Georgia Natural Wonder #209 - Scull Shoals - Greene County. 873

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Georgia Natural Wonder #209 - Scull Shoals

We continue to skirt Natural from Historic Wonders of Georgia with our inclusion of Scull Shoals way down here at 209. But I stopped by this area back when I was traveling the State doing insurance adjusting. I found the Watson Spring, saw the Iron Horse, drove through Elders Covered Bridge, and saw the Governor Peter Early Historical Marker. Really nice crossing the Oconee River from Oglethorpe to Greene County and entering the Oconee National Forest.  I saw the signs for Scull Shoals and spent an hour driving a way to get there and back to highway back in the 1990's early 2000's.



Since then I was blocked by road barricades and it is a 5 mile hike there and back. But really all woods, no houses, dirt wood just like its sister National Forest, the Chattahoochee National Forest in the North Georgia Mountains. That forest has been featured in about 49 of these post.

Wikipedia

Scull Shoals is an extinct town in Greene County, in the U.S. state of Georgia.



History

A post office called Scull Shoals was established in 1825, and remained in operation until 1861. The community most likely was named for the Indian bones found at nearby mounds. Geez, that's it, thanks Wikipedia.

Now Friends of Scull Shoals fills in the full history ....

Scull Shoals village began as a frontier settlement in 1782, and in 1793, after several Indian raids, residents erected Fort Clark. This was built by George Michael Cupp, to the Governor’s specifications.


Fort Yargo from GNW #204

It was a palisaded two-story blockhouse at Scull Shoals on the Oconee River in northern Greene County. It served to protect the settlers from raids across the river by the Creek Indians to the west.  Fort Clark was manned by a local militia called “Phinizey’s Dragoons” until the Creeks were moved west towards the Ocmulgee River by the Treaties of 1802 and 1805.



The settlers began to expand rapidly across the Oconee River after the treaty of 1802.  White settlers and black slaves quickly opened up the land.  Following Eli Whitney’s 1793 invention of the cotton gin, they began to raise cotton in huge quantities.  The local villagers began with a gristmill and sawmill, and soon had a cotton gin.



With funds from the Georgia legislature, Zachariah Sims and George Paschal built Georgia’s first paper mill at Scull Shoals in 1811.  Though details are scarce, it is probable that the original paper mill was an addition to the water-powered grist mill, already in place. The Sims and Paschal plans were to expand that mill dramatically with a $3,000 loan from the Georgia legislature. The paper mill lasted until about 1815. The operators went bankrupt shortly after the War of 1812. The property changed hands, but the village continued to expand.



Under its third owner, Dr. Thomas Poullain, there were flourishing mills, boarding houses, stores, a large warehouse and store combination, a distillery, a toll bridge, and other enterprises. During Poullain’s 41- year leadership (1827-1868), a devastating fire completely destroyed the wooden mill buildings in 1845, as attested in the Southern Banner. Poullain supported his people as they rebuilt the three and four-story buildings of Fontenoy Mills in brick.



They were back in operation by 1846.  In 1854 Poullain had 2,000 spindles and looms, consuming 4,000 bales of cotton valued at $200,000. It was clearly an economically productive enterprise. As the enterprise expanded, more than 600 people were employed to make yarns and cloth. 



Always a company town, Scull Shoals suffered economic problems after the Civil War, and changed hands several times. For a short period (1877-78) it was home to Georgia’s infamous Penitentiary Company #3, which operated the cotton fields and mills with convict labor.  It soon passed to other ownership.



Dr. Lindsey Durham lived across the river in what became first Clarke, then Oconee County. He was an early Scull Shoals community leader and medical specialist, trained in early life by the Indian curers. He attended medical School in Philadelphia, and then returned to Georgia to practice.


Home and Grave.

Dr. Durham had a 13-acre herb garden and developed patent medicines that he and his medical family used to treat their patients. Durham’s 600-bed hospital was in cabins scattered around his home, near present GA Highway 15. It was a major facility for the time.


Apothecary.

His family became a dominant medical dynasty extending to the present.

Scull Shoals village was home to Georgia Governor Peter Early, who served in office from 1813 to 1815. 



Early was born nearby, and was buried there for a while.  He died 1817 at the age of 45.


Early's Home.

From mid-century on, there were droughts and devastating floods. These resulted in work stoppages, caused by either the lack of water for power, or too much water. The 1887 major flood left water standing for four days in the buildings. The covered toll bridge floated downstream.  Several hundred bales of cotton were in the mill, and 600 bushels of wheat in the warehouse. They were all were ruined, bringing economic chaos to Scull Shoals Mills, from which it never recovered.



1887 New York Times articles on same flood that struck Augusta and later downstream Savannah too.

AUGUSTA, Ga., July 31.--This city has been under water for the past 24 hours--that is, the upper portion of it. Water commenced coming in early last night, and by 3 o'clock this morning the territory embraced almost all downtown Augusta.


Augusta 1887.

