Georgia Natural Wonder #202 - New Echota - Gordon County (Part 1). 902

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #202 - New Echota - Gordon County (Part 1)

Dawgsong posted about this spot in his Today in Georgia History post. Having significant Cherokee (or Creek, waiting on Mom to submit that Ancestry.com test I gave her for Christmas.) DNA and with my Ole Miss Anthropology professor cousin, I feel compelled to tell the story of Georgia's original settlers. I include this as Natural Wonder as it is in a great valley of Georgia and there are some beautiful nature and history images. A neat excursion which is what this Forum strives to detail.



New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation in the Southeast United States from 1825 to their forced removal in the late 1830s. New Echota is located in present-day Gordon County, in northwest Georgia, 3.68 miles north of Calhoun. It is south of Resaca, next to present day New Town, known to the Cherokee as Ustanali. The site has been preserved as a state park and a historic site. It was designated in 1973 as a National Historic Landmark District.



The site is at the confluence of the Coosawattee and Conasauga rivers, which join to form the Oostanaula River, a tributary of the Coosa River. It is near Town Creek.



Archeological evidence has shown that the site of New Echota had been occupied by ancient indigenous cultures for thousands of years prior to the historic Cherokee Native Americans. It was known as Gansagiyi or Gansagi. The Cherokee renamed it as New Echota in 1825 after making it the capital, in honor of their former chief town of Chota, based along the lower Little Tennessee River as one of the Overhill Towns on the west side of the Appalachian Mountains.


Chota Tennessee.

History

Gansagi was an active Cherokee Indian settlement near the present city of Calhoun. The earlier name of Conasauga was corrupted to the later "Gansagi." It is believed that Hernando DeSoto tarried a short time here in his 1540 expedition into this region.





Prior to relocating to Gansagi and building the community of New Echota, the Cherokee had used the nearby town of Ustanali on the Coosawattee River as the seat of their tribe, beginning in 1788. They had migrated south from eastern Tennessee and western South Carolina under pressure from European-American settlement.



Ustanali had been established in 1777 by refugees from the Cherokee Lower Towns in northwestern South Carolina. In that year, Old Tassel and several other Cherokee leaders were murdered by whites while under the flag of truce, while visiting representatives of the short-lived State of Franklin in present-day Tennessee. In response, warriors across the frontier increased attacks on European-American settlers. (Scroll down a bit in that link, to get to the Chickamauga Wars) The Chickamauga Cherokee, a band led by Dragging Canoe, were already carrying out armed resistance to European-American settlement along the Holston River in northeastern Tennessee.


Dragging Canoe.

Following the murders, Little Turkey was elected a chief of the Cherokee, although they did not have a centralized form of government. The Overhill Cherokee moved the seat of the Cherokee council from Chota to Ustanali. New Echota was named after Chota, the former capital of the Overhill Cherokee, those who lived to the west of the Appalachian Mountains and had previously had numerous towns along the lower Little Tennessee River.


Little Turkey.

A common English name for New Echota was "Newtown" or "New Town." These names are still used for the area around the State Park.



Later Anglo-American settlers called the area "The Fork" and "Fork Ferry" because of early transportation at the confluence of the rivers.



By 1819 the government of the Cherokee Nation was meeting in New Echota. On November 12, 1825, the Cherokee Nation officially designated New Echota as their capital. They had organized a council, and supreme court to adjudicate their justice issues. The tribal council began a building program that included construction of a two-story Council House, and a Supreme Court.


Council House.

Later they built the office (printer shop) for the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Indian-language and Cherokee newspaper.



Elias Boudinot was the chief writer and editor.


Boudinot.

Samuel Worcester, a missionary and printer, laid out the first Native American newspaper.


Worchester.

Boudinot wrote it in both English and Cherokee, using for the latter the new syllabary created in 1820 by Sequoyah, with type cast by Worcester.


Sequoyah and the Phoenix.

Private homes, stores, a ferry, and mission station were built in the outlying area of New Echota.



The town was quiet most of the year, but Cherokee Council meetings provided the opportunity for great social gatherings.



