The dead towns of Georgia

by Jr. Charles C. Jones

Near the close of a spring day in 1776 Mr. William Bartram, who, at the request of Dr. Fothergill, of London, had been for some time carefully studying the flora of Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, forded Broad river just above its confluence with the Savannah, and became the guest of the commanding officer at Fort James. This fort,—which he describes as “a four-square stockade with saliant bastions at each angle, mounted with a block-house, where are some swivel guns, one story higher than the curtains which are pierced with loop-holes, breast-high, and defended by small arms,”—was situated on an eminence in the forks of the Savannah and Broad, equidistant from those rivers and from the extreme point of land formed by their union.

Fort Charlotta was located about a mile below on the left bank of the Savannah.

The stockade of Fort James was an acre in extent. Within this enclosure were a substantial house for the commandant, officers’ quarters, and barracks for the garrison, consisting of fifty rangers well mounted, and armed each with a rifle, two dragoon pistols, a hanger, a powder horn, a shot pouch, and a tomahawk.[252]

For a distance of two miles the peninsula above the fort was laid out for a town called Dartmouth in honor of the Earl who had exerted his influence in procuring from the King a grant and special privileges in favor of the Indian Trading Company of Georgia. For the defense of the territory known as the New Purchase, had this fort been erected and maintained.

Dartmouth never realized the expectations which, in its infancy, had been formed for it. After a short and feeble existence it gave place to Petersburg which, during the tobacco culture in Georgia, attracted to itself a considerable population and was regarded as a place of no little commercial importance.

For the convenience of the early settlers of Eastern-Middle Georgia, Dionysius Oliver was, on the 3rd of February, 1786, authorized by the Legislature[253] to erect a warehouse on his land, lying in the fork between the Savannah and Broad rivers, for the inspection and storage of tobacco. With the location of this warehouse dates the commencement of the town of Petersburg.

The cultivation of tobacco was then enlisting the attention of many planters. In the lower counties of the State the production of silk had ceased to be remunerative, and the tillage and manipulation of indigo had not yielded the profits anticipated.

Cotton was little grown. Many of the early inhabitants of the present counties of Elbert, Lincoln, Wilkes, and Oglethorpe, came from Virginia and brought with them not only a love for the weed, but a high appreciation of tobacco as an article of prime commercial value. The virgin lands of this region were found well adapted to its cultivation: and, as a consequence, this plant grew rapidly into general favor and proved the staple commodity or market crop of the farmers. As the existing laws of the State forbade its exportation without previous inspection and the payment of specified fees, it became necessary to establish public warehouses at convenient points where the inspection and storage of this article could be had. No hogshead or cask of tobacco could be shipped which did not bear the stamp of some “lawful inspector.”[254] These inspectors were required to give bond for the faithful performance of their duties, and it was made obligatory upon them to attend continuously at their respective warehouses from the first of October to the first of August in each year. It was their duty carefully to inspect, weigh, receipt for, and stamp each hogshead delivered at the warehouse. The hogshead or cask was “not to exceed forty-nine inches in length, and thirty-one inches in the raising head.” Its weight, when packed, was to be not less than nine hundred and fifty pounds nett. It was not customary in those primitive days to transport these hogsheads upon wagons. Vehicles of all sorts were scarce. The hogshead or cask being made strong and tight, and having been stoutly coopered, was furnished with a temporary axle and shaft, to which a horse was attached. By this means was it trundled to market or to the public warehouse. Water courses also were freely taken advantage of for the conveyance of tobacco. The location of this public warehouse at the confluence of the Broad and Savannah rivers proved most acceptable to the tillers of the soil in this rich region, and speedily attracted merchants who, there fixing their homes, became purchasers of the tobacco when inspected, and in return sold to the planters such supplies as they needed.

Petersburg soon assumed the proportions of a respectable village. It was regularly laid off in town lots, with convenient streets intersecting each other at right angles. The tobacco warehouses and shops were located as near the point formed by the confluence of the rivers as the nature of the ground and the liability to overflow would permit. The residences were situated above, and occupied lots, each about three quarters of an acre in extent.

In 1797 William Watkins secured from the Legislature[255] the right to establish upon his lots,—35 and 37,—in the town of Petersburg, an extensive warehouse for the inspection and storage of tobacco.