Georgia Natural Wonder #129 - Walton County (Part 2). 1,014

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Georgia Natural Wonder #129 - Walton County (Part 2)

Tangent Walton County

We did the Natural Wonder Wednesday with Alcovy Mountain. Really pretty spot for Georgia. Today we do a tangent on Walton County, forty-five miles east of Atlanta in Georgia's Piedmont region, is the state's forty-third county. Comprising 329 square miles, it was created on December 15, 1818, from land originally held by both the Cherokee and Creek Indians.



It was named for George Walton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and briefly a Georgia governor. We did a deep dive on him with our post on Augusta. He was one of the three men from Georgia who signed the United States Declaration of Independence. The other two were Button Gwinnett and Lyman Hall.


Walton.

(There was a previous Walton County created by the state legislature in 1803, but its location became part of what is now North Carolina when a dispute over the state line was settled in 1811.)

History

John Clarke was known for his temper, loyalty, bravery, and strong will. The eldest son of Elijah Clarke, he was a rugged individualist and was considered fearless by all who knew him. He fought at age 16 at Kettle Creek, we mentioned him in our recent post on Kettle Creek and Wilkes County. Still eager for military preferment, at age 21 John Clarke achieved the rank of Major General in the state militia. During this time, the Georgia frontier was still a very dangerous place, and Major Clarke spent much of his time protecting frontier settlements. His most distinguished action was under the command of his father in a 1787 militia victory over Creek Indians at Jacks Creek–in present-day Walton County. Clarke was wounded in this battle. The Matthew Talbot Chapter of DAR erected a granite marker in 1925 in downtown Monroe on the site of the Battle of Jacks Creek.



The county seat is Monroe, where the current county courthouse (the third) was built in 1884; since that time the structure has undergone major restorations and additions.



The Walton County Courthouse in Monroe was designed in the Second Empire style and completed in 1884.



The courthouse has undergone several renovations since its construction, including the addition of a clock tower in 1910 and extensive restoration work in both 1933 and 1996.



According to the 2010 U.S. census, Walton County's population was 83,768, an increase from the 2000 population of 60,687.

Communities

Monroe, first called Walton Court House, received its new name (honoring the fifth U.S. president, James Monroe) upon its designation as the county seat. The town was incorporated in 1821.



Monroe is a city in Walton County, Georgia, United States. It is located both 1 hour east of Atlanta via US-78 and GA-138 to I-20 westbound and east of Hartsfield Jackson Int'l Airport and is part of the exurban cities in the Atlanta metropolitan area.



Monroe is also a city known for its accessibility to Conyers just 20 minutes away and Lawrenceville 35 minutes away. The population was 13,234 at the 2010 census and 13,858 at the 2016 census.



Monroe was founded in 1818 as seat of the newly formed Walton County. It was incorporated as a town in 1821 and as a city in 1896.
Monroe was the premier cotton producer in the state of Georgia during the 1900s.



The two main cotton mills in Monroe used to be the driving economic force in the region.





Now the mills no longer produce for the cotton industry, but rather serve as economic engines for the region by showcasing premiere antique markets, event space, and other unique retail.





Other incorporated communities are Between, Good Hope, Jersey, Social Circle, Walnut Grove, and part of Loganville.

The town of Between was incorporated in 1908, though it had been settled during the 1850s. The name was chosen for its location halfway between Monroe and Loganville.


Briscoe Store in downtown Between, back in day along old Highway 78.

Good Hope and Jersey were incorporated in 1905. Good Hope bears the aspirations of its founders in its name. The first non-Indian residents arrived there during the 1830s, settling about a mile east of the town's current location.



My pictures of Good Hope.



Jersey was first called Centerville, for its equidistance from the towns of Monroe, Covington (in Newton County), and Social Circle. During the early 1880s, when the townspeople were arranging for a post office, the discovery that another Centerville already existed prompted them to change the town's name. A local merchant and planter, T. M. Abercrombie, had recently imported a Jersey bull, which became the talk of the town, and a half-jokingly made suggestion that the community take its new name from the animal was accepted.


Can't find any pictures of Jersey or Jersey bank.

Loganville, incorporated as a town in 1887 and then as a city in 1914, was first called Buncombe. It was renamed in 1851 to honor an early settler, James Harvie Logan, a farmer and shoemaker from Tennessee who purchased the original sixty-two and a half acres, built a house, and set up shop as a shoemaker. The property was bought for $150 at a sheriff’s sale. Over the next several years other families settled in the area, bringing the population to around 500.


Where's Loganville?

The year 1907 saw 12 mercantile businesses in operation in Loganville. The town also had four physicians and two dentists taking care of Loganville residents. The L & L Railroad was a vital link throughout the territory, making Loganville prosperous, but the depression and boll weevil infestation brought an end to the railroad and the prosperity of the early 1900s.