During these meetings, the town filled with several hundred Cherokee, who arrived by foot, horseback, or in stylish carriages.



In 1832, after Congressional passage of the Indian Removal Act, Georgia included Cherokee territory in its Sixth Land Lottery, allocating Cherokee land to European-American (white) settlers.



But the Cherokee Nation had never ceded the land to the state. Although the US Supreme Court upheld the Cherokee right to their land, Georgia continued to press for them to cede it. Over the next six years, the Georgia Guard operated against the Cherokee, evicting them from their properties.





By 1834, New Echota was becoming a ghost town. Council meetings were moved to Red Clay, Cherokee Nation (now Tennessee). The United States urged the Cherokee to remove to Indian Territory, offering lands in exchange for their lands in Georgia.

December 29, 1835 - New Echota

It cost three men their lives and provided the legal basis for the Trail of Tears, the forcible removal of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia. The Treaty of New Echota was signed on this day in 1835, ceding Cherokee land to the U.S. in exchange for compensation. The treaty had been negotiated by a Cherokee leader, Major Ridge, who claimed to represent the Cherokee Nation when, in fact, he spoke only for a small faction. We talked of him and the Chieftains Museum in our post GNW #54 - Marshall Forest - Rome.


Major Ridge and Chieftains Museum in Rome.

On December 29, 1835, a small group of Cherokee (100–500 Cherokee known as Ridgeites or the Treaty Party, who represented a minority of Cherokee) signed the Treaty of New Echota in the home of Elias Boudinot. Signers included Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Andrew Ross, a brother of John Ross, the principal chief.


John Ridge and the signing of the Treaty of New Echota.

Believing that the negotiation would allow them to preserve some rights for the Cherokee, they agreed to cede their remaining lands and to removal in exchange for lands west of the Mississippi River. The Cherokee were to have sovereignty in that western territory, to be known as Indian Territory. Despite objections from John Ross, who represented the large majority of Cherokee to the US government, the Senate ratified the treaty. The US government eventually forced most of the Cherokee out of the Southeast.



In 1838 the U.S. Army, under the command of Winfield Scott, began the forced removal of Cherokee from the state of Georgia. A Cherokee removal fort was located at New Echota, called Fort Wool.



This held Cherokee from Gordon and Pickens counties until their removal.



As the first group of Cherokee began their exodus to Rattlesnake Springs, Cherokee Nation (4 miles south of Charleston, Tennessee), the Cherokee from counties south and east of the area also were housed here.


Rattlesnake Springs.

The discovery of gold in north Georgia led to the Cherokee Removal Bill in 1830, and whites swarmed over Cherokee land. Without authorization from Cherokee Chief John Ross, Ridge and a few other Cherokee signed the Treaty of New Echota and agreed to removal west of the Mississippi in exchange for $5 million.



Gold found and swarming began.



Though ratified by one vote in the U.S. Senate, the Cherokee Nation rejected the treaty, leading directly to forced removal in 1838. In retaliation, Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot were all assassinated by other Cherokees in 1839, compounding the tragedy of the treaty signed on December 29, 1835.



Lot of history buried here.



One of the signers of the Treaty of New Echota (12 men signed the treaty) was a man named Stand Watie. Fast forward to the time of the secession of the states of the South and the formation of the Confederate States of America. The Indian nations had a decision to make, as to which side they would ally themselves. They chose to side with the states of the South, which were their native homeland, as well as the U.S. government still owing them (Cherokees) money from the Treaty of New Echota. The Cherokee nation provided several units serving the Confederate army.


Made US Postage Stamp 1995, lived to 1871.

Watie served as a general in the Confederate army. Interestingly, Watie was the last Confederate general to surrender his troops, surrendering in June 1865.

New Echota Historic Site

After the Cherokee were fully removed in 1838, their capital remained abandoned for more than 100 years. Many of the structures disappeared, though some of the houses continued to be used. Most notable was the house of Samuel Worcester, who was called "the Messenger," and who had served as a missionary to the Cherokee. When its landowners deeded land to be commissioned to the state for preservation, the Worcester House, the largest remaining structure, had been vacant for two years. It had deteriorated in that time.