SAVANNAH, Ga., Aug. 9.--The freshet which flooded Augusta 10 days ago, and which has been hurrying down the river for over a week, reached the rice plantations along the lower waters of the Savannah yesterday.


Savannah 1887. The Rice production never recovered.

A hundred years of open-field cotton farming caused erosion that removed 8-9 inches of topsoil from the fields. It was deposited in the rivers and covered the shoals. This in turn caused more frequent flooding, which continues to the present. Heavy siltation cut the “head” of water needed to power the mills, often stopping mill work.  By 1900, most people had left for regular work elsewhere, and the mills closed for good. During the World Wars, machinery was scrapped for the war efforts, and most of the brick buildings were dismantled and salvaged.



Today, only three walls of the brick warehouse and store remain, along with the arched brick bridge that took workers across the raceway into the mills. Stone foundations of the old mill’s power plant and scattered stone and brick chimney bases can be found in the downtown village and out in the surrounding woods. Remains of the wooden covered toll bridge stand in the Oconee River.



Between 1875 and 1930, the town’s land was divided and sold several times. In the 1930’s tracts were re-assembled by R. P. Brightwell of Maxey’s, and sold to the government for an experimental forest. It became a teaching laboratory for the University of Georgia’s School of Forestry.  The Soil Conservation Service and Civilian Conservation Corps also did massive reclamations, by terracing eroded hillsides and replanting the forests. Scull Shoals became part of the newly-created Oconee National Forest in 1959. The old mill town has laid quietly waiting, marked only by the ruins in the woods.  During the 1960’s funds became available for landscaping the area to make it more park-like.  It was a small picnic area popular for fishing and hunting, and generally forgotten by most everyone. In the early 1970’s, portions of the old roadways into the site were closed.



The old roads had become eight-foot deep gullies in places. New roads were built in new locations, and crossing Sandy Creek with a new bridge.  Old roadways can still be found approaching the Scull Shoals Historic Recreation Area. They are easily seen along Forest road 1234, as one enters the forest from Macedonia Church Road.



Technology Trends

The Scull Shoals Mill ruins are located halfway between Athens and Greensboro on the Oconee River, just northeast of where Georgia State Route 15 crosses the river.  It was the site of Ft. Clarke built in 1793 during the Oconee Indian War with the Creek Indians. It was settled by pioneers rewarded for military service with headright grants for land. A sawmill and grist mill were built and operated by Zachariah Sims and partner Thomas Ligon around 1800. Soon they built and operated the first paper mill in Georgia from 1810-1814 when the end of the War of 1812 and drought stopped paper production. Scull Shoals was a thriving agri-industrial community with a regional presence by owner Thomas N. Poullain processing cotton into osnaburg cloth during the early to mid 19th century.



After the Civil War Scull Shoals suffered from outdated water-powered textile processing equipment, lack of funding to replace aging equipment, and fewer workers available. Naive cotton farming in the area caused massive soil erosion resulting in disastrous flooding in 1841 & 1887 that sent the town into further decline. In the 20th century, Scull Shoals had become part of the Oconee National Forest and is a ghost town of ruins, including the foundations and walls of several buildings. The Friends of Scull Shoals organization maintains the site in partnership with the Forest Service and conducts tours and festivals at the site. Additional information can be found in the book "Scull Shoals: The Mill Village That Vanished in Old Georgia", by author and tour guide Robert Skarda.



Explore Georgia

Scull Shoals was home to Georgia's First Paper Mill, Water-Powered Sawmill, Grist Mill, and Textile Mills. The site also features numerous archaeological sites, hiking trails, and picnic areas. Educational groups are welcome, but best to contact a member of the Friends of Scull Shoals.



USDA Forest Service

Explore over 10,000 years of history from early Native Americans to DeSoto (1540s) to Georgia's first paper mill in 1811. Take a gentle hike along the historic ruins of the old Scull Shoals Village on the banks of the Oconee River.

Directions:

From I-20, Exit 130, travel north on GA 44 to downtown Greensboro, GA. Take GA 15 north approximately 10.9 miles to the intersection of Macedonia Church Rd on the right. Turn right and travel approximately 2.4 miles to Forest Service Rd 1234 on the left.



Turn left onto a gravel road and travel approximately 1.8 miles to Scull Shoals Historic Site.

Scull Shoals Ghost Town

Scull Shoals is located in the Oconee National Forest are there is hunting allowed throughout the forest so be sure to stay on the marked trails. The Oconee River Recreational Area is on State Route 15, twelve miles northwest of the city of Greensboro. There is a mile long trail that will lead you straight to Scull Shoals. There is also a parking lot directly at Scull Shoals, but I recommend a map as it is easy to get lost.



