U.S. government had signed a series of treaties in which the Creeks ceded portions of their land to the United States. These treaties and the inability of the federal and local governments to keep white settlers out of Native lands created tensions among the Creeks and between the Creeks and white settlers in Georgia and present-day Alabama. After their defeat in the First Creek War in 1814, the Creek Nation ceded more than 21 million acres of land in Georgia and Alabama to the U.S. government. The last agreement was the Treaty Of Cusseta which allowed for some Creeks to retain some land. Even prior to the completion of the allotment process, whites had begun moving into the former Creek lands illegally. Land speculators and companies purposefully defrauded many Creeks of their allotted land and bought the homesteads of individual Creek families for a mere fraction of the land's value. Other whites outright stole the land rights or forced Creek families off their own land.



By 1836, Lower Creek leaders had become outraged over the illegal influx of white settlers onto their lands and the unwillingness of the federal and state governments to help them. Some speculators began to spread tales of a planned Creek uprising. In spring 1836, the Chehaw, Yuchi, Hitchiti and other bands of Creeks launched a campaign to drive out the white settlers. Creek war parties burned homes and farms, killed white families out of vengeance, and disrupted the mail stages. On May 14, 1836, Creek warriors, led by Yuchi warrior Jim Henry and the aging Hitchiti chief Neamathla, attacked Roanoke, Georgia, and killed, burned alive, and/or scalped 14 of the 20 defenders; only six managed to escape. The Creek warriors then burned the town to the ground.



This monument, placed as centennial remembrance by the Roanoke Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the WPA in 1936, commemorates the bloodiest engagement of the largely forgotten Creek War of 1836. The main text reads: On this site was fought the Battle of Shepherd’s Plantation between Creek Indians and pioneer settlers aided by volunteer soldiers stationed at Forts Ingersol Jones and McCreary under Major Henry W. Jernigan and Captain Hamilton Garmany. A second tablet lists the four Stewart Countians killed in the battle: Captain Robert Billups; Jared Irwin; David Delk; and —-Hunter. [Jared Irwin was the nephew of Governor Jared Irwin].

Battle of Chickasawhatchee



In the latter part of June 1836, the Creek Indians, after burning Roanoke in Stewart County, departed for Florida to join the Seminoles.  On their way they passed through today's Baker County with a group of white militia after them.  The group of Indians, some 300 warriors, took possession on an island in the Chickasawhachee Swamp and prepared to defend themselves.  By that time, the Georgia militia,  led by Colonel Thomas Beal, having grown to about 500 men, surrounded the swamp and moved in to give battle to the Indians.



9 Aug 1836.From the Republican Herald

Captain JERNIGAN, we are informed, said to his men "the odds are fearfully against us 'tis true, almost four to one, but this bragging and bullying from a set of savage murderers is too much to stand, let us go in and give them a good fight," not a disenting voice was heard in his ranks, and in they went, admidst water, bushes, mud and alligators; here the strife commenced, and here the battle waxed hot for more than an hour, when the pepper coming so hot from the unflinching Stewart boys, the Indians although in the swamp, their own favorite place, for meeting an enemy, had to give way, commenced dropping back and hiding themselves in impenetrable thickets, until no trace of them could be seen-eighteen we learn, were actually killed in the engagement, their dead bodies having been afterwards found; the precise number of killed and wounded, from the Stewart troops, we have been unable to ascertain.  This is the way to fight Indians; follow them to their secure retreats, hunt them as you would the deer seeking his covert, give them battle on their own ground, meet them in their own way, and it always will result as in this case, eighty white men will whip three hundred Indians.  Captain JERNIGAN merits, and will receive the grateful acknowledgements of his country.



Here we have some official Military Reports

The Creeks were defeated with a large number killed and wounded, before they retreated southward toward Florida.  The whites had one killed and nine wounded in the struggle.The battle prevented the Creek Indians from marching into Florida.  Instead, they fled to Florida in an attempt to escape the Georgians.  By this time, they were broken up and scattered into smaller parties.  Many of the Indians’ supplies were left behind when they fled including “36 tents, and an incredible quantity of beef, bacon, horses, saddles, bridles and many cooking utensils”. 



Could some of these items still be at that old battle site? Exactly where is the old battle site?  Modern maps show the only island in the Chickasawhatchee Creek and the Swamp to be immediately west of Elmodel, along Georgia Highway 37.  Another possibility is north of that place in the lower part of the present day Chickasawwhatchee Wildlife Management Area.  That possible spot is just east of Georgia Highway 37 and north of Clear Lake Road, some three miles north of Elmodel.  The swamp is much larger at the upper site. Hard finding information and images about this swamp but it does get us down to Albany, so before I venture off, I will spend this weekend making a wonderful history tangent on Dougherty County. Today's GNW loves her WMA Aqua Cammo wear.