Worcester House.

From 1930 to 1950, the site was designated by Congress as the New Echota Marker National Memorial.



In March 1954, the archeologist Lewis Larsen from the Georgia Historical Commission, and five associates were assigned to oversee the work of excavating New Echota. The team uncovered evidence not only of the Cherokee settlement in New Echota, but also of much earlier indigenous cultures. They asked the National Park Service archeologist Joe Caldwell and two more workers to join them for the next two months as they continued excavation. The group recovered a Spanish coin dated 1802, crockery, household wares, bootery remains, a small quantity of lead, and 1700 other artifacts. They identified 600 items as having belonged to the Cherokee. In addition to the standard finds and remains of many buildings, Larsen and Caldwell astonished the world by discovering much of the type syllabary that was once used to print the Cherokee Phoenix.



On March 13, 1957, following the news of these archeological finds, the State of Georgia authorized reconstruction of the town of New Echota as a state park. They reconstructed such buildings as the Council House, the Supreme Court, the printer shop, a building of the Cherokee Phoenix, a common Cherokee cabin representing a home of an average family, and a middle-class Cherokee home, including outbuildings. Vann's Tavern, which had been owned by Chief James Vann, was restored. Modern nails and replacement wooden parts were used. It was relocated to this site from Forsyth County, Georgia (Chief Vann had owned 14 taverns across the state of Georgia), as the original New Echota Vann Tavern had been destroyed. The park contains the site of the former Elias Boudinot house, which serves as a memorial to Boudinot.


Site of the Boudinot house.

The Worcester House was restored to its 19th-century condition. Together the buildings of the complex form an open-air museum.



Other sites are not open to the public, as they are now on private property. Across from the New Echota park are two farmhouse sites of that era, formerly owned by white men who had married Cherokee women. These sites are now part of an Elks Club golf course.



The New Echota Historical Park was opened to the public in 1962. Inside the office of the Cherokee Phoenix were displayed 600 pieces of type which had been used for the first American Indian newspaper. Later some type was moved to the museum and research facility that was built by the park.



The Newtown Trail is a 1.2 mile interpreted trail that takes tourists to Town Creek (inside the center of New Echota). This is the area where the majority of Cherokee would camp when the Council was in session. In 1973, the Department of Natural Resources, also known as Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites, took over New Echota Park. It continues to operate and maintain this historic site.


The site was designated in 1973 by the US Department of Interior as a National Historic Landmark, the highest recognition in the United States.

Today, visitors can see several original and reconstructed buildings, including the Council House, Court House, Print Shop, Missionary Samuel Worcester's home, and an 1805 store, as well as outbuildings such as smoke houses, corn cribs and barns. In the visitors center, guests can purchase original Native American arts, crafts and music, and view interpretive exhibits and a 17-minute film.

Middle Class Cherokee Farmstead

Once you head outside, the first set of buildings you’ll see depict a typical early 19th century Cherokee Farmstead.



It consists of a simple cabin, a small smokehouse, a corn crib (for storing the harvest), and a large barn. This fenced compound would also usually consist of a substantial garden.



Note the traditional Cherokee style of log cabin craftsmanship of these buildings.



By 1837, there were more than 6,000 of these types of buildings built by the Cherokee of Georgia alone. The tiny log cabin here is still very well-made. But it lacks all but the most basic amenities– a small bed, simple log-base table, stool, and an animal pelt as the only decor.



On the backside of the cabin you can get a look inside this traditional middle class cabin.



The bed, table, spinning wheel, butter churn, and other elements are all typical of their time, while the river-cane blowgun, ball sticks, and handmade crafts are pure Cherokee culture.

Cherokee Council House

The Cherokee Nation built its council house at “New Town” in 1819, before the seat of government was officially moved to New Echota.



Major Ridge, one of the most prominent Cherokee leaders of the early 1800s, led the very first processional of tribal officials into the Council House.



The Council House was located at the center of the community, which was divided into a series of streets and lots.