Scull Shoals is an extinct town on the Oconee River in middle Georgia, site of a 19th century mill village which included Georgia's first paper mill from 1811-1814. Under owner Thomas M. Poullian, Scull Shoals contained grist mills, sawmills, and a 4-story brick textile mill, stores and homes. At its height, there were 500 workers tending 4,000 spindles in the mill. Dr. Lindsay Durham of Scull Shoals developed medicines from his extensive herb garden, and ran a sanatorium there. Flooding caused the demise of the mills in the 1880s, and the town was abandoned by the 1920s. Now the 2,200 acre experimental forest area, containing the mill town, a prehistoric mound complex dating from A.D. 1250-1500, beaver ponds and streams along the Oconee River can serve as a location for environmental education and research center for the study of the history of technology, economics, medicine, forestry, and landscape use, among other subjects.



REMAINS: Partial structures remain throughout the town. You can view the building from outside a fenced area.



The 4,500-acre Scull Shoals Experimental Forest (Scull Shoals) near Athens, Georgia, has served as the site of silvicultural research studies since the 1930s. In 1959, when the experimental forest was officially designated part of the Oconee National Forest, researchers started studies on the role of fire in silviculture, the development of wildlife habitat, and the regeneration of the hardwood ecosystems of the southern Piedmont.



The site also features the ruins of Scull Shoals, once a major textile and mill town between Atlanta and Savannah. Settled in 1784 on the Oconee River, at its height Scull Shoals included grist mills, sawmills, cotton gins, and a four-story textile mill that employed over 600 people. The textile mill was destroyed in 1887 by a flood that covered the entire town for four days and left it in economic ruin. What remained of the town became part of Scull Shoals Experimental Forest in 1936, and is now an historic recreation area on the Oconee National Forest.



Research at Scull Shoals during the 1960s and 1970s provided a better understanding of littleleaf disease, which is caused by a complex of factors including the fungus Phytophthora cinnamomi, low soil nitrogen, and poor internal soil drainage. Littleleaf disease affects the shortleaf pines growing on the badly eroded land that once typified the southern Piedmont.



The feasibility of establishing intensively managed, short-rotation woody crop systems to produce fiber was also demonstrated by research at Scull Shoals in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The types of systems developed there are now used in locations across the United States to produce biofuels for local energy use.



All Trails

Scull Shoals Trail is a 2 mile lightly trafficked out and back trail located near Maxeys, Georgia that features a river and is good for all skill levels. The trail offers a number of activity options and is accessible year-round. Dogs are also able to use this trail but must be kept on leash.



This trail is no longer on forest service maps and it is so overgrown that it hardly exists in some places so is difficult to hike. The campground is still open, and you can park and have a picnic overlooking the river. There are also horseback riding and mountain biking trails and a historical site still being used in the area.

Comments

November 2020

The trail to Scull Shoals Archaeological Area IS CLOSED. It is practically nonexistent and no longer on current FS maps. I go down there all the time. The historic area is open and you can drive up to it. There is a horse trail loop in the area where the archaeological trail used to be. Scull Shoals Historic Area is where the town was.



There used to be trails along the riverbank, but they are washed out and overgrown. The town ruins are definitely worth seeing, but don’t try it in a low-clearance vehicle.

May 2020

This trail is not closed, as previous reviews says. The Historic sign for Scull Shoals is right on Greensboro Highway. Follow road to Macedonia Rd, also marked. Gravel/ dirt road go all the way back to small parking lot and picnic tables. Some ruins are seen from parking lot.



Since it is spring, the grass is high and trails are over grown, barely discernible. But it was certainly possible with lots to see. Recommend mud boots for tromping around in. Lots of mountain bikers

July 2014

Went to the site last weekend. First, let me say the road to get to the site is NOT marked. The directions from this app attempted to send us to the farmer's field with the iron horse. Which was pretty cool. I had to pull out the gps to find scull shoals road. At the end of that is the site. The location itself is pretty cool. Very overgrown and uncared for, but the ruins are neat.



The trails leading from one building to another are non-existent, so after walking through the long grass (and dodging the spider webs) we located the old water mill. The only part that appeared cared for was the trail to the river where people had been fishing. It looks like a cool spot to wade and swim. The dog enjoyed it. Even with all the issues, I would recommend the location as a neat side trip.

November 2012

Scull Shoals was once the site of an old mill town, and you can access an arched bridge and remnants of two other brick structures. Take a camera. It's more of a heritage site than a hike, as the footbridges alongside the river are washed out. BUT, make sure to hike to the Indian mounds. To get there, take FR 1231A, which is (I think) the first service road on your left as you leave the Scull Shoals site.



The road will dead-end, and you can park. The trail to the Indian mounds will be through the clearing on the right. The largest mound is actually visible from the service road, but you can't really tell, since the mounds are covered with foliage. Once you get back to Macedonia Road, if you make a left and travel a few miles, you will see the Iron Horse in a corn field on the right.

Vanishing North Georgia

The crumbling ruins of the warehouse and company store are the most significant remains of the once-thriving mill town of Scull Shoals, on the Oconee River in Greene County.



Built in 1846, this structure survived floods and the nearby movement of Union troops in the Civil War only to fall into disrepair after the abandonment of the village and ensuing floods.



Surprisingly, the access road was easily passable, and with a few leaves still clinging to the trees, the colors of fall were still evident.

