Smith's Telfair County Sketch

Source: Smith, George Gillman. The Story of Georgia and the Georgia People, 1732 to 1860. Macon, Ga.: The author, 1900. pp. 290-93

TELFAIR.

Telfair was formed from Wilkinson in 1807, and named for Edward Telfair. We have, in our account of Montgomery county, drawn a picture of Telfair. In all this region known as the pine-barrens there was so much general resemblance, that the impression that there was no difference in the land where pine trees grew was a common one with those who did not know better; but this was quite an error. The great pine belt was in that geological formation known as Quaternary, and a small part in what was known in Georgia as the rotten limestone country and by the old geologists as the Tertiary, where there are many fossils. Much of the pine land near the coast consisted of barren sand dunes, and is now, and probably always will be, worthless, and much that might have been produced well is too flat for drainage; but in Montgomery and Telfair and the adjoining counties there is a large body of pine land high and dry, with a good foundation of yellow clay, where the water is pure and free of lime. This land is not naturally fertile, and when manured does not hold its fertility; but by liberal fertilizing it can be made to produce largely. The Scotch immigrants of America (Scotchmen from North Carolina) saw the worth of these lands, and, as they cost but a trifle, they secured large bodies of them and built up good homes. Much of this land, however, was not taken up by home-seekers, but by speculators who secured the titles to it for a very small price. It was thought to be worthless; and many of those who drew lots would not pay the five-dollar fee demanded for a plot and grant. The speculators took this reverted land for the price of the warrant, and secured the title. They then put the lands on the market. There were not a few lots which were held under forged deeds, and innocent people were inveigled into the purchase of lands which were worthless, or for which the seller had no title. A company of Maine lumbermen, who thought they saw large possibilities in lumbering in Georgia and in working up the pine forests of the South, bought from the real owners who had bought them from the State, for an insignificant sum, many thousand acres of land in Telfair and the adjoining counties. They paid for the land, and received good titles to it. They built large sawmills on the Ocmulgee river, and founded a city which was called Lumber City. The venture was not successful, and they abandoned the country. They held to their deeds, however, and paid the trifling taxes which were demanded. The mills rotted down. The lands were unoccupied, and were taken possession of, in many cases, by land thieves. They sold the lots to bona-fide purchasers and gave bogus titles. In some cases the lots were sold for taxes and bought in good faith; and, in blissful ignorane that the Maine company existed, these simple-hearted purchasers took possession of the lands and improved them. They never dreamed that the Maine company had any successor or representatives. For decades of years matters went on in this way, until after the war, when the great lumber firm of W. E. Dodge & Co. appeared on the scene and presented titles to the land, which were recognized as good, and presented tax receipts which showed that the tax sales had been illegal. They demanded that the owners should vacate their holdings. There was much litigation, and men were ejected from their homes by violence, and in turn there was murder and lawless proceedings against the agents of strangers. The courts came in; false titles were exposed, and blood-stained criminals were punished by lifelong imprisonment in distant prisons. There was, of course, a great deal of the county not involved in these troubles, and the railways opened it up; the turpentine and lumber men came in, and few sections of the State have developed so rapidly as this section of the once despised pine-barren of Telfair.

The lots of land were large—490 acres in a lot, and a lot of land was often sold for twenty dollars. The result was the securing of large bodies of land by comparatively poor men, who relied upon the wild pastures for feeding their cattle, and upon a small area of well-fertilized land for their breadstuffs.

Montgomery, Telfair and Tattnall were all peopled in the main by thrifty Scotch people, and cattle- and sheep-raising was the great industry. And in no part of Georgia was there a better type of people than in these pine forests. These people had the virtues and the vices of the Scotch. They were clannish and somewhat narrow, and many of them were too fond of whisky; but they were plain and honest, and shrewd and religious. The school was found in every section; but the county was thinly peopled, and kirks of their fatherland were few and often remote, and so many of the Scotch Presbyterians became Methodists and Baptists. The Methodists had missionaries and camp-meetings and organized churches among them at an early day, and built up quite a church from the descendants of the Highlanders.

The population of Telfair in 1810 was only 526 whites and 288 slaves; in 1820 it was 1,571 whites and 561 slaves. Twenty years later it was 2,396 whites and 831 slaves. These slaves were almost entirely confined to a few plantations on the river, where there was sometimes a large number, amounting to scores, on a plantation.

The first settlers were: Jos. Williams, A. Graham, D. Graham, John Wilcox, Thos. Wilcox, G. Mizell, A. McLeod, Robert Boyd, Moses Rountree, James Mooney, Wright Ryall, McDuffie, J. A. Rogers, N. Ashley, C. Ashley, John Coffee, W. Ashley, A. Brewer, J. Herbert, S. Herbert, J. MacCrea, Duncan MacCrea, O. Butler, Lachlin Leslie.

Of these the Ashleys, Coffees, Brewers and Rogers were English, and had large plantations on the river. The others were pure Scotch.

The Southern railway passes through Telfair and the steamboats ply the river.

The people of Telfair always valued education, and the country school was in every neighborhood from the first settlement. They were, however, a poor, plain people and were content with the elements of an English education; but as the railroad came the desire for better culture was developed, and high schools were established, and in McRae there is a collegiate institute known as the South Georgia College, which is quite a flourishing school and is doing much for higher education.