From 1819 to 1835, this was arguably the single most important building in the entire Cherokee Nation.

Cherokee Phoenix Printing Office

It would be difficult to overstate the cultural impact of Sequoyah‘s creation of the Cherokee Syllabary, the written form of the Cherokee language.



The Cherokee Phoenix, which was written (in Cherokee and English) and printed in a tiny shop in the heart of New Echota, was the primary vehicle for getting news about the tribe to the masses.



The printing office you see here today is a reconstruction of the 1827 original, which printed newspapers as well as books that were translated into Cherokee.



The circa 1870 printing press is also very similar to the original, from which some 1,500 pieces of lead printing type were discovered during a mid-20th century archaeological excavation of the New Echota site.

Supreme Courthouse

Located directly across New Town Street from the Council House and Printing Office, this two-story house was home to the Cherokee Nation’s Supreme Court.



With one courtroom on each level, this is where many of the tribe’s important legal matters were adjudicated.



Inside it looks very much like the courtrooms of today, with an elevated bench at one side and plenty of public seating.



Vann’s Tavern

The son of a mixed-race Cherokee woman and an Indian trader, Chief James Vann was a prominent Cherokee leader aligned with Major Ridge and Charles Hicks. The trio believed the Cherokee people needed to acculturate in order to deal with the European settlers and the United States government.



Vann was a savvy businessman and arguably among the wealthiest men in America at the dawn of the 19th century. In addition to lucrative land deals, trading posts, and a ferry across the Chattahoochee River, the Georgia native also owned numerous taverns and stores across the state.



Vann’s Tavern at New Echota was relocated to the site from Forsyth County. Much of the early 1800s building is original, though modern nails and wood were used in its restoration.



Inside you’ll find a typical tavern/inn of the era, which would have a small bar, picnic table for dining, and small rooms for rent upstairs. It’s interesting to note that a room for the night was just 50¢, while a shot of whiskey was 25¢!



Common Cherokee Homestead

The disparity between the middle class and common Cherokee homes proves striking when you reach this little homestead at New Echota.



The Cherokee culture traditionally only allowed each family as much land as they could capably farm. So smaller families got less land, and had smaller houses.



Where the middle class house boasts a sizable barn, this one has just a small stable and corn crib, with no smokehouse.



The Worcester House

Set along New Town Creek, the Worcester House is the only original building at New Echota to survive relatively intact. It was constructed in 1828 by missionary Rev. Samuel A. Worcester, who staunchly stood for Cherokee sovereignty.



The house, which served as the Worcester family home as well as the New Echota Mission Station, boasts New England features such as a central fireplace used for both heating and cooking.



The four rooms on the second floor were used for visitors and boarders, with an outside stairway allowing for private access. One room contains an original loom and spinning wheel, which most Cherokee homes of the time would have.



The Worcesters, who were extremely sympathetic to the plight of the Cherokee, were forced out of their home in 1834 by  a local who had gained rights to it via the Georgia Land Lottery.



The home was occupied by various residents until 1952, and restored to its former glory in 1958-59.



Beaver Pond Trail & New Town Creek Nature Trail

As you make your way back to the Worcester House, you’ll cross over a small branch of New Town Creek. This area is where hundreds of Cherokee would make camp during major council meetings and other significant events.



Today there’s a lovely New Town Creek Nature Trail to explore. The 1.2-mile loop trail is interpretive, with signs explaining more about then flora and fauna you’ll see, as well as an overlook of the creek that makes a great bird watching spot.


Cherokee children still watching birds today.

For a longer walk, there’s also a Beaver Pond Trail that starts at the Common Cherokee Farmstead and follows the creek branch back to, you guessed it, a lovely little beaver pond.



Note that this flat plain does tend to flood a bit after heavy rains. And while dogs are allowed in New Echota State Park on a leash, we’ve heard reports of heavy tick activity in the woods. So proceed with caution!

TRD trip to New Echota

I went as chaperone on a field trip for kids back in the 1990's.


Daughter at homestead corn crib.


Kids at smoke house.


The Council House.


The Printing Office.


The Monument.



