Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

478 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
United States, a scholar and a man of letters. As a mediator of peace,
in a time of great national peril, he abandoned the delights of civilized
society and, for sixteen years, dwelt among savage tribes. To him be-
Icngs the crown of life, for he was faithful even unto death."
FOKT HAWKINS : 1806.—This frontier stronghold occupied the site of what is
now East Macon. As soon as the lands lying between the Ocmulgee and the Oconee
rivers were acquired by treaty from the Indians, a portion of the ground adjacent
to the former stream and known as the Ocmulgee .old fields, was reserved by the
general government for purposes of defense, and here in 1806 arose Fort Hawkins.
It was named in honor of the famous Indian agent, Col. Benjamin Hawkins, who
himself selected the site on an eminence near the river. One hundred acres were
reserved for the fortifications which consisted of two large block houses surrounded
by a strong stockade. It was built of posts of hewn timber fourteen feet long and
fourteen inches thick, sunk in the ground four feet, and with port holes for muskets
in alternate 1 posts. The area enclosed within the stockade numbered fourteen acres.
According to Doctor Smith the area in question was an abode of the ancient Mound
.Builders, a race concerning which there are only the vaguest traditions.* Either
at or about the time of the erection of the fort there was also established in this
immediate vicinity a trading post, around which in the course of time developed a
village. The fact that it soon possessed two taverns and several stores is proof of
the commercial activities which began at an early day to center at this-point. On
Swift Creek, a small tributary of the Ocmulgee, Roger McCall and Harrison Smith,
two sturdy pioneer settlers, built homes, the former erecting a sawmill near his place,
from which he derived substantial profit. The settlement boasted a printing press
owned by Simri Rose, from which the first newspaper published in Central Georgia
was issued on March 16, 1823, called the Georgia Messenger. Here at Fort Hawkins,
on the extreme western frontier of the white settlement, was to be found the nucleus
of an important town long before the future metropolis, on the opposite side of the
Oemulgee commenced to stir under the creative touch which
'' gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name."
MACON: THE METROPOLIS OF MIDDLE GEORGIA.—But the doom of Port Hawkins
• was sealed by the fates. In 1821, an extensive tract of land was obtained by treaty
from the Creeks at Indian Springs. It included the fertile area between the
Ocmulgee and the Flint rivers; and from this newly ceded domain was carved
the County of Monroe. Besides embracing the territory on the west side of the
Ocmulgee it was made to include Fort Hawkins, on the east side; and two years
later the lower part of Monroe was organized into Bibb. Immediately there began
to arise on the bluff opposite Fort Hawkins a town destined to supersede the latter.
The situation was ideal. Commanding the head of navigation on the Ocmulgee, an
extensive plain, luxuriantly wooded with oaks and poplars extended back to an
amphitheatre of rugged hills. The town chosen as the county seat of the new
county was called Macon, in honor of Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina. Four
acres were reserved for public buildings, while the area adjacent thereto was divided
into forty town lots.
FORT HAWKINS : THE CRADLE OP MACON.—One of the special features of the
sixteenth annual conference of the State Daughters of the American Revolution in
Macon was the unveiling by Nathaniel Macon Chapter of a handsome marble tablet
on the site of old Fort Hawkins—the birthplace of the present City of Macon,
and the most important stronghold on the Georgia frontier in pioneer days. Fol
lowing an elegant repast at the Hotel Dempsey, over which the newly elected state
regent, Mrs. T. C. Parker, most graciously presided, the visiting daughters and
invited guests, promptly at 3 o 'clock, on the afternoon of Tuesday, February 17,
1914, were conveyed in automobiles to the site of the old fort, some three-quarters
* Dr. George G. Smith, in "Story of Georgia and the Georgia People," p. 536,
Atlanta, 1900.