Town/City of Buchanan Timeline
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by R. I. Feigenblatt and L. Tamasi (Preliminary version: corrections are invited.) This timeline is a collection of interesting and significant events. In a few cases, sadly only an oral source can be cited. |
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1790s to 1870s • 1880s - 1902 • 1903 - 1909 • 1910-1959 • 1960-present
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1796
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One-time student at what became Princeton University, original US Senator from NC, and United States Agent to the Creek Nation Colonel Benjamin Hawkins, whose 1796 writings depict Creek society, may have been among the first English-speakers to pass near what would become Buchanan, GA.
Hawkins may have travelled on the "Sandtown Trail," likely passing just south of what is now Buchanan, of which a marker at the intersection of Georgia Routes 100 and 120 in Tallapoosa writes: This road was orginally the Sandtown Trail traveled by several tribes of Creek Indians. It connected Sandtown on the Chattahoochee River near Atlanta, Ga. with another Sandtown in Tallapoosa Co., Ala. Later became Old Ala. Road over which early white settlers traveled. It was at one time a stagecoach route through this section. An 1865 map shows Buchanan located on a spur just north of this road. (Caution: As many as four routes heading west from the Chattahoochee would eventually be called the Alabama Road.) |
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Circa
1851-2 |
Floyd Gammage builds a double log cabin on what is now the city square. He lives there one or two years and sells to Fred Glass.
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Winter
1854-5 |
Fred Glass sells his land on the will-be city square to Jesse Jeanes. Thirty acres of land are cleared during these early few years.
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1855
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The area in which Pierceville (now Buchanan) will be founded in the next year is shown in this map.
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Jan
1856 |
Georgia creates Haralson County from abutting parts of Carroll and Polk Counties on the 26th. County business is to be conducted at Tallapoosa until county officials are chosen.
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Mar
1856 |
Oath of office given to the original Justices of the Inferior Court and other county officials.
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May
1856 |
On the 14th, after some bickering as to where they would locate the court house, the Inferior Court accepted Jesse Jeanes' offer of forty acres, and located on his property, and called their town Pierceville. [now Buchanan] (The quote is from the August 24, 1906 memoir of "Old Timer", published in Buchanan's The Tribune.) On the 22nd in the US Senate chamber, US House Representative Preston Brooks (SC) attacks Senator Charles Sumner (MA) from behind with a cane, disabling him from service for three years. The civil war in Kansas between free-soil and slave-holding settlers reaches the halls of Congress itself and shocks the nation.
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May
1856 |
Roads ordered built from Pierceville toward the following: "Villerica", Carrollton and Cedartown.
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June
1856 |
Democrats nominate James Buchanan (Old Buck) for US president, shunning Democrat Franklin Pierce, the incumbent.
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July
1856 |
Roads ordered built from Pierceville toward the following: Jacksonville (AL), Van Wert, Pine Grove Academy (Tallapoosa area), Draketown (then in Paulding County) and Arbacoochee (today a tiny place 5 miles southeast of Heflin, AL).
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Nov
1856 |
Newly created Haralson County votes for 1856 Presidential electors pledged to one of two men:
James Buchanan (Democrat): 272 (80.5%) Millard Fillmore (American): 66 (19.5%) Total votes: 338 Voting probably takes place at the "public building" on the land deeded for the new county seat in May, one of the double log cabins built by Floyd Gammage about 1851 or 1852, used for the first superior court term. |
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Dec
1856 |
James Buchanan is chosen US president by the electoral college. On the 29th he writes: The great object of my administration will be to arrest, if possible, the agitation of the slavery question at the North, and to destroy sectional parties. Should a kind Providence enable me to succeed in my efforts to restore harmony to the Union, I shall feel that I have not lived in vain.
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1856
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Map of the area in which Pierceville (now Buchanan) is founded in this year.
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Mar
1857 |
James Buchanan is inaugurated as the 15th president of the United States on the 4th. On the 6th, the US Supreme Court rules 7-to-2 in Dred Scott v. San(d)ford that people of African descent, whether or not they were slaves, could never be citizens of the United States, and that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. Many abolitionists and some supporters of slavery believed that the court would next rule that the states had no power to prohibit slavery within their borders and that state laws providing for the emancipation of slaves brought into their territory were likewise unconstitutional. Buchanan vainly hopes the decision will quell unrest in the country over the slavery issue by putting the future of slavery beyond the realm of political debate.