We are adding a tangent on the history of Gordon County as we only found two other Natural Wonders for the County, and to be truthful, they are all sort of man-made Wonders.  We had 75 Historical Markers in Gordon County and 31 Communities, so we need three Gordon County Post. We moved the original segment of this post on the Chief Vann House to Murray County where it belonged.

Gordon County

Gordon County is a county located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 57,544. The county seat is Calhoun.



History

Gordon County was created on February 13, 1850, by an act of the Georgia General Assembly. The new county was formed from portions of Cass (later renamed Bartow) and Floyd counties. All lands that would become Gordon County were originally occupied by the Cherokee Indians, and, in fact, the area was home of New Echota, the last seat of the Cherokee Nation. Before the removal, Sequoyah had developed a syllabary for the Cherokee language, the first written language form for American Indians. A dual-language newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, was published at New Echota. All covered above.


Statues of Sequoyah stand in the city park near the Calhoun–Gordon County Library and at the Arch, a Civil War (1861-65) monument on the northern edge of Calhoun.

Even while Cherokees remained on their homeland, the General Assembly enacted legislation in December 1830 that provided for surveying the Cherokee Nation in Georgia and dividing it into sections, districts, and land lots. Subsequently, the legislature identified this entire area as "Cherokee County" (even though it never functioned as a county). An act of December 3, 1832 divided the Cherokee lands into ten new counties—Cass (later renamed Bartow), Cherokee, Cobb, Floyd, Forsyth, Gilmer, Lumpkin, Murray, Paulding, and Union. Cherokee lands were distributed to whites in a land lottery, but the legislature temporarily prohibited whites from taking possession of lots on which Cherokees still lived.



It was not until December 29, 1835, that Georgia had an official basis for claiming the unceded Cherokee lands that included the future location of Gordon County. In the Treaty of New Echota, a faction of the Cherokees agreed to give up all Cherokee claims to land in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina and move west in return for $5 million. Though a majority of Cherokees opposed the treaty and refused to leave, the U.S. and Georgia considered it binding. In 1838, U.S. Army troops rounded up the last of 15,000 Cherokees in Georgia and forced them to march west in what came to be known as the "Trail of Tears", making this area the starting point of the removal.



Gordon County's original 1850 boundaries were changed numerous times between 1852 and 1877, during which time the legislature transferred portions of Cass (Bartow), Floyd, Murray, Pickens, and Walker counties to Gordon County, while transferring land from Gordon to Floyd and Murray counties.



Georgia's 94th county was named for William Washington Gordon (1796–1842), the first Georgian to graduate from West Point, a state senator, and the first president of the Central of Georgia Railway.


Gordon and the William Washington Gordon Monument in Wright Square, Savannah.

That same year Calhoun, on the Western and Atlantic Railroad, was made the county seat. The city was named for John C. Calhoun, U.S. senator and vice president.


Calhoun

General William T. Sherman took the early stages of the campaign for Atlanta directly through Gordon  County, making his headquarters for a time in Calhoun, at what is now Oakleigh, the home of the Gordon County Historical Society. 



In May each year the Battle of Resaca is reenacted on fields in the northern part of the county,



and the battle’s fallen are commemorated in a ceremony at the Confederate cemetery there. 





Near the cemetery on U.S. Highway 41, a Works Progress Administration workforce built a stone monument mapping troop movements in the area.



Agriculture became strong as the county recovered from the effects of the Civil War, particularly wheat, corn, oats, and cotton. In the early twentieth century cotton mills set in motion an economic force that continues to this day in the carpet and textile industries. 


In 1909, Echota Cotton Mill opened in Calhoun becoming the most modern manufacturing plant of its kind. Commerce Calhoun.

Transportation patterns in the county through the years moved from Indian trails to wagon paths, rivers, highways, and finally the air. Interstate Highway 75 came through the county in the mid-twentieth century, and the Tom B. David Field for private aircraft also linked Gordon County with the nearby cities of Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tennessee.



In 1997 Coosa Valley Technical College (later Georgia Northwestern Technical College) established a Gordon County campus. The Calhoun-Gordon Council for a Literate Community sponsors an adult learning center.