Burt Reynolds old house Loganville.

But better days came with time, and the following years again brought growth, prosperity, new businesses and buildings, and many more citizens. The present population within three miles of the Chamber of Commerce office is about 8,400 and is predicted to continue its upward trend. Loganville is now one of the fastest-growing communities in Georgia, its population having increased by more than 70 percent between 1990 and 2000.


Blue Willow Restaurant Social Circle.


Blue Willow probably best known thing around here. Lewis Grizzard room, my mom tells me.

Social Circle was founded in 1820 by several men who obtained the land by lottery. It was centered at the junction of two Indian trails known today as Cherokee Road and Hightower Trail (perhaps a corruption of Etowah).


Old Mill reclaimed by nature.

Incorporated in 1832 as a village and in 1869 as a town, Social Circle, situated at the highest point of the Georgia Railroad, was a transportation hub for the area before the Civil War (1861-65).



Its lines were destroyed during the war by Union General William T. Sherman's troops on their March to the Sea.



But the town recovered and prospered after the war was over.


Wagons carry bales of cotton along Cherokee Street in Social Circle. Cotton was a major cash crop in Walton County during the nineteenth century, and cotton mills were first established there in the 1840s.





Incorporated as a village in 1832, Social Circle today thrives as a community of about 3,400 residents.



The town is located in Walton County about forty-five miles east of Atlanta.

Walnut Grove was incorporated in 1905 and has been the site of a U.S. post office since 1850.



Economy

The first settlers in Walton County were almost all farmers, along with an occasional doctor or lawyer. But merchants soon arrived to do business in the area as well. Cotton, various grains, potatoes, and some tobacco were the main cash crops.



Cotton mills were the first industry to be established in the county, beginning in the 1840s. These were soon followed by gristmills. Steam mills were established just before the Civil War, but factory work did not become a standard option for employment in the county until after the war. Despite the postwar rise of industry in the county, many of the area's freed slaves became sharecroppers. The 1890s saw a boom in the number of textile mills, leading to prosperity and growth until the devastation wrought by the boll weevil, soil erosion, and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused an economic downturn.



The conversion from agriculture to industry picked up again during World War II (1941-45), and the county recovered its economic strength by embracing a diversified manufacturing base.



Points of Interest

There are twenty-seven sites in Walton County on the National Register of Historic Places. Nineteen of them are in Monroe, including nine historic districts, while the others are shared among some of the smaller towns.



The McDaniel-Tichenor House in Monroe was restored as a house museum by the Georgia Trust.


Front

Built in 1887, the McDaniel-Tichenor House in Monroe was the home of Georgia governor Henry McDaniel.


Side

Designed in the Victorian Italianate style by Athens architect William Winstead Thomas, the house was extensively remodeled in the 1930s in the neoclassical style.


Rear

Today the house museum is a special events and educational facility.



Another Governor, Clifford Walker, lived across the street. Only place in Georgia where you can see two Governor homes.



Monroe not as prolific as Washington or Madison in preserved homes. But still some fine historic structures






E.C. Carnes lived here. Prolific independent photographer for local paper and others. Lot of his vintage images in Visitor's Center.


Henson house needs work located by a church just south of downtown. I am told the Church is trying to have it moved.


This house is spectacular off McDaniel Street.


Waters Briscoe owned five room house but George Selman made it a showplace.

The Briscoe House and Mill Site in Between (added to the register in 2000) now serves as a private dwelling.


Briscoe Farm House. Looks like whole place listed for sale.


Water cistern beside Briscoe Farm House.


Main Briscoe House deck over creek.


Creek from deck.

Also in Between, the James Berrien Upshaw House was added in 1986. The building is the most substantial building remaining in Between Georgia.



The William Harris Family Farmstead (added in 1982) is located in Campton, an unincorporated community.The Homestead features an 1825 log house and out buildings, lush gardens, and stunning landscapes.




A rocking chair sits on the porch of the William Harris Family Farmstead in Walton County. Located in the community of Campton, the farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Good Hope has two registered sites: the Walter Jones "Rock House" (added in 1993)



And the Casulon Plantation (added in 1975), dating from the early nineteenth century; the latter now serves as a museum as well as a dwelling.




Place burned in 2002.

Jersey's "Bank of Jersey" (added in 1984) on Main Street is now in private hands.

Social Circle boasts an entire historic district between Georgia 11 and Georgia 229, which was added to the register in 1980.





Not on the register but worth noting in Social Circle is the Nebhut-Akridge-Gunter House (ca. 1840-55), also known as Gunter Hall, which serves as the headquarters of the Historic Preservation Society of Social Circle.



