Columbia County, Georgia: History
Columbia County, the 12th county formed in Georgia, was created by an act of the Legislature of Georgia on December 10, 1790, from Richmond County.
This area along the Savannah River had been inhabited for thousands of years by various cultures of indigenous peoples. The area had been home to the historic Muscogee-speaking Creek; Yuchi, people speaking a language isolate; and Iroquoian-speaking Cherokee for years prior to European colonization. The Yuchi had moved south from Tennessee because of pressure from the Cherokee, who continued to move into the Piedmont and soon dominated the Native American tribes. One of the oldest archaeological sites in the nation to contain pottery can be found on Stallings Island.
During the Colonial era, settlement of what would become Columbia County occurred primarily due to colonists settling at the second city in Georgia, Augusta, located on the Fall Line. When the British Province of Georgia became a crown colony in 1755 and was divided into parishes, the area around Augusta became St. Paul's Parish. The primary areas of settlement were Augusta; Wrightsboro (a Quaker settlement named for James Wright, the royal governor); and Brownsborough, which was near the present-day location of North Columbia Elementary School.
Because the Church of England was the established church in the province, it was against the law for anyone to preach contrary to its doctrines. Influenced by the Great Awakening in New England, in 1772 Daniel Marshall established Kiokee Baptist Church, the first Baptist church in Georgia. The church was located below Brownsborough along the Kiokee Creek in present-day Appling. Born in Connecticut, Marshall had been raised as a Presbyterian. He had become a Baptist and preached in the Carolinas before coming to Georgia, where he was arrested. Baptist preachers and their converts continued to flourish, and in Virginia their influence helped shape the young James Madison's ideas on religious freedom, which he incorporated into the new Constitution. Marshall later served in the militia during the American Revolutionary War. During the 19th century and the Second Great Awakening, the Baptists became well established in Georgia and other southern states. The Baptists offered congregational participation to slaves and approved them and free blacks as preachers, leading to the growth in black membership in the church.
Two small battles occurred in what would become the county during the Revolutionary War between Patriot Militia and Tories; the area was then primarily frontier and loyalties were badly divided. Legend has it that a small band of Patriots sought refuge from marauding Tories at the county's most dramatic geological feature, Heggie's Rock. One of these fights occurred on September 11, 1781, between the forces of Elijah Clarke and a band of Tories and British Regular soldiers.
George Walton, the Virginia-born statesman who signed the Declaration of Independence, resided in what would become Columbia County, as did William Few and Abraham Baldwin. They were delegates to the Federal Convention that framed the United States Constitution. …