A noted resident of Gordon County was the tenor Roland Hayes, born to formerly enslaved parents on a farm near Curryville. Hayes was acclaimed in Europe and the British Isles at a time when prejudice barred him from many concert halls in his native land.



Notable residents of the county include the Georgia Yellow Hammers, an old-time fiddle string band active in the 1920s; J. M. Henson, a southern gospel musician; and Bert Lance, director of the Office of Management and Budget during the administration of U.S. president Jimmy Carter.



The Harris Arts Center, opened in 2000 by the Calhoun-Gordon Arts Council, also houses an art gallery, dance studio, art and music classrooms, offices, and meeting space, as well as the Roland Hayes Museum, which has a small exhibition honoring Hayes’s life. The Clarence E. Harris and Milton M. Ratner Foundations have contributed to this and many other amenities in the county.


Harris Art Center

Two recreation facilities in Calhoun, Salacoa Creek Park in the county, John’s Mountain Wildlife Management Area in the Chattahoochee National Forest near the western edge of Gordon County, and two eighteen-hole public golf courses are popular magnets for those enjoying the temperate climate of this region. The Cherokee Capital Fair is an attraction in the fall.


Fair Gordon County.

Mountains in Gordon County include Baugh Mountain and Horn Mountain. Baugh Mountain has an elevation of 1,138 feet, Baugh Mountain is the 802nd highest summit in the state of Georgia.


Baugh Mountain was named for John Baugh, the first white settler of Sugar Valley.

Economy

In addition to service industries, the economy of Gordon County is rooted in manufacturing and both heavy and light industry. Mohawk Industries, a leading manufacturer of flooring, is headquartered in Gordon County. 


Mohawk Summerville.

In addition, Shaw Industries, Beaulieu International Group, LG Chem, and Kobelco Construction Machinery America - a division of Kobe Steel - have significant presences in Gordon, County.

Culture

Gordon County was the home of the Georgia Yellow Hammers, an old-time music group from the 1920s. The Yellow Hammers, chiefly composed of Bill Chitwood, Clyde Evans, Bud Landress, Charles Ernest Moody, and Phil Reeve were one of the most important bands during the heyday of old-time music. 



They have left their mark on the community. The Calhoun High School (Calhoun, Georgia) Yellow Jackets football team play in Phil Reeve Stadium. Mr. Moody was the author of songs which are today Southern Gospel standards including "Drifting Too Far From the Shore" which has been covered and recorded by such artists as Jerry Garcia, Emmylou Harris, Phil Lesh, Hank Williams and many others.



National Register of Historic Places listings in Gordon County, Georgia

Calhoun Depot

The Calhoun Depot was a railway station of the Western & Atlantic Railroad that was built by the State of Georgia during 1852–53 in Calhoun, Georgia. Unusual for railroads, the Western & Atlantic Railroad was owned and operated by a U.S. state. Calhoun is on its route built from Atlanta, Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Like other brick or stone depots on the line, the Calhoun Depot was involved in but survived the American Civil War. It was part of the Great Locomotive Chase.



It was listed on the NRHP in 1982. It was deemed significant architecturally "because it represents an antebellum depot designed and built to serve its essential functions. Its simple lines and fundamental, utilitarian styling exemplifies the early, unpretentious frontier times of North Georgia in which it was created." The depot was also deemed significant in transportation history "because it symbolizes the effect the arrival of the railroad had on the area."



The town of Calhoun, which grew from a settlement known as Oothcalooga, is in area that was taken from the Cherokee Nation in the 1830s. Its location was in Cass County and then Bartow County. At some point it became a railroad stop and finally in 1850 it became the first county seat of new Gordon County. Oothcalooga was soon renamed to Calhoun.



According to its NRHP nomination, "The selection of the site for a railroad stop was a prime factor in its later becoming the county seat. The railroad served as a major travel artery, as well as a supply line during the Civil War. It was also part of one of the war's most famous events, during the Great Locomotive Chase."