The Urban Baboon

But there’s more to the history that just the Scull Shoals Manufacturing company town. The area was actually inhabited by Lamar Mound building Indians some 6 centuries prior. There are two mounds built by these Indians within two miles of the ruins. I actually didn’t know to look for them or where they were upon my arrival, so I have no details, but I include the directions to the spot as detailed in Hiking Georgia at the bottom of the post. The mound trail is a 2 mile walk, so be prepared if that’s your goal. Additionally, there are remnants in downtown Skull Shoals of a Revolutionary War era outpost known as Fort Elijah Clarke, named for the American War General Elijah Clark. This hints at the area’s significance in the short lived independent country known as the Trans - Oconee Republic, as well as the Yazoo Land Fraud. I had never heard of the sovereign state before, but must imagine that it is one of those famous Six Flags that flew over Georgia at one time. Finally, and on a more modern note, the post-Emancipation Scull Shoals (circa 1880) was home to a young laborer named Adam Williams, who went on to become the Reverend Adam Daniel Williams, pastor of the famed Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and grandfather to the legendary Martin Luther King, Jr. That’s a whole bunch of history packed into 6 or 7 relatively small ruins.



The name Scull Shoals has been used for the area since the 1830’s. The city was named after the Scull Shoals Manufacturing Company, or maybe the company was named for the land, I’m not sure. The stories of the name are varied. Some say that they found a bunch of skulls in the area, which could be true. Some say it’s a variant on the name of a seafaring vessel, which seeing the land is on the Oconee could be reasonable. But whatever the story, that is the name that it has, for good or for evil.



What the area has to offer has two major components: Cool Old ruins of Old Downtown Scull Shoals and a rich history. The most intact of the ruins is the company warehouse store, but there are also remnants of an old toll bridge, the manager’s house, a power plant, and an old brick bridge. Smaller ruins include a worker’s house and the blacksmith’s house. We really enjoy walking around old ruins, so this was fascinating to my group.



The town of Scull Shoals was at one point a thriving community of 500-600 people. The Factory was the first Paper Mill in the South. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. At times, it was the largest employer and largest slaveholder in Greene County, Georgia. This was the golden age for the town between 1840-1920, and its is from this time period that most of the ruins are from.



The ominously named town was home to a series of setbacks, fires, murders, droughts. The worst of which was floods; one of them was so fierce that it actually carried the waterway’s toll bridge away. The city was strategically located on the river, but unfortunately also situated in a flood plain. It can flood even today and you can see the erosion of the waters if you walk along the riverside path.

Indian Mounds

This site is home to several Indian Mounds dating from A.D. 1250- 1500. Located in a 2200 acre experimental forest, Scull Shoals also contains an extinct industrial town. You can visit the ruins of the town and the Indian mounds by following walking trails located in the park.



Nearby one can visit the Scull Shoals Indian Mounds, built between 1250 and 1500. Recent archaeological findings and historical documents point to prehistoric Indian occupation.



It took me like six tries to finally find this well hidden mound complex. At one time I think there was an official trail to it but now it is buried in an endless see of privet, long since forgotten about my most. Many of the ARPA signs had rotten and fallen down.



There are two mounds in the complex. The one in the photo is the largest one. It is probably about 30 feet high. The smaller mound is almost completely buried in privet. Both mounds are in true flood areas. As a matter of fact, there has been a recent flood that completely covered the area where thy are.



Mark Williams and his UGA field schools mapped, shovel tested and test excavated the Scull Shoals mound site in the mid-1980s. In his 1984 report he notes that the earliest known reference to the site is an 1877 article in an Augusta newspaper. Thus, the Oglethorpe Echo article is two years earlier and includes some intriguing new observations. Perhaps most notably, it describes the top of the large mound as having a 30-ft diameter basin and observes that the site remains undisturbed. While it is tantalizing to think that this basin was the remnant of mound-top structure, Mark believes that it was most likely an old looters pit, and that the mound was not “undisturbed” in 1875. The 1875 article notes that artifacts, ashes and human bone are all around the mounds.



Somewhere upriver from the mounds is the site with “acres of bones” exposed by a freshet. This site is near a small stream, which could be one of several on either side of the river. This portion of the Oconee River has a great deal of bottom land that could have supported intensive habitation.



The article also discusses the then popular “mound builder race” theory, which held that an extinct race of people built the Mississippian mounds in the eastern US, and this race was obliterated by the Indians encountered by the English in the eighteenth century. To his credit Gantt does not buy into this theory.



Most interesting to me was Gantt’s description of his buggy ride to the river, down the road I live on. Two of the magnificent houses he describes still stand. But the most arresting passage in the article is his description of utter desolation for nearly five miles, the result of officials burning down every house in an area that was affected earlier with a Small Pox plague.

Elder Covered Bridge

Now technically in Oconee County, the nearby Elder Covered Bridge is worth a visit while you are at Scull Shoals. We covered this in GNW #80.



Elder Mill Covered Bridge, built in 1897 and moved to its current location just south of Watkinsville off State Road 15 in the 1920s, was restored during Jimmy Carter's term as governor.