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June
1857 |
First Haralson County courthouse ordered built at the exact town center. The original specifications had provided for a foundation twelve inches under the surface to be laid with rough rock. The house to be thirty-five feet square, the walls to be built of good brick two stories high. On the 14th of this month the Inferior Court orders that ten feet be added to the west side of the building and obligates itself to pay the contractor $630.
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July
1857 |
The county Ordinary's minute book refers to "Buchanan," rather than "Pierceville". George R. Hamilton becomes the first federal postmaster in Buchanan.
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Dec
1857 |
Buchanan is incorporated as a TOWN by Georgia on the 22nd with a 1 mile diameter circular extent. The original five town commissioners appointed to serve until the election of Jan 1859 are T. C. Moore, W. N. Williams, Thomas Farmer, John Duke & Mr. Coston. (A modest attempt in Dec 2007 to track down more biographical data of them fails.) The act specifies: On the first Saturday in January annually [starting in 1859], all free white males living within the corporate limits of said town, who are entitled to vote for members of the Legislature, shall be entitled to vote for the election of five commissioners.
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Jan
1858 |
John Marey was ordered paid for furnishing and erecting lightning rods on the courthouse.
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1858
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The original Tallapoosa lodge of Masons moves to Buchanan.
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Jan
1859 |
George T. Carroll was ordered paid $1,500 in drafts for building the courthouse.
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1860
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Buchanan (Post Office) pop. 207
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Jan
1861 |
On the 2nd Georgia voters go to the polls and select delegates to a convention which would decide the issue of state secession from the United States. In many counties candidates divide along two divergent views. Immediate secessionists advocate leaving the Union at once, while cooperationists are more conciliatory, ranging from devout unionism to a desire to postpone any secession commitment. An analysis published in Georgia Historical Quarterly LVI (1972), 259-75 shows a very close popular vote, offering a best estimate of defeat of the immediate secessionists by 42,744 to 41,717. Political speeches, newspapers, and the contentiousness of state leaders reveal the deep divisions over the issue at the time. At the convention, Alexander Stephens, who in the end would serve as the Vice-President of the Confederate States of America, argues secession is an unwise measure, but there are conflicting claimsabout what he says. In the end, the final convention vote on the 19th reveals a major shift of opinion and immediate secession triumphs 208 to 89. Haralson County's reps William J. Head and Abner R. Walton vote with the majority; neighboring Polk County men vote the other way.
The succinct Declaration of Secession is supplemented by a detailed Declarations of Causes, which explains: For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery... The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity... The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time... The... reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists... The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by [Republican] leaders and applauded by its followers... The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization... For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us... for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property... A similar provision of the Constitution requires them to surrender fugitives from labor... The non-slave-holding States generally repealed all laws intended to aid the execution of... law to give full vigor and efficiency to this important provision... These are the same men who say the Union shall be preserved... their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States... |
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1861
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It is proposed that the town name be changed from Buchanan to Bartow. Today the name Buchanan is still in use; did the Pierce-Buchanan switch eventually persuade people against changing the human namesake every time the old one falls into disfavor?
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1863
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Buchanan is marked on a new map.
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1864
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The territory of today's eastern Buchanan appears on the edge of a very detailed campaign map made for General Sherman. (The linked map indicates 1990s roads with thin lines added by R. I. Feigenblatt)
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1864
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Buchanan is marked on a new map.
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1865
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Buchanan is marked on a new map.
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Aug 1869
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The county Ordinary minute book spells the county seat as "Buckhanan", suggesting the current (2007) pronunciation was also in use then.
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Oct 1870
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On the 24th, the legislature incorporates the North & South Railroad Company of Georgia for the purpose of constructing a railroad from the city of Rome, Georgia, via Carrollton and LaGrange, to the city of Columbus, Georgia. Might this railroad lay track through town? Its members include Wyatt Williams, Walker Brock, William J. Head and Richard C. Price, of Haralson county.
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1873
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Buchanan is marked on a new map. Note the never-built east-west railroad which was to have passed through Carrollton.
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1874
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Buchanan is marked on a new map.
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Jul 1877
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Bridge for road from town to "Villarica" to cross the Little River approved for $87 to low bidder N. L. Goldin.
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Sept 1879
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The North & South Railroad Company of Georgia is reorganized as the Columbus and Rome Railroad Company. It would never build track through Haralson County.
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1879
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Buchanan Methodist Church organized at first Haralson County courthouse; a wooden building will house the church.
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