This granite and bronze monument is located just south of Parrott, but you’d be hard-pressed to find it unless you were really looking. The bronze plaque is pockmarked with bullet holes and access is via a very small culvert off a busy highway. I had to pull a few weeds away just to get the photographs.
It was erected by the Stone Castle Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1936, which was 99 years after the date of 1827 given for the existence of the village.
Information on Chenube is scarce, but it is linked permanently with the history of Parrott. According to a genealogy page focused on the Parrott family, “In 1834 James purchased 815 acres of land in what was then Randolph County and was called by the Indian village name Chenube...” An 1887 issue of the Dawson News referred to the community as Chenubia.
The indigenous people of the area were under constant threat by the growing numbers of White settlers taking over their lands. On 27 July 1836, the Battle of Echowaynochaway Creek, the last known engagement between the Creek people and the Randolph County settlers took place nearby. Three White men and eighteen Creek died in the engagement.
Traveler’s Rest was built upon land granted to Major Jesse Walton in 1785 for his service in the Revolutionary War. Walton was killed by indigenous people near this site in 1789. The Walton family sold the land to Gen. James Rutherford Wyly (1782-1855), who built the original section of the house between 1816-1825. The property was purchased by Devereaux Jarrett (1785-1852) in 1838. Jarrett expanded the original structure to ten rooms. He opened it to the public as an inn, trading post, and post office, to meet the needs of a growing population made possible by the Unicoi Turnpike, an early public road in the area. Among its early guests was G. W. Featherstonehaugh, and English scientist who served as the first geologist for the U. S. government and a surveyor of the Louisiana Purchase.
This 1934 photograph by Branan Sanders for the Historic American Buildings Survey shows Traveler’s Rest looking much as it does today, albeit a bit overgrown. Courtesy Library of Congress.
It was known as Jarrett Manor during that family’s ownership. Notably, the last owner, Mary Jarrett White (1870-1957), was the first woman in Georgia to vote. The site is open, with limited hours, as a state historic site today.
Richard B. Russell Lake, called Lake Russell by locals, has the most natural appearance of the three large lakes impounded by the Army Corps of Engineers on the Savannah River along the Georgia-South Carolina border. While all the lakes serve the dual purpose of flood control and hydropower creation, Richard B. Russell has restrictive covenants that prevent the construction of homes along its shoreline, unlike Lake Hartwell to the north and Lake Strom Thurmond to the south. As a result, it is a more pristine environment and an unusual recreational location in Georgia.
Originally conceived as Trotters Shoals Lake in 1966, it was authorized by the Flood Control Act. The name was later changed to memorialize the recently deceased U. S. Senator Richard B. Russell. Historic sites ranging in time from the last Ice Age to the time of the lake’s construction were inundated during the filling process, and about 68 of the 600 identified sites were documented. This work has been covered in two books, Beneath These Waters, Archeological and Historical Studies of 11,500 Years Along the Savannah River and In Those Days: African-American Life Near the Savannah River.
The lake is approximately 26,650 acres in size and levels do not fluctuate more than five feet in optimum conditions. The average maximum depth is approximately 167 feet. This is another distinction from neighboring Lake Hartwell and Lake Strom Thurmond.
Wright Avenue, the heart of downtown Roberta. The Benjamin Hawkins monument is in the foreground. The two-story building at left was the Crawford County Bank and the Bank of Roberta from 1900-1928 and the post office from 1929-1962.
When the Atlanta & Florida Railway bypassed Knoxville in 1888, opting to build a depot about a mile away, the settlement of Roberta began. It was originally known as New Knoxville, after the county seat. When Hiram David McCrary (1847-1912) and James Mathews gave the right of way for the railroad, McCrary, who was also an active entrepreneur, was allowed to choose a name for it. He chose Roberta, in honor of his daughter*. *-Mattie Roberta McCrary Champion (1881-1977)
General Store, circa 1890s. In 1922, it became the R. E. Bankston Store.
The old Bankston Store is a great example of restoration. It’s located adjacent to the bank/post office building.
Roberta Drugs (I found the photo). This is the oldest operating business in Roberta.
The corner entrance was a popular commercial style in the early 20th century.
East Agency Street, named for the Creek Agency headquartered here in the days of Benjamin Hawkins.
I made these photos a few years ago, so some of these business have been repainted. For a small town, Roberta does a good job of maintaining its historic commercial structures and still uses them all, as best I can see. I don’t encounter that in many places.
West Agency Street
Roberta Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
There isn’t much left of the “ghost town” of Hartford. This abandoned building, which was either a store or part of the agribusiness endeavor located next door, is, along with a church, the only evidence of a settlement here. But that isn’t the whole story.