Elder Mill Covered Bridge circa 1975.

One of the few covered bridges left in Georgia, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.



Ambitious photo from down stream and drone image from above.



Additional images for this post.



Top Row Dawg Addendum for Oconee County, the Iron Horse.

From Roadside America…..

While a student at UGA, I witnessed the placement of the Iron Horse close to Milledge Hall and Milledge Annex, the area where the athletes dormed. We watched the crew pour the concrete pad, a few days later placing the Iron Horse. It was not a horse that looked like Trigger, so you had to imagine quite a bit when you looked. It was the gift of a Chicago artist in 1954. The project was finally completed, and the parties began.



First, there was a huge bonfire built under and around the horse. It was made of iron so it could not be damaged. The principal thing damaged was the morale and spirit of the sculptor. When he heard about the fire and the image of his works being so degrading, he packed his bag and headed back home to Chicago. Eventually, the horse was moved because it became a focal point for pranksters. It was moved away from the campus, after a farm owner in Watkinsville offered a place in his pasture. A classmate of mine, Jack Curtis, now owns the farm and pasture, and takes care of the Iron Horse. There are those who saw the events unfold, and have their own versions of how things happened. That was in either 1953 or 1954. We did not have very much couth back then.

NY Times Article

ATHENS, Ga., Nov. 3 (AP) — The University of Georgia students pranced like pagans destroying an idol, carrying torches and chanting, “Burn the horse! Burn the horse! “ They piled mattresses beneath the figure and set a fire, but they could not destroy the “Iron Horse.” That was in 1954. Today, the 12‐foot, welded‐steel abstract sculpture stands in a cornfield in Greene County. But the legend lives on at the university, and Bill VanDerKloot, an independent film maker, intends to make a television film documenting it. Mr. VanDerKloot, 27 years old, has researched the history of the horse and intends to use it to illustrate attitudes toward public art.



“Michelangelo's ‘David’ was stoned when it was first displayed,” he said. “Stravinsky's ‘Rites of Spring’ caused a riot. There was a piece of sculpture attacked just recently on the M.I.T. campus. I think it says something about the fear of something you don't understand.” The Iron Horse was placed on the University of Georgia campus on May 24, 1954. Abbot Pattison, who had been brought to the university on a Rockefeller grant to bring contemporary art to the South, had completed it in four months, Mr. VanDerKloot said. It was set up on a concrete pedestal in front of a freshman dormitory and across the street from an athletic dormitory. Students gathered. One painted the word “front” on its neck, and the defacement had begun.



“Of course, everyone laughed —was a big joke,” said Earl McCutchen, an art professor who witnessed the incident. “A couple of guys then went in a car and came back with some bushel baskets of horse manure and dumped them behind the thing. You could just see it generating right there. Every group had to outdo the group before.”  Mr. VanDerKloot said the pranks built up to the fire ceremony, adding, “They were dancing and chanting around the ring of fire.” “I think it made them really angry that they couldn't destroy the thing,” said Wiley Sanderson, a member of the art faculty who had helped Mr. Pattison construct the statue. “One student said, This may not be art, but it's one hell of a welding job.’ “



Not pleased may be an understatement. Students were livid. When “Mother and Child” was installed, an unknown student, or students, covered it with green paint, which seems tame in comparison to the reaction the Iron Horse provoked. Whereas “Mother and Child” was placed behind the fine arts building where it would be more expected and accepted, the horse was placed in the center of student life, right in front of an all male, athletic dorm. On the night of May 27, just days after it arrived in front of Reed Hall, students began vandalizing the sculpture. The word “Front” was painted on its neck. Straw was shoved in its mouth and scattered all around the base along with manure.  Balloons were tied to its rear legs. A mattress was placed underneath it and was set on fire in hopes of burning the horse to the ground. Firemen dispersed the rioting crowd with hoses.

Placed Near a Barn

O.C. Aderhold, president of the university at the time, ordered the Iron Horse removed from the campus when he heard rumors that students planned to use dynamite or acetylene torches to destroy it. After less than 24 hours on display, was placed near a barn 10 miles from the campus, where it remained for several years. It was discovered by vandals, who knocked it over. Crews hid again, dragging it into the woods and leaving it to gather more rust. Years later, Dr. L.C. Curtis, a professor of agriculture at the time, asked the chairman of the art department, Lamar Dodd, if he could have the sculpture. Mr. Dodd consented. “Just looking at it, I knew I wanted it,” said Dr. Curtis, now 78 and retired. “I collect conversation pieces. I'm a little bit of an eccentric.”



He put the horse on top of a hill on his farm, about 20 miles from the university, where Mr. VanDerKloot discovered it nine years ago when he was a university student. The statue still stands there.



Greene County, Georgia

Greene County is a county located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 15,994. The county seat is Greensboro.



History

Created from part of Washington County by the state legislature on February 3, 1786, the county comprises land originally controlled by the Creek Indians, and its first years were marked by Indian raids during the Creek War.