After 1890, the State-owned W & A Line was leased to the L & N Railroad. The last passenger train making stops in Calhoun was the L&N's Dixie Flyer, which made its last stop there in 1965. As of 1982, freight service continued on the line.

Calhoun Downtown Historic District

The Calhoun Downtown Historic District in Calhoun, Georgia is a 22 acres area which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. 



The district includes 44 contributing buildings and 12 non-contributing ones.



It includes works by architect William F. Cann and others.



It includes:

Old U.S. Post Office building, which in 2011 was serving as the Calhoun police station



Gordon County Courthouse (1962)



Freeman-Hurt House

The Freeman-Hurt House near Oakman, Georgia is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The property includes five contributing buildings. It includes Dogtrot architecture.



The house was built by a Cherokee named Burdine Swann, according to a direct descendant, and the house was built before 1832.



The Freeman-Hurt-Evans House represents almost all phases of North Georgia history and culture, beginning at least as early as 1832 with the Cherokee Indians, and continuing through the Civil War to the present day.



In its earliest years, according to oral tradition, the house and its outbuildings were a part of the Cherokee Indian farm culture which had developed with incredible repidity since the 1780's and 90's. It resulted from the willing cooperation and intelligence of the Indians, and the concentrated efforts of white Americans. Their attitudes are expressed in Article 14 of the Treaty of Holston. This document provided "That the Cherokee nation may be led to a greater degree of civilization, and to become herdsmen and cultivators, instead of remaining in a state of hunters." The process of acculturation was stopped short by the tragic 1838 displacement of the Cherokee Nation to Oklahoma.



A Cherokee mixed-breed named Burdine Swann constructed the Freeman-Hurt-Evans House, according to Mrs. C. E. Ratcliffe, a direct descendant. A local man named Joe Wickett helped the Pickens County carpenter Swann. Although the exact construction date and original owners and occupants are not known, the house and a fifteen acre field were noted by William Clifton, district surveyor for the 1832 Georgia land lottery.



Located on the Old Tennessee Road, which was originally an Indian trail, the house became a supply post for planters and drovers from Tennessee on their way to Augusta, Georgia. There were stops such as this all along the Tennessee Road. The old Indian farm and supply post had become a plantation by the time of the Civil War, and a guest house called "Travellers' Rest" was built to accommodate visitors. The present owner, Mrs. Evans, remembers her uncle telling of his driving a stagecoach to and from the plantation taking guests out to the house.from surrounding towns during the 1880's.



The first known owner of the house was James Freeman, who bought it previous to the Civil War. He bought several land lots in that area in 1838, including the one just south of the house. Freeman's son Benjamin became a first lieutenant in the Confederate Army and later served on Governor Joseph Brown's staff. The house was owned by the Freeman-Hurt family until the late 1940's, when it was sold by a son-in-law, John Foy, to J. W. Evans of Fairmount, Georgia. Occupied until the late 1950's or early 60's, the old log house was used for hay storage.

New Echota

Covered Above.


Cherokee Phoenix print shop and Cherokee Supreme Court.

William Taylor House (Resaca, Georgia)

The William Taylor House in Resaca, Georgia is a historic home, built in 1913, that was used as the town hall of Resaca before being torn down. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.



The house was deemed significant for its association with William Taylor, veteran of the American Civil War. 



And it was also deemed significant for its architecture, as a good example of a central hall plan house.



William Taylor lived in the house for the last 30 years of his life. In 1938, at age almost 90, he attended the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, where he was among 60 veterans from Georgia, and among the seven of those who fought for the Union.



Taylor was born on August 22, 1849, and he died October 15, 1944. Taylor is interred beside his second wife Laura in Resaca cemetery adjacent to the Resaca First Baptist Church .


Home no longer there.

O.K. we did our first tangent on Gordon County.  You have to go to all the way up to (GNW #244) and (GNW #245) to get Gordon County (Part 2) and Gordon County (Part 3).

Today's post was all about the Cherokee Indians, so I dedicate that theme to my Georgia Natural Wonder Girls. Cherokee GNW Gals. WHO could chase these ladies off to Oklahoma?