Tag: Macon GA

Wikipedia says: Macon, officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in Georgia, United States. Situated near the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is 85 miles (137 km) southeast of Atlanta and near the state’s geographic center—hence its nickname “The Heart of Georgia”.

History

Macon was founded on the site of the Ocmulgee Old Fields, where the Creek Indians lived in the 18th century. Their predecessors, the Mississippian culture, built a powerful agriculture-based chiefdom (950–1100 AD). The Mississippian culture constructed earthwork mounds for ceremonial, religious, and burial purposes. Indigenous peoples inhabited the areas along the Southeast’s rivers for 13,000 years before Europeans arrived.

Macon was developed at the site of Fort Benjamin Hawkins, built in 1809 at President Thomas Jefferson’s direction after he forced the Creek to cede their lands east of the Ocmulgee River. (Archeological excavations in the 21st century found evidence of two separate fortifications.) The fort was named for Benjamin Hawkins, who served as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southeast territory south of the Ohio River for more than 20 years, had lived among the Creek, and was married to a Creek woman. Located at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, the fort established a trading post with Native peoples at the river’s most inland point navigable from the Low Country.

Fort Hawkins guarded the Lower Creek Pathway, an extensive and well-traveled American Indian network that the U.S. government later improved as the Federal Road, linking Washington, D.C., to the ports of Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana. Used for trading with the Creek, the fort also was used by state militia and federal troops. It was a major military distribution point during the War of 1812 and the Creek War of 1813. After the wars, it was a trading post and garrisoned troops until 1821. Decommissioned around 1828, it later burned to the ground. A replica of the southeast blockhouse was built in 1938 and stands on an east Macon hill. Fort Hawkins Grammar School occupied part of the site. In the 21st century, archeological excavations have revealed more of the fort, increasing its historical significance, and led to further reconstruction planning for this major historical site.

With the arrival of more settlers, Fort Hawkins was renamed “Newtown”. After Bibb County’s organization in 1822, the city was chartered as the county seat in 1823 and officially named Macon, in honor of Nathaniel Macon, a statesman from North Carolina, from where many early Georgia residents hailed. City planners envisioned “a city within a park” and created a city of spacious streets and landscapes. Over 250 acres (1.0 km2) were dedicated for Central City Park, and ordinances required residents to plant shade trees in their front yards.

Because of the beneficial local Black Belt geology and the availability of slave labor, cotton became the mainstay of Macon’s early economy. The city’s location on the Ocmulgee River aided initial economic expansion, providing shipping access to new markets. Cotton steamboats, stagecoaches, and the 1843 arrival of the railroad increased marketing opportunities and contributed to Macon’s economic prosperity.

Macon’s growth had other benefits. In 1836, the Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church chose Macon as the location for Wesleyan College, the first U.S. college to grant women college degrees. Nonetheless, Macon came in last in the 1855 referendum voting to be Georgia’s capital city with 3,802 votes.

During the American Civil War, Macon served as the official arsenal of the Confederacy manufacturing percussion caps, friction primers, and pressed bullets. Camp Oglethorpe was established as a prison for captured Union officers and enlisted men. Later, it held only officers, at one time numbering 2,300. The camp was evacuated in 1864.

Macon City Hall served as the temporary state capitol in 1864 and was converted to a hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers. The Union General William Tecumseh Sherman spared Macon on his march to the sea. His troops sacked the nearby state capital of Milledgeville, and Maconites prepared for an attack. Sherman, however, passed by without entering Macon.

The Macon Telegraph reported the city had furnished 23 companies of men for the Confederacy, but casualties were high. By war end, Maconite survivors fit for duty could fill only five companies.

The city was taken by Union forces during Wilson’s Raid on April 20, 1865.