The legislature named the county after General Nathanael Greene, a hero of the Revolutionary War (1775-83), who died in the year of the county’s formation. We have featured brief tangents on the home of Greene on Cumberland Island GNW #15. We talk about the grave of Greene in Savannah Cemeteries GNW #106 (Part 9). We mention his final resting place now in Johnson Square in Savannah GNW #106 (Part 6). Greenville Georgia was named after Nathanael Greene GNW #169 (Part 1).

Tangent Nathanael Greene

Nathanael Greene was one of the most respected generals of the Revolutionary War (1775-83) and a talented military strategist. As commander of the Southern Department of the Continental army, he led a brilliant campaign that ended the British occupation of the South. Although Greene never fought a battle in Georgia, his leadership was the catalyst that turned the tide toward American victory in the colony, freeing Georgia from British forces. Greene County in northeast Georgia is named in his honor.



Greene was born in 1742 and reared in Rhode Island. He was brought up in the Quaker church, a faith that denounces warfare. He developed an early interest in military science, upsetting both his family and the Quaker community. Greene was elected to the Rhode Island legislature in 1770 and became an eager advocate for American independence from Britain. After attending a military parade in 1773, he was expelled from a Quaker meeting. In 1774 Greene married a fellow Rhode Islander, Catharine Littlefield, with whom he had six children.



Greene commanded the Rhode Island militia and became a brigadier general in the Continental army, acting in the siege of Boston in 1776. His performance impressed General George Washington, who gave Greene the command of Boston after the British evacuated the city. At the age of thirty-four Greene was promoted to become the youngest major general in the Continental army up to that time. He participated in the Battles of Trenton in New Jersey and Brandywine and Germantown in Pennsylvania, and acted as quartermaster general at Valley Forge.


Greene statue Valley Forge.

In 1780 Washington gave Greene the arduous task of leading the feeble Revolutionary army of the South. Greene led a bold and ingenious fight against British occupation in the South. While he knew that his army was not capable of winning any large or decisive battles, Greene used the small size of his forces to make sudden, brief attacks on the conspicuous and slow-moving British army. He also daringly divided and thus weakened his army, forcing Cornwallis to do the same. Greene knew that such a move would have grave consequences for the British, greatly reducing their strength.


Greene statue Guildford Courthouse.

He then led his men in a retreat that forced Cornwallis to follow the Continental army far away from the British supply base in Charleston, South Carolina. Through tactics such as these the British army became a less formidable force.

Greene and the Revolution in Georgia

Although Greene himself never fought in Georgia, he was aware of the grave situation there. By 1780 the British had secured almost all of Georgia, and the remains of its government had dissolved under royalist rule. Greene took a personal interest in saving the vulnerable colony, sending his best generals for its protection and closely overseeing the colony’s affairs. In May 1781 Greene sent an army under Colonel Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee to support the efforts to capture Augusta. As the first troops of the Continental army to enter Georgia in more than a year, they boosted the morale of the Georgia residents. With their help, Augusta was back under American control within two weeks.


Lee.

In 1782 Greene came to the defense of Georgia once again when he sent General “Mad” Anthony Wayne to Savannah. Greene directed Wayne’s successful campaign, which pushed the British out of Savannah and into Charleston, thus ending British occupation of Georgia.


Wayne.

Greene not only fought to secure the freedom of Georgia but also worked with the state to revive its government. He had gained the respect and trust of its residents during the war, and they were eager to have his help in reorganizing their government. Greene encouraged the creation of an official Georgia Brigade, giving the state a symbol that its residents could look to with pride and patriotism. He also oversaw the organization of a new constitutional government and worked closely with the leaders of Georgia. Greene advocated the end of violence against British Loyalists, called Tories, in favor of peace and stability rather than revenge. With his help Georgia reinstated a secure civil government worthy of its independence.


Greene statue in Statuary Hall for Rhode Island and in downtown Greenville South Carolina.

To thank him for his service during the war, the Georgia government gave Greene a plantation named Mulberry Grove, outside Savannah in Chatham County. He later founded most of southern Cumberland Island as a result of a business deal used to finance the army.


The Dungeness his wife built after he died.

Greene died unexpectedly of sunstroke in 1786, at the age of forty-four. Initially he was buried in Savannah’s Colonial Park Cemetery.



Greene was reinterred in 1902 beneath the monument erected in his honor at Johnson Square. The remains of his son, George Washington Greene, are buried there as well.



Before the Civil War (1861-65), Greene County was largely given over to cotton plantations, with a well-to-do white population and a large enslaved population. Soil exhaustion and the ravages of the Civil War resulted in a shift from agriculture, in which landowners were the power brokers, to a market economy with a large number of small, poor farmers at its bottom and merchants and lawyers at its top.



Lake Oconee, among the notable places in Greene County, was built by Georgia Power Company in 1979 and is the second largest lake in Georgia.



The Reynolds Plantation (a private residential lake-and-golf community, which hosts some events open to the public) lies along its shores.