In Georgia’s early days, after lands along the Ocmulgee River were opened to white settlement, the village of Hartford was one of two locations suggested to replace Louisville as the state capital. It was named for Nancy Hart, years before the establishment of Hart County. Milledgeville ultimately won the distinction, largely due to its more central location, but Hartford grew as a result of this attention and after a brief association with Laurens County, became the seat of government of the newly formed county of Pulaski.
It was a crossroads for many of the earliest roads leading south from Milledgeville and west from the coast. Several forts, including Fort Mitchell and Fort Greene, were built nearby to expel Native Americans who had lived in the area for centuries. Andrew Jackson even made camp at Hartford for a week in 1818, during his ongoing campaign against the Seminole nation.
Eventually, the need for higher ground west of the river led to the formation of Hawkinsville, and it became the county seat in 1836.
Near this location on the Sansavilla Bluff* of the lower Altamaha River, circa 1737, it is believed that Coosaponakeesa operated a trading post in proximity to an early frontier garrison of Georgia Rangers known as Fort Mount Venture. Coosaponakeesa, known by her English name, Mary Musgrove (c. 1700-c.1763), was the most important woman in the early history of the colony, her assistance to General Oglethorpe integral to its very existence. Her English and Creek heritage uniquely positioned her for work as a translator and entrepreneur, bridging the gap between the Native American world and European settlers. Andrew K. Frank suggests…As Pocahontas was to the Jamestown colony and Sacagawea was to the Lewis and Clark expedition, so was Musgrove to the burgeoning Georgia colony.
“Angel” Tree at Williamsburg Landing
Native American history is an evolving field and new discoveries continue to alter and improve long-held narratives. While they may seem contradictory, I have linked various sources in this post, to show the changing scholarship. I encourage you to visit them for more information.
Tomochichi (c.1644-1739) was the mico, or chief, of the Yamacraw Indians at the time of the colonization of Georgia by James Oglethorpe in 1733. His cooperation with the British made the creation of modern Georgia possible. In 1735, he accompanied Oglethorpe to England to report on the progress of the colony and was received as an ally and representative of all native people of the colony.
Tomochichi was already an old man when Georgia was colonized and he died on 5 February 1739. His life was honored by a British military funeral and his grave originally marked with a pyramid of stones. A more permanent monument, the large boulder pictured here, was placed in Wright Square by the Georgia Society of Colonial Dames in 1899.
View of Rock Eagle effigy mound from observation tower
Rock Eagle is often cited as one of the great wonders of Georgia, yet it remains largely a mystery. Irby Hudson Scott acquired the land after the 1802 treaty with the Creek Indians and his family never farmed the area near the effigy, before selling it to the federal government in 1938. The first known published reference to the mound was made in 1854 by Reverend George White in his Historical Collections of Georgia. In the 1878 Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, C. C. Jones referred to it as the Scott Eagle Mound, in a detailed description of his research at the site. The most recent scholarship places construction of the site at 1500-500 years ago, but dating a place like this is an evolving process. There isn’t even agreement that it’s an eagle. Some have suggested that it represents a vulture. The image of a bird with open wings has been found on many Mississippian artifacts, religious objects, and petroglyphs, and while Rock Eagle is likely of the Woodland period, the influence continued.
Another large bird effigy mound consisting of milky white quartz, known as Rock Hawk, is located nearby. A third effigy mound, known as the Pressley [Presley] Mound or Mound No. 3, was identified on a map of these sites made by C. C. Jones in the 1870s. Now lost to insensitive excavation, it was located on the Eatonton-Godfrey Road.
In June 1940, the Georgia Society of Colonial Dames of the XVII Century erected a bronze plaque on a slab of Georgia granite, between the parking lot and the effigy. It reads: Rock Eagle Mound – Mound of Prehistoric Origin. Believed to be Ceremonial Mound. Made with white quartz rocks in the shape of an eagle. Head turned to east. Length 102 feet. Spread of wings 120 feet. Depth of breast 8 feet. Only two such configurations discovered East of the Mississippi River. Both in Putnam County. “Tread softly here white man, for long ere you came, strange races lived, fought and loved.”
In 1936, Works Progress Administration archaeologist Martin Cromer dug exploratory trenches around the mound and found little more than pottery shards and daub. At the time, Rock Eagle was likely in a condition similar to present-day Rock Hawk. By 1938, Cromer restored the effigy to measurements and specifications made by C. C. Jones in 1877.
The tower is a landmark unto itself. Along with the parking lot, fence, and walkway, it was built in 1938.
Some of the most important excavations done at the site were completed in 1954 by Dr. Vincenzo Petrullo and Dr. A. R. Kelly, who recovered burned and unburned human and animal remains, as well as a single quartz point. This research suggested evidence of a prehistoric presence at the site, but unfortunately, the artifacts are lost today.
The Rock Eagle 4-H Center opened in 1955, and has undoubtedly hosted tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of students over its 70 year history.
