Category Archives: –FORSYTH COUNTY GA–

Poole’s Mill Covered Bridge, 1901, Forsyth County

Cherokee chieftain George Welch built a mill near this site circa 1820 and built an uncovered bridge sometime thereafter. As a result of the Cherokee removal in 1838 the land was sold to Jacob Scudder. In 1880, it was purchased by Dr. M. L. Poole. The original bridge washed away in 1899 and was replaced with this covered bridge in 1901. The builder, Bud Gentry, built it in the Town lattice design, common among Georgia’s covered bridges. The mill was abandoned in 1946 and burned in 1959.

After periods of disrepair, the structure was converted from private ownership and dedicated as a county park in 1997. It is a free site and a wonderfully maintained park.

National Register of Historic Places

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Settingdown Creek, Forsyth County

Nice views of Settingdown Creek, an historic tributary of the Etowah River can be had from Poole’s Mill Park. The name of the creek is officially Settingdown, but variants over time include Settendown [most commonly], and Sitting Down. In his landmark book, Georgia Place Names, Kenneth Krakow wrote: [It] was called this because [Chief Setten Down] allowed some of the white settlers to “set down” and live peaceably near his village. The village called Settendown was located on this stream, four miles northwest of Cumming.

Little is known of the creek’s Cherokee namesake, Chief Setten Down. According to the book Cry of the Eagle: History and Legends of the Cherokee Indians and their Buried Treasure by Forest C. Wade: He had a home on the south side of Settendown Creek in the present Matt community about one mile from Matt on the Matt and Cumming Highway. The chief was named after the creek on which he lived. Chief Settendown had three sons. Two were named Nickel and Tassel Sucker, and the name of the third is yet to be discovered by the author…The chief and his group were one of the many small tribes that comprised the whole of the Hightower Indians.

General Store, Chestatee

This was a crossroads store at one time, I believe. It’s one of just a few rural resources of this type remaining in Forsyth County, the fastest growing in Georgia over the past decade.