Greene was formed from Washington in 1785, and was composed of what is now Greene and Hancock and a part of Taliaferro, Oglethorpe and of Oconee. It was a magnificent county. The Oconee and Apalachee rivers and several large creeks ran through it, and the bottoms were wide and fertile. The larger part of the county was forest-covered hills of rich red land. The lower part, toward Hancock, was a fine gray land which was covered with a growth of small oaks, and at the first settling of the county was regarded as the least desirable part of the county, but is now the most thickly settled and prosperous part of it.


Jackson Plantation.

The first settlers are nearly all Virginia and North Carolina names. Greene was largely settled by people from these States and had in it a very few people from any other section. The list which is given by White includes many who were afterward in Oglethorpe and Hancock. The first settlers lived on the creeks and near the river, and for their own protection in close proximity to each other. A blockhouse was generally built at a convenient distance, and the families upon the approach of the Indians fled to it for protection. The men left their families in the blockhouse and went into the fields to cultivate the corn patches from which they hoped to make their bread. Until the cessation of the Oconee war there was constant peril and the immigration of people of means was small; but by 1790 there were five thousand four hundred and five people in the several counties then known as Greene, of whom one thousand three hundred and seventy seven were Negroes. There was constant apprehension of Indian forays and troops of soldiers were kept under arms.


1375 in whole county.

In 1794 there was a troop of dragoons commanded by Captain Jonas Fouche, a Frenchman by birth, was an American Revolution Captain. He was sent to Greene County in the late 1700's to protect and serve. After all these years, his house still stands and is currently occupied by McCommons Funeral Home.


Fouche House.

Although the county was organized in 1786, the first court does not seem to have met until 1790. The first estate is appraised in 1786. It consisted of: Fifty bushels corn, 1 bay mare, 1 cow and calf, 1 heifer, some hogs, an ax, a hoe, a linen wheel, a brass kettle, a tea kettle, a wash-tub, churn, candlesticks, bottles, slaye, tea pots, bole, mugg; 200 acres land, £75.


Linen Wheel.

The first will is that of Jos. Smith, a surveyor, made in 1786. His estate was, 17 cows, surveying instruments, 4 horses, 3 Bibles, 3 Testaments, 3 sermon books, 434 yards gray cloth.


May Day parade from 1940's.

The first grand jury presents as a “greate greavance” that these were more land-warrants than there was land.


Jackson Plantation from roof.

The judge prescribes as a rule for lawyers that: “For the sake of a decent conformity with an ancient custom, and of a necessary distinction in the profession, that attorneys shall be heard in a black robe, but this rule was not to be enforced till the next session.”


4Sure back in day.

The cases in the early courts were largely for assault and battery, and when parties were convicted the fines were been generally from three to ten dollars. One who was convicted of manslaughter was sentenced to be branded on the left thumb with the letter M, and four convicted of forgery were to be hung.


Hanging for Forgery?

The court-house in 1798 was a very inferior building, and the jail was a mere hut. As late as 1798 the United States soldiers were still quartered in the country to protect the settlers from Indian raids, for, though the Indians were nominally peaceable, they were likely at any time to give trouble. Despite the dangers from Indians and the hard ships of the frontier immigrants poured in from North Carolina and from Virginia. Many of the North Carolinians came from Rowan and Mecklenburg and settled on Shoulderbone creek in Hancock. The Virginians came from Franklin, Brunswick, Prince George, Dinwiddie and Prince Edward and settled on the Apalachee and Oconee.


Creek descendants.

The first comers to Greene were, as they were in Wilkes, generally men of small means. They were industrious and thrifty and prosperous. The tide of settlers was very constant and very full. At first nothing was produced but food crops, principally corn and cattle and hogs, but there was a large quantity of these. The range was wide and cattle and hogs fattened in the woods. A little tobacco was raised for market, but there was but little to sell and few purchasers for anything. The people lived within them selves. They made everything needful for comfort, and up to the war of 1812 Greene and Wilkes and Hancock were filled with plenty. The county produced everything needed for man or beast. There was corn, barley, rye, wheat, hogs, cattle, horses. There were few people of large wealth in the county up to 1812, and none who were squalidly poor. There were a few people like old Joel Early, who kept up the style of an old English baron, but the larger part of the people lived in solid comfort and made no pretenses. Living was exceedingly cheap, and board was two to four dollars per month. Unfortunately the drinking habits of the people were universal, and brandy and whisky were freely used, and they were distilled in quantities. Life in all this middle Georgia belt was so much the same that the story of one of these counties is the story of all.


Whiskey and Guns.

The people of all these counties came from the same section and had the same features. They were, as far as education was concerned, beyond their children, who grew to manhood on the frontier, and who twenty years after ward settled in Jasper, Morgan or Jones. Most of those who signed deeds in Greene could write their names, but it was not so twenty years afterward. Those who grew to manhood during and just after the Revolution had scant opportunities for learning even elementary branches.


Old Jail Greensboro.