TRD found several beautiful homes harking back in time in Social Circle.





I totally busted my ass taking this picture, tripped on uneven sidewalk. Still have scabs on my knuckles.



Home across from Blue Willow.



Walton County has been home to, the birthplace of, or claimed residence of seven Georgia governors (in chronological order): Wilson Lumpkin, Howell Cobb, Alfred Colquitt, James Boynton, Henry McDaniel, Clifford Walker, and Richard Russell, Jr..

Wilson Lumpkin and his daughter, Martha Wilson Lumpkin, for whom Atlanta was originally named "Marthasville," was born in Monroe.


Martha's Grave Oakland Cemetery Atlanta.

Howell Cobb. was born and grew up in a farmhouse no longer there.


Only Howell Cobb home I know is in Athens.

Alfred H. Colquitt. "the rock of South Mountain" "the hero of Olustee" sought to develop Georgia into an industrialized state with an efficient railroad transportation system.



James Boynton was only Governor for a month. Courted his wife in Walton County when he lived here a while.



Henry McDaniel lived in the McDaniel - Tichenor House shown above.



Clifford Walker was born in Walton County. His home shown above across Street from McDaniel. Elected as the state's sixty-first governor in 1923. He created the Forestry Commission. He served two consecutive terms, during which time his ties to the Ku Klux Klan were uncovered by journalist Julian Harris, son of writer Joel Chandler Harris.



Richard B. Russell Jr. resided in Walton County for a time. His main house in Barrow County now. Barrow was part of Walton at one time.



Steve Brown at the Visitor Center tells us that a Texas Governor was born in Walton County. Richard Hubbard.



Mary Ethel Creswell, who in 1919 became the first woman to receive a baccalaureate degree from the University of Georgia, began her teaching career in Walton County in 1901. She worked for a time in Washington, D.C., as a field agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, becoming the department's first female supervisor. Creswell also became the first dean of the University of Georgia's School of Home Economics in 1933; she retired in 1945.



Moina Belle Michael, teacher, school and college administrator at the University of Georgia, and the originator of the memorial poppy, was born near Good Hope and did her first teaching in a log cabin on her father's plantation there.


Born in Good Hope in Walton County, Michael had a long career as a rural schoolteacher, administrator, and college professor. She is pictured at the State Normal School in Athens, where she served as social director after World War I.



Don't blink or you may miss this marker.



Michael, known as the "Poppy Lady," initiated the production and sale of paper poppies in the closing months of World War I to fund the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers, raising millions of dollars for the cause. Poppies are still sold in Britain for Remembrance Day (Armistice Day), held on the second Sunday in November.



A commemorative stamp honoring Moina Belle Michael, a Walton County native and originator of the red memorial poppy, was first issued in November 1948. After World War I, paper poppies were sold and worn on Remembrance Day (Armistice Day), held on the second Sunday in November in Britain, to fund soldier rehabilitation.

Wart on Walton County

Developed by planters for cotton plantations in the antebellum era, the county depended on the labor of enslaved African Americans. During and after Reconstruction, whites used lynchings of blacks and other attacks to re-establish white supremacy and maintain social control. The county had a total of nine documented lynchings of African Americans in this period, including the first half of the 20th century. While the peak period in the South generally was from 1880 to 1930, nearly half the number of lynchings in Walton County took place in a mass murder in 1946, after World War II. This postwar period was a time of social unrest in many areas.



A Supreme Court ruling in April 1946 ruled that white primaries were unconstitutional, enabling some black citizens in Georgia to cast ballots for the first time during the primary race later that summer. This increased social tensions in many areas, as most blacks had been disenfranchised since the turn of the 20th century.


Then


Now

In July 1946 the area was the site of the last mass lynching in the United States. A White mob attacked and killed two Black married couples who were driving through the area. The four people were pulled from their car and shot several times.

Moore's Ford lynchings (1946)

In July 1946, J. Loy Harrison employed two young African-American couples as sharecroppers on his farm in Walton County, Georgia. The first couple consisted of George W. Dorsey and his wife Mae (Murray) Dorsey. George W. Dorsey (born November 1917) was a veteran of World War II; he had been back in the United States less than nine months after having served nearly five years in the Pacific War. He was married to Mae (Murray) Dorsey (born September 20, 1922), who was then seven months pregnant. The other couple consisted of Roger Malcom (born March 22, 1922) and his wife Dorothy (born July 25, 1926).



On July 11, Roger Malcom had allegedly stabbed Barnette Hester, a white man; Malcom was arrested and held in the county jail in Monroe, Georgia, the Walton county seat. On July 25, Harrison drove Malcom's wife Dorothy and the Dorseys to Monroe, where he personally posted the $600 bail for Roger Malcom to be freed. At the time, Hester was still hospitalized from his wounds.



