Profiles from a tour of the Old Baptist Church Cemetery In Monroe, Georgia

Conducted, Written and provided courtesy Nowell Briscoe ( [email protected] )

WATERS BRISCOE

The late J. Preston Adams used a quote I think most apropos to our gathering today.  The quote read: “I believe the future is only the past entered through another gate.”  In order to see the future, we have to have known our past. Today’s cemetery tour is in part a look at how two major Monroe families began far in the past to help create a future for their families and the city where they lived. We begin at the grave of my relative, Waters Briscoe, who was instrumental in building the beautiful columned ante-bellum home with its welcoming veranda high on a plot of land not far from where we are, which took its name from where it stood, known as “The Hill”.  This dignified, stately structure was already serving as home to its first family when Atlanta was founded.  

(Click here for a photo of "The Hill", later known at the Selman Estate, photo taken in 1919)

        Waters Briscoe, one of Walton County’s pioneer settlers, was the son of Truman and Katherine Dunn Briscoe of Virginia.  He was a first honor graduate of one of the earliest classes of Franklin College, now the University of Georgia.  After receiving his diploma, he went to Columbia County to marry Martha Wellborn, the daughter of Elias and Mary Marshall Wellborn. Martha was a granddaughter of Rev. Daniel Marshall who, in the spring of 1772, established the first Baptist Church in Georgia at Kiokee Creek, 20 miles from Augusta. After their marriage the couple returned to Walton County to live.

        “The Hill” was built in 1832 and in the early years consisted of five rooms. Waters & Martha’s children were: Henry Lucillus, Walter Elias, and Mary Virginia who was born in the house in 1827 and later became the wife of George Cowan Selman.

When two of the cities earliest schools opened, The Female Academy on December 24, 1835 and the Monroe Academy on September 5, 1836, Waters Briscoe’s name was listed as a trustee of both institutions.