After the bringing in of the cotton-gin in the first years of the century, and as the country on the west of the Oconee was opened, the men who had small farms and raised pro vision crops entirely began to seek other homes and the farms were absorbed by the plantations.



After the war of 1812 wealth very rapidly increased in Greene and cotton planting was vigorously pressed. As was the case in Wilkes and Columbia Negroes began to take the place of white people, the plantations of farms, and cotton of grain.


Gully near Penfield.

The effort of the planter from 1815 to 1850 was to raise all the cotton possible. Grass is the deadly foe of this textile plant, and now the Bermuda grass was brought into Greene. Mr. John Cunningham, a merchant of Greensboro in the early twenties, told the author that he brought the first small tuft of this grass to Greensboro and planted it in his garden. The garden was soon covered, the farm was next to follow, and the pestiferous grass, as it was regarded, spread so rapidly that in some cases the fields were simply surrendered to it and the planter counted his plantation as ruined. With the new lands opening, the Bermuda grass spreading, the fields once so fertile becoming washed and worn, the planters of Greene began to seek fresher lands in the west, and as in Wilkes the farms were absorbed by the plantations. The after history told of Wilkes and Burke is true of Greene.


Bermuda Grass not so bad today in Greene County.

It is now no longer a county of planters, but is a county of villages. The owners of the land reside in the small towns and the negro tenants work the fields. But while this is the fact now, it has been a fact to some extent for over forty years. Save that the freedman has taken the place of the slave, it is as it was when the overseer con trolled the plantation before the war. This is true of the red lands, but not true of poorer lands in other parts of the county. Here there is improvement in every line.



The Presbyterians and the Baptists came into Greene with the first settlements and organized churches before they had meeting-houses. The Baptists had churches at Scull Shoals and Bairdstown shortly after the county was settled, and occupied jointly with the Presbyterians the building called Siloam meeting-house, then on the hill overlooking Greensboro. Here Mr. Ray had an academy, and for its support an appropriation was made by the Legislature. The Methodists entered the county as soon as they came into Georgia, and soon had a number of preaching places. Bishop Asbury preached at Little Brittain, and at Bush’s, now known as Liberty, and the South Carolina Conference was held at this church in 1808 Asbury and McKendree Were both present. Lovick Pierce was ordained an elder and Bishop Wm. Capers was admitted into the connection as a preacher on trial.


Churches Greene County.

There was a famous camp-ground at Hastings, where the people of Greene used to assemble annually for religious meetings. One of the most remark able revivals of religion ever known in Georgia reached Greensboro in 1827, when Judge Longstreet and many of the most prominent men in the county were converted. Greene is now well supplied with churches and school houses, and while the country neighborhoods have declined, the villages of Greensboro, Union Point, White Plains, Penfield, Woodville and Veazy have grown up, and the people of the county have religious and educational advantages beyond those at any previous time; and while much of what was once the most fertile land in Greene is not now productive, the average of production per acre is perhaps greater now than at any time since 1820. Greensboro was selected as the county site as soon as the county was laid off, and an academy was provided for. The trustees were granted one thousand acres of land for its endowment. Commissioners were appointed to lay off the town and build the academy and repair Siloam meeting-house. The Rev. Jasper Ray was appointed rector.


Cruising downtown Siloam.

Greensboro drew to it from its first settlement a fine class of citizens and soon became famous for its culture and refinement. It was the county site of a wealthy county, and while in the early days the planters mainly lived on their plantations, the lawyers and doctors, preachers and teachers, as well as the court officers, nearly all lived in the town. Here Dr. Lovick Pierce practiced medicine during the time he was a local preacher, and here Dr. Adiel Sherwood, the great Baptist preacher, lived, and while living here in 1829 he published the first book, ‘Gazetteer of Georgia,” which attempted to tell of the resources of the State. Here Judge Longstreet began the practice of law and became famous as a wit and jurist. Here he married and as has been seen became a Christian and Methodist preacher.



Here William C. Dawson, long time senator and one of the most popular of Georgians, had his home and practiced his profession.



Thomas Foster,the genial and gifted young Congressman, practiced law in this village.

John Bethune and Vincent Sandford, each clerks of the court and men of position and influence, lived here. Near here the great Georgia bishop, George Foster Pierce, was born, and here he spent his childhood, and from Greensboro he went to college at Athens. Here he decided to enter the Methodist itinerancy, and laid down his law books and entered the ministry.



The eccentric but sterling Governor Peter Early lived in this county, and is buried on what was his manor. His father, Joel Early, came from Virginia, and purchased a very large body of land on the Oconee river, where he located what he called Early’s Manor.



His will is on record and is a striking document. It gives direction not only as to the distribution of his property, but as to the methods of pruning his apple orchards and resting his fields. He bequeathed his land to trustees to be given to his favored sons when they were thirty-six years old. Two of his sons he disinherited, one for extravagance, the other for disrespect. The descendants of the Greene county people are found in all sections of the Southern country, and they have been among the most useful and distinguished of the people.


Hard to read grave and historical marker.

We wind up today's post with some green GNW gals for Greene County.