As a ceremonial site, Rock Eagle is sacred to Native Americans. The University of Georgia is committed to its perpetual preservation and it is open year-round and with no admission cost. The surrounding property is some of the most beautiful and unspoiled in the region.
The tiny sliver of land visible on the horizon in this image is Creighton Island, a wonderfully obscure place on the McIntosh County coast.
The abridged sketch which follows, archived from an older website, was written by Jeannine Cook and details the island’s fascinating history.
Creighton Island is a privately-owned, inner barrier island in McIntosh County… It was formed by aeons of rising and falling ocean levels combined with ever-changing deposits of sand ridges. The roughly 1,100 acres of high ground on Creighton date mainly from the Pleistocene era (40,000 B.C.), but are still being shaped afresh by wind, waves, tides and storms. Today, the island is roughly 2 1/2 miles long and a mile wide.
Creighton bears testimony to human activities during at least the last 3,500-4000 years. Archaeologist Clarence B. Moore uncovered important funerary materials – urns, stone and copper chisels, hatchets…- on Creighton’s north end in 1896-97. It is said that the Guale Indians considered the north end of the Island as a very sacred burial ground. Later, it is possible that the first European colony on the eastern seaboard of North America, San Miguel de Gualdape, took brief root on Creighton in 1526 when Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon tried to establish 600 Spanish and African settlers on this coast. By 1756, Daniel Demetre had acquired “John Smith’s Island”, as Creighton was then designated. In the 1770s, William DeBrahm, Surveyor General to King George III, noted the existence of unexplainable entrenchments and ruins on the Island. The mysteries DeBrahm created about Creighton have lingered to this day.
The Island acquired its present name from its 1778 owner, Alexander Creighton, a Savannah businessman. Timbering and farming (especially cotton, sugar cane and corn) were important activities, despite occasional devastating hurricanes…Thomas Spalding worked with his son-in-law, William Cooke, owner of Creighton after 1838, and during that period, tabby dwellings were built at the north end. Their vestiges remain today. Freed slaves, based at the north end, remained on the Island after the Civil War. The north end was also a focus of important timber-loading facilities for large ships at the “Sapelo port” in 1880-98, complete with US post office and telegraph lines connecting Creighton to Darien. The 1898 hurricane destroyed these port facilities; they were rebuilt but by 1910, the timber boom era in McIntosh County had finally ended. In 1947, Creighton Island was acquired by the present owners…
…The Island’s long, diverse history combines with great natural beauty to represent a unique microcosm of Georgia’s coast. Today’s owners deeply respect the environmental importance of their island sanctuary…
Known locally as “The Boils”, this natural Eden is an oxbow of House Creek, a tributary of the Ocmulgee River near the Wilcox-Ben Hill County line, which has been protected by the Fuller family for the better part of two centuries. There are several other well-known boils in this area, including Oscewicee [pronounced ossi-witchy] Springs and Lake Wilco. None of these are open or accessible to the public, though Oscewicee Springs once was. Elizabeth Sizemore recalls another site north of The Boils, Poor Robin Springs near Abbeville.
In South Georgia, the term “boils” is commonly used to describe natural springs found in creeks, rivers, oxbows, and swamps. Water rises rapidly from an underground fissure and appears to be bubbling or boiling. With an average temperature of 68-70°F year-round, unaffected by the air temperature, they are warm in winter and famously cold in summer.
Native Americans would have been the first humans to appreciate these mystical places, using them in much the same ways we use them today. They were likely sacred to the tribes who knew them, both for their beauty and their unique qualities when compared to other aspects of the nearby terrain.
One of their most appealing features is the clear water which gives them a blue appearance, looking more like a tropical sea than a Coastal Plains swamp. Since tea-colored or muddy waters are the norm in these parts, they really stand out. I have treasured memories of swimming in these places as a young man, especially on holidays when we’d float watermelons near the sides to keep them cool.
In the 1940s, biologist Brooke Meanley did fieldwork here, some of which eventually appeared in his book, Swamps, River Bottoms & Canebrakes. Local farmer and naturalist Milton Hopkins and renowned woodcarver C. M. Copeland were also regular visitors for many years, welcomed enthusiastically by “Uncle Guy” Fuller. Hopkins made detailed observations on local birdlife and C. M. Copeland ventured into the surrounding swamps and collected cypress knees to use in his carvings.
The site was documented by David Stanley for the American Folklife Center circa 1977, as well. Some of his notes and images can be found in the Library of Congress.
Ken Fuller
I’m grateful to Ken Fuller for allowing me to photograph this incredibly special place and to share it with you. My father and I really enjoyed our last visit here, as we do all our visits with Ken and family.
We saw some amazing trees.
This view from the House Creek “side” of The Boils, along with Ken’s lifelong memories of the place, was ample reward for our hike.
