Irwin
County in central Georgia, is the state's forty-first county, created
in 1818 from land acquired from Creek Indians in 1814 by the Treaty
of Fort Jackson. The county, one of seven created by the state legislature
in 1818, once encompassed much more territory. Counties carved from
it were Lowndes and Thomas (1825), Worth (1853), Coffee (1854),
Berrien (1856), Wilcox (1857), Tift and Turner (1905), and Ben Hill
(1906). It was named for Jared Irwin, a governor of Georgia most
famous for rescinding the fraudulent Yazoo Act.
The
county was divided into sixteen land districts, each composed of
several hundred lots, in 1818. There were some settlers in the area,
most of them from other parts of the South, even before the county
was formed. Much of the land was virgin pine forest. Many of the
original settlers lived first by subsistence farming and hunting
and moved later into cattle ranching after establishing their homesteads.
Eventually, settlers produced cotton and fruit, as well as cattle,
for the market.
The county's most famous incident occurred during the Civil War (1861-65). Confederate president Jefferson Davis was captured a mile north of Irwinville, by Union forces, in 1865. The spot where he was surrounded is marked in the Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site, a thirteen-acre park that features a museum, hiking trail, and picnic facilities.
Contents |
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| Census | Cemeteries | Military |
| Land Owners | Historical Markers | Photo Album |
| Misc Records | Addresses | Look Ups |
| Surnames | Queries & Emails | |
Neighboring Counties |
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| Turner | Ben Hill | Coffee |
| Tift | Berrien | Atkinson |
