Carters and Johnsons to Attend Appling County Fair-- Rev. Silas Johnson of Americus, and Paul Carter of Marianna, Fla., Will Make Addresses.

The contest between the Carter and Johnson families to see which can register the largest number of individual members on Carter-Johnson day at the Appling County Fair Friday, November 4th, is arousing much interest throughout South Ga. Much little known local history is being unearthed as the old timers ransack their memories to recall all the connection by blood and marriage.
As these families have been in the county since the beginning of things, and various members have gone for away following the turpentine industry Southward and Westward, the folks at home are all urging the distant kin to come back to the fair, and uphold the prestige of the name. Already, responses are being received from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Rev. Silas Johnson is pastor of the First Methodist Church in Americus, and Hon. Paul Carter of Marianna, Fla., will attend the fair on Carter-Johnson day and both men will make talks to their tribes.

PIONEERS OF THE TALLASSEE STRIP

An old state map shows Carter's Cowpens as the only settlement in Tallassee strip, and there is no other dot between Hartford, now Hawkinsville, and Brunswick.
David Carter came from South Carolina, stopping a while in Tattnall, and located in Appling while the territory was still held by the Creeks. He built his cow pens near the present W. H. Padgett farm, but his slaves murdered him and ran away because of their fear of the Indians. Soon after the Lottery of 1820 which divided South Georgia between the Altamaha and the Chattahoochee into the counties of Appling, Irwin and Early, other Carters came from South Carolina and four Johnson brothers who had landed at Baltimore from Scotland and worked their way leisurely South through the Carolinas also crossed the Altmaha and settled in Appling.
The Carters and Johnsons multiplied and replenished the earth at a marvelous rate and their ramifications extend all over the Wiregrass country. As Appling was divided time after time the kinnery was all cut off in the new counties, but those who stayed in Appling were not less productive than their ancestors and the present county is full of them.

ORIGINAL APPLING CUT UP

Original Appling is now cut up in portions of Wayne, Brantley, Coffee, Pierce, Charlton, Jeff Daivs, Ware, Bacon and Clinch. The old county extended from the Altamaha to the Florida line from Goose Creek to Blackshear's Ford, and Carters and Johnsons were scattered all over it.

Baxley News Banner 6 October 1921

Submitted by Sharon Broward Davis