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| Map of Campbell County, Georgia....1830 |
Yesterday was one of those nice lazy days spent with family
and friends that you want to bookmark and remember for a very long time. We sat at my sister’s house under her lovely
portico and watched a steady stream of traffic coming and going from the Cotton
Pickin' Fair down at Gay, Georgia
Like many along the route Dear Sister had filled her front yard with
several odds and ends in hope that the fair goers would stop and load up on some
new found treasures.
We never actually made it down to the fair……
Who really needed to go all the way down to Gay when both
sides of the road in Dear Sister’s little crossroads of a community was filled
to capacity with crafts, odds and ends, signs that exclaimed boiled peanuts and
funnel cakes as well as any other item that could be sold. Seriously, if you could conceive it you
would have found it on the side of the road meandering south from Fayetteville
towards Gay, Georgia.
Of course, the draw for me wasn’t yard sale after yard sale. It had something to do with my niece being
town, something to do with getting to see the newest edition to the family as
well…..a sweet little baby boy. Then
there was the promises of the grilled feast my brother-in-law can produce….sitting
around with friends….and enjoying the down home locale where my sister and her
husband now make their home.
And what a home it is…...
I have to admit I’m drawn to Dear Sister’s home….a turn of the century house
with lots of character and hints of history that we have yet to discover. No, it’s not hard for me to cross the Chattahoochee River and head south
at all when that invite is extended.
Our route home was lit by the Supermoon. I swear we could have turned off the headlights
and still could have made our way home.
Wasn’t the moon beautiful….so big and bright?
We headed back into Douglas County along State Route 92, and
as we approached the four way crossing at Charlie’s Market I couldn’t help but
notice how bright the remaining features of the town of Campbellton were…..the
Methodist Church on my left with its old graves , the old Baptist Church
cemetery up the hill on my right along with Campbellton Lodge No. 76
F & AM which dates to 1848.
I made a silent wish
I could look up on that hill and see the old Campbell County Courthouse with
the moonlight bouncing off the window panes, but no matter how hard we wish
sometimes…..they just can’t come true.
The old courthouse was torn down many years ago.
As we zoomed across the river I turned back towards
Campbellton and noticed how the moonbeams lit up the river making a path right
through the middle of the water. I was
overcome with sadness at that moment….mourning the town that had been along the
banks of the Chattahoochee River , and I recalled a description Atlanta’s
esteemed historian Franklin Garrett had penned in his book Atlanta and Its Environs.
Garrett said, Old
Campbellton, upon its eminence overlooking the Chattahoochee with its brick
courthouse, masonic hall, academy, and ante-bellum homes gleaming through the
avenues of magnolia, myrtle, or cedar, were doomed. Most of its old families drifted off to
other places, including the newer railroad towns of Fairburn and Palmetto. Weeds rioted and choked neglected flower
gardens. Rows of comfortable homes,
once housing a population of some 1200, fell into decay. The Masonic Lodge Hall was deserted. For two decades the red brick courthouse
stood dark and silent the habitation of owls, bats, and ghostly memories of
better days, until it was mercifully dismantled. The names upon mossy tombstones in the
Methodist churchyard and the old Baptist cemetery are the only remainder of the
once flourishing and beautiful town, the site of which, since 1932, has been in
Fulton County.
So, how did Campbellton basically become a ghost town of
sorts? Here’s a little regarding how it
all played out……
Campbell Count was named for Colonel Duncan G.
Campbell. Part of Campbell’s claim to
fame is he helped to negotiate the Treaty of Indian Springs – the treaty where
the Creek Nation ceded a portion of their land including the land that would
become Campbell County.
If an initial settler in the area – Judge Walter T. Colquitt
– had gotten his way the county seat for Campbell County would have been
established on his property at Pumpkintown eight miles south down the river,
but an online
publication by the Chattahoochee Hills Historical Society states another judge – Francis Irwin – offered his
eight acres of undeveloped land [along the river]….with an added incentive for free lots for prospective builders and
inhabitants….
By 1829, establishment
of the county government began in earnest with the creation of a judicial
system and the appointment of James Black, Jesse Harris, Robert O. Beavers,
Thomas Moore, and Littleberry Watts as electoral commissioners and county
organizers….and by 1835, streets and lots in Campbellton were surveyed and [ready
for construction].
Eventually, the town would have a courthouse, doctor’s
office and pharmacy, academy, hotel, blacksmith, stores, lodge hall, post
office and many homes.
One of the homes I’ve pictured below….
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| The Latham Home....Campbellton, Georgia |
It’s known as the Latham Home and per this webpage it was built in the 1830s. You might remember it…I know I do. You could see it from Charlie’s Market . Built in the 1830s it faced Old Campbellton Fairburn Road which crossed the Chattahoochee via the ferry. Around 1958 the old road was closed and a new road was cut behind the home going to the new Chattahoochee Bridge (that we cross today).
In his book The
Courthouse and the Depot: The Architecture of Hope in an Age of
Despair Wilbur W. Caldwell discusses a Coweta County account that relates
in 1830, Samuel Keller moved from Newnan to Campbellton ‘lured by expectations’
of steamboats on the Chattahoochee River.
Yes! Steamboats!
Can you imagine?
Chattahoochee Hills History mentions there were high hopes for the rich loamy soil [ which did make the
area successful agriculturally, but] there
were also high hopes for the Chattahoochee to become a major transportation and
shipping channel in the region….but the river proved to be shallow and
difficult to navigate.
Caldwell also mentions something from a Troup County history
source that recalls in 1831 Colonel
Reuben Thompson brought a load of goods upriver from West Point to
Campbellton, but just the one trip
can be confirmed. The dream of a Chattahoochee navigable all the way up to Atlanta
persisted well into the second half of the twentieth century, but it was never
to be.
The death sentence for the town of Campbellton came about
per most sources when the Atlanta & West Point Railroad failed to be built
through Campbellton. The line went through
Fairburn, Georgia instead. Many local
sources state the citizens of Campbellton refused the railroad, but Caldwell
states, a quick look at the terrain ‘on
the banks of the Chattahoochee’ reveals some pretty rough country for railroad
building while the natural ridge at Fairburn is flat and inviting. Thus it seems unlikely that the opinions of
the citizens of Campbellton had much influence on the survey of the Atlanta and
West Point Railroad.
Even so…the loss of the railroad meant a slow death for
Campbellton over the next several years beginning in 1870 when as Caldwell
reports the citizens of Campbellton moved
to Fairburn in droves. One local account
relates Campbellton residents were dismantling their homes and moving them as
well. The town had close to 1200
citizens at its peak, but by 1860, only 239 white citizens still remained.
The original courthouse in
Campbellton was wooden, but was eventually replaced with a brick structure. The picture below was taken in 1914 after it
had been neglected for several years per this webpage.
A local man – Robert Cook – bought the
building and dismantled it. He used the
materials to build a barn on his property along Cedar Grove Road.
You might be asking yourself why I’m discussing a dead town
that lies on the Fulton County side of the river today, but back in 1828
Campbell County extended beyond the river into what is today Douglas
County. In fact, Douglas County was created from
Campbell County in 1870. You can read
more about that here.
Many of our county’s forefathers were
citizens of Campbell County long before they were citizens of Douglas
County.
The long forgotten town of Campbellton IS important to
Douglas County history…..it is our beginning.
