QUAKER-ROOTS-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: Wrightsborough MM, Georgia (Part 2)
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 22:57:28 -0600 (CST)

(continued)

In 1774 the Friends built a new meeting house. Their first had burned.
The second was of "heart pine, located in the middle of a buriel ground,
surrounded by cedar palings." No trace of it remains either, but Mrs. Baker
believes that it is on the Peter Knox property, between Maddock Creek and
U.S. 78, on the north side of the old Wrightboro-Augusta road. "There is a
graveyard with markers of roughly shaped pieces of fieldstone as well as a
number of conventional ones south of the road. There is still another
Quaker graveyard immediately beyond Middle Creek in a patch of pines.
In any event, the Quakers were faithful in their attendance at Meeting,
and indeed could be dismissed for not attending. Men sat at one side of
the room and women on the other, in silence, until an inner voice moved
them to speak. There were no hymns, collection, communion, nor baptism.
The length of the meeting was decided by a "timer". When he shook hands
with the person next to him, the meeting was ended.
Creek Indians continue to plague the settlers, so in 1774 Captain
Barnard of the Militia built a fort near Wrightsboro. It was commanded by
Captain Thomas White, he whose epitaph is in the Methodist Cemetery. Other
notables who served there were William and Henry Candler, Benjamin and
William Few (who signed the Constitution), and Hugh Rees. Another fort in
the heart of Wrightsboro was made of rock. Parts of it are still there.
"Then came the Revolutionary War," says Mrs. Baker, "and a severe test
of the Quakers' principle of non-violence. For the rebels were against
them because they wouldn't fight the British, the British because they
wouldn't fight the Americans, and the Indians hated them because they were
white."
Eventually the Quakers relaxed their rule against fighting to the extent
that, althogh men were dismissed from Meeting for it, they were accepted
again when the war was over, if they apologized before the Meeting and
confessed their misconduct.
During the winter of 1780-1781 Wrightsboro was attacked by raiders who
killed nearly 50 people, those most loyal to Britain, and burned out many
others, including Maddock and Sell. Governor Wright appointed several
companies of militia to defend Wrightsboro.
After the Treaty of Yorktown, the Americans confiscated British holdings
including 1,579 acres that Governor Wright owned in Wrightsboro.
For 10 years, except for Indian trouble, things went fairly well for the
Quakers; then three things happened. There was an influx of new settlers,
Baptists and Methodists, and the Quakers became uneasy lest their their
children would adopt the newcomers' manners and customs. Then in 1793 Eli
Whitney invented the cotton gin.
Up to that time tobacco had been the Quakers' most important export
crop. The labor required to grow and process cotton made it expensive. In
1795 the total U.S. crop amounted to under 30,000 bales valued at 30 cents
a pound. With the invention of the gin, everyone purchase slaves to
cultivate the crops - in 1805 production had soared to over 300,000 bales
- everyone but the Quakers who wouldn't own slaves.
Completely disillusioned, the Quakers began a gradual exodus from
Wrightsboro to the middle west: Illinois, Ohio, Iowa - President Hoover
was born in West Branch, Iowa. Henry Jones, the 300-pound saddler, was the
first to go in 1785. Francis Jones, an 80-year old patriarch, left in a
caravan of about 40 families. He was very ill and was carried through the
Cherokee nation on a litter by Indians who noticed his Quaker garb and
called him "one of Penn's men."
Some Quakers, however, could not give up their Georgia ties. They
stayed and, renouncing their faith, entered into the life of the town, now
one of the most prosperous in the area. It was incorporated in February
16, 1799, the official order reading, "all that tract of land consisting
of 1,000 acres which was ordered to be surveyed by Governor Wright and
Council on February 7, 1769." Joel Cloud, a one-time Quaker, was one of
the four new commissioners.
Now Wrightsboro entered a new phase of its existence. A thousand people
lived in or near it. A church was established, first interdenominational,
then Methodist. The present white-clapboard building was erected in 1810,
the second oldest country church.
In the next 35 years a number of industries were started in and around
town, including a woolen mill on Carson's Creek, a stagecoach inn on the
site of the present Pannell-Turner home, and two Academies. All are gone.
Only the girls' dormitory of one of the Academies remains and is occupied
by the Bryant Hunts.
The start of Wrightsboro's end was in 1833 when the Georgia Railroad was
begun from Augusta to inland Georgia. It was routed through the hamlet of
Thomson instead of Wrightsboro, because some of Wrightsboro's leading
citizens objected to it.
The Civil War dealt the town another blow. Many of its young men were
killed or disabled, and the aging people left were unable to work the
crops. After the War came Reconstruction with exorbitant taxes costing
many persons their farms. Roving bands of ex-slaves plundered everything.
In 1867 there were fewer people in the district than in 1800.
The decline continued. Without slaves to work the farms, the people
moved to Thomson or went west. In 1870 there were 1,768 men and women in
Wrightsboro district, in 1930 there were 1,022. In 1965 there are only
about 75. The post office was closed with the advent of Rural Free
Delivery, the cotton gin burned in 1922, and the schools vanished with
consolidation in the same year.
Today nothing remains but a few old post-Quaker houses. One is the
Hunt house, another the Pannell house, now occupied by Captain J. J.
Turner. A third is the oldest in town, the Hawes' house built in 1815
and occupied by Mrs. Ethel Hawes and Mrs. Thomas McBrayer, her daughter.
There is also the home of Mrs. Hattie McCorkle, and the Hal Lowes, a Negro
family, live next door to the church. One of the loveliest houses is a
few miles out of town on the Liberty Hill Church Road, the George McCord
place, an ante-bellum type home.
"It was the Quakers, however," says Mrs. Baker, "who gave Wrightsboro
its grace and distinction. I somehow feel that if they could have stayed,
the town might not have declined. The had great foresight as well as high
moral courage. Even today their example, I believe, inspires us. When
we hear the words, 'A Quaker', I think we all have an image of a person
of great moral strength and grace."
This is one of the reasons for the Wrightsboro Quaker Community
Foundation, a reminder that these qualities are still possible.

____________________________________________________________________________

Hope you have enjoyed this tour of Wrightsborough (Wrightsboro). I descend
from several of the prominent families there: Hodgin, Williams, Embree, and
Vernon. Visiting the area, I found that not all the goals of the Foundation
were accomplished. They did restore the Old Rock House and built a model of
an old quaker dwelling in Wrightsboro proper. The records have not been
collected and centralized as planned but reside in the files of the Historic
Society in Thomson, now in an old railroad station. The cemetery has been
cleared, but the stones were not repaired. You really have to know what you
are looking for to find it. Still it is worth seeing. It is very pretty
country.

Best Wishes, Bruce Wood

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