Historic Macon

Another most enterprising and publicspirited
early citizen of Macon was Edward Dorr
Tracy. He was born in Connecticut in 1791,
went to public schools there, and then worked
in a shipping business in New York City. In
1818 he started the study of law. In June 1824
the Macon newspaper carried a notice that
Edward D. Tracy would practice law as partner
of Oliver Hillhouse Prince. Tracy quickly
became an active citizen of the young town. He
was an original member of the Macon Bar, a
member of the first vestry of Christ Church, a
trustee of the Bibb County Academy, and Junior
Warden of the Masonic Lodge. At a town
celebration on July 4, 1825, Tracy read the
Declaration of Independence.
At the most exciting event of Macon’s early
history, the visit of Lafayette, Tracy made the
toast. He was able to speak to Lafayette in French,
Spanish, and American Indian. The Frenchman
noted that Tracy was the only American he had
met who could speak to him in the native
American language.
In 1826, Edward D. Tracy became Intendant
of Macon, a position much the same as mayor.
City records listed Tracy as Macon’s first mayor
because the two previous intendants were
appointed rather than elected.
In 1828, Tracy married Susan Campbell. She
died in 1834 and Tracy married her sister,
Caroline. Their house was on Georgia Avenue.
In the 1850s it was replaced by a new house for
his daughter, Ann Tracy Johnston. That house, a
mansion of Italianate design, became a Macon
landmark known as the Johnston-Hay House.
In 1836, Tracy was a delegate to a Knoxville,
Tennessee, railroad convention at which he helped
to arrange for a rail line to come from Tennessee
through Macon. In 1838 he was elected to the
Georgia General Assembly. In 1841 he became
Judge of Superior Court. The judge who followed
Tracy in that position overturned nineteen of his
decisions, but the Georgia Supreme Court upheld
Judge Tracy’s decision in every case.
Tracy returned to his private law practice in
1845 and was a leading business lawyer until his
death in 1849. On the day of his funeral in Rose
Hill Cemetery, the Macon Bar passed a resolution
that called Judge Tracy “A gentleman of warm
heart and refined feelings, the chosen friend of his
Constituency, the upright and profound Judge.”
A native Georgian who became a pioneer
Macon lawyer and early intendant was
Washington Poe. Born in Augusta in 1799, Poe
was educated in New Jersey and Connecticut
before he settled in Macon in 1825. By the next
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This house was built for Dr. Ambrose
Baber in 1829 and after his death
became the home of John Basil Lamar.
Called “The Bear’s Den”, it often was
occupied by Lamar’s sister, Mary Ann,
and her husband, Howell Cobb,
during the war. At her brother’s death
in battle Mrs. Cobb inherited the
house. Renovated to house a medical
clinic in the 1920s, the structure now
houses law offices.
Chapter II ✦ 15