Harrison drove with the two couples back to his farm. At 5:30 p.m. that day, he was forced to stop his car near the Moore's Ford Bridge between Monroe and Watkinsville, where the road was blocked by a gang of 15 to 20 armed white men.



According to Loy Harrison: A big man who was dressed mighty proud in a double-breasted brown suit was giving the orders. He pointed to Roger Malcom and said, "We want that nigger." Then he pointed to George Dorsey, my nigger, and said, "We want you, too, Charlie." I said, "His name ain't Charlie, he's George." Someone said "Keep your damned big mouth shut. This ain't your party."



Harrison watched. One of the black women identified one of the assailants. The mob took both the women to a big oak tree and tied them beside their husbands. The mob fired three point-blank volleys. The coroner's estimate counted sixty shots fired at close range. They shot and killed them near Moore's Ford Bridge spanning the Apalachee River, 60 miles east of Atlanta. After Mae Murray Dorsey was shot, a man cut her fetus from her body with a knife.



The mass lynchings received national coverage and generated outrage. There were large protests and marches in New York City and Washington, DC against the lynchings. President Harry S. Truman created the President's Committee on Civil Rights. The Truman administration introduced anti-lynching legislation in Congress, but was unable to get it passed against the opposition of the southern Democratic bloc in the Senate. Together with outrage about the Columbia, Tennessee 1946 race riot, the Moore's Ford lynchings garnered awareness and support from more of the white public for the Civil Rights Movement.



Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall offered a reward of $10,000 for information, to no avail. After the FBI interviewed nearly 3000 people in their six-month investigation, they issued 100 subpoenas. The investigation received little cooperation, no one confessed, and perpetrators were offered alibis for their whereabouts. The FBI found little physical evidence, and the prosecutor did not have sufficient grounds to indict anyone. No one was brought to trial for the crimes.



In July 1946, the county was the location to one of the last mass lynchings of the pre-Civil Rights Era. A committee placed a highway marker near the site.



The inscription reads:

2.4 miles east, at Moore’s Ford Bridge on the Apalachee River, four African-Americans - George and Mae Murray Dorsey and Roger and Dorothy Dorsey Malcom (reportedly 7 months pregnant) - were brutally beaten and shot by an unmasked mob on the afternoon of July 25, 1946. The lynching followed an argument between Roger Malcom and a local white farmer. These unsolved murders played a crucial role in both President Truman’s commitment to civil rights legislation and the ensuing modern civil rights movement.



The sign is at 33° 51.417′ N, 83° 36.733′ W. Marker is near Monroe, Georgia, in Walton County. Marker is at the intersection of U.S. 78 and Locklin Road, on the right when traveling east on U.S. 78. In 1998, a biracial memorial service honoring the victims was held at Moore's Ford Bridge.



On-site reenactments and media publications, the most seminal being, Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America, by author Laura Wexler, have been staged or written about the subject.



Since 2005, a group has annually re-enacted the lynchings at Moore's Ford in July as a living memorial to the victims. This effort was initiated by Tyrone Brooks, an activist and state legislator. In recent years, most of the participants have come from Atlanta, about an hour away.



Although the case has been re-opened and closed on a federal level sentiment persists that it be reviewed yet again to a more thoroughly conclusive state in the suiting to the multi-ethnic committee.



In January 2018, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation officially closed the lynching investigation, officially ending the effort to bring the perpetrators of the lynching to justice.



No one was ever charged or prosecuted in the case, which has become known as "America's last mass lynching".



Ending today's post on this otherwise remarkable County we present other Notable Residents

Frances Conroy - Golden Globe- and SAG Award-winning actress.



Besse Cooper - suffragette, teacher, and World's Oldest Living Person 2011-2012



Henry Fambrough - baritone singer, The Spinners


Henry still Spinning 2018

Marquis Floyd - NFL player



Lonnie Hillyer - jazz trumpeter


Bassist Charles Mingus leads a band at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival, including Lonnie Hillyer (trumpet) and Charles McPherson (alto sax, obscured).

Tyler Hubbard - country music singer/songwriter, member of band Florida Georgia Line



Martha Wilson Lumpkin - daughter of Georgia governor and US Senator Wilson Lumpkin, and for whom Atlanta was originally named "Marthasville"



Prince Hulon Preston, Jr. - member of US House of Representatives



Patricia Roberts - Olympic silver medalist and Women's Basketball Hall of Fame inductee



Stephon Tuitt - NFL player for Pittsburgh Steelers



Our GNW Gals today are on a